Understanding Loneliness

Take our Loneliness Test

Find a therapist near me

People are increasingly using paid friend-matching apps.

Public places offer repeated, unchosen encounters that can build trust across differences.

Investing in shared places, from parks to soccer fields at transit stations, help connection reach everyone.

For the last three years, my husband has headed off to our local park most Sundays. Braving the sweltering Texas summers and occasional winter frost, he is joined by an impromptu group of fellow players from different countries, jobs, ages, and backgrounds. The seeming sacredness of this act may come from a shared love of soccer, or fútbol, but what I see as most magnificent is the emergent nature of the collective. There is no sign-up or group text; whoever arrives plays. The group trusts people will turn out, and whatever that looks like will work.

A few hundred feet away, my daughter does something similar on the playground. I imagined when she was a baby that we could meet up with other families there, and sometimes we do, but more often we trust in the shared experience of whatever the park provides. This serendipity depends on a space that holds it.

Loneliness Isn’t a Personal Problem

In May 2021, Julianne Holt-Lunstad and I wrote about the power of place—how designing places to be inclusive of all ages,........

© Psychology Today