Just in case you need another thing to worry about in 2025, there’s growing evidence that people all around the world are feeling increasingly more lonely — so much so that U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy claims we’re facing a loneliness pandemic. And, as we know from watching the crotchety man from “Up” resist camaraderie, this type of isolation can get worse as we age if we’re not intentional about making and sustaining meaningful connections.
For some people, those meaningful connections happen in secure, long-term relationships. But while these relationships can be incredibly affirming, we — Noah Michelson and Raj Punjabi-Johnson, co-hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — wondered if they’re sometimes used as a loneliness crutch.
It also made us think about the emphasis almost every culture puts on marriage. Is marriage actually the key to combating loneliness? On this week’s episode, we asked Dr. Ellen Lee, loneliness expert and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, whether we actually need a partner in order to feel less isolated.
Listen to the full episode here:
“That’s not the only way to fulfill emotional intimacy or the things that stave off loneliness,” Lee said. “So I don’t think that’s a great proxy and it tends to sort of oversimplify how people have social relationships.”
This feels satisfying to know, especially given how much value is assigned to people who are in partnerships or traditional family units versus, say, childless cat ladies.
Lee outlined three buckets of how we perceive social connection: structural (having people in your life), functional (how you perceive their support, or whether or not you feel lonely) and quality of the relationship.
“You may be in a marriage and it may not be that positive for you,” Lee said. “You can feel lonely in a crowd and you can feel lonely in a marriage.”
This sobering reality is something that so many people who are in long-term partnerships might choose to ignore: that having someone built into your life doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll serve as Teflon for loneliness.
Lee said that you can find meaningful, intimate relationships that provide security and support in many places, with lots of different kinds of people in your life.
“It doesn’t seem to matter what nature it is as long as you’re getting your needs met. That’s kind of the most important part of social functioning,” she said.
Long story short, marriage is wonderful if you’re genuinely meeting each other’s needs — but it’s not necessarily going to provide armor against loneliness.
So how do we feel more connected outside of a partner relationship?
Lee said that the quantity and quality of our connections is important. While having intimate relationships and strong friendships will help combat loneliness, tiny interactions with people you meet in the world can also feed our social needs.
“We sort of disregard these sort of very weak social ties, you know, like the acquaintance you see when you’re dropping off your kid at school or like, you know, the person who opens the door for you at Starbucks and you say thank you,” she said. “All minuscule social interactions can actually be pretty meaningful … These little sort of interactions, these little pieces of being part of this larger humanity is really important, actually.”
Lee also emphasized how crucial it is to maintain and nurture existing relationships, including scheduling time with the people you care about.
“I think scheduling [hangouts] is actually showing how much of a priority you are making it,” she said. “Leaving it to chance is great, except some people are so busy and so occupied … You have to do things to make sure people have time for each other, you know?”
Michelson agreed. “I schedule a lot of my friendships now,” he revealed. “I have standing drinks with some friends every Friday night and I look forward to that. But just having a busy, active life with work and everything else, if you don’t make those — they almost feel like appointments — but I think they’re so important.”
“I don’t want to have to schedule all my friendships,” he added. “I want some of it to be organic and just sort of to happen. But if you don’t tend to the relationships you have, there’s so many reasons to not show up to a party, to not call someone to have dinner. And that [connection can evaporate] really quickly.”
We also talked about the physical effects of loneliness, what a loneliness epidemic actually looks like, and whether social media is helping or hurting us.
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