Loneliness Isn’t What You Think It Is

Here's what's actually going on

I want to talk about loneliness today. Not in the way it usually gets talked about, statistics and crisis lines and men struggling in silence. In a quieter, more specific way that I think will land differently.

Because I think most men misread what loneliness actually is. And that misreading makes it harder to do anything about it.

One Story

I was recording Safe Harbour recently with my mate Phil Askew and we got into a conversation about connection and being on your own that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

Phil is an only child. He’s been self-employed since 2010. He spends a lot of time working alone and he’s completely comfortable with that. He described himself as a man who can be on his own all day, engaged and content, with no particular pull toward other people.

And then he said something I want to pass on.

He said loneliness for him isn’t about being on his own. He can do that all day. Loneliness shows up when he’s struggling with something and going around in circles inside his own head, and what he actually needs is to say it out loud to someone who can hold it. The moment he does that, the loneliness lifts. Not because the problem is solved, but because something that was stuck inside him has been given somewhere to go.

Loneliness isn’t the absence of people. It’s the absence of somewhere to put what’s actually going on.

I really connected with that. Because I’ve felt lonely in packed rooms. I’ve felt lonely with fifty people’s numbers in my phone. I felt the loneliest I’d ever felt in my life when I moved into my mate’s loft conversion after my marriage ended, surrounded by a community of people who knew my name, and yet unable to say the thing that was actually happening to me to almost any of them.

And I’ve also felt completely fine on my own for entire days, working, walking, thinking, no company at all. Not lonely. Just alone. The two things feel completely different and for a long time I couldn’t have explained why, but Phil named it simply and clearly. Loneliness is a signal. It’s your nervous system telling you that something inside needs to be expressed, and it can’t find anywhere to go.

One Shift

Here’s why this reframe matters.

Most men, when they feel lonely, either push through it or diagnose themselves as someone who struggles socially or doesn’t form connections easily.

They make it a story about who they are rather than a signal about what they need right now.

But if loneliness is information, the question changes completely. Instead of “what’s wrong with me”, it becomes “what do I need to say, and who do I need to say it to?”

That’s a much more solvable problem. Not always easy to act on, but solvable. Because it’s specific. It’s pointing at something. You’re not broken or isolated or fundamentally bad at connection. You’re carrying something that needs to move, and right now it hasn’t got anywhere to go.

Phil said something else worth sitting with. He said when he’s struggling with something and goes to a trusted friend and says it out loud, the loneliness feeling goes away. Not because the friend fixes anything. Not because the problem changes. Because the thing inside has been heard by someone who can hold it. That’s it. That’s the whole mechanism. Something that was stuck internally gets to move outward, and the pressure drops.

That’s not therapy. That’s just what human beings have always needed from each other, and what most men in midlife have the fewest structures for.

One Challenge

I want you to try something simple.

Next time you notice that particular feeling, the low-level restlessness, the sense of going around in circles, the flatness that doesn’t seem to connect to anything specific, I want you to pause before you reach for your usual distraction and ask yourself one honest question:

What do I actually need to say right now, and who could I say it to?

You don’t have to act on the answer immediately. Just get honest about what’s actually there. Because naming the thing is usually the first step toward it having somewhere to go, and most men skip straight past it.

And if you notice that you can’t answer the second part of that question, if the who is genuinely unclear, that’s worth paying attention to too. Not as a reason to feel bad, just as useful information about where some of your energy might be well spent in the weeks ahead.

The full episode with Phil is worth an hour of your time. We talked about friendship, loneliness, what connection actually means for different men, and why it’s both simpler and harder to find than most of us think.

Watch the full episode here — WATCH SAFE HARBOUR

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