I spent most of my life stuck in FOMO (fear of missing out) as I waited for that coveted invite to come my way. As a teen, I watched from the sidelines as my friends and sisters (all three of them) were invited to prom, or cool parties, or on dates. I thought something was wrong with me. I carried this belief of faultiness through my young adult years, thinking I wasn’t charming enough, or pretty enough, or interesting enough to get invited.
Don’t get me wrong, there were invites—but in my limited viewpoint at the time, I felt forgotten, invisible almost, and became really good at doing things alone.
Although I eventually realized I didn’t have to wait for an invitation, it took me several decades before I finally embraced the idea of being a host. I discovered that the world was not shutting me out; it was waiting for me to invite it in. Unlocking this code opened up a whole new world and new connections for me. But I had to overcome many obstacles along the way, including self-doubt, old stories, fear of rejection, and inertia.
Are We All Alone?
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory about the epidemic of loneliness. Recent studies note this epidemic is worldwide. Murthy wrote in his report, “The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.” While the COVID-19 pandemic amplified this squall, we were disconnecting from each other well before the 2010s. My own generation, Gen X, is considered the lost generation. We’re the latchkey kids after all, because a majority of us spent our afternoons without parental involvement and often alone.
But loneliness is not limited to a certain generation. Those most at risk are people in their early 20s and people who are past middle-age, according to a 2024 longitudinal study conducted in 26 countries and published in the journal Psychological Science. Those experiencing loneliness the most are women, people who are divorced or widowed, people who smoke, and people with low incomes or only a high school education. Other sources, like the Survey Center on American Life, indicate that men have also seen their social circles dwindle by 50% since the 1990s.
I hesitate to share these statistics, because as someone who once struggled on the sidelines, I know what it is like to have an inner voice telling me I was “doing something wrong,” or “not doing enough” to connect with others. But what this data does show is that we are, in fact, not alone. We are together in feeling our loneliness.
The Power of the Invite
I was in my 40s when I met a now close friend who scheduled our get-togethers weeks in advance and added them to her calendar. I was so used to people canceling at the last minute and sometimes forgetting our plans, so my friend’s thoughtfulness was a new concept for me. She was intentionally making time to connect. This availability also helped me see how I, too, sometimes canceled at the last minute or forgot get-togethers. Her commitment to spend time with me taught me how to extend those qualities to others.
A simple invite contains so much for us: an open door to connection, new perspectives, and new places. For a long time I didn’t consider inviting others with me on my solo journeys because my beliefs and fear of rejection prevented me from taking the risk.
Through many years of therapy, meditations on loving-kindness, and awareness of my internal stories, I slowly emerged from this place of fear.
Little moments helped me see a new perspective.
In 2020 I was newly single and joined a couple of Meetup groups (Meetup is an app that helps like-minded people connect via events). I met a few people and we shared a lunch or two, but that was it. Then, later that fall, one of my new friends called to invite me on a walk. I almost declined—I was on my way to another Meetup event and didn’t think she’d want to join—but, on a whim, I asked, “Would you like to come with me? There is plenty of room in the group.”
She accepted with enthusiasm and thanked me over and over again. “You have no idea how dark it’s been,” she said, referencing both the gray days of late November and her mood since COVID, which was slowing the start to her new life in a new city. She was recently retired, single, and brand-new to the area.
My friend’s enthusiastic “Yes” was very new to me. She helped me realize that other people may be feeling lonely, like me, and hoping someone would reach out to them. They may even want to spend time with me. Although she invited me first, by returning the favor, I understood how transformative a simple invitation can be.
Alice Grondin Chicoine and Maryrose Rodrigues understand the power of the invite to create community. Grondin Chicoine has been a lifelong organizer and turned her skills and extroversion into an active, close-knit Meetup group with Rodrigues, her friend and co-host. They formed the Maine Globetrotters and Explorers in 2018 to invite people to join them on local hikes and international travel. When the pandemic hit, their group blossomed, growing to more than 2,000 members. “I was looking for people to do things with,” Grondin Chicoine recalls, noting that after she retired many of her friends were either still working or not interested in hiking, traveling, or going to shows. “I had to branch out and meet new people,” she says.
“People want to travel, but they don’t want to do it alone, or they are afraid, or they don’t know how to plan for a trip,” Rodrigues says. Most of their members are women, but there are a few men who join the events. Many members are divorced or widowed, or their spouses prefer to stay home.
“I was a transplant from another state and another country, so I got to know Maine through the group,” Rodrigues says. She even found encouragement. During the first few hiking events, Rodrigues, who was in her 60s at the time and recently widowed, struggled on the mountain trails. “I couldn’t do it,” she says. “I couldn’t climb those mountains, but just the encouragement from everyone telling me to put one foot in front of the other helped me finish the hikes. Over time, I was hiking just as much as everyone else.”
Their events frequently have long waitlists, but they always find a way to make sure everyone who wants to attend gets in. “We’re welcoming. We make everyone feel comfortable,” Grondin Chicoine says, adding that she and Maryrose take time to get to know everyone, and they genuinely care about people’s well-being. “I’m inquisitive,” says Grondin Chicoine. “I ask questions to get to know a person and to let them know they are not just another face. It helps me understand who they are and where they come from, and it helps them to understand me.”
At each event, they form a circle and ask everyone to introduce themselves. They encourage carpooling, and “we never leave anyone behind on a hike,” Rodrigues says. She adds that after every hiking event or before a show, they spend time together at a restaurant. There’s something special about sharing a meal with people that helps them connect, adds Rodrigues.
Be Kind to Yourself
Rodrigues and Grondin Chicoine, who both have lived with loss, mention their work with the Meetup group as one way they feel connected to others. But the most important thing is to connect and be kind to yourself.
“One has to make an effort to get out of loneliness,” Rodrigues suggests. “It’s something from within. It’s a matter of how you perceive things. Some people don’t know how to live without doing something all the time. There is also a pressure for people to live up to some sort of expectation. [Overcoming loneliness] is a strength from within. It’s left up to you.”
Age has helped, Rodrigues adds, noting that with the passage of time she has learned to better handle loneliness, with the help of her late husband’s encouraging words. He once told her, “We have the power within to help ourselves. We are responsible for our own happiness. Unless we are happy and strong, we cannot pass it to others.” Rodrigues admits that even though “we may be older and hopefully wiser, we are all human and stuff happens along the way. When I am down and overcome with thoughts of unhappiness, confusion, or loneliness, I think of my husband’s words, which I treasure.”
Kelly Quinn, a psychology professor and Internal Family Systems (IFS) coach says loneliness is about disconnection. “I can be alone and not feel lonely at all, because I’m feeling connected within myself. Other times I can be with a group of people and feel super alone, because I’m feeling really disconnected even in their presence.”
To feel connected, we need to be “deeply seen, heard, understood,” Quinn says. This attention can be offered by others or we can extend this loving connection to ourselves. “It is my inner expansiveness, which is intelligent, aware and totally non-judgmental,” Quinn says of this loving connection to self.
We hope for this connection through friends and loved ones, but “plowing through others’ unfamiliar perspectives in an effort to feel connected can be a lot of work,” Quinn says. “Sometimes people say the right thing,” usually because “they’ve tapped into their own inner expansiveness in an effort to be helpful.”
So, how can we cultivate that self-connection? A walking meditation practice from IFS therapy involves talking directly to yourself, using the pronoun “you” instead of “I” in a loving way. A sample walk might sound like this, Quinn says:
“I like you, Kelly. I like you.
I like your courage.
I like your joyfulness.
I like your willingness to get to know yourself deeply.
I like you.”
“Do that for 40 minutes,” Quinn advises. “Then here’s the cool part: Quiet thoughts bubble up that I hadn’t intended when I started the walk. Last time it was: ‘You have a lovely future. Your future isn’t predicated on your past. Your future does not have to be an extension of your past. Your future can be something new. How do you feel about letting something new in?’
“So what started as me talking to myself, noticing the things about me that I valued and affirming the qualities of my deeper self, eventually became fresh, new content with new ideas for me to explore.”
Get Friendly With Rejection
By the time I was 18, I had faced enough rejection and loss that I preferred to be alone over risking any more injury. Luckily my introverted self didn’t mind this solitude, but I longed for connection. I was comfortable in my own imagination, so I had no problem taking two-hour drives to visit museums in downtown Los Angeles, or spending hours in bookstores, or watching sunsets at Laguna Beach. But I was also hoping someone would reach out to me during these solo adventures and I’d find my people.
During my pandemic-induced bravery, I learned to let go of rejection. It became a game of sorts. If I invited several people on a hike and only one person showed up, then it was a win. If I invited people out to dinner, but they declined and said they’d love to meet another time, I was encouraged to ask again.
I learned to sit with my feelings of rejection in order to understand the stories my subconscious mind wanted to tell me. For a while, I blamed rejection on the region where I lived or the people I asked. And sometimes I blamed myself.
But more often, rejection was circumstantial. Someone didn’t feel well, or they were overbooked, or they were socially anxious, nervous, or feeling self-doubt. Sometimes I connected with people for just brief moments of time, and I learned to accept this transience. I also discovered that there are people who did not want to spend time with me, and I didn’t want to spend time with them. And this was OK. I didn’t have to be everyone’s favorite, nor did they have to be mine.
Connecting for a Moment in Time
With every invitation, my confidence slowly increased. It was as if I were laying new stories in my mind that were replacing the old ones that were no longer useful. I learned that a rejection was just a temporary setback. I learned to try again, but also when to let go when a connection wasn’t working. I stayed gently persistent with my invitations, finding a balance between openness and letting go.
When my yoga teacher training ended, I suggested we form a book group, and they all said yes. We continued to meet for two years, but eventually all our lives went different ways. This felt OK for me. We gathered for a moment in time, learned from each other, and now we were moving on to different paths. I feel such fondness for this group, because we were a support for each other during a time when we needed that support.
When I turned 55, I invited all of my closest friends to join me at a karaoke bar to celebrate. My hope was that one or two friends would be able to join, but I was overjoyed when six of them joined in on the fun.
As I stepped into my new identity of host, I realized that what I’d needed was to become the type of person I was seeking. Someone who invited others on my adventures. Someone who made a commitment by choosing a time and place to get together, and followed through on their plans. I learned to listen in a nonjudgmental way, and I reached out to friends even when I thought they might be busy.
Don’t get me wrong. I still hear my old stories. I still hesitate at the thought of rejection. Now, though, I gently tell myself new stories and other possible futures. What if they say, “Yes, I’d love to come”?
