I can feel lonely in crowded days

Dear Delyara, There are days when I speak to many people and still feel lonely in a very private way. Work conversations, school gate conversation, messages, family, one phone call with my mother, a quick exchange with a neighbour, my husband in the kitchen, children talking over each other at dinner — none of it counts as isolation. And yet, by the end of those days, I can feel untouched in the place where real company would actually register. I think some loneliness comes not from absence of people but from the wrong kind of contact. Surface enough to fill the hours, not enough to soften the heart. That is the loneliness I keep noticing more as I get older. Not empty space. Emotional undernourishment.