Collection
When someone is on their own
Loneliness does not respond well to one-off kindness. A single visit is a good afternoon; a standing arrangement is a different life. Nearly everything in this collection is something that repeats, and that is the whole design of it.
The other thing worth noticing: the people who are most alone are rarely the ones who look it. They are at the edge of the event, in the house nobody has knocked at, at the desk eating lunch alone every day. Several of these are about finding out rather than about doing.
10 things you can do
In roughly the order they tend to be needed.
Asking in November is the difference between knowing and finding out afterwards.
Find out who is on their own at Christmas
People will not volunteer that they have nowhere to go. The question has to be asked directly and early.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
A call at a known time is something to look forward to. A call whenever you remember is something to wait for.
Ring at the same time every week
A call that arrives predictably becomes something to look forward to. A random one is just a call.
OngoingFreeA neighbor
The gap between somebody stopping going out and anybody noticing is usually measured in weeks.
Knock when you realize you have not seen someone
Curtains shut two days running, bins not out, post building up. Noticing is common. Knocking is rare and occasionally decisive.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Costs you one conversation. Changes the entire evening for them.
Sit with whoever came on their own
At any gathering there is someone standing at the edge working out how soon they can leave.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
The same thing, at the place where it happens every single day.
Notice who eats lunch at their desk every day
It is sometimes a preference and often the visible end of being outside every group in the building.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
There is someone on every corridor who has no visitors at all. The staff know exactly who.
Visit the resident nobody comes for
Every care home has people who receive no visitors at all. Staff know exactly who they are.
OngoingFreeA stranger
Works in both directions, which is unusual, and children are much better at it than adults.
Take a child to meet an older neighbor
Both groups are more isolated than they were a generation ago, and the barrier is that neither can initiate.
Half an hourFreeA neighbor
Inviting only the person you know leaves the rest of the household where they were.
Invite the whole household, not just the one you know
Partners and teenagers of a newcomer are often more isolated than the person who has the job or the class.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Something that meets weekly outlasts your own enthusiasm, which is the point.
Start something that meets weekly
Loneliness is rarely solved by an event. It is solved by something recurring that requires no arrangement.
OngoingFreeA neighbor
Some jobs are eight hours of being walked past. This is the smallest item here and the easiest.
Talk to the person on the door
Security staff stand in one place for twelve hours while thousands of people walk past without making eye contact.
5 minutesFreeA stranger