Young adults

23 and Lonely

Twenty-three is an awkward age to be lonely. Old enough to know better, young enough to be surprised by it. Here's what's actually going on.

The year after the structure ends

For many people, 23 is the first or second year after university. The social structure that university provided — the timetables, the shared accommodation, the societies, the critical mass of people all living through the same thing at the same time — is gone. What replaces it is adult life, which provides almost none of that infrastructure automatically.

Friendships that survived through proximity now require active maintenance. New friendships require engineering conditions that used to happen by default. The social work required increases dramatically, exactly when life is getting busier and more expensive and more demanding in every other direction.

The city problem

23 is a common age to move to a new city for a first job. You arrive without a social network, into a professional environment where the culture doesn't naturally produce friendship, among people who already have full lives and limited capacity for new people. The city feels enormous and full of people, but actually reaching any of them feels almost impossible.

This particular experience — new city, no social base, professional but not personal connections — is one of the most reliably lonely situations young adults encounter. It's also one of the least acknowledged, because "I moved to a big city for a great job" sounds like success.

Building connection when there's no shortcut

The honest answer is that it takes longer than you expect and requires more persistence than it feels like it should. A recurring social context — sports, a class, a group that meets weekly — is the most reliable path. Show up consistently, and the connection gradually builds. Mindfuse is there for the weeks when that's still in process: anonymous voice calls with real people, first conversation free, €4/month on iOS and Android.

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