Feeling Lonely Around People: Reconnecting with Yourself While Living Abroad
- Locus of Life
- 4 days ago
- 8 min read
You may have family around you.
Friends you can talk to.
A partner.
Colleagues you see regularly.
And yet, there can still be moments when you find yourself feeling lonely around people.
You might wonder:
“Why do I feel lonely when I have people in my life?”
“Is there something wrong with me for feeling this way when I have people who care about me?”
Loneliness can feel confusing when, from the outside, you do not appear to be alone.
But loneliness does not always come from having no one around you.
There was a time in my own life when I was with someone, yet still felt deeply lonely.
Later, through studying counselling and learning to understand my own inner world more closely, I began to realise something important:
Being alone and feeling lonely are not the same thing.
Is Feeling Lonely Around People Strange?
It is easy to assume that loneliness comes from being physically alone.
But in reality, you can spend a peaceful afternoon by yourself and feel completely at ease.
And you can sit at a table surrounded by family, spend time with friends, or have your partner beside you and still feel profoundly alone.
You may find yourself wondering:
“Does anyone really understand me?”
“I am here, but why do I still feel unseen?”
The number of people around us does not necessarily tell us how connected we feel.
There is a difference between having people in your life and feeling emotionally connected to them.
Being Alone and Feeling Lonely Are Not the Same
Emotional loneliness can be more complicated than simply having no one around.
Perhaps you do not feel understood.
Perhaps you rarely say what you are really feeling.
Perhaps you are often the one adapting to everyone else.
Or perhaps someone is physically close to you, but emotionally you feel far apart.
In those moments, loneliness can be present even when another person is sitting right beside you.
The opposite can also be true.
You may spend time alone and still feel settled, fulfilled and connected to yourself.
So when I think about loneliness now, I do not only think about the question:
“Who is beside me?”
I also think about another one:
“How connected am I to myself?”
I Used to Feel Lonely Even When I Was in a Relationship
Before my divorce, there was a period when I often felt lonely despite being in a relationship.
I was not alone.
But somewhere inside me, there was still a sense of loneliness.
Looking back, I think part of me wanted someone else to fill that emptiness.
I wanted to feel more understood.
I wanted more reassurance.
I wanted to feel more cared for.
I was looking for something from the other person that would make me feel more complete inside.
Of course, feeling loved, understood and cared for in our relationships matters.
Wanting someone close to us when we feel lonely is also deeply human.
But later, as I studied counselling and began paying closer attention to my own emotional world, I realised something that changed the way I understood loneliness.
I Used to Think Someone Else Had to Fill the Loneliness
When I felt lonely, I used to look outward for the answer.
If only someone were here.
If only they contacted me more often.
If only they understood me better.
Perhaps then I would not feel this way.
Over time, I began to realise:
Loneliness is not something that only another person can fill.
Learning to Stay Close to My Own Feelings
Instead of immediately asking:
“Why don’t they understand me?”
I began learning to pause and ask myself:
“I feel lonely right now. What is happening for me?”
Rather than judging myself with:
“Why am I feeling like this again?”
I could ask:
“What am I actually missing?”
“What do I need right now?”
Sometimes the answer was connection.
Sometimes reassurance.
Sometimes rest.
Sometimes I simply needed to acknowledge that I was hurting.
This does not mean dealing with everything by yourself.
It does not mean that you should never rely on other people.
It means that before asking someone else to understand what is happening inside you, you can begin by trying to understand it yourself.
As I gradually learnt to do that, something shifted.
My inner world began to feel fuller and more settled.
And over time, I noticed that being alone no longer felt as lonely as it once had.
When My Relationship with Myself Changed, My Relationships Changed Too
What I found interesting was that as my relationship with myself changed, the way I related to a partner also began to change.
I notice this in my current relationship.
Of course, it matters enormously that my partner is someone I trust.
But I also feel that I am different in relationships now.
In the past, if someone did not contact me or if we could not see each other for a while, I might have started wondering:
“Why haven’t they contacted me?”
“Do they still care about me?”
My emotional state could become strongly affected by what the other person was, or was not, doing.
Now, if I do not hear from my partner for a while, I am much less likely to feel the same anxiety or loneliness.
He has his life.
I have mine.
And when he wants to see me or talk to me, I am here.
That feels very different from needing constant reassurance that the relationship is still there.
It does not mean I care less.
For me, it means that I no longer place the whole responsibility for my emotional security in another person’s hands.
I trust him.
But I have also learnt to trust myself.
And that has brought a different kind of calm into my relationships.
Living Abroad Can Make It Easier to Lose Touch with Yourself
Living in another country can require more emotional and mental energy than we sometimes realise.
When I first started living abroad, I was usually fine speaking to someone one-to-one.
Group conversations were very different.
My English at the time was certainly part of it.
I would be concentrating on what one person had just said, only for someone else to start talking.
While I was still processing that, the conversation would move to somebody else.
By the time I had worked out what one person meant, everyone had already moved on.
Eventually, my mind simply could not keep up.
Sometimes I reached the point where I barely knew what the conversation was about anymore.
I experienced this many times.
My former husband would sometimes realise that I had been smiling and listening, but had not actually understood what people were saying.
He would say:
“If you don’t understand, just ask.”
And in a one-to-one conversation, of course, that makes sense.
But in a lively group conversation, it was not always that simple.
You cannot necessarily interrupt every few moments to ask people to repeat themselves.
And sometimes the problem was no longer one particular word or sentence.
I had lost the thread of the entire conversation.
At that point, I did not even know what to ask.
So I often gave up trying to join in.
If everyone laughed, I laughed too.
If someone looked at me, I tried to look as though I understood.
I would sit there smiling, pretending that I knew what was going on.
There were plenty of people around me.
I was not physically alone.
And yet those were often some of the moments when I felt most lonely.
Trying not to let anyone realise how little I was following, while continuing to fit into the situation, was exhausting.
Looking back now, I can see how much energy I was using simply trying to keep up.
I was so focused on following the conversation that I barely noticed how tired, overwhelmed or isolated I actually felt.
And it was not only about language.
Living abroad can also mean constantly interpreting cultural differences, reading the atmosphere, working out what is expected, and adapting to ways of doing things that may not feel instinctive.
I spent a great deal of energy trying to fit in and get things right.
When so much attention goes towards adjusting to the world around you, there can be very little space left to ask:
“How am I actually feeling?”
You can be surrounded by people and still feel as though there is no real place for you in the room.
And sometimes, while trying so hard to stay connected to everyone else, you can quietly lose some of your connection with yourself.
You Do Not Always Have to Fill the Loneliness Straight Away
When loneliness appears, it is natural to want to make it disappear.
You might message someone.
Scroll through social media.
Make plans.
Find someone to meet.
Sometimes that helps.
But sometimes it can also be useful not to rush immediately to fill the space.
You might pause for a moment and ask:
“What am I actually feeling?”
Do I want company?
Do I want to feel understood?
Do I need reassurance?
Do I want to feel important to someone?
Or am I simply tired?
When you begin to understand what sits underneath the loneliness, it can become easier to recognise what you truly need.
And as you become more able to stay alongside your own feelings, the sense that:
“I need someone else here in order to feel okay”
may begin to soften.
Reconnecting with Yourself When You Are Feeling Lonely Around People
When you are feeling lonely around people, the answer is not necessarily to surround yourself with even more people.
Of course, relationships matter.
Having someone with whom you can speak honestly matters.
Feeling understood matters.
But there is another relationship that can easily be overlooked:
Your relationship with yourself.
You do not have to become someone who needs nobody.
You do not have to cope with everything alone.
You can value closeness, ask for support and allow yourself to need other people, while also learning not to abandon yourself when difficult feelings arise.
Sometimes that begins with very simple words:
“I feel lonely today.”
“I think I am tired.”
“I wanted to feel understood.”
Instead of immediately trying to make those feelings disappear, you can learn to stay beside them for a moment.
Over time, that can change not only how it feels to be alone, but also how you relate to the people you love.
A Final Thought | Becoming Someone Who Can Stay Beside Yourself
When you are surrounded by people but still feel lonely, you may think:
“I need to connect with more people.”
Sometimes that may help.
But easing loneliness is not only about increasing the number of people in your life.
It can also be about having relationships in which you feel safe enough to be honest.
Being with people who try to understand you.
And, perhaps just as importantly:
Being connected to yourself.
You do not need to become completely self-sufficient.
You do not need to stop needing other people.
You can value your relationships while also becoming someone who can stay beside your own heart.
“I feel lonely right now.”
“I think I have had enough for today.”
“I really wanted someone to understand me.”
When you are able to hear those parts of yourself without immediately dismissing them, being alone can begin to feel different.
Relationships can begin to feel different too.
For me, one of the most important things I have learnt is that being alone and being lonely are not the same.
And now, when loneliness does appear, rather than looking only outside myself for an answer, I sometimes ask:
“Am I able to stay close to myself right now?”
That question has come to mean a great deal to me.
🌿 A Small Step for You: Free 30-Minute Online Session
Even when you know you feel lonely, it can be difficult to understand what you are really missing or what you need.
In counselling, the aim is not for someone else to fill that loneliness for you.
It is a space where, through talking, you can begin to notice what lies underneath it and gradually learn to stay closer to your own feelings.
People who have spent a long time adjusting, coping and getting on with life abroad can sometimes become used to carrying loneliness quietly on their own.
You do not need to have your thoughts organised, and it does not need to be a serious problem.
If you reach a point where you simply think,
“Maybe I would like to talk to someone for a little while,”
the free 30-minute session is a calm, pressure-free space where you can begin from wherever you are.
[🔽 Book your free 30-minute online session here]
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