How to Deal With Loneliness: A Practical Guide for Teens and Young Adults

If you are a parent or guardian worried about a teenager, there is a separate guide written for you: Is My Teenager Lonely?

You can feel lonely in a house full of people, in a group chat that never stops, in a class of forty, or in a barkada you have known for years. Loneliness is the gap between the connection you want and the connection you have (that is how the World Health Organization describes it), which is why the number of people around you does not settle it.

If you feel this way, a lot of people around you feel the same. In Gallup's 2023 survey, 33 percent of Filipino adults said they had felt lonely for much of the previous day, the highest rate in Southeast Asia. Worldwide, the World Health Organization reports the highest rates of loneliness among teenagers. It is common, and there are practical things that help.

Work out which kind of lonely it is

Researchers that study loneliness usually separate two kinds, and they get better in different ways.

No one close. You have people to eat with and joke with, but nobody you could tell something real to. You have a circle, and what is missing is one person you trust.

No group. You might have one close person (a sibling, a cousin, one good friend), but no group you are part of and nowhere you feel you belong.

Plenty of people have some of both. It is still worth asking which one is bigger for you right now, because the first usually improves through a more honest conversation with someone you already know, and the second usually improves by finding somewhere to be every week with the same people.

Situations that make it more likely

A parent works abroad. If one of your parents is an OFW, you can be grateful for what their work makes possible and still miss them badly. Researchers that studied Filipino teenagers with a parent working abroad found that they felt more emotionally lonely than teenagers whose parents lived at home. Missing your parent does not make you ungrateful.

You moved for school or work. Moving to Manila, Cebu, Davao, or anywhere new for college or a job means starting over socially, often in a dorm or boarding house full of people you do not know yet.

Your barkada drifted apart. After graduation, or when friends end up in different strands, schools, or jobs, the group that used to happen on its own stops happening. Nobody did anything wrong, and the next group will usually need to be built on purpose.

Most of your friendships are online. Online friends are real friends. Even so, if you rarely see anyone in person, it is common to feel lonely with a busy phone.

What helps

Friendships are built mostly out of time together. A University of Kansas study estimated that it takes about 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, and more than 200 hours to become close friends, with hanging out and joking around counting for far more than working side by side. That is useful to know, because it means the main job is arranging to spend repeated time with the same people.

Pick a few people you already see. Look at the people you see every week (classmates in your section, people in your org, officemates, people at church) and choose two or three that are already friendly with you.

Move one step closer with each of them. Greet them by name. Talk a little longer than usual about something you share, such as a class, a game, a show, or a teacher you both complain about. Then invite them to something small and specific: "We are getting merienda after class. Do you want to come?" If they say no, ask again another week, since a no is usually about their schedule. Our guides to making friends as a teenager and making friends in college go through each step.

Join one thing that meets every week. A school org, a varsity or intramural team, a church youth group, a volunteer group, or a class all work. One-time events rarely turn into friendships, and weekly ones often do, because you see the same people again and again.

Tell one person something real. If yours is the "no one close" kind, more activities will not fix it on their own. What helps is a slightly more honest conversation with someone you already trust a little. You do not need to say everything. Something like "Honestly, I have been feeling kind of alone lately" is enough to start, and many people answer that by saying they have felt the same.

Keep your online friends, and add something in person. Use the group chat to make plans, even small ones, so that some of the talking happens face to face.

If a parent is abroad, make the calls about real things. Video calls can turn into a checklist ("Did you eat? Did you study?"). Tell them one specific thing that happened to you, and ask about their day too. A regular time each week, even a short one, helps both of you.

Give it a couple of months

It is normal for this to feel slow. If you join something at the start of a school year, you may not have a real friend there until a couple of months in, and that does not mean it failed. Each week you show up, you are adding hours with the same people.

When it is more than loneliness

Loneliness and low mood often go together. If you have felt hopeless for more than a couple of weeks, if you have stopped sleeping or eating normally, or if you are thinking about hurting yourself, please talk to someone now. That can be a parent, a guidance counselor, a doctor, or the National Center for Mental Health crisis line, which is free and open 24 hours: 1553 from a landline in Luzon, or 0917-899-8727 or 0966-351-4518 (Globe and TM) and 0908-639-2672 (Smart, Sun, and TNT) from a mobile phone.