Loneliness has received more public attention since the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw most Americans isolated for at least some time during 2020 and 2021. In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., M.B.A., said loneliness is an epidemic. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) published results from their Healthy Minds Monthly Poll this January, which showed 30% of adult Americans feel lonely at least one day per week and 10% feel lonely every day.

What is the antidote to loneliness? Connection.

Sometimes it feels daunting to make a deeper connection with other people. We may fear rejection or not know how to find friends. In her 1958 children’s book, "A Friend is Someone Who Likes You," Joan Walsh Anglund says, “Sometimes you don’t know who are your friends. Sometimes they are there all the time, but you walk right past them and don’t notice that they like you in a special way.” For our hustle and bustle world, this seems as apt today as it was nearly 70 years ago.

To find friends, we first need to slow down and pay attention to who is already in our life. Many years ago, a nice woman was sending me friend signals, but it wasn’t until she made me a cherry pie that I finally stopped to pay attention. Our relationship has taught me a lot about friendship; namely, we do not find friends as much as we make friends.

Times of change in life, such as leaving school, moving to another place and retirement can be times when we feel the loneliest because we are no longer around the people with whom we had a long-term relationship. It can be hard to start over. Notice who you might like to know a little better, then ask yourself if you are willing to take a risk. Not all attempts at friendship will work out, but never trying means never knowing if this person could become a friend. Keep in mind that we also have (and need) different types of friends. Most will be casual friends who we see in a particular context such as work or doing a hobby. It is not unusual to have just one or two very close friends and even these may change as time goes by.

Sharing and receiving personal information is one way we enter a deeper relationship. We exchange the most sensitive information with people we trust the most, but trust takes time to develop. In fact, trust will not develop if we do not engage in sharing aspects of ourselves with others or receive information and hold it in confidence. In becoming a friend, we need to be a person our friends can rely on.

The process of deepening a relationship also requires consistency both in seeing your friend and in letting them know they are important to you. It may be helpful to apply the five love languages posited by Gary Chapman. Does your friend like to receive gifts or compliments? Do they like acts of service, quality time or physical touch? Any of these can be ways you reinforce to your friend that he or she is important to you. It is also an aspect of being open and vulnerable to let your friend know how you like to express and receive love.

One thing I like about Walsh’s children’s book is it expands friendship to the natural world, saying a tree, a brook, a cat or a dog can be a friend too. Anyone who allows you to sit with them and be yourself is being a friend.

Nora Sinclair is a licensed mental health counselor and national certified counselor based in Lexington, S.C.