I can honestly emphatise with the feelings of loneliness, and how hard and depressing that can be.
Many people probably can't understand it because they have so many friends, family members, acquaintances, coworkers and other people who they interact with every single day. Not all people have that fortune. And it's not just a
feeling of loneliness, but literally not having much physical interaction with other people and lacking social contacts with friends and family members.
Chronic loneliness can be a serious matter. Not only is chronic loneliness linked to depression, it's also linked to physical ailments. As
Wikipedia puts it:
"Chronic loneliness is a serious, life-threatening condition. At least one study has empirically correlated it with an increased risk of cancer, especially for those who hide their loneliness from the outside world, and it is also associated with increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease." "People who are socially isolated may report poor sleep quality, and thus have diminished restorative processes."
Chronic loneliness can become a vicious cycle. The longer you live without much social interactions with other people, the harder it becomes to form new friends. The longer this continues, the stronger the feelings of apathy towards it. At some point a person just gives up even trying. If trying to form new social contacts has failed for the past decade, why would the next decade be any different? And this may not be for the lack of trying; it's just that when a person lacks the skills to form social bonds, it can be very difficult to form them. It is, after all, a learned and acquired skill. Some people may be "natural" at it, others have to learn it. Some people never learn it properly. Such a person can, for example, go to a social event (eg. a party), be there for six hours, and gain no new acquaintances. Such a person might leave the event more depressed than he was before.