Get a free weekly friendship call. We'll match you with one of our volunteers. Our service is flexible to suit the different needs of everyone who takes part. His daughter however, calls him every week and he has led her to believe he has friends and a social life, until she announces she is coming to visit which sets Hubert in motion to find some friends and said social life. Last year, over 10 million people trusted us to help them with some of the biggest issues in their lives. Learn more about how we help. How your support helps

Every day at school, I get this same feeling as you, as if there are so many souls that I have never gotten the chance to know or talk to. All I see as I walk down the hallway, my music blaring in my ears, are faces. Smiling faces, frowning faces, laughing faces, faces that are covered by someone else's, all of which I have never really seen. One of my goals in life is to be able to "see" as many people's faces as possible. For many, phone calls are no substitute for company. Nesterly, founded in 2016, is designed to make it easier for older singletons with spare rooms to rent them to young people who help in the house for a discount on rent. The platform has “stumbled into loneliness”, notes Noelle Marcus, its co-founder. Users sign up to the platform and create a profile, then make a listing for their room. Last year the startup teamed up with the city of Boston, Massachusetts, to test the initiative across the city. We have two timelines going on here. In the first, Hubert is in his early twenties and makes the journey from Jamaica to the UK to start a new life. We see him disembark the boat and experience life in London. The racism, the hostile attitudes which only increase when he starts a relationship with a white woman, Joyce.This is obviously a song about lonely people. It seems that Eleanor Rigby was a lonely single person, she often went to Church, perhaps to ease the emptiness that she felt inside, maybe she even hoped to make friends there. Whilst in Church perhaps she saw the rice left over from other peoples' weddings, and often regretted that she had never had the chance to get married or have a family. Hubert is a very old, lonely man who still lives in his past. He grew up in Jamaica, but his life brought him to England where he meets Joyce, the woman of his life. Soon, they get married and have their own family. In reality, Hubert lives alone with his cat, and has no connection with the rest of the world. He does not want to speak with anyone except his daughter, Rose, who lives in Australia. Rose wants only one thing for her father - to have some friends. And because of that Hubert finds himself lying to Rose about having so much fun with his fictional friends. They don't exist anywhere except in his head. But, Rose's wants to come home to see her father...

While anyone can experience loneliness, certain risk factors increase our chances of severe and lasting loneliness that can affect our mental health. These include:While the public understands that life events, circumstances and our wider community can all leave us at risk of loneliness, they tend to overlook groups of people who may be ‘lonely in a crowd’