We’ve all experienced loneliness, but could you really describe what it is, and what it does to you, beyond the physical experience of isolation? Before this conversation, I couldn’t. But David Jay has taken the invisible, unnameable effects of loneliness and turned them into an actionable recipe for evaluating and improving friendship and community in our lives. (He explains it all in his 2024 book Relationality.) It sounds hokey — and he’s the first to admit that we’re doing a terrible job in society of quantifying the value of this stuff — but his work on the subject is quite rigorous, and the stakes are enormous: cultural disconnection, political authoritarianism, a mental and physical health crisis, and a deepening inability to fight our way out of all of it.

The good news is he has real advice, and shares it with me here. Please enjoy, and if you like the episode I beg you: share it with someone else!