I sometimes think of it as the 'tyranny of the extroverts'. Since they are, well, extroverted, they are the ones controlling the narrative of what's 'normal', while the introverts are too introverted to really speak up. Extroverts are the ones saying cities are better than rural areas since there's more to do, etc (see other HN threads).
I'm with you, though. I will take a quiet, rural or semi-rural area over a city any day.
IMO, there's a huge difference about loneliness between not talking to zero people or only talking to one, in particular if that one person is important in your life such as your wife, as opposed to having had a short chat with the cleaning lady in the hall a week ago.
I appreciate that kstenerud was talking about the zero people scenario, and that it's possible to prefer it that way. I think it depends on how well you have the other parts of your life in order?
I read the article the same way. While I don't disagree that for many folks social isolation is an issue, it isn't that way for everyone. I find that non-introverts don't necessarily quite get it.
I, too, can spend weeks/months without interacting with other people and I stay content. I can read interesting stuff till the cows come home, cultivate my linux system like other people cultivate their gardens, compose music etc.
But the information that I absorb or generate myself in this way is very limited. Connecting with other people makes you enter worlds that are much bigger then your own little micro cosmos. Those people don't even need to be specially intelligent or interesting. Especially when you've spent a lot of time on your own very mundane interactions with other people can be almost magical if you allow yourself to drop some assumptions re: how people should be. In fact, meanwhile I find some types of people who irritated me when I was younger quite interesting.
However, the sad thing is that many people lack the ability to really connect with other people. There are many reasons for this like poorly developed personalities, self centeredness or greed (i.e. they only talk to you when they want something) This makes most interactions indeed futile.
So how can people form more meaningful relationships? I guess it would be helpful if more people spent time to learn about spirituality. By that I don't mean that they should join a sect or cult or that they have to adopt some crazy believes but rather that one should look beneath the stories of the various faiths and see how all those different groups who lived in different geographical regions have figured out incredibly similar mechanisms to cope with life and even managed to turn it into something great.
We like to stand on the shoulders of giants when it comes to (modern) technology yet we ignore "mental software" of the past thinking that our ridiculously short time on earth is enough to figure out everything necessary for ourselves in that area.
This has nothing to do with obnoxious people. I actually like people - in very small doses. Even the most pleasant person becomes a mental and spiritual burden after about an hour. Aloneness, on the other hand, is a beautiful thing. I can sit and contemplate. I can read the great authors. I can play my guitar. I can go on a hike in the wilderness at my doorstep (literally). I have all of human art and history at my fingertips, and now the time and space to ponder it.
Also, there's more to loneliness at an older age - that the article addresses - than just the need for social interaction.