Loneliness is usually presented as a matching or communication problem: if only all the lonely people could find each other, and had the social skills to initiate contact, all would be well.

But what if it’s deeper than that? Could we be losing the life/personality traits that make people interested in us? Overstimulated by other sources so that friendships with ordinary people are not interesting uses of time?

For example, just because you yourself are overweight, does not mean you will be attracted to other overweight people. So we should expect a decline in sexual relationships as the prevalence of obesity rises.