Last spring, a client I’ll call Helen said something that has stayed with me. She was married, led a busy team, had a full calendar and a group chat that never went quiet. “I’m surrounded by people,” she told me, “and I can’t remember the last time someone really knew how I was.”

Helen is not unusual. In May 2023 the US Surgeon General issued an advisory on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation, and in June 2025 the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection reported that one in six people worldwide is affected by loneliness. We tend to picture lonely people as isolated people. But many of the professionals I train in multinational organisations are lonely inside marriages, friendships and teams.

My view, after years of working with Emotional Assertiveness (EA), is that a large part of this epidemic is not about how many people we have around us. It is about what we allow those people to see.

Lonely is not the same as alone

Being alone is a fact: nobody is in the room. Loneliness is a feeling: the gap between the closeness I want and the closeness I have. That is why you can feel it at a family dinner, in a team meeting, or lying next to someone you love.

Closeness needs two things. I have to be known, and I have to feel safe enough to let that happen. When either is missing, the relationship can look perfectly healthy from the outside and feel empty on the inside.

The numbers on friendship point the same way. The Survey Center on American Life found that the share of Americans with no close friends rose from 3% in 1990 to 12% in 2021, while the share with ten or more fell from a third to 13%. A 2023 Pew Research survey found that 8% of adults have no close friends and that just over half have between one and four. Sociologists have tracked the shrinking inner circle for longer: a 2006 Duke University study found that the average American had about two people to discuss important matters with, down from about three in 1985.

Why does this matter? Because closeness is not a luxury. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest studies of adult life ever conducted, has followed hundreds of people since 1938, and its former director, Robert Waldingerm sums up the clearest finding in his TED talk: good relationships keep us happier and healthier. People who are more connected to family, friends and community are happier, physically healthier and live longer than people who are less connected. Satisfaction in relationships, more than midlife cholesterol, predicted how participants aged.

The detail I find most relevant for EA is this one: those good relationships did not have to be smooth all the time. Closeness is built in real contact between people, including the uncomfortable moments, and that is exactly where cover-up emotions get in the way.

Hiding behind cover-up emotions

EA starts from a simple idea: we have four authentic emotions – anger, fear, sadness and happiness. They are quick, clean and honest. Each one carries information about what matters to us and what we need.

The trouble is that many of us learned, early on, that some of these were not welcome. So we cover them up. Fear turns into irritation. Sadness turns into a brisk “I’m fine.” Anger turns into silence, sarcasm, a fiery “dragon” or a long, cold resentment. Even happiness can be covered when we play it down to avoid looking vulnerable or attracting envy.

These are cover-up emotions, and they work for a while. They protect us from the discomfort of being seen. But they come with a cost that rarely gets named.

When I show you the cover-up, you respond to the cover-up.

Back to Helen. One evening she snapped at her husband about the dishes. Underneath the snapping was sadness: she had barely seen him all week and she missed him. He, understandably, heard criticism and got defensive. The argument was about dishes. The loneliness, for both of them, got a little deeper.

Nobody lied and nobody was cruel, but they simply didn’t met each other’s real feeling, because it never made it into the room.

The EA insight: closeness runs on authentic emotion

This is where I think EA offers something the conversation about loneliness often misses. We are told to join more groups, put down our phones, schedule more coffees. All of that can help. But if we turn up to every new connection wearing the same cover-up emotions, we will find ourselves lonely in good company.

Emotional Assertiveness means recognising what I actually feel, owning it, and expressing it in a way that respects both me and the other person. Closeness is built in those small moments of being honest about a real feeling, and having it received.

Authentic vulnerability is not oversharing

When I say this in workshops, someone always pushes back: “So you want me to pour my heart out to my colleagues?” No. Authentic vulnerability and oversharing can look similar from a distance, but they work very differently.

Oversharing tends to:

  • release everything at once, often before there is trust
  • hand the other person the job of managing or rescuing me
  • skip the one clear feeling and flood the listener with detail
  • ignore whether the other person has the time or capacity to listen

Authentic vulnerability tends to:

  • name one feeling, plainly, and own it (“I feel sad”, not “you make me sad”)
  • stay in proportion to the relationship and the moment
  • choose the right person and the right time
  • include what I need, and leave the other person free to respond

Here is the difference in practice. A cover-up version: “Fine. Do whatever you want. I’m used to it.” An authentic version: “I felt sad when we cancelled again. I miss spending time with you. Could we pick an evening this week?”

The second one is calmer and far more likely to be met with warmth. It is also risky, which is exactly why it creates closeness.

Why this only works from I’m OK–You’re OK

The stance behind the words matters as much as the words. If I speak from “I’m not OK,” I tend to plead, hint or collapse. If I speak from “You’re not OK,” I blame, accuse or lecture. Neither invites connection.

From I’m OK–You’re OK, I can say: this is what I feel, and I trust you to be a person who can hear it. My feeling is valid. Your response is yours. That equal footing is what makes honesty feel safe, for both people.

Win-win means the request is not a demand

Vulnerability gets much easier when it is paired with a clear, respectful request. “I miss you, could we spend an evening together?” opens a door. “If you loved me, you’d have made time” slams one.

A win-win approach means I ask for what I need and I stay open to what the other person can offer. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it is “not this week, but Saturday.” Sometimes it is a no, and then we have honest information to work with, which is better than the guesswork that loneliness feeds on.

Try this: four small steps

  1. Pause and name it. Which of the four is here: anger, fear, sadness or happiness? If what you notice is irritation, resentment or “fine,” ask what might be underneath. Remember, you can also experience 2 or 3 emotions at the same time, with different intensities and proportions.
  2. Ask what it is telling you. What matters here? What do I need?
  3. Choose the person and the moment. Not everyone, not everything, not in the middle of a crisis. One safe person is enough to begin with. While both of you are in the OK-OK relational position.
  4. Say it in a sentence or two, then ask. Name the feeling, say what you need, and listen to the answer.

Start small. Tell a friend you’re happy to see them, rather than offering the usual “good, busy!” Tell a colleague you felt nervous before the presentation. These small honest moments add up faster than you would think.

And if someone repeatedly meets your openness with mockery or indifference, that is information too. EA is also about boundaries. Authentic vulnerability does not mean offering yourself to anyone who has not earned it.

From epidemic to everyday practice

I don’t believe loneliness will be solved by one more app or one more networking event. It gets solved in ordinary conversations, one at a time, when someone says the real thing and someone else really listens.

This week, notice one moment where you reach for “I’m fine.” Ask yourself what is underneath. Then see what happens if you let one person in on it.

If you would like to build this skill with support and practice, I’d love to see you in a future EA cohort. [Link to Open EA Training]

Frequently asked questions

Why do I feel lonely even in a relationship? Often because the feelings we show are cover-up emotions, such as irritation, silence or “I’m fine,” rather than the authentic feeling underneath. Our partner responds to the cover-up and never meets the real one.

What is the difference between vulnerability and oversharing? Authentic vulnerability names one real feeling, in proportion, to the right person, with a clear request. Oversharing releases a lot at once and expects the other person to manage it.

What are the four authentic emotions in Emotional Assertiveness? Anger, fear, sadness and happiness.

Names and scenarios in this article are composites, shared to illustrate patterns I see in my work.

Sources and further reading

Stay happy,



Magda.

If you’d like to practise this kind of emotional honesty in a supported setting, the autumn online edition of the Open EA Training runs over five live Friday sessions (6, 13, 20, 27 November and 4 December 2026, 9:00–13:00 CET), with a maximum of 12 participants.

Learn more and reserve your place

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