Nobody talks about why the friendliest neighbors are often the loneliest people on the block, and it isn’t that they’re hiding it, it’s that warmth toward strangers is sometimes the only outlet left when the people you love stopped asking how you are

The friendliest person on your block, the one who waves from across the street and remembers your dog’s name and asks about your mother’s surgery, may be lonelier than the neighbor who barely makes eye contact. Not despite the warmth. Because of it. Warmth toward strangers is often what’s left when warmth toward intimates has nowhere to land.

I’ve spent decades studying how people behave when their access to close relationships gets restricted, and one of the patterns that surprised me most has nothing to do with extreme environments.