Loneliness Abroad: Why You Can Feel Lonely Even When You Have Friends
You have people to text. You have colleagues, friends to meet for coffee, maybe even plans most weekends.
And yet, you still feel lonely.
Feeling lonely abroad can be confusing—especially when, from the outside, it looks like you have successfully built a social life.
You might find yourself thinking:
“But I have friends here. Why do I still feel so alone?”
The answer is that loneliness isn't simply about how many people you have around you. Psychologically, loneliness is a subjective experience of disconnection and is different from objective social isolation. You can therefore spend plenty of time with other people and still feel lonely if those relationships don't provide the closeness or connection you need (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010).
Why can you feel lonely abroad even when you have friends?
When you move abroad, you don't only leave people behind.
You also leave behind shared history.
Your closest friends might know your family, your previous relationships, what you were like five years ago, the stories you've already told hundreds of times and the meaning behind certain jokes without needing an explanation.
Then you move somewhere new, and many relationships suddenly start from zero.
You may make friends surprisingly quickly. But building the kind of emotional intimacy that existed in your older relationships can take much longer.
This creates a strange situation where your calendar is full, but you still don't feel deeply connected.
You have company without necessarily having the feeling of being known.
Research with first-generation migrants illustrates this distinction. In one large Dutch study, migrants had similar levels of contact with others compared with native Dutch participants, yet reported greater social and emotional loneliness and lower satisfaction with their social relationships (Ten Kate et al., 2020).
In other words: having contact with people and feeling connected to them are not necessarily the same thing.
Social loneliness and emotional loneliness are different
Psychological research has also distinguished between social loneliness and emotional loneliness (Russell et al., 1984).
Social loneliness is closer to:
“I don't have enough people around me.”
Emotional loneliness is closer to:
“I know people, but I don't feel deeply connected to anyone.”
This distinction can be particularly useful when thinking about loneliness after moving abroad.
At first, you might experience both.
Then gradually, you start meeting people. You make friends at work, join a gym, get invited to dinners and find people to spend your weekends with.
Your social loneliness may improve before your emotional loneliness does.
From the outside, it looks like you've settled in.
Internally, you might still be waiting for the point where someone feels close enough that you can call them when you've had a terrible day without wondering whether you're “close enough” to do so.
these are my current blogs
Absolutely — I’d make it more concise and emotionally engaging while keeping the psychological explanation.
Sometimes what you miss is being known
You can genuinely like your new friends and still miss the effortless familiarity of your relationships at home.
You might miss someone who:
understands your humour without explanation
knows your history
notices when something is wrong
remembers previous versions of you
feels safe enough to call on a difficult day
That doesn't mean your new friendships are superficial or less valuable.
They may simply be new.
And this can explain why you might spend Saturday evening surrounded by people, have a genuinely good time, and still feel a strange ache when you get home.
Loneliness abroad can also be about belonging
Sometimes what you're missing isn't simply friendship.
It's belonging.
You might speak the language well but still have to think slightly more before you speak.
You might understand the culture but occasionally miss references or unwritten social rules.
The people around you may already have childhood friendships, family nearby and years of shared experiences.
Meanwhile, many of the people who know you best are living their everyday lives somewhere else.
Nothing necessarily has to be going wrong.
You can genuinely enjoy living abroad while still feeling slightly outside of things.
The migrant study by Ten Kate et al. (2020) is particularly interesting here because differences in loneliness were related not merely to frequency of contact, but also to satisfaction with social relationships.
You can therefore be socially included without yet feeling emotionally rooted.
“I Chose to Move Abroad — So Why Do I Feel Lonely?”
Loneliness abroad can become even harder when it is mixed with guilt. Persistent loneliness can also begin to affect mood, motivation and enjoyment of everyday life. In some cases, it can become difficult to distinguish an adjustment period from depression while living abroad.
You moved because of a relationship, your career, adventure, independence or simply because you had always wanted to experience life somewhere else.
So when loneliness appears, you might start questioning yourself:
“Did I make a mistake?”
“Why can't I just be grateful?”
“I wanted this, so why am I unhappy?”
But these experiences aren't mutually exclusive.
You can love the life you're building and miss the life that already knew you.
You can enjoy your new friendships and miss your old ones.
You can feel excited about your future while grieving parts of what you left behind.
Feeling lonely after moving abroad does not automatically mean that moving was the wrong decision.
Sometimes it simply means that an important human need—connection—is still being rebuilt.
Sometimes loneliness abroad overlaps with homesickness, particularly when what you miss is the familiarity, relationships and sense of belonging associated with home. If you're unsure whether what you're experiencing is homesickness or something more persistent, you can read more about homesickness vs depression.
Why Loneliness Can Make Connecting Harder
There is another frustrating part: when you already feel lonely, social situations can begin to feel more threatening.
Research has found an association between loneliness and increased attention to signs of potential social threat or rejection (Cacioppo et al., 2016).
You may start interpreting small things differently:
“She seemed distant today.”
“Maybe they only invited me to be polite.”
“Everyone already has closer friends.”
“I don't want to annoy her, so I won't message first.”
You want connection, but fear of rejection makes you hold back.
That can create a cycle:
loneliness → sensitivity to rejection → holding back → fewer opportunities for closeness → more loneliness
Moving abroad can also increase uncertainty and self-doubt, particularly when you're trying to establish new relationships and social routines. I explore this further in Why Does Anxiety Get Worse After Moving Abroad?
This is one reason simply telling someone who feels lonely to “go out and meet more people” can miss what they are actually struggling with.
What Helps When You Feel Lonely Living Abroad?
If you're socially isolated, creating more opportunities to meet people can absolutely be important.
But if you already have friends, the more useful question may be:
“What kind of connection am I actually missing?”
Maybe you don't need another dinner invitation.
Maybe you're missing:
Vulnerability.Reliability.Emotional safety.Reciprocity.Belonging.
Someone who really knows you.
Research on interventions for loneliness also suggests that there isn't just one route to reducing it: approaches have included increasing opportunities for social contact and support, developing social skills and addressing patterns of social thinking (Masi et al., 2011).
For you, the next step might therefore not be meeting more people.
It might be allowing existing relationships to become deeper.
Sharing something more personal.
Messaging first.
Asking for support rather than always appearing fine.
Seeing the same people consistently.
Letting someone into your everyday life rather than only meeting for organised plans.
Gradually allowing yourself to become known.
You may not need more friends. You may need deeper connection.
One of the hardest parts of loneliness abroad is that your life may look completely fine from the outside.
You moved.
You made friends.
You're functioning.
You're building a life.
And yet something still doesn't quite feel like home.
That doesn't necessarily mean you are failing to adjust.
Sometimes your social world simply develops faster than your sense of connection and belonging does.
Because ultimately, feeling less lonely isn't only about having people around you.
It's about feeling known, emotionally connected and like you belong within the life you're creating.
Therapy for Loneliness While Living Abroad
If living abroad has left you feeling lonely, disconnected or as though you don't quite belong despite having people around you, therapy can provide a space to understand what is missing and explore the patterns that may be making connection more difficult.
I work with people living abroad who struggle with loneliness, anxiety, overthinking and emotional overwhelm, helping them develop greater emotional security and feel more connected to themselves, their relationships and the life they're building.
References
Cacioppo, S., Bangee, M., Balogh, S., Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Qualter, P., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2016). Loneliness and implicit attention to social threat: A high-performance electrical neuroimaging study. Cognitive Neuroscience, 7(1–4), 138–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2015.1070136
Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). Loneliness matters: A theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 40(2), 218–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-010-9210-8
Masi, C. M., Chen, H.-Y., Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2011). A meta-analysis of interventions to reduce loneliness. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(3), 219–266. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868310377394
Russell, D., Cutrona, C. E., Rose, J., & Yurko, K. (1984). Social and emotional loneliness: An examination of Weiss's typology of loneliness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(6), 1313–1321. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.6.1313
Ten Kate, R. L. F., Bilecen, B., & Steverink, N. (2020). A closer look at loneliness: Why do first-generation migrants feel more lonely than their native Dutch counterparts? The Gerontologist, 60(2), 291–301. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnz192
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