we stopped showing up

Last month, at a café in Delhi, my friend RK told me something that stayed with me.

“I’ve lived in this tower for three years,” he said, stirring his coffee, 

“and I don’t know a single neighbour’s name.”

RK works in consulting. 

Good job, great apartment, groceries in ten minutes, everything optimized except people.

“I think I built a life with no one in it,” he admitted.

The contrast hit me because we grew up in something entirely different.

In the 90s, community wasn’t a concept.

Cricket in the courtyard, shouting from balconies, ringing a neighbour’s bell not to “meet” but to check if their son was coming down.

We knew every kid within 300 metres. 

Then adulthood arrived, quietly, like a software update you don’t remember installing.

We went from “Bhai, neeche aa jaa”  to “Are you free this Saturday at 6:30 PM? For maybe one hour?”

…and we still carry the memory of what it felt like to belong. 

That’s why the loneliness feels heavier for millennials. 

We grew up in community… and landed in the age of isolation.

Back then, communities formed by accident.

Loneliness crept in quietly as life got “better.”

First, our work moved online.
Then our conversations moved to apps.
Then our entertainment moved to algorithms.
Then our families moved to different cities.
Then our free time became “recovery time.”

And bit by bit, the world became optimized but empty.

What was once a feeling is now a data point, we’ve managed to quantify even loneliness!

Across 142 countries, 1 in 4 people report feeling lonely, more than a billion humans.

Urban loneliness is rising fastest. People living alone in metros like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore are at the highest risk.

A survey found 56% of young professionals feel emotionally disconnected despite living among millions.

And globally, loneliness now carries a mortality risk comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

We engineered efficiency into our cities and convenience into our lives, but forgot to make room for one another.

And the cost is finally visible.

India’s social structure rested on dense social capital, extended families, neighbours who functioned like kin, multi-generational support systems.

We thought strength came from self, but our safety net was distributed across people and roles we didn’t even consciously count.

…and if you look closely at the numbers and a different story starts to surface. 

Is it something counterintuitive?

I’d like to think so.

A nationally representative study (2006) across 40,000 households found that India’s social capital fragments.

Networks and memberships barely correlate (+0.11).
Trust in institutions is actually negatively linked to both (–0.06).

If I were to translate this into human language?

What this really means is that the thinning of belonging began much earlier than we tell ourselves.

You can know everyone and trust no one.

You can trust the system but have no one to call at 11 PM. You can attend community events and still feel alone.

India became more networked but less emotionally held together.

Add migration, long commutes, rising rents, shrinking friend circles, and relentless career pressure, and millennials end up living entirely inside work, logistics, and screens.

This isn’t just India’s story.

Japan has a name for it, hikikomori, where young adults withdraw so deeply from society that their absence becomes a national crisis.

South Korea tracks “lonely deaths,” and disturbingly, people in their 20s and 30s now account for a non-trivial share.

The UK got so worried they appointed an actual Minister for Loneliness.

The US Surgeon General released an advisory calling loneliness a public health emergency, equivalent in risk to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Everywhere you look, the same equation is playing out!

When inherited community collapses, anxiety rises, and markets rush in to sell what families once gave for free.

So, what do you actually get in this post modern world? Co-living companies. Paid friendship clubs. Community gyms. Wellness circles.

Micro-communities built around hobbies, identity, location, or purpose.

This is the “business of belonging.”

One global study showed 80% of companies are now investing in community, and 28% say community is their moat.

And when you zoom into India, you start to see just how many new forms of community millennials are quietly building. 

Not through big institutions, but through rituals (weekly meetups, shared meals), roles (hosts, organizers, mentors), proximity (living/working close), participation (volunteering, shared work), and purpose (solving something together).

They’re rebuilding what civil society once did naturally.

Sociologists call this “thick community”, groups where you don’t just show up. You contribute, serve, repeat, show up again.

Hobby collectives like Misfits are helping strangers become “regulars” again.

Heritage walk groups are turning weekends into shared discovery.

Women-led riding communities, The Bikerni, Riderni, Lady Riders of India, and Hop On Gurls are creating safety and identity on the road.

In the mountains, places like Dharamkot Studio become tiny creative villages for a week.

Travel groups like Backpackers United, and Wovoyage stitch belonging into the lives of people who don’t stay still.

Even Instagram groups and WhatsApp circles function as proto-communities, loose, voluntary, self-made.

Where these groups exist, they function as both economic units and also emotional infrastructure.

And all of this matches what the Harvard Study of Adult Development has shown for 80 years that warm, reliable social bonds are one of the strongest predictors of long-term health (lowering chronic stress, reducing inflammation, buffering pain, delaying cognitive decline) and human flourishing.

A month after that conversation, RK messaged me “Joined a weekend running group. Didn’t realise how much I needed people.”

Then last week - “Thinking of starting a weekly dinner for our building floor. No agenda. Just humans.”

I’ll be honest, I’m not writing this as someone who has figured it out.

When RK said he was hosting a weekly floor dinner, something in me paused. The idea stayed with me for its small, human warmth. Maybe that’s how belonging returns.

Putnam’s Bowling Alone also reminds us that community fades quietly, almost politely, until one day we look up and realise we’re doing life without witnesses.

Where in your life are you still waiting for community, instead of creating it?

Hit reply and tell me. I read every email.

Until next week,
Ritesh