All I ever wanted was to wear the "hat of belonging"

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If I was much more social media savvy, I would have known long ago that this week is Loneliness Awareness Week and planned some content around it as way to hook onto the conversation and get more attention for my Instagram. Instead, I found out it was because I kept noticing interesting posts about loneliness, which I thought was just a coincidence or a sign of the times. It wasn’t until I saw a post explicitly talking about Loneliness Week that it all made sense. And because I have been thinking about it all week, I couldn’t help but write today’s newsletter on the subject. 

Loneliness is a topic I have written a lot about in my journalism work. I would go as far to say, it is one of my specialist subjects. I wrote this for The Guardian about research into the consequences of social isolation, this one also for The Guardian about the Men’s Sheds movement which helps older men stave off loneliness (Confession, although I didn’t interview him, the guy in the blue top is my dad). I also …