Can AI cure loneliness? No – but this might…

It was a Saturday afternoon this time last year. I was waiting on the platform at Clapham Junction when I saw a handsome lad out of the corner of my eye. About 12 or 13, with a gorgeous head of copper-coloured hair and a slightly worried expression. I wondered if he was OK, and then I saw his dad coming to stand by him.

I noticed they were standing with dad behind his son, with his arms around his neck. Lovely. A few minutes later, I noticed they were standing next to me, and I felt compelled to talk to this young man. “Have you been to watch the Palace?” I said, noticing he was wearing a Crystal Palace scarf. He shook his head; no. “You lost today – I can understand you not saying yes,” I replied.

And then this young man started talking to me in Makaton, the language programme that uses signs and symbols alongside speech to help hearing people with learning or communication difficulties. My Makaton is non-existent, so dad helped us communicate, and we had a chat about football and school and what he was going to do when he got home (“Watch Strictly Come Dancing”). Then our train arrived, and I told his dad how lovely it had been to talk to them both, and how seeing him hug his son made me think about how much I missed my own late dad.

The boy, who’d been on his way to get on the train, turned around and threw his arms around me, giving me the biggest hug I’d had in a long time, then disappeared into the night.

I’m crying as I write this, as I do every time I think about this little incident, this beautiful small moment of connection, as it touched me so deeply. A little vignette of kindness and fun that would never have happened if I hadn’t talked to that young man.

In a world where it seems every generation is experiencing loneliness – according to a survey, four million Brits class themselves as having chronic loneliness, while young people spend nearly 1,000 fewer hours per year hanging out with friends in person than they did 20 years ago – what are we to do about making connections with people?

The founder of AI companionship chatbot Replika says that tech can cure the loneliness crisis. But the rest of us know it won’t – just as dating apps have now been “revealed” as leaving most people disappointed.

Rather than allowing tech to do the heavy lifting, most of us are just going to have to do the scary thing and say “hello” to a complete stranger.

Just talk. It’s a skill I wish I’d had years ago, but when I heard Alan Bennett quote something he’d heard from the artist Francis Bacon – “It’s a shame to be both old and shy” – it struck me that it was pointless to be shy at any age. I spent so long thinking that if I approached anyone I didn’t know and struck up a casual conversation, I’d end up making a complete tit of myself. But now, having made a tit of myself approximately 8 million times in my life, one more wouldn’t make any difference.

I’m not saying that you should talk to absolutely everyone, as some people actively loathe making conversation with strangers, or they’re having a bad day as you might tell from the murderous expression on their face. But telling someone their outfit looks great, or that their baby is super-adorable (babies are great to converse with, too), or to talk to your Big Issue vendor or barista, will not only give their day a bit of a lift but you’ll feel better, too. A 2014 report in the journal Experimental Psychology showed that it’s true.

The more you make casual conversation, the easier it gets. Small conversations could end up being big, lifelong ones, but even if they don’t, then you’ve exchanged a tiny moment of connection with someone else, and it feels fantastic. My most recent experience of this was when a man, sat in agony at Wimbledon station, asked me to pop his dislocated knee back into its socket, with his daughter gleefully saying, “When daddy asks me to do that, I have to jump on his leg”, and then showing me her new cuddly toy cat.

People are endlessly surprising – but unless you stop and talk, you’ll never know.