Wednesday, New York, New York

Several recent studies have offered evidence of what we all suspect: Americans are increasingly lonely. The research has documented that most Americans cannot name more then one person who they consider to be a close friend. The trend has been steady for a few decades that we are increasingly individualistic and detached. The vast majority of us have nothing close to an adequate social support network.

Americans rely principally on their romantic relationship for virtually all our emotional sustenance, consequently over taxing and exhausting our marriages and intimate family life. The fact is that we need a wider collection of friendships and confidants that see us behind our guarded exterior. Many of us have friends, but too many of us are not adequately connected to enough of these casual acquaintances to give us what we need.

At a time when so much public attention is paid to self help strategies promising to make us feel better, we are missing the more reliable fix available to us. Instead of spending so much time, energy and even money trying to alter ourselves internally, I suggest that more people focus on changing their external realities. Bringing more relationships into our daily lives will do as much or more in the long run as all of the other short term self fixes that we try.

- The right shaft of your toaster has never been used

- You work from home on the Internet and have no professional colleagues

- No room in your house has an outside view

- When you passed out in your home no one noticed you were gone for three days