When It Feels Like No One Would Miss You — Finding a Way Back to Yourself
“If I turn off my phone, no one would miss me.”
Of all the stories I’ve read about loneliness lately, that line hit the hardest. It’s not dramatic. It’s just honest. And I know that feeling, because I’ve been there too.
Some weeks, writing about loneliness feels impossible — because it’s not a topic, it’s a weight in your chest. It’s not an idea. It’s your reality at 2am when your phone is the only flicker of light in your bedroom, when the notifications stop and you wonder if anyone would notice if you just… stopped showing up.
And for queer people, the ache of isolation sometimes comes with a sharper edge. The past few weeks, I’ve been reading about the rise in homophobic attacks on guys lured through apps like Grindr — fake profiles, fake promises, real violence. It’s terrifying, but it’s also familiar in a different way: a reminder that these spaces that promise connection often leave us more alone than before. They promise attention but rarely offer care.
I stopped using Grindr years ago because it made me feel worse about myself every single time. I’d log on hoping to feel wanted. Mostly, I just felt disposable. A commodity. A body, not a person. And yet — when you’re bored, or hurting, or lonely, it’s easy to go back. I still have Hinge and Tinder on my phone, but these days I open them about as often as I check the weather app for rain I know isn’t coming. They’re there when I feel like there’s nothing else to do. But there is something else to do. And that’s the difference.
I wish I could say I cracked the code on how to fix loneliness. I haven’t. I’m single. Some days I feel completely alone in a crowded room. But I’ve learned, slowly, that the answer isn’t more notifications. It’s building a life that feels good enough that you forget to check who’s messaging back.
The great psychoanalyst Carl Jung believed there were five things we really need for what he called a good life. Not a perfect life — a good one. Arthur C. Brooks calls it “happierness”: not a magical state where you’re happy all the time, but a practice of building habits and ways of being that make the good days more frequent, and the bad days more bearable.
So what are those five things?
Good physical and mental health. Good personal relationships — family, friends, real connections. Seeing beauty — in art, in nature, in tiny things that remind you you’re still here. Meaningful work. And some kind of philosophy or purpose that helps you zoom out when life feels like too much.
I didn’t know I was following this map until I looked back and realised: oh, that’s what I’ve been trying to do. When I got sober, when I signed up for my first Hyrox race, when I moved back to Sydney and found a new place by the beach — all of that was me trying to choose progress over stuckness. When I started Get Out, it was the same thing. A way to do something useful with my story. A way to say: I don’t want to just survive loneliness. I want to build something that helps other people feel less alone too.
I’m not telling you to sign up for a fitness race if you hate running. I’m saying: pick one thing you can move towards. One hobby, one class, one event on our calendar. Even if you go alone, even if it feels awkward, even if you sit in your car after and think, that was weird, and I didn’t talk to anyone. That’s still more than you did the night before. It stacks up.
And then there’s work. Jung knew — and modern research backs him — that work isn’t just about paying the bills. It can be a source of meaning, pride, and purpose — if you let it be. Not everyone has the luxury of a so-called dream job, but all of us can find ways to make what we do matter.
Arthur C. Brooks writes about this so well. He says: don’t wait for the perfect calling to find you — turn your work into your calling by how you show up for it. Chop wood, carry water — but do it with care, with curiosity, with service.
I’ve learned that the hard way. I’ve done the big marketing roles, the hospital comms jobs, the exhausting 60-hour weeks for other people’s missions. I’m grateful for the skills, but what keeps me going — even when I’m wiped out and moving interstate and living out of boxes — is this. Get Out. The thing I chose to build for people like me. It’s the part of my week that feels like service, not just work. The part that reminds me my story matters because it might help someone else feel less invisible.
The same goes for friends. Real friends — not followers, not hookups. They’re not always easy to find, especially when you’re older, or queer in a small town, or just burnt out from always being the one who keeps in touch. But they’re worth building, slowly, awkwardly, imperfectly. A trivia night here. A Pride coffee there. A message to that one person you keep meaning to catch up with.
I know this isn’t a fix. There’s no single paragraph that can answer “If I turn off my phone, no one would miss me.” Sometimes the best I can offer is: I would notice. Not because I’m watching you — but because I know what it feels like to wonder if anyone would care. And I care enough to write this, even on a week when I feel tired and stretched and freshly moved into a new apartment that still doesn’t feel like home.
Maybe that’s the quiet promise of Get Out. We can’t fix loneliness overnight. But we can remind each other to keep showing up. For the next walk. The next class. The next time you choose to be a little bit uncomfortable rather than a lot alone.
So, if you’re reading this in bed tonight, phone glowing at you, brain whispering that no one would miss you — this is me saying: stay here. Don’t disappear. Pick one thing to move towards tomorrow.
Text one friend.
Walk in nature with your phone on silent.
Sign up to our Get Out community and be awkward with strangers who are probably just as awkward as you.
You don’t have to fix your whole life tonight. You just have to keep it switched on long enough to notice that maybe — just maybe — someone would miss you if you turned it off. And maybe that someone can be you, showing up for the version of you who’s still here, still trying.