Feeling lonely in a packed hallway is more common than you’d guess. Say hi to someone. They might be feeling it too.

Being surrounded and still alone is one of the more disorienting feelings, because the noise seems to disprove it. Crowds do not supply connection, only proximity, and nearly everybody in that corridor has had the same afternoon at some point this year. It is much less rare than it feels.

Speak first to one person this week, which is the whole of it. Keep it ordinary: a comment about the assignment, the weather, the length of the queue. You are not solving anything in one go; you are finding out how many people were waiting for somebody else to start.