The subway was full this morning. Bodies pressed against bodies. Shoulders touching shoulders. I could smell someone’s coffee. Someone’s perfume. Someone’s sweat. We were so close I could hear heartbeats.

And yet, I have never felt more alone.

This is a strange kind of loneliness. The kind that only happens when you’re surrounded by people. When you’re alone in your room, being alone makes sense. It fits. But standing in a crowd, invisible to everyone, that loneliness cuts deeper.

I looked around. Everyone was looking at their phones. Scrolling. Typing. Watching videos. Their bodies were here. Their minds were somewhere else. Talking to people who weren’t present. Ignoring people who were.

I was standing next to a woman for twenty minutes. Our elbows touched. We breathed the same air. We shared the same small space. But we never looked at each other. Not once. We were strangers in the most complete way possible.

This is modern life. We are together and apart at the same time.

I remember village fairs from childhood. People everywhere. Noise. Chaos. But it felt different. People looked at each other. Talked to strangers. Shared jokes with people they’d never meet again. The crowd was alive. Connected. Now crowds are just collections of separate bubbles floating in the same space.

What changed?

Maybe it’s the phones. Maybe it’s the speed. Maybe it’s us. I don’t know.

I went to a party last month. A friend’s birthday. The room was full of people. Music playing. Drinks flowing. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. I stood in a corner, holding a glass I didn’t drink from, watching.

Groups formed around me. People laughed at jokes I couldn’t hear. Conversations happened that I wasn’t part of. I smiled when others smiled. Nodded when nodding seemed right. But I wasn’t really there. I was performing presence while feeling absent.

This is the worst part of crowd loneliness. You see connection happening. You see it working for others. But you can’t reach it. Like watching people eat through a window while you stand outside, hungry.

When I’m alone at home, I can imagine connection is possible. I just need to go out. Meet people. Try. But in a crowd, I get proof that trying might not be enough. The problem isn’t opportunity. The problem might be me.

A man bumped into me on the street yesterday. He said sorry without looking at me. Kept walking. To him, I was an obstacle. Not a person. Just something in the way.

How many times have I been that obstacle? How many people have I looked through without seeing?

We are all doing this to each other. All the time.

The coffee shop was crowded last Sunday. Every table full. I sat alone, reading. Or pretending to read. Mostly I was listening. At the next table, two friends were laughing about something. Their laughter was warm. Real. The kind that comes from years of knowing each other.

I felt a strange jealousy. Not for anything specific. Just for the ease of it. The comfort of being known. Of having someone who gets your jokes. Who knows your history. Who sees you.

In a crowd, you realize how rare that is. How most people will never know you. Will never try. Will never care to.

This should be freeing. It’s not. It’s terrifying.

I could disappear from any crowd and no one would notice. This thought comes to me sometimes. In subway cars. In shopping malls. In busy streets. If I vanished right now, the crowd would close around the empty space. Like water. No ripple. No gap. Nothing.

We want to matter. To someone. To anyone. Crowds remind us how small that mattering is. How limited. How fragile.

There’s a performance required in crowds. A mask you have to wear. You can’t be fully yourself. You have to be the version of yourself that’s appropriate for public. The version that doesn’t cry on buses. Doesn’t talk to itself. Doesn’t show the mess inside.

Alone, you can be anything. In crowds, you have to be acceptable. This gap between who you are and who you’re pretending to be—that’s another kind of loneliness.

I watched a young woman crying on the train once. Silent tears. She was trying to hide it. Looking out the window. Wiping her face quickly. Everyone saw. No one acknowledged. We all pretended she was invisible. Because that’s what you do in crowds. You give people their privacy. Even when maybe they need the opposite.

What would happen if I had asked her if she was okay? Would she have been grateful? Annoyed? Embarrassed? I’ll never know. I did what everyone does. I looked at my phone.

We are trained for this disconnection. We learn it young. Don’t talk to strangers. Mind your own business. Keep to yourself. Good advice for safety. Terrible advice for souls.

The loneliest moment I remember was at a concert. Thousands of people. Everyone singing. Everyone moving together. I was surrounded by joy. And I felt nothing. Empty. Like there was glass between me and the world. I could see it all. I couldn’t touch it.

That night I understood something. Loneliness isn’t about the number of people around you. It’s about the connection between you and them. You can be alone in a room and feel whole. You can be in a stadium and feel hollow.

Connection is not presence. Connection is something else. Something harder. Something rarer.

But here’s what I’ve also learned. Everyone in that crowd feels this sometimes. The woman scrolling her phone might be avoiding her own loneliness. The man staring at nothing might be lost in grief. The laughing group might go home to empty apartments and quieter sadness.

We are all alone. Together.

This is not comforting exactly. But it’s something. Knowing that the isolation I feel is not mine alone. That everyone carries this weight. That the human condition includes this gap between selves that can never be fully closed.

Tomorrow I will take the subway again. Stand in the crowd again. Feel invisible again. But maybe I will look up from my phone. Maybe I will see someone. Really see them. Maybe that small act will matter.

Probably not. Old habits don’t break easily.

But maybe.

In crowds, maybe is sometimes all we have.