It is 9pm on a Tuesday in Auckland, and Mark is scrolling through his phone in an apartment full of light and completely empty of other people. He has 340 followers, a group chat that has not moved in three days, and nobody to call about the mildly funny thing that happened at work. He is not isolated in any obvious sense. He has a job, a flat, a phone full of contacts. He is just lonely, in the quiet, unremarkable way that has become common enough to have its own research field.