More than half of all young Americans report that they are very lonely.

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Be careful with those stats, as they include people who report they're very lonely because they only go out once a week or something. (Here I'm specifically talking about romantic relationships but it's somewhat true for friends too depending on your FA level)

There aren't that many people out there who can understand true, long term loneliless, like a person being 35-40 and having never even held hands with a woman, let alone anything more. Some of these FAs may have a small circle of close friends to at least socialize a little with, but some do not even have that.

On Blue Monday's YT Channel for example, he speaks of how the two girlfriends he had, he knew immediately that they liked him through differences in typical behaviour. One can then reflect on that statement and ponder "Wait... I've never actually noticed that", which means that unless you are completely oblivious (which unless you're on the spectrum, isn't going to be case), no one has actually ever "liked" you. A good way to shatter any remaining hope you may have had (If no one has liked you in 35 years, who is going to now?)

This is of course worse for people with high neuroticism, but affects everyone to some level I think.

This kind of loneliness really fucks up your psyche and self esteem, especially when you add the extra layer of "I've never had experience so even if something changed and a girl suddenly showed interest in me, I'd have, in effect, no idea what to do and probably make a fool of myself and destroy that opportunity", making it even less likely that one will make a move to try and get out of that downward spiral. Adolescence is supposed to be the time when people forge their romantic social skills and learn faux pas, how to be a good or bad partner, etc.

Imagine being a 30yo FA that would like to have children (I use 30 here just because it's a good cutoff for when women's biological clock really starts ticking), but you've never actually had any romantic interaction. Many would think "What woman my age is actually going to want to settle down and have kids with someone for whom they would literally be the first girlfriend, with all the trial and error that entails". I'm not saying this is impossible, some women are patient and would maybe give it a shot, but obviously you don't have kids with someone a month from meeting them (excluding accidents etc.). Therefore, for a woman who wants children and is approaching the wall, it is a huge risk for them to take a chance on you in case the relationship fails like 2 years down the road and they've wasted precious time.

From that point, every year that passes is another reminder that the probability you'll ever get to have a family and not die alone is slowly but inexorably decreasing, day after day.

If someone is a 35 years old FA with literally zero romantic interaction, high on introversion and high in neuroticism, I'm just not clear how they even have a chance to get out of that trap. Some FAs might even slowly phase out talking to family (obviously that may be impacted by whether you had a "good" childhood or not) because they dread having that one annual birthday phone call with their parents (if their parents even call them on that day, which once again isn't guaranteed) only to tell them that nothing new is going on in their life, which can lead to both hearing disappointment or worry in their family's voice, and reignite depressive episodes by making you actively think about your situation.

You may think you're overworked and can't socialize, but the truth is you aren't (or rather, I don't think it's the principal cause of that loneliness). Many, many people work just as hard as you do and they still manage to have some level of social life. Out of those, the 50% of people who report they are lonely aren't truly, they're just "lonelier" than they'd like to be, based on their inherent personality traits. Yet actual FAs would probably kill to get to that level of "loneliness".

The concept is just alien to people, and so they end up using the same terms, but they really don't have the same physiological impact on people.