A new survey by the relationship counsellors Relate is highlighting the scale of loneliness across the country.
It asked 5,000 people about the state of the marriages, friendships and working lives and found one in five said they rarely or never felt loved.
Revd Steve Jeffery is the minister at Emmanuel Evangelical church in North London and organised a friendship conference earlier in the year.
He said these figures should act as a wakeup call: "This highlights how desperate the needs are of people around us.
"We make the mistake of thinking that our colleagues or neighbours are ok.
"I'm afraid that many people are a lot more hurting than we realise and I think we've got to go around with our eyes a bit more open to that."
Relate says it's concerned by the findings.
Spokesperson Chris Sherwood said: "Loneliness and isolation is a growing social problem in our society and we look at this in the study.
"We find both younger people and older people experience loneliness and isolation so we do wonder whether there's some questions here about people feeling socially isolated."
Most people are happy with their friendships however.
Of women, 81% describe their friendships as good or very good compared with 73% of men.
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