Like, it's probably more noticeable that you don't have any romantic or sexual relationships than it would be if you don't have any true, close, platonic connections. Romantic and sexual relationships have things that are very obvious and for the most part, exclusive to them, such as kissing, making out, sex, etc. Platonic relationships that are true and close are not as visible, they're more feelings on the inside (not to say that there's none of those feelings involved with romantic and sexual relationships). If you look exclusively at the activities done with a platonic friendship, it's not very different from an acquaintanceship, or an activity partner.
I've met people who claim they have friends, but they're just coworkers they talk to a bit, guys they play games with, or guys they see at the sports bar a lot. Not people who actually support each other or any true connection. Now granted, there's nothing wrong with having those acquaintanceships or activity partners, and it can be argued that they're necessary for a fulfilling life, but they're not the same as a true connection or friendship. If you've never had that or hadn't had it in a while, it can be hard to tell what that feels like.
The only way to make these connections is through social skills, which a lot of people lack. They lack social skills, so they don't make connections, platonic or romantic. Since romantic and sexual connections have more exclusive activities, it's more easy to notice them than the lack of true friends. So I'm wondering if all this talk about the lack of romance and sex is really just poor social skills.
I have some thoughts on the subject, but in all but the broadest sense "social skills" aren't that important, to my mind at least. Some people get along easily, some people will never get along. I'd say the changes to our built environment and economy are the biggest factors in loneliness. There's always a catalyst required for a relationship to form. For a long time now, in the West at least, it seems like the biggest factors have been proximity and time. School, work, and (formerly) church were pretty effective means of keeping people in close proximity for long enough for relationships to form. Familiarity. It's much easier to make friends with a mutual friend than a complete stranger, so having at least one friend is significantly better than none. Even if two people only know each other, that relationship effectively doubles both of their odds of meeting someone else, and so on. Once a critical mass of people don't know anyone, or the only people they know only know them, it's pretty hard for a community to come out of that.
Socialization has always been a struggle since market economics came to dominate. But in the past people still got to know each other because there were incentives. There was genuinely some sort of trickle-down from imperialism, and less of everything had been vacuumed up by national and international corporations. Petite bourgeoisie constituted a larger share of the population than it does now. Even if things were largely transactional, there was still a bit of humanity to it. At least the sense that cooperating was still potentially going to leave you in a better position in some way, or at least not worse off unless something unexpected happened. Nowadays it's not uncommon for people to think that the other party doesn't have anything to contribute, and it could be expensive for them, so why bother? The perception, largely real, that people just don't want to be bothered in most contexts is debilitating. It's a feedback loop.
One of the few good posts in this thread. Some of the more lib posters here seem to think anyone will/can be friends with anyone else as if people are interchangeable and we just need to get them to hit some arbitrary charisma level to make it happen. They need to look at the environment more.
Thanks. It's always a tricky subject to break down because there are clearly examples of people who are "good at socializing". But historically not everyone, not even close, was like that. People were socialized out of necessity, at the most basic level it increased odds of survival as long as food was secure. Homo sapiens are specialized through evolution for cooperating and socializing, which is why some groups of our species dominated the planet and achieved the things they have (without making value judgements about those things or how sustainable any of them are).
Group, and self-, interest are the friction in the socialization process. Everything about capitalism promotes self-interest so the reasons why socialization would decrease are numerous and obvious. A side effect is the loss of the interpersonal relationships that almost everyone would prefer not become transactional, friendships and romance, which were usually fruits of the other activity which socialized people.
I'm over 40 and my ability to "socialize" for somebody who wasn't all that social was like night and day.
Pre "adulthood" I had small but very close group of friends in middle/elementary school and then a different close group of friends in high school when I moved.
Post "adulthood" I'm always needing to be somewhere else so can't chat or am at work in places where I'm at the beck and call of customers or bosses that it would take years of 10~30 minutes of honest to goodness talking to actually make a decent social connection with a coworker enough to even begin entertaining the idea that, "Yeah, this person could be considered a friend." But never fully developing into a full friendship as ... I'm always at work or going to work so being available to be a part of somebody else's life (handing out, lending a hand, etc) is pretty much nil.
So yeah, I think you're comment is pretty spot on.