When we think of people who are lonely, most of the time we think of the elderly.

Maybe a lady widowed and that clogs the queues at the post office with the excuse to make a charge, even if it is just there to have a word with someone.
Sure, a picture is sad, but the truth is that there are many young people who feel alone.
If we look at Italy, according to Eurostat data of 2017, Italians are the Europeans who feel alone and have fewer people to whom to ask for help when needed.
To explore the question a few weeks ago I posted on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram ads aimed at people who somehow feel alone, asking if they want to talk about it.
In a short time they have contacted dozens of people, and these are their stories.
Most of the witnesses were not recorded at the request of those who provided the information.
The following, however, were edited and shortened for clarity.
Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of respondents.
* Bernardo, 27, chemical
I studied for six years in London and a year ago I moved to Milan.
Although he has a job and the colleagues with whom I go out every now and then, I never thought that knowing people here could be so difficult.
I spend most evenings alone at home reading scientific papers, several RPG game and I have a circle of "friends" online, but when I'm bad I could not count on anyone-d'altronde my colleagues and their families their friendships consolidated and my relatives live six-hour drive in a small provincial town.
There I had many friends, but most are gone over the years.
So even when I get home, up the weekend with my parents.
Let me be clear, it is something that I love doing.
But here, I have no way to talk about what we are talking among friends.
In fact, when people ask me how I spend often chin.
Yes, because solitude is not only an annihilating condition.
It is also a shame factor to the extent that it makes you feel different and useless.
To let it get short, sometimes I feel like the gears of a clock on the wall that breaks off and falls to the ground hiding under the refrigerator or cabinet.
The clock keeps going and you realize how much you are superfluous when the clock comparisons to the company and yourself to that little gear forgotten.
Jacopo Finals, 20, a philosophy student
I feel alone since I was 11 years old.
I remember at school I spent half an hour before the bell just watching people get off the bus and asked me what I was different.
To be honest, I realized to be just a little 'later, more or less when you play Tekken with my father and to "do a doodle turn it into a sensible plan" with my mother had become a bit' ridiculous for all three.
I was very good at school but I was an asshole, and the only thing that differed from the others was that if the teacher showed favoritism or behaviors I considered unjust, albeit with due respect, I tried to tell them this.
This drove me away from my classmates, that at some point-the professor had spoken with parents complaining about my "bad influence" -have stopped inviting me.
Nevertheless, 14 years between Facebook and skateboarding was not able to create me a circle of friends and even find me a girl.
Her name was Sara.
We've been together a year and a half, but I've behaving burned everything perfect doormat.
After breaking up with her, I went through a terrible time: my friends had become his friends and I found myself alone again.
But this time was different.
I started to suffer from depression.
I did not eat, did not study, do not interacted, spent the afternoons curled up on the bed crying.
Today I bring one more great suspicion, the aftermath of my depression and my not knowing how to be with people, but I tried to rebuild my network of acquaintances.
Yet it is now Saturday is 00:25 and are alone in the car, in the parking lot of McDonald's, to describe my loneliness and to share it with you.
Ante Maric, 42, physiotherapist
I was born in Croatia, but when I was about ten years I came to live with my parents and my sister in Veneto.
Of course you can imagine how difficult it is to build relationships between children when they do not speak a word of Italian.
Over the years I have learned the language well, but I kept talking little-and this has never helped me find friends.
Then when I was 17, my father died of cancer, and I found myself having to take care of my sister and my mother doing odd jobs.
I was 25 years old when I realized that he had never had a friend.
It was so normal and not weighed me.
Or rather, I thought it weighed me until I met Angela, who for 15 years has been before my girlfriend and then my wife.
After getting married we took a dog named Dina.
Angela died in an accident.
So I found myself alone again, deprived of everything that I had built and all that in which I had placed my hopes and happiness.
Recently he died also Dina, and maybe I'm writing because, unlike what I think, for me it has become normal.
Even the abandonment and loneliness become normal things if you've never known anything else.
Today, my loneliness is a thought out choice.
Maybe I was just unlucky, but I'm not bad and I never thought to kill are just alone.
I have a thousand passions, I go to the movies every week, doing sports and when I have time I write-and the reason why I'm talking to you is that I would like to say to all the people who feel so that loneliness scares, but it does not kill.
* Antonia, 26, bartender
I moved to Rome with my boyfriend four years ago.
He had found a job here and asked me to follow him.
As it is easy to see now we are no longer together, and after being betrayed, have also been forced to look for a new home.
All this would not be a problem, if only I had known that all those who thought my friends were just friends of my ex: over a year and a half I have not a friend or a friend, here, to hang out with my free time.
Of course, I speak on Skype with my best friend and I'm planning to go to Rome, but at the moment are terribly alone.
I asked for an increase in work shifts, not to earn more, but not to stay alone at home or spend the afternoons turn pretending to be very rushed and stressed out (I have the impression that people like this do not being aware of how alone).
The reason why I wrote to you is that I was not the only one to feel alone and that the problem with the people in this condition is that they often do not mention it.
Precisely because they have no one to tell.
Christ, now I miss my ex.
* Monica, 36, salesperson
Seven years ago I found myself change my life drastically.
I've always been a person rather spoiled and wealthy-was living in environments rich, my father had a very profitable and my life was made travel and leisure.
At one point, my father was sent away from the company and we ended up with the butt on the ground.
We lost everything, so much so that we had to go away from Turin to move into a house offered by a family friend, in the countryside.
An hour and a half from Turin.
Meanwhile, to make matters worse, I had lost the sight in one eye for a congenital cataract, and I had come to a condition of -22 degrees on the other.
I am quoting the disease because it has kept me from doing a lot of things: I did not have a driver's license, I had people to stay, and the only way to get to Turin was a bus that passed once a day.
After a thousand works, having been driven by a call center because they do not shut enough contracts and asking the protected category I finally found employment in the glasses store where I still work.
Where is this loneliness?
Since the beginning of all, I think.
My first life was made of fake friendships that have flaked when we had economic problems, and my second life has been a constant attempt to survive.
I try to think of being surrounded by other people, but then it is as if I could look from above, and the only thing I see is my body placed in a flow of people.
I think I live this condition because since I can remember, I have always given and tried to do everything possible to others without receiving anything back.
Nobody really cares for me, no one asks me how I am, and no one is afraid of what might be tired.
Just between us, I will continue to run to pretend anything.
By the way, I have to go to work.

From Vice