When did you last have a conversation at work that wasn't about a project or a client?

We spend more time with our colleagues than almost anyone else in our lives — more than our partner, our friends, our children.

And yet, how well do we really know them? How well do they know us?

We have collectively decided that this is just how it is at work. We keep things professional. We talk about projects and clients and deadlines. We share enough to be collegial without sharing enough to be known.

It's an unwritten rule that almost nobody questions.

We are wired for genuine connection — to feel known, not just useful.

When we spend the majority of our waking hours in relationships that never quite get beneath the surface, this fundamental human need goes unmet.

Loneliness starts to creep in. It comes as a depression, irritability or a low hum of emptiness that's easy to dismiss and hard to name. We treat the symptoms without ever identifying the cause.

Splitting our personalities

I often hear people talk about how they successfully split their work persona from their personal lives.

When we enter the workplace, our mind immediately begins to scan and observe and decide what adaptations are required to survive and succeed.

We start playing games. We map out scenarios and permutations.

We laugh at jokes we know are inappropriate because the rest of the team is laughing, and succeeding in this job is more important than our values.

We send the email at 10pm instead of 7pm so that the boss can see how hard we are working (this was a personal favorite of mine, I’m afraid to admit).

Each small adaptation, each micro-betrayal of what’s important to us, feels justified in isolation. Collectively they compound into a steady shift in identity.

The cost of mask-wearing

At the start, the mask is a useful tool. We ingratiate ourselves with colleagues and establish ourselves as valuable employees.

The obvious workplace exhaustion comes from deadlines and long hours. The subtler, more corrosive exhaustion is persona maintenance — the cognitive cost of continuously being someone you're not.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with adapting to our environments.

But if we spend most of the time pretending to be a different version of ourselves, the alternative version we have created for work will start to permeate our personal relationships.

We shut off our emotions at work and, unsurprisingly, are emotionally unavailable at home without really understanding why.

The masks we put on at work eventually meld completely into our face.

They become such ingrained parts of our identity that we forget who we were before.

We forget that we are even wearing a mask at all.

The loneliness of hiding our authentic selves

The mask doesn't just cost us energy. It makes genuine connection structurally impossible.

When we hide ourselves, any connection we receive lands on the mask rather than on us. 

Our colleagues can like us, appreciate us, go for drinks with us — and none of it quite reaches the person underneath.

They endorse us on LinkedIn for drafting or client care or our superior Excel skills — but do they know who we are behind our role?

Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy outlined three conditions for genuine connection:

1. feeling known,
2. valued for who you are not what you produce, and
3. someone who would notice your absence.

Most workplaces structurally prevent all three — not because colleagues are cold, but because the environment is selected against it:

• The mask prevents us from ever being truly known.
• Our value is measured in output, not in who we are.
• And if we left tomorrow, the role would be filled. Whether we personally were missed is another question entirely.

Without realizing, you may go weeks or months at a time without genuine connection for at least 8 hours per day.

It’s possible that the low-level depression you are feeling, or that sense of emptiness, is related to this lack of genuine connection.

Our romantic partners and friends are wonderful sources of genuine connection.

But is it truly sustainable to have this only in the evenings and at weekends?

And even then, we may find it hard to code-switch between our work selves and the person we want to be for our loved ones.

Without consistent genuine connection, loneliness starts to become endemic in our lives.

This is not a new phenomenon.

Simon & Garfunkel beautifully and poignantly wrote about it over 60 years ago in “Sound of Silence”: "People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening"

As technology and AI further reduce the need for human contact, intentionally cultivating genuine human connection is more necessary than ever. 

Close proximity, without intimacy

It took me a while to recognize the loneliness I felt at work.

I was grateful to have close friends to call on and share with, but some periods were so intense that I did not have much free time outside of work.

So I’d go days at a time only in regular contact with my colleagues. Close proximity, without intimacy.

I’d be sitting at lunch, talking about deals I was working on, listening to others talking about theirs. All nodding politely and empathizing appropriately.  

I remember thinking: are we all actually enjoying this conversation?

I felt convinced that all of us would rather be talking about something much more meaningful, but none of us knew how to within the structure we were in. 

I felt like a robot, and it was slowly draining me. It was unsustainable.

Finding another way

The amount of work was not abating, so I needed to find another way to feel more nourished in the workplace.

I started to scan for people who I suspected felt similarly to me and would be willing to engage.

Turns out there were several.

I started mentioning parts of my life outside the law firm. First, with people who were not in my team and had no say in my career trajectory. That felt much safer.

Then I began talking openly about my weird hobbies. I shared that I lived in a commune-style shared house, went on silent meditation retreats, attended Burning Man, and drummed with the hippies in Golden Gate Park on weekends.

I spoke about blocking out my calendar for therapy appointments and yoga classes.

I did this for myself, but also to send a message to junior colleagues that they could do this too.

It made work more enjoyable. Conversations became more human, less transactional. It felt like an experiment — sharing a little more and seeing what happened.

That openness led to more trust and genuine connection. A small amount of tactful honesty can make the working day feel far less lonely.

There are also times when something more significant needs to be said — when staying silent to avoid "rocking the boat" actually costs us the support we need.

When I told my boss that I was taking time off to deal with the emotional toll of my divorce, they responded with kindness and shared candidly about their own experience.

This brought us closer and helped our working relationship develop. I received the support I needed. And we are still in touch to this day.

No drastic changes required

You do not need to radically overhaul anything. You do not need to quit.

We are not asking our colleagues to be our therapists or our best friends.

There's a vast territory between "best friend" and "person I have never really spoken to despite spending thousands of hours in the same room."

Most workplace relationships never leave the second category.

But your colleagues aren't strangers on a train. These are people you sit next to through crises, celebrate promotions with, say goodbye to at leaving drinks.

The invitation here is to practice being a little more open, to let others in and connect.

When you next go for a coffee with a colleague, commit to talking about non-work topics for half an hour.

Instead of talking about deals, share something you’ve been working on in your personal life recently — perhaps a creative project or a hobby.

Or even, instead of "fine thanks, you?", try answering the question honestly for once.

See how it feels to be seen and known for who you are, not just for what you do.

We can each play our part

Most relationships are contextual and, to some extent, transactional.

It’s true that work colleagues serve one purpose, and outside work friends another.

The professional environment we work in means that some level of separation is necessary. To deny that is to deny the reality of how society is structured. 

But the more we split core parts of ourselves to survive and adapt to our work environments, where we spend most of our time, the lonelier we feel.

The health consequences of loneliness are far-reaching, as Vivek Murthy describes in this detailed report. 

And the imagined ‘risks’ to your career of revealing parts of your authentic self are almost certainly overstated.

Consider how you can bring more of your authentic self into work — not just for you, but for your colleagues too.

Even if you feel satisfied with the connections in your life, perhaps someone at work is longing for a real conversation, to be seen for more than just the role they play.

Perhaps you can play a small part for that person.

Journaling Prompts

• Is there someone you work alongside regularly whose life outside work you know almost nothing about?
• Who at work knows something real about you beyond your role?
• When did you last have a conversation at work that surprised you?
• What do your colleagues not know about you that you wish they did?