Recently a friend of mine wrote to me about her experience in Holland:  A very old man asked me to come to his apartment, and he would donate a bike to the project. I went over to get it, and it was half a bike, which was locked to a pole and had obviously been there for years. The temperature was well below zero. It became clear that he was in fact super-lonely, and torn between usual Dutch distrust of strangers and desperation for human contact. He finally begged me to come up to his apartment (where he obviously lived alone).           You may know that Dutch people are the tallest in the world, reflecting a very high standard of living. But -- if this old man is not unusual -- reducing the loneliness of old people isn't part of the Dutch social contact, admirable as  _ may be.          I recently watched the Frontline program Sick Around the World. It suggested that the old man isn't unusual. In England, where doctor visits are free, a doctor said he has several patients who come weekly, purely because they're lonely. In Japan, some patients have their blood pressure measured very often -- most probably for the same reason. In Taiwan, if you see a doctor 20 times in one month, someone from the government will come to talk to you. Not about loneliness -- about overuse of medical care. The Frontline program made nothing of any of these facts, which were included to show that access was easy. Really the idea that everyone needs human contact isn't mysterious or controversial.          My explanation is there's a double blow: Not only do lonely old people have little power, it's also clear that their problem (loneliness) isn't caused by a "chemical imbalance". So no drugs can be sold to treat it. And there's no diagnostic category. When these lonely old people use what little power they have by visiting their doctor, the doctor -- I'm assuming -- doesn't do anything to get rid of the loneliness. Even if you visit 20 times in a month. The tone of the author is   _  .
skeptical critical positive concerned