'Loneliness comes for everyone, like a cold' — Seoul's 24-hour comfort line

Interview with a counselor at Seoul's 'Loneliness Hello 120' hotline

Callers range from isolated youth in their 20s to elderly people in their 70s

Starting with small talk about the weather helps ease callers in, counselor says

A divorced man in his 50s who once said he wanted to die later landed a job

'Knowing a few words of encouragement can change someone's life keeps me going'

Service logged 40,000 calls in its first year; 81% said they needed someone to talk to

Kim Seung-mi (pseudonym), a counselor at Seoul's Loneliness Hello 120 hotline, takes a call at the KT Corp CS Seoul office in Yeomchang. [Son In-gyu]

"Hello, this is Loneliness Hello 120. What's been troubling you today?"

"…."

"Have you had anything to eat?"

"No, not yet…."

"Try to eat something and step outside for a moment. The weather is beautiful today."

It is an entirely ordinary exchange — yet for some people, even this kind of small talk is out of reach. Whether by choice or circumstance, they simply have no one to call.

For people who have no family or friends to phone when loneliness sets in, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched Loneliness Hello 120 last year. The service is part of "Seoul Without Loneliness," the city's comprehensive policy on loneliness and social isolation. Anyone who feels lonely or cut off can dial the Dasan Call Center and speak with a counselor.

To mark the service's first anniversary, the city published a casebook in March titled "Stories of Loneliness Hello 120 Companion Counselors," which compiles accounts from 16 counselors who have worked with callers.

A reporter recently sat down with Kim Seung-mi (54, pseudonym), a Loneliness Hello 120 counselor, at the KT Corp CS Seoul office in Yeomchang to hear about the loneliness callers share with her and what the work means to her. The interview uses a pseudonym at Kim's request.

Kim spent many years in the financial sector handling credit operations. Long interested in social welfare, she took a contract position at a local dementia care center after retiring several years ago and found deep satisfaction in being useful to others. Early last year, she came across a recruitment notice for Loneliness Hello 120 counselors.

"When I saw the posting, I thought, 'This was made for me,' and applied right away," she said. "After an interview and 10 days of training, I started work on April 1 last year."

The Loneliness Hello 120 call center, housed at the KT Corp CS Yeomchang office, currently employs 17 counselors. They work in three shifts — morning (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), afternoon (1 p.m. to 10 p.m.) and overnight (10 p.m. to 8 a.m.) — to keep the line staffed around the clock. Kim works the morning shift.

She handles 13 to 14 calls a day. The callers span a wide range: isolated young people in their 20s, middle-aged breadwinners who have lost their jobs, and people in their 70s whose children have grown up and moved away.

"Loneliness Hello 120 is not simply a place that provides information — it is a place that empathizes with people's feelings and offers comfort," Kim said. "Every caller has a different story depending on their age, occupation, circumstances and worries." She added that the service cannot be delivered by memorizing a script, but that one thing all callers share is that they feel unrecognized — whether at home or at work — and have withdrawn into themselves.

"With callers whose confidence has fallen that low, the first words matter most," she said. "Rather than forcing them to open up about their problems, I start with something everyone can relate to — the weather, whether they have eaten — and try to gently open the door."

Among the many calls she has taken, one middle-aged man stands out. "A divorced man in his 50s called in. He had injured his leg in a traffic accident on top of everything else, and he said he wanted to die," Kim recalled. "He told me he was too tired to cook and ordered delivery food every day. I said, 'Please do not rely on delivery all the time — miyeok-guk or bean sprout soup are very easy to make. Try cooking for yourself.'"

The man began cooking, gradually found the will to live and slowly started re-engaging with the world. He eventually found a job. Kim said it was the moment she felt most clearly that a word of comfort and encouragement can genuinely change a person's life.

"Another time, a young person who had cut off contact with their parents and friends because they could not find work called in," Kim said. "Rather than offering solutions, I just talked to them the way an older sister in the neighborhood would — offering comfort and telling them to take heart. Then one day they called back to say they had finally gotten a job and wanted to thank me."

"We have never seen each other's faces, but it feels like a few words of comfort helped someone keep going. That is what makes this work meaningful."

The interior of a "Seoul Mind Convenience Store," operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government as part of its "Seoul Without Loneliness" comprehensive policy. The city says the space is open to anyone who wants to drop in, share a simple meal such as ramyun, and reconnect with others through conversation. [Seoul Metropolitan Government]

Not every call is easy. "Some people call Loneliness Hello 120 to vent about something unfair that happened to them elsewhere," Kim said. "They are not directing abuse at us directly, but listening to harsh language for an extended period takes a mental toll."

When a call like that comes in, Kim presses the "away" button and removes her headset. "I step outside for a moment, take a walk in a nearby park or have a warm cup of tea to settle myself," she said. "At first my heart would pound and I dreaded picking up the next call, but callers like that are a very small minority. Most people are simply sharing their loneliness, and my role is to listen and offer comfort."

That comfort is clearly something many callers crave. "One person called in the morning on the way to a welfare center asking for 'some words to lift my spirits,' then called again in the afternoon asking for 'something fun to cheer me up,'" Kim said. "Some people call 20 or 30 times in a single day."

Each Loneliness Hello 120 session is capped at 30 minutes, but there is no limit on the number of calls. To ensure more residents can access the service, the city plans to cap calls at five per phone number per day.

Kim said loneliness is not confined to people who live alone, such as single-person households or elderly people living by themselves. "Through counseling, I have come to see that people living perfectly ordinary lives also feel lonely — at home or at work," she said. "Loneliness is an emotion that can come for anyone, like a cold. If you feel even a little lonely, or if something is weighing on you and you have no one to ask, please do not hesitate to call Loneliness Hello 120. Sharing that feeling with someone will leave you feeling much more at ease."

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Loneliness Hello 120 — which launched in April last year — logged a cumulative 40,000 counseling sessions by the end of March this year, its first anniversary. That works out to an average of 125 sessions a day. By age group, the heaviest users were people in their 40s through 60s, who accounted for 77.6 percent of calls. Young people made up 18.8 percent, a share that has been growing consistently.

The vast majority of users — 81 percent — said they turned to the service because they needed someone to talk to about their loneliness, and reported feeling comforted after their sessions. The service's user satisfaction score stood at 4.6 out of 5.

Later this year, Loneliness Hello 120 is set to relocate to "Seoul Itda Place" (working title), a dedicated hub for residents experiencing loneliness or social isolation, where the city is considering expanding the service to include in-person counseling.

ikson@heraldcorp.com