Dubai turned loneliness into a business opportunity, and so far, it’s working

In Dubai, you can pay to spend an evening where there’s only one rule: don’t talk about work. People keep their phones put away, and no one brings up their job titles.

Usually, strangers in Dubai spend the first ten minutes talking about their jobs and where they live. At these paid events, they have to find other things to talk about, and most people manage by the end of the night. The need to plan, sell tickets, and set rules for these evenings says a lot about the city.

Dubai is home to almost 200 nationalities and is always busy with launches, brunches, and networking events. Many expats say the same thing: their schedules are packed, but their relationships don’t go very deep.

This gap has created a new wave of businesses that try to sell back what people miss in Dubai’s fast-paced life. But can paying for it really solve the problem?

Dr. Rasha Bayoumi, associate professor of psychology and head of research at the University of Birmingham Dubai, sees this as a structural issue, not a personal one.

“Deep friendships usually require repeated contact, shared experiences, trust, and the expectation that both people will remain present in one another’s lives,” Dr. Bayoumi says. “In a transient city, people may be changing jobs, moving countries, or traveling frequently, which can make them more cautious about investing emotionally in new relationships.” 

Many expats, she adds, are also building relationships from scratch, without the family, childhood friendships, and established community networks that would normally provide continuity and support.

Sophiya Faizal, co-founder of the Dubai social club Paus, doesn’t think businesses created the loneliness economy. “I think we’re responding to a gap that’s opened up in modern life,” she says. 

Community used to be part of daily life, whether through a neighborhood, extended family, or a regular place of worship.

Faizal says that in a global city where people move often and live far from home, informal community ties are weaker than most newcomers expect. Businesses like hers have stepped in to fill that gap. 

Paus runs social formats, including Matcha Mornings, Shared Table dinners, and Padel Socials, built around repetition rather than one-off events. 

FULL DIARIES BUT EMPTY ADDRESS BOOKS

Dr. Bayoumi separates two things people often mix up: being alone and feeling lonely. The first is a fact about who’s in the room. The second is a gap between the relationships someone has and the closeness they need. 

“A person can therefore enjoy time alone without feeling lonely, just as they can feel deeply lonely while surrounded by people,” Dr. Bayoumi says. 

In Dubai, that gap becomes harder to see, she says, because it is hidden by constant social activity. Events, networks, and seemingly full lives create the illusion that everyone else is genuinely connected.

Samira Cutts, cognitive neuroscientist and head of brain health at Prime Performance Labs, an executive and leadership development firm, says meaningful connection depends on ongoing, attentive engagement that helps the nervous system relax. This is the biological sign of real bonding.

“A packed calendar doesn’t guarantee any of that,” Cutts says. 

So how do you actually know? Not from the calendar, Cutts says, but from how you feel afterward. You can have a packed week full of “connection” and still come home feeling the same hollow, unsettled way loneliness feels. 

Cutts adds a distinction researchers use: social isolation is the objective absence of contact; perceived isolation is the subjective sense of disconnection. 

She says Dubai creates a sense of disconnection while masking it through constant social contact. Because people move so often, close friendships often last only two or three years.

Losing those small, unplanned moments—like seeing the same neighbor or visiting the same coffee shop—takes away what naturally builds attachment.

Jason Leavy, founder of Prime Performance Labs, calls it “a silent epidemic” he has seen grow over the years. He first noticed it among his peers while running businesses in Dubai, and now he sees it among his clients.

“It’s that interaction with someone who struggles to be truly present – the constant looking at their phone, the reply that shows they’re not actively listening, the commitment to a social engagement that you know won’t be honored,” he says. 

He says the city’s fast pace is to blame. Dubai is always growing and changing, which creates an unspoken pressure: if you fall behind, you get left behind. Talking about things other than work starts to feel like wasted time, just like the urge to skip sleep to answer one more email.

Prime Performance Labs works with executives and founders on what Leavy and Cutts treat as much of a performance issue as a personal one. 

A MORE SOPHISTICATED PERFORMANCE

Both Cutts and Leavy push back hard on the common advice to just put yourself out there more. 

Cutts says people often blame a lack of effort, when the real problem is a lack of structure. Dubai’s professionals have plenty of opportunities to socialize—maybe more than almost anywhere else.

What’s missing are the things that turn acquaintances into real connections: time, repetition, continuity, and no set end date.

“Telling someone in that environment to ‘put themselves out there’ is like telling someone with no soil to just plant more seeds,” Cutts says. “The seeds aren’t the problem.”

Leavy sees the same advice doing damage online, where a complex problem gets flattened into a soundbite that leaves people feeling inadequate. 

He says the loneliest people he meets often seem to have full lives with lots of social contact. But he calls it “ultra-processed time”— connections that don’t really feed the brain.

Cutts says that bringing together interesting people solves the problem of meeting others, but not the problem of building deeper relationships. It helps people get started, but it doesn’t build the relationship for them.

Bayoumi points out another risk: what happens when belonging turns into something you can buy.

Commercial platforms can lower the barrier to entering a social space, she says. But she warns of a cost: “connection becomes treated as a commodity to be bought, sold and exchanged.” 

Someone buys a membership expecting meaningful relationships to follow. They don’t. Belonging, she says, “is not transactional.” It still requires trust, reciprocity, and effort that continues after the paid event ends.

Leavy sees the split differently.

He argues that the real difference isn’t between clubs and platforms, but between operators and founders. “There is a world of difference between a commercial operator pushing a panacea for commercial gain, and the individual who has set up a community club because they want to share their passion with others,” he says. 

He gives his own example: an MMA gym in Al Quoz, where he met Cutts over 10 years ago. The gym wasn’t interested in making money off of belonging, and the friendships it fostered have lasted longer than the gym itself. He says that’s the real test before paying for anything: is it selling a real connection, or just selling access?

CONSISTENCY, NOT PERMANENCE

Similarly, businesses now help people build real relationships by bringing the same group together regularly, giving them time to share both good and difficult moments.

Faizal designs for exactly that. Guests from Paus’s Matcha Mornings book lunch together afterward. Shared Table guests swap numbers before dessert, and Padel Social regulars turn a standing coffee into a routine. 

“What we’re actually doing is guiding people back into the same room, deliberately, week after week, so those moments have room to repeat,” Faizal says. 

Faizal adds that the real competition was never other clubs. It’s about “products built to make leaving the house unnecessary”—food delivery, streaming, remote work, an industry engineered for frictionless solitude.

What these businesses are selling is the habit of showing up on purpose, week after week, despite reasons to stay home.

“You don’t need someone to stay forever,” Faizal says. “You need to know you’ll see them again on Thursday.”