Where is Alice?

"Someone near you may be invisible. Have you looked?"

When Patrick Duriaux met Alice, his 84-year-old neighbour, in the stairwell of his apartment building, he had no idea that their brief conversation would change the direction of his life. Behind her warmth and dignity, he sensed something that millions of people experience but rarely admit: the quiet pain of feeling unseen, forgotten, or disconnected from the world around them.

In Where Is Alice?, Patrick combines Alice's story with personal reflections, international research, real-life encounters, and conversations with people across generations to explore the growing epidemic of loneliness.

Loneliness does not belong to one age group. It can affect the young person with thousands of online followers but no one they feel they can call. It can affect the busy professional surrounded by colleagues yet eating alone in another hotel restaurant. It can affect the caregiver who spends so much time looking after others that they slowly lose their own sense of connection. And it can affect older adults whose worlds have quietly grown smaller through retirement, bereavement, declining mobility, and family members moving away.

This is a book about what becomes possible when we begin to notice one another again. The book explores:

• why loneliness remains so difficult to admit
• how isolation affects the brain, body, and emotional well-being
• why younger and older generations experience loneliness differently
• how technology can connect us while also leaving us feeling more alone
• why companionship is different from caregiving
• how small moments of attention can restore dignity, purpose, and belonging

At its heart, Where Is Alice? is an invitation to become more human in a world that is increasingly efficient, digital, and disconnected. It reminds us that meaningful change does not always begin with a grand gesture. Sometimes it begins with a conversation, a shared meal, a walk, a cup of coffee, or simply asking someone how they are and staying long enough to hear the real answer.

What if the greatest crisis of our time is not simply loneliness, but the fact that so many people are suffering from it in silence?

About the Author
Patrick Duriaux is an international human resources and organizational development leader with more than twenty years of experience working across Europe and beyond. His work has focused on cross-generational leadership, knowledge transfer, executive coaching, and the human side of organizational life. He is also a certified Intelligent Leadership Master Coach and a certified Mental Health First Aider.

Patrick lives in Zurich, Switzerland, where he continues to lead a growing movement centred on human connection, dignity, and re-humanization. His work is inspired by a simple belief: no one should feel invisible, and everyone has something meaningful to give.

About ALTO.cool
ALTO.cool is an app designed to connect people across generations through simple, meaningful shared activities. Members can meet for coffee, conversation, walks, games, cultural outings, or other experiences based on shared interests and location. The platform is not built around one generation serving another. It creates a community in which people of every age can both offer and receive companionship.

ALTO.cool is the practical tool behind Patrick's larger BrightBond movement, which promotes a future in which connection is treated as a fundamental human need rather than a luxury. Patrick also hosts the BrightBond podcast, featuring conversations with guests of different ages, cultures, professions, and life experiences about loneliness, belonging, and what it means to reconnect in a divided world.

Learn more at www.alto.cool and follow @BrightBondOfficial.