This paper examines the essential skill components involved in interpersonal competence and the relationship between a deficit of such skills and loneliness. The various sections of the paper discuss the nature of loneliness, the nature of interpersonal competence, the causes of competence and incompetence, and the relationship between the development of competence and loneliness. The paper concludes that loneliness, when not situational in nature, is the result of impaired empathic and role-taking abilities and that this impairment usually originates in infancy when crucial attachment needs or role models are denied to the child, thus setting in motion a cycle of events and processes that causes a person to withdraw socially. The implications of this conceptualization for education and research are also discussed. (FL)