The Loneliness in the Bitter Cold

In The Left Hand of Darkness, Genly often struggles with the cold more than anything else even more than his challenge of getting the Karhidish king to agree to join the Ekumen. While with the other prisoners, Genly was automatically suspected of not being able to withstand the cold like the typical Gethenian so everyone in the transport vehicle decided to let him be in the middle. This comforted Genly because while he was in fact the only one of his kind on this planet, this act of kindness from the Gethenians reminded him that he was not alone. To further explain this, let me put it this way. Often time one might find themselves in a situation where you are all alone and don't know anyone and then you have those group of friends who decide to meet you since you are all alone. Often time, the experience becomes better since you are no longer alone. It is the same thing with Genly. The cold is also a very strong reminder that he is alone because most people associate the cold with wanting to be with their loved ones and since Genly can't exactly be with his loved ones in the cold it makes him feel that much worse. Since Genly is from Earth, he sees the cold like the average human being but the people on Gethen always experience the cold so they are used to it and don't make the association of loneliness with the cold so the fact that they sheltered Genly from the cold must can indicate that Gethenians really aren't all that different from humans which must have really given comfort to Genly on this foreign and cold planet.