It is actually nuts how much Grace is canonically liked and likeable in PHM. Obviously there's all the hints about how much the crew like him, but even outside of that, we can see that in his pre-project life, when he wasn't 'important,' people wanted him around! His fellow teachers were asking him to hang out, and he had more friends than just Marissa! Who, by the way, hung out with him every Thursday night (insane amount of consistency for adult friendship tbh) for YEARS. Don't even get me started on how Marissa met him because he was the roommate of a guy she BROKE UP WITH. Imagine staying friends with your college ex-boyfriend's roommate for almost two decades??? To the point that you tell him about a world-changing problem before it's even public, just because it's him.
And even with all of that, he sees himself as alone.
