Before we go in circles, one definition of loneliness is the difference between the amount (and depth) of social connection desired and the amount obtained.
There are two variables, both adjustable. Loneliness is eliminated is when that delta is small or zero.
If you’re an introvert and don’t desire social connection and have none, you’re fine. But being in a situation that reminds you of your lack sometimes creates that desire, which creates that delta.
Likewise, if you’re an extrovert, you desire lots of social connection and when it falls below what you actually have you feel sad.
We can’t always control the amount of social connection we get due to circumstances, but we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by avoiding triggers that remind us.
> being in a situation that reminds you of your lack sometimes creates that desire, which creates that delta.
> we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by avoiding triggers that remind us.
This makes me think of Instagram/Snapchat and notably the stories feature. If you are having a fine time on your own at home on a Friday night and then open someone’s story that shows them with a few other people having fun, it can create a sense of missing out and trigger loneliness, when in fact, you weren’t feeling particularly lonely right before that event.
It begs the question, why are you on those sites if they make you feel that way? I've only ever been on FB for like 6 months a long time ago, and I noticed this immediately. I don't need to be bombarbed with the life highlights of hundreds of people at the same time. Even if you have a great life yourself, that will give you FOMO, jealousy, and similar feelings at some point. It's human nature. Let alone if you're going through a rough time.
I would add another big variable here: people who are lonely don't always recognize they want social connection, and it's because a lot of people don't have the capability to form healthy, fulfilling relationships with other humans and therefore don't have much (if any) past history of feeling fulfilled by social interaction. If they were to build this capability and experience fulfilling social interactions, they'd find themselves wanting more of it and therefore become less lonely.
>If they were to build this capability and experience fulfilling social interactions, they'd find themselves wanting more of it and therefore become less lonely.
According to the GP, by wanting more fulfilling social interactions they'll become more lonely, not less. Just because you want something doesn't mean you'll get it. If someone can only afford cheap junk food but that's all they know, the last thing you should do is show them gourmet food so they know what they're missing out on.
I can tell I’ve taken it too far when I catch myself talking someone’s ear off at a gathering. They didn’t sign up for this, and here I am drinking them in like I’ve dunked my head neck deep into a pool at an oasis. Guess I was thirsty after all.
At the same time if I am forced into a situation where I’m alone and without internet, I fare much better and for much longer than people think I will. Certainly multiples of how long they can manage.
At the end of the day I think we confuse coping with contentment. Some people can cope endlessly, that doesn’t mean they are happy about it.
This is spot on and I just made a comment to the same point.
It's maybe analogous to someone who has always been overweight and therefore don't perceive a problem with it because they don't have a reference point on how much better being in shape feels.
I think there's a difference between self-percieved "amount desired" and "amount REQUIRED for sanity."
Eg I have a few friends who left to their own devices would never make social plans and when I invite them to a BBQ they'll stand lamely to the side BUT at the end of the day they are much happier than if they sat home yet again. I am a mild case of this as well.
Just being around people could be the amount of social connection your friends desire.
I think the comment you replied to is correct. Personally speaking not all social interaction is a positive contributor to one's sanity. Having the same shallow conversations over and over with different individuals while observing people express their narcissistic traits covertly within or over a group can have a corrosive effect on my sanity.
A BBQ could be good but a bit intense for your friends hence their reaction. Maybe inviting them to a more intimate gathering e.g dinner with your own family or a couple of friends would allow them to engage more and allow them to have a deeper connection to others or yourself.
> ... I have a few friends who left to their own devices would never make social plans and when I invite them to a BBQ they'll stand lamely to the side ...
You've had conversations with them about this? They admit to being happier? Do they want to engage more ... so when their foot / leg injuries heal they'll be able to walk comfortably to where the conservations are happening?
"but we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by avoiding triggers that remind us"
That is true, but a sad conclusion. I don't believe, that there are many people who truly want to be alone all the time. Most just rather be alone, than with mean idiots, who will hurt them again.
But avoiding other people and situations to not be reminded how alone you are, will also never allow you to be in a position, where you can indeed open up and connect to the right people.
This is a really magical feeling. Being connected to people who you like, where you just feel welcome and don't have the feeling to be on your guard all the time. There is a reason many people are obsessed with party and drugs as this will get them this feeling temporarily. But I want that feeling everyday and without drugs. But the daily grind makes it an exception.
> This is a really magical feeling. Being connected to people who you like, where you just feel welcome and don't have the feeling to be on your guard all the time.
This. Maybe a bit weird but often for me these connections has been with total strangers while traveling when I was younger. Sometimes it would be with another tourist and sometimes with a local. It's surprising how deep it can get quickly.
I think this is why I love the movie "Lost in Translation", I think it perfectly captures this emotion. But I think if you haven't had that kind of experience with strangers the movie is probably lost on you.
> If you’re an introvert and don’t desire social connection and have none, you’re fine
I'd just point out being an introvert does not mean you don't desire or dont have social interaction, just that it can be tiring instead of energizing. You could still very much crave social interaction as an introvert.
> If you’re an introvert and don’t desire social connection and have none, you’re fine.
As a blanket statement, this may not be valid, as there could be 'feedback loops':
> Buecker and her colleagues found that lonely people tended to be more introverted and neurotic and somewhat less agreeable and conscientious than less lonely people on average.
>> ... one definition of loneliness is the difference between the amount (and depth) of social connection desired and the amount obtained.
> Only on HN do I expect a formalization of loneliness. I'm not complaining.
I'm inclined to see this as a model, not a definition nor formalization. For me, the definition would be rooted in a subjective experience and would also include considerable formalization.
I don't do this lightly, but I think ChatGPT 4.0's comparison is quite lucid: "... formalization is more about defining and structuring the components or rules of a system or concept, while a model is about representing that system or concept in a simpler or more understandable way."
I enjoy this kind of pedantry. I don't see you complaining. :)
Interesting, I've always thought of myself as an introvert because I like being in social settings but am reserved on interactions. With this definition I'm possibly an extrovert.
the commonest distinction i've seen is that introverts get drained by being with people, and recharge by being alone, whereas extroverts get energised by being with people. it's distinct from whether you enjoy social interaction, some introverts like socialising but can only do so much of it before they need to go off and be by themselves.
lately ive actually been wondering if im more extroverted then I realized, but just have social anxiety that leads to me being quiet and reserved. I mean were posting on forums, i threw a party this weekend. lol
So much discussion of loneliness on this forum makes me think y'all are in the wrong country. Feeling lonely? Come to the Philippines! Sunnier, family-oriented, cheaper, everyone wants to have a relationship with foreigners (both men and women), waterfalls, sandbars, diving, cheap food and housing, and recently 200 Mbps internet. Been married to a Filipina for 14 years. So far so good. I came here from Silicon valley as a digital nomad and still here as a father and a husband. (Been back and forth though over the years.) Being a programmer and an introvert with a family of 3 children, creates the opposite problem of having too much social interaction and not enough alone time. Recently I've been able to negotiate more alone time with my children as my youngest is 8 years old, and they have lots of cousins to okay with. Overall, I think humans need to be with each other. Living in our little boxes by ourselves staring at screens is not natural.
I'm curious what you find exploitative about that?
When I visited a south east asian country I was very surprised by the wealth disparity. However, I'm not seeing the connection between spending money as an expat with a significantly higher income compared to the rest of the country and exploitation. If anything it could be argued that you are injecting more cash into the economy from outside.
The Harvard Study, which has been following individuals for their entire lives for decades, and has even started following some of their descendants, has found that connections are strongly correlated with happiness, health, and general life satisfaction:
> What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.
Something I noticed at my current workplace (20 employees, 80% women and mostly between 20-30 yrs old) is that all the girls constantly take breaks or walks together to just to be with each other and get things off their chests. They frequently give each other hugs at random times during the day. New employees arrive and they immediately fall in to the fold. One arrived from abroad and after a few weeks said "you guys (she meant gals) are my new family here"
Meanwhile there's us 3 developer dudes who all get along fine but our relationship goes about as far as "all good?", "yep you?". And then of course talking about IT geek stuff. Kind of general problem with men I think. Very difficult to open up to other men.
I honestly don't think it's as big a problem as you would expect. Guys aren't quite so built to be huggy friendly and we tend to be more defined by real working relationships.
Or maybe it's just a me thing.
Like, at work for me I would be most rewarded by other people who are engaged in that common work cause and interact within that context. Not with stories about family life or opening up about whatever.
Hanging out with friends is kind of pointless without a common cause. To do play some game or sport or actually do something that's worth doing and is fairly collaborative.
To me a friend is like "hey I'm building a fence, wanna help?". And the ability to be building a fence yourself and asking the same. Or whatever project you can imagine.
The "you good" shit is mostly a consequence of lacking that sort of common cause, at least in my experience.
Or just watching other people do stuff is good too. "Hold my beer" silly stuff that you can watch and joke and one up each other about.
But if someone started that family huggy stuff (barring needing help or talking about their problems) I'd be distancing myself from that hard. In my experience those people are out to get you, smile on a snake.
About five years ago I got to know a new woman colleague. (I’m a man.) Very soon it felt like she was confiding in me. No one just confides in me like that, so I thougt we were developing a friendship -- I would never think to do something like that to anyone that I didn't trust. It felt great that someone would go out of their way to seek my Platonic companionship.
But I eventually realized that I was just the most convenient guy/person (most of her immediate coworkers were men) for her to complain about work while stuck at work. We never did anyhing together otside of work contexts.
I find it weird that other men don't do that. I try to be good friends with men and women I feel I can trust, and we do often talk about personal stuff to let out steam, take breaks for talking, go for walks once in a while, etc.
Just yesterday at work I stayed until 9pm because a friend was waiting on some CI shit, I stayed to do today's work in advance. We were close before but we talked about a lot of personal stuff to each other, it's nice advancing the friendship to new levels.
But I also talk deep stuff with my male friends. It's not really with everyone but there's plenty of people who are ok with that.
The one thing I miss from when I was a smoker was the easy, no-expectation, daily excuse to hang out with other dudes at the office. I quit smoking 10 years ago but I still have strong relationships with some of my smoking coworkers from back then, but I haven't developed any work friends at all since then. I find that the main component in building relationships is just how much relaxed time you spend together.
> And then of course talking about IT geek stuff. Kind of general problem with men I think. Very difficult to open up to other men.
I think men generally are about doing things together as opposed to 'just' being together. "Talking" isn't really counted as an activity for men, but is for women.
Get a bunch of guys together for paintball, or hunting, or sports, and relationships will form.
I'm not sure that's a problem, so much as it's gender observations. I've seen the same things. There's a meeting I go to, where it can be various blends of men and women. All the people are close and comfortable with each other, but if it happens to be only men, there's silence. If it's a mix, particularly if certain women are present, there's this animated chatter that's easy to join in on.
I know for me the heart of what I am isn't about 'opening up', it's about things like that IT geek stuff (but translated into what I do).
It feels like an emotional Dunbar number: I do best when there's just a couple people with whom I keep track of how they're doing in a personal way, and it matters a great deal but I won't feel at all the same way about twenty people at once. It seems like women are more likely to keep track of how large numbers of people are doing, in a social way, which won't always mean trying to HELP people: they can get caught up in drama when there's conflict among the people, and it takes on great importance.
I'll have a much smaller number of people like that, and will bind more loosely to them, and I think it's the same mechanism but it just doesn't scale the way it does with women. I don't see it as a problem, more as an observation.
Men (generally speaking) want to fit into the social dynamic of their tribe. If you started to slowly open up and talk about more vulnerable topics it's very likely they would follow suit. I've seen it many times, almost always where I was the one that started it. I was once a super 'introverted dev' but really I was just not well socialized and unwilling and unable to express my emotions with confidence and clarity. Once I started to feel my feelings (I started with a feelings journal where I'd write down any emotions I felt that day) then I could start to describe them appropriately for the setting. Opening up to a trusted member of whatever tribe you are in (work, friends, hobby club) at the appropriate pace inspires a great deal of trust. If you talk about how you feel openly (and again, appropriately to where the group is) they come to trust that you will say how you feel when you feel it and that inspires trust and security, which makes you a very valuable member of that tribe.
> The simple but surprising answer is: relationships.
The trick to understand all of this is to realize that humans are a tribal species. I don't mean in the in-group versus out-group stuff (though that is also a big piece of the human behavioral puzzle). What I mean is that for all of our most recent evolutionary history, our survival did not depend on our individual performance as much as it did the performance of our tribe.
A solitary Homo sapiens on the savannah is as dead and useless as a worker bee without a hive. Our entire cognitive and emotional systems have evolved to understand that deep truth. To be abandoned by the tribe is an existential threat, and to be accepted and valued by the tribe is winning.
Once you realize that, so much of human behavior makes more sense.
I think it really says something about modern American culture that we find the answer "surprising". For almost all of the history of Western civilization, it was so obvious that it didn't even need questioning. We're like fish flopping around on land who are finally realizing what water is.
Could it be that in the surveys which measure happiness , more social people are more likely to say they're happy? Because they talk to their peers about their lives and are more likely to present more presentable aspects of their lives.
With people with less social contact, maybe they don't reorganize their memories with respect to social visibility and just by intensity or time spent in that experience.
There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of life are satisfied.
>With people with less social contact, maybe they don't reorganize their memories with respect to social visibility and just by intensity or time spent in that experience.
That wouldn't correlate with smaller lifespan and worse health outcomes for people with less social contact pretty consistently observed (filtered for objections like "they have less social contact because they are sick, not the other way around").
>There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of life are satisfied.
In other studies, above a certain level like starvation and homelessness, "basic necessities" are not even the biggest factor in happiness. Meaning, social circle, and status are.
> There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of life are satisfied.
This is not true at all, in my opinion.
I used to believe everyone has approximately the same life satisfaction after their needs are met. I've always been quite happy, but I became much, much happier after I moved across the country and made really close friends with whom I spend a lot of time. Meanwhile, my old roommate still spends 8-5 in the office and then comes home and plays League of Legends. There is no way our life satisfaction is the same. Don't get me wrong, I was pretty happy going into the office and seeing my friends for an hour or two each day. But now that I have a life with much more time spent with deep friendships, I see that life satisfaction is not zero sum. You can be a certain amount of happy. And you can be even happier than that at no cost.
I was a part of a study with San Diego state which followed my through my life until I told them to stop...
The study was to see how different people from differing socio-economic backgrounds turned out as they got older...
When I was about ~16/17 I told them to kick rocks.
They used to show up every year and interview me for an hour about how my life was progressing...
I lived on a famous hippy commune in Lafayette California until I was 4 years old... My mom knew Jim Jones (of the koolaid fame) and a bunch of other famous people from San Francisco in the 1970s...
Later, I found an article in Playboy Magazine (yes, no funny joke there) which was taken with the founder of the commune, Vik Baranco (I dont know how to spell his name) where he recvealed that the commune was being followed by the CIA...
I think the study from UCSD was a CIA front as I spoke with other kids from the commune and the weird shit that happened to them....
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EDIT: my mom was doing acid with the grateful dead, fleetwod mac, and a bunch of other people... who probably dont want to be named...
anyway - the 1970s and 1980s were briliant for computers.... BECAUSE OF ACID...
Look at Cisco, they developed the core of BGP while on acid in a hot-tub in Sunnyvale...
I happened to live in that area of Lafayette when I was a kid, in the late 70s - early 80s. From over the hill from my house, we could see all these purple buildings. I'm pretty sure that's the commune you're describing.
As kids we didn't really know what was going on over there, but we knew it was something a bit...unusual.
Interesting. The Jonestown "doctor" who devised the Flavor Aid solution was in my dad's social circle at the University of Houston in the late 60s. UCSD is my alma mater (different school from San Diego State fwiw).
The weird stuff was definitely the CIA, and not say, I dunno... the questionable life choices of someone who hung out with Jim Jones and hippy commune cult leaders.
This trivializes the process of developing relationships, and the mechanisms by which relationships promote well-being. In turn:
1) You must consider the dynamics of rejection. People may recognize and seek relationships, but find themselves unable to build them. However much you might want to have a relationship with someone, they have to reciprocate. And if there's something "wrong" with you, you're going to find that a lot of people will not want your company. Additionally, thanks to network effects, one person taking this stance can close a large swath of relationships that might otherwise come into being; being on the bad side of someone who is popular or well-connected can quickly turn you into a pariah.
2) Relationships don't just magically make you happier or healthier; they provide access to goods and services that fulfill needs, because affinity prompts people either to provide them directly or to direct you to places where you can get them. Not every relationship is equal, either, but having more of them means a greater chance of having some that cancel out or improve upon deleterious relationships or the lack of a relationships. Some relationships take more out of you than they give.
I committed heavily to open source development as I wanted my relationship with SOCIETY to be a certain way, and I've found it has this effect for me.
Discovering that the 'reach' of my work has extended farther than I expected… for instance, someone who's asked for particular code turns out to be in a homeless shelter as I once was, many years ago, and their connection is giving them hope for their future, or for another instance, someone's shouting me and my work out by name in a BBC radio interview and seems to get what I'm trying to accomplish… these things hugely add to my identification of my life as fulfilling and meaningful.
The one is very personal, and the other is easily understood as celebrity and promotion, but they're the same. If the purpose to life is making connections, a large circle of social friends (or a siamese-twin relationship with a romantic partner) isn't the ONLY option. There's all sorts of ways to connect, and finding meaningful work will almost certainly mean functional or even parasocial connections with lots of people.
And parasocial relationships are still relationships in this sense: they're one-to-many, in which you can't give what's normally understood to be friendship on the one-on-one level, but it doesn't work if you haven't got love for the collective entity of your fandom. I think parasocial relationships become more intense when the celebrity center of the relationship is really hungry for it. Modern examples aren't the only examples I can give: consider Johnny Carson, king of the parasocial relationship :)
Without reading the study I assume this conclusions is from averaging out the experiences of a bunch of people. The problem with group averages is that they are just that. They apply more, or less, or not at all, to particular individuals within the analysis.
Yeah, people feel less lonely when they’re around people who they like and who like them. “People feel more lonely when they’re around other people” is the type of stuff you could only find on the internet or in academia, you can logic yourself into it but it’s so far beyond common sense it’s insane
Anecdotally, I disagree. I definitely feel more lonely when I’m in large groups and feel disconnected. If I’m alone, I’m not lonely unless I’m thinking about those large groups and my absence of connection - and I can even feel lonely if my connections just aren’t available at a given moment.
I'd say it's not "people who are often around other people are lonelier than people who are not", but rather "people who are lonely, feel lonelier when they're around other people."
I definitely relate to the latter. I can go for a long bike ride by myself and feel blissfully content, but standing in the corner at a social event where everyone else is having a good time is intensely lonely and isolating.
> “People feel more lonely when they’re around other people”
Oh it’s entirely easy to be super lonely when surrounded by other people. The easiest way to achieve this that I’ve found is being a +1 at a wedding. You’re surrounded with people you’ve never met who all know each other pretty well and have tight bonds. Makes you feel super isolated and alone in a way that just isn’t noticeable in an empty room.
> Yeah, people feel less lonely when they’re around people who they like and who like them.
People who they like and who like them. And you don’t think that that is a massive caveat? The original claim was just “people”, not “fantastic and awesome people”.
> “People feel more lonely when they’re around other people” is the type of stuff you could only find on the internet or in academia, you can logic yourself into it but it’s so far beyond common sense it’s insane
And who are you to make this statement? Only on the Internet and in academia? I don’t know what “only on the Internet” is supposed to mean. That everyone lies on the Internet or that none of them (us) are real people? I’ve seen people who have made this claim. On the Internet at least. (How candid are random people about this “in real life”?) They seemed sincere enough about it.
I don’t even know what the hell you are getting at with “logic yourself into”, as if how people feel is just a philosophical-analytical experiment gone wrong. Get a grip.
> Yeah, people feel less lonely when they’re around people who they like and who like them.
Not necessarily. I often visit my mum and her partner. I love them both and they love me. Yet, I feel more lonely when I live with them than when I live alone. I can even see it in the intensity of my online chatting and dating app use. Presence of nice people just makes me more hungry for connection.
I believe "Loneliness" is a misnomer. The misery people feel when they are "alone" is not the lack of other people but the lack of connection. More precisely the disconnect with nature, oneself and to a lesser extend the community. A psychologist who studied loneliness said that the best remedy is time spend in the forest. If lonely people go and force themself to get around other people, they usually drag everybody down.
I spent a year in more isolated parts of a war zone. I almost never felt "alone" because of the bonds I had with people while living life out there and daily tasks I needed to accomplish. I filled a lot of my time fixing stuff that had been ignored due to a lack of expertise and bureaucracy, which gave me a sense of purpose. I'd done harsh activities like burn duty, long watches, long patrols/convoys/missions and never felt they were a burden.
Just before I left I returned to a larger base with many more people and I felt the loneliness wash over me like an ocean current. The day I was assigned to burn duty, which I'd done before as a community responsibility, because I was late to something put me in tears, mainly because I realized the people I worked with at a larger base were not actually my friends and we did not share a bond. I had left those people behind.
My theory is that the forest requires you to do certain things every day so that you survive, which was one component of my avoided loneliness. If you do just this for a long time I'd suspect loneliness will still set in. You need people and, probably, a variety of them.
Would be interesting to see this study. I personally feel more lonely in nature, especially in forests. I need the energy of big cities to feel a warm glow. I suspect I’m not the only one and there’s a large percentage of the population who are similar to me.
When I used to live in small towns, I would have a strong need to periodically visit a big city to restore my emotions. I love the feeling of being in a crowd even if I never talk to anyone. I love the bustle and noise and potential for new encounters.
Nature feels isolating to me. I wonder if I’m wired this way because I grew up in a big city. We’re wired to look for places where we can feel we’re “at home”, and that’s usually a function of childhood experiences.
I agree that it might be due to where we grow up ... I grew up in a forest on an island with few people living within walking distance. But I've been living in a small city for about 14 years, and more and more I long to go back to living somewhere were there aren't all these people around. Or more importantly, to somewhere so much more _quiet_.
I think I am same as you.
I recently noticed that listening to birds singing make me feel incredibly melancholic. I was very lonely for a few years. I was listening to the singing a lot when I was at my place, and now I have associated birds singing and loneliness. It is unfortunate that something so calming and beautiful now makes me feel sad. It has become the sound of loneliness to me.
Being alone in the city, "alone in the crowd", feels just as lonely if not more so for me than walking alone in the forest. The latter I expect to be alone, but in the former, I'm surrounded by people but with no connection. It's a strange feeling.
I grew up in a small rural area and experience this in the opposite direction. Sometimes I just need to get away from people, there's too many of them and crowds can be nerve wracking, not to mention noisy.
There is nowhere on earth I am happier than at a family member's camp, deep in the woods away from everyone all by myself. Ultimately I think your last point is absolutely correct. I doubt I'd feel this way if this wasn't a lived experience while growing up.
Disagree, I enjoy hanging out in nature, and when it’s not possible I usually look at images on nature subreddits like r/earthporn. Always manages to calm me.
Forest, ocean, desert wandering, anything that will take you out of your norm and reconnect with nature (and oneself) will help. I went through loss and found myself pretty lonely and disconnected. I went sailing, against the better judgement of my wallet, to reconnect and prove (again) to myself that I’m amazing. I have strong will though so YMMV. Tell me I can’t do something and I will make it my mission to do it.
If you are struggling with connection, stop thinking. Really. Stop thinking about whatever is going on with you and start listening. Talk with people and get to know them. Use that to determine if you would like to keep that person in your life or not. Connections are easy to make when you aren’t trying to force it. Just let that guard down, realize we all have a story, and ask folks who they are and they will gladly tell you. If you struggle with making conversation then I suggest you start there. Say Hi to anyone within 20 feet of you today. If they are there longer than 5 minutes, strike up a conversation. Make a joke. Commend them on their clothes or shoes or something visible. Show some empathy for what they are going through at the moment and you’ll be making friends in no time.
I think this is good advice, but I'm often surprised that the advice isn't more formulaic.
Like, "5 questions to ask someone you've just met." It might not be the best approach but I'm sure it's better than standing around. Some examples that spring to mind. "What brought your here to day?", "what's the best way to remember your name?", "where was the last place you went on holiday?". Etc.
I suspect that for people who are "bad" at connection any practice is good. I like to keep a pack of cards in my pocket for a couple magic tricks, as I can always then ask "would you like to see a trick?" Very rarely is the answer no.
But then could I honestly say any of this moves the dial drastically? Probably not, but I do meet more interesting people than I think I would otherwise.
I used to go hiking alone often, but after some wildlife encounters and near-misses with injury I decided I’d rather be with a group. At campsites I tend to be too alert to fall asleep, but the sounds of other campers nearby give me enough comfort to relax. Natural environments reinforce, not lessen, how we need each other.
I have to laugh, because I literally just got back from a week in the forest. I have a spot I escape to that I charge my laptop every night and then in the mornings I can drive up and work from my laptop overlooking an old growth forest in bc. And I get more work done, feel the best about myself, and just overall feel the modern society stress way less.
It’s funny because I found myself feeling very isolated and lonely the last few few weeks and without even thinking my body just packed a bag and drove out to this spot. And I have to say, I feel a million times better if anyone out there is craving the same thing.
This is weirdly concerned with other people in the context of mental health advice for someone. "You're a bummer, go hide in a forest so we don't have to see you."
Another distinction that will be helpful is between loneliness and solitude. Spending time with yourself in the forest, reflecting or enjoying your company would be the latter for me.
I believe so. I was the loneliest after I got married when my now "ex" was really demanding and paranoid. People are most lonely when get excluded from their peers from school or work or social any groups. Old people are lonely because their friends and families are keep dying off or unable to social any longer. That's the reason I recommend joining some good social or religious organizations and make friends across all walks of life and ages, keep an open mind and enjoy life. Do not engage with toxic people, only keep good companies. Don't engage with people who don't want to engage, or thinking you can help them. People need to walk out of their own rut to be truly happy.
Amen. An addendum, if I may: when considering "toxic" please be wary of all-or-nothing cognitive fallacies. People who have one trait or belief or habit that you disagree with (even if strongly) do not necessarily come saddled with other things you might presume (ie just because they're catholic doesn't mean they're a pedo, just because they have tattoos doesn't mean they're a criminal, just because they have guns doesn't make them a white supremacist, etc.). People are complex, and you might be missing your best friend for life if you are prejudicial.
I think this cognitive fallacy is actually called "labeling". Instead of labeling yourself: "I'm dumb", think "It was dumb when I forgot to turn off my car lights and the battery died".
You are not dumb, lazy, toxic, etc, but occasionally you do or say dumb, lazy, toxic things
I think there are some things that are a bright red line though. I don't think it's prejudicial a black person to avoid people who have a "habit" of going to KKK rallies. Or an immigrant to avoid people who have "one belief" that we should forcibly deport immigrants.
I think for certain habits, beliefs, etc. people who avoid you aren't simply "unwilling to overlook this one bad thing". Maybe that one bad thing is actually just bad enough to poison you the person. [hypothetical you]
I totally agree for the other, more general case though. Not all catholics are pedos and I know plenty of catholics super frustrated with their leadership, excellent and loving people catholicism included.
I'm no longer religious, but in the past considered joining a church just because it was absolutely the easiest way to make friends in a new area. Decided not to because it felt pretty unethical but I'm positive that is in large part why a lot of people go to church. It's a social event.
Ha, my church was anything but diverse. We all had the same ethnic background, same socioeconomic status, same religion (natch). We all ate the same food, celebrated the same holidays, and most of us went on to/came from the same handful of high schools and colleges. OK, you have me on ages, though.
I don't necessarily believe in anything, but being there and doing certain activities like prayers, rites, etc. actually kind of touch me in some level it's hard to explain. It makes me appreciate nature while hiking. It certainly wasn't the same when I was younger and more ambitious. I would not have believed I'd go out my way to memorize prayers, poems, rites willingly. The opportunity to make friends with older folks, mentor younger people, and see other "normalcies" expand my perspective on life and happier as a result. Overall, healthy communities help a lot in terms of dealing with loneliness, you feel a sense of belonging rather than just wandering without purpose or just focusing on unhealthy obsession stuff.
The worst feeling in the world is being a bit lonely, and then being by yourself in a place where you are surrounded by groups of people. I got more depressed more often trying to go do social things in uni than I ever did physically being separated from others and actually by myself.
It was this type of setting that showed me the huge difference between being lonely and being alone. I'm rarely lonely when I'm alone. Thankfully I have long since engaged in social activities and have a great social life now, but even still that feeling is just below the surface. I went to the club with two girls the other night and when they both went to the bathroom together I was by myself in a club and even though I knew it was just for a few moments that old feeling was right there again. We are indeed social creatures.
Yeah, I’ve noticed this recently. As I spend more time with my current friend group in the new city I live in, the worse I feel because it seems like we’re just surface level friends, whereas when I spend time with my friends back home it greatly lifts my spirits because it’s a genuine connection.
It’s a an extremely odd feeling because from the outside I’m sure it looks like I have a great social life and good friends, but I’ve never felt more alone in my life. And I’m not sure how to address this conundrum, on one hand I want a stronger friendship with this new group of friends and don’t want to be alone, but at the same time it seems as if I would be happier if I disconnected myself from the group and was actually alone.
At college there was program where student volunteers would hang around high traffic areas and "cheer people up" by shouting at passersby to tell them they're loved or whatever. Obviously, this only makes actually depressed and lonely students feel worse. It's exactly the kind of thing that someone who'd never felt depressed in their life would come up with, and when I mentioned this to some of the people involved in the program they were absolutely flabbergasted.
For those volunteers, that is a great example of doing something to make yourself feel better at the expense of the others you're claiming to help.
It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but that is not the experience for everyone.
That's a really cynical villainization of good faith effort. as the OP said, they didn't know better. Once they knew, did they keep going?
In the end, I'd rather people try than not. Because I am observing that the more common trend is to not bother, because you're not going to get it right anyway.
> doing something to make yourself feel better at the expense of the others you're claiming to help
There has to be some name for this phenomenon in psychology.
> It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but that is not the experience for everyone.
Maybe there is a cycle with families similar to the idea that good times create weak people which create hard times which create strong people who create good times.
A loving family creates people who only know love and don't understand disfunction of a family, who then create disfunctional families by not knowing how to avoid the pitfalls, which then creates people who have to struggle out of disfunction who then know how to create a loving family by avoiding the pitfalls of disfunction.
People who want to make good faith efforts are a valuable thing. They are willing to do the work and, typically, they genuinely care.
Not everything they do will be useful. Sometimes they don’t know what to do or are directed by others. When things don’t work well, those folks should be redirected to more useful things and not chastised (which can kill motivation).
I wouldn't necessarily consider 'always loved' a precondition to health. In some psychological literature, a necessary requirement to raise a mentally healthy adult is having a 'frustrating' mother who forces her child to separate and establish boundaries - and of course still have unconditional but boundaried love.
Having an overly-loving, overprotective mother does not allow the child to establish boundaries in the same way as an emotionally abusive mother. Perhaps these children would become codependents or have fake, overdone empathy.
There are two sides to the trauma coin! And with just two comments into the post, perhaps we've already seen both?
Consider if out of N they saw and attempted to speak with, a single person had "a switch flip" in their head to give the conversation a chance and they ended up forming a deep connection and lifelong friendship, perhaps going on to turn their life around completely.
Would the "Ew. they don't actually care, i'm going to ignore them, feel bad about it, and complain to their bosses" of the %Depressed*(N-1) others outweigh that?
In other words, what's P & Q here:
for personThoughtVec of peoplesThoughtVecs:
impact += P * dot(personThoughtVec, thought2vec("switch flip..."))
- Q * dot(personThoughtVec, thought2vec("Ew..."))
Personally, I'd put them orders of magnitude apart.
I always felt hungry all the time, it wasn't till i started taking Semaglutide that hunger totally go away. When that did the thing I found was an understanding of people who don't have as much hunger as I used to, all saying things like "just eat less".
For those people who say Just eat less, they don't understand that for those who have a hunger issue.. that it's not making them feel any better.
Same with people who feel lonely or depressed... "Just smile or something"... That does the opposite of what you want it to do.
Yeah, I often think that "just" is code for "I assume everybody else's experience is exactly like mine". I had a period of significant back problems and I can't count the number of people who said, "Why don't you just..." and then pop off with something painfully obvious. I never actually shouted, "Oh, having just arrived on the turnip truck, I was unaware of stretching. Thanks so much!" But damn, I sure did consider it.
I think those people saying "just eat less" aren't implying that you won't feel hungry, but are instead thinking "you're killing yourself by being obese, better to suffer and feel somewhat hungry all the time than to die 10-15 years earlier".
A bit of a tangent, but the fact that some people just never feel full is so strange to me. My feeling of fullness feels like being literally full; like my stomach would distend uncomfortably if I ate more. How can one not have this sensation? The stomach can only fit so much food. Would physically expanding my stomach cause me to have to eat more to feel full, or is what I feel just an "illusion?"
Drugs such as Semaglutide conclusively demonstrate that it's possible for some individuals to eat less without experiencing hunger.
Moreover, I find the word "just" to be problematic. It often acts as a command to disregard all other possibilities, indicating a lack of interest in delving deeper. Perhaps this perception is influenced by my experience as a non-native speaker. In my previous meetings with numerous venture capitalists and “advisors”, some would evaluate my project and suggest that I "just" fix xyz. Is it really that straightforward? Have they considered other factors like abc?
Do you want to learn more?
I obviously can't relate entirely, but I have bulked up to 220 for weight lifting and subsequently cut down to 165 for rock climbing and my stomachs capacity would swing wildly based on input. Think 8 hot dogs and buns easily at 220 to now where I get uncomfortable after half a burrito.
I also think going from an in shape 220->165 was way harder than going from obese->healthy. It involved cannibalizing tons of muscle instead of fat, and your body will fight to preserve muscle.
It wasn't no ice cream and soda, it was only having one plain hard boiled egg instead of two, pounding celery and sparkling water to fend off nighttime hunger, freaking out because I only poop once a week, having no energy or motivation and squashing philosophical doubts about the meaning of life.
If I can do it just to climb rocks easier it feels realistic for obese people to do it to improve their health.
I don't like to use the word just often but when I say this in relation to eating, it's as a response to the ridiculous diets and other restrictions people force on themselves to lose weight.
And an even more difficult time accepting that people will hate them for it regardless of their intentions. After all it's all to easy to lie about having good intentions, even to yourself.
We're evolutionarily hard wired to do what's best for ourselves, which often includes being altruistic to gain more social acceptance. That's why being "lonely" is a problem at all, we feel emotional pain to get us to work with the group, since that's what's always meant longer survival.
I think almost everyone understands that good intentions can lead to bad outcomes. But, also, everyone understands that good intentions can lead to good outcomes.
Determining which is which is a very hard problem. One strategy might be, "Don't do anything unless I'm absolutely certain it will lead to a good outcome." If you do that, you'll miss out on many opportunities that would have good outcomes but who's certainty isn't up to your standards.
So while the intention behind pointing out that good intentions can have bad outcomes is good, the outcome is bad.
My children's elementary school has a nicely painted chair in the school yard, I think they call it Friends Chair or something. If a kid has no friends or no one to play with, they are supposed to go and sit on that chair and someone will come and play with them.
I don't think people who came up with this idea understood how it works.
Thanks to the good graces of the internet I can speak candidly about this.
When I was young it was drilled into me about making sure everyone is accepted and has friends, all that. So I would be the kid who would go make friends with the lonely kid.
But then I would learn why they don't have friends, and I wouldn't want to be their friend either. Which makes the whole thing even worse, because now you came to them and then left them. So I kind of gave up on it.
It's a fairly common thing aimed at younger kids (kindergarten, grade 1). Usually the idea is that there are fifth and sixth graders who volunteer as playground helpers and who draw the younger kids to play with them if they're alone. Then a few of the younger kids get jealous this kid gets to play with the older kids and join in too, and it mostly works.
I think the frequent advice to lonely people to "go talk to a professional (therapist etc)" has the same kind of effect in such cases. A sense that they can't even have people for support as friends etc, and they need to pay someone to do it or at least have someone do it only as their job description.
I never thought that. I knew seeking professional help was about trying to fix the underlying problem through therapy, not about paying for friendship. I'm in the process of doing this for the first time myself. I'm having a first consultation today and the irony is that talking to anyone, even a therapist, has increased my anxiety in the short term. But I believe it's necessary and I will get through it because I can't live this way anymore. There must be a better way to live.
The reason I haven't done it earlier is because back in those days I had no health insurance and I knew it would be cost-prohibitive for me.
Pretty much all psychological advice given by people is at best useless and often very harmful. I used to have serious bouts of depression and social anxiety. All the well intended advice like “just go out there” “cheer up, it’s not too bad” usually just made me hide even more.
Looking for professional help can be even more depressing. Besides the money issue it’s very hard to find a therapist you click with. I went to quite a few therapists. Some felt almost hostile or dismissive towards me and others just useless.
I disagree, most people have no idea how to deal with a depressed person and the need for a therapist does not necessarily mean a lack of friends. I go to the dentist to fix my teeth and that doesn't mean my friends aren't supportive.
I'd say "go talk to a professional" is more or less the only useful advice one can give there.
Perhaps, but it’s also often the best way forward if one can afford it (affordability is another rabbit hole entirely). The right therapist can make an incredible difference in quality of life and, for some, can be the only way of digging oneself out of the rut that they’re in.
Having someone with an objective position who can help you see things differently is extremely powerful.
they need to pay someone to do it or at least have someone do it only as their job description.
Ignoring who is giving this advice and the actual state of the person being given the advice, this is more of a side effect of the poor (for patients) health care system in the US and negative perception of mental issues compared to physical issues.
Untrained people can give bad support, especially to someone who is clinically lonely or depressed.
If you are really lonely for a long time, you can very easily loose social skills. Effectively you become simultaneously lonely, simultaneously avoidance of people and simultaneously sabotaging potential relationships.
The professional can actually help in a way that random people can't.
As a counterpoint I am clinically depressed, attempted suicide when I was in HS, and am generally a sad bop taken human form. At the time I still hadn't figured out the whole socializing thing and was lonely AF going off to college with no friends no support network. I joined one of those groups after running into them a bunch. While I was a member (and eventually officer) we were voted "best student org" so somebody clearly liked us.
The majority of our group was definitely in the camp of "I want to give to other people the help I needed." We ran a stupid amount of events -- everything form mental health counseling with the campus counseling services people, collabs with a queer healthcare providers, open dinners with free catered food, cooking classes, open parties on weekends which alternated between dry/not-dry, sponsored (like one of their friends would contact us) dorm cleaning/decorating to deal with depression tornadoes, open study sessions during exam season, we had "rent-a-spotter" (obviously actually free) in the gym for people who didn't anyone to go with, a few of the guys were in the campus runners club so they did open morning jogs, holiday parties for people who couldn't or ya know couldn't go home, and yes standing in the quad with signs giving out high fives and hugs.
That sounds like an awesome group and I wish that was what was happening at my college. If for no reason than to get a spotter for the weird times I worked out at hahaha. I'm curious how the high fives and hugs thing worked, because it sounds more uhh, consensual?
Those are the same people who go on to work in HR and come up with ideas like having all the minimum wage workers chip in $50 for the CEO's birthday gift.
Is the anecdote you mentioned an actual incident that happened? I found [1] but it’s unverified, and it’s hard to believe it could occur because most places ban this kind of behavior due to the power dynamic between the employee and their manager.
I experienced something very similar. I was very lonely and very depressed at one point in high school and while sadly walking home one evening, a group of 5 or 6 high school girls enthusiastically approached me at a nearby shopping area and asked if I was ok. They asked who I was friends with and told them no one, really. Which was true and not just me being dramatic. They all cheerily told me they’d be my friends. Even though I mostly knew it was just lip service at the time, it still hurt to hear it and have it be dangled in front of me like that. Obviously I never heard or saw them ever again. This was right before cell phones were popular with kids so it wasn’t natural to ask for numbers bc most of us didn’t have one.
As an uplifting note, I’m happy and much less lonely 20+ years later :)
Is it obvious? Was it measured? I don't think being shouted towards counts as "being in other people's company" for the purposes of this article.
I know I've felt depressed in my life. I can tell you, during those times, I almost certainty wouldn't have even noticed people shouting at me. At worst, it would have been a neutral effect, if it registered at all.
I don't know if I'm depressed given I've never been a psychological assessment. But if I were down the road minding my own business and someone shouted this at me, my first thought would be "by who?". So this would be an immediate reminder of solitude.
Well... while this clearly didnt work on you... It may have for others. I can easily imagine someone who is on their own for the first time suddenly realizing they don't really know how to make new friends or talk to people. Someone shouts something positive at them, they respond and start a conversation, and from there a friendship might start.
Is it going to happen every time? Nope. But lots of people are not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does, though, they will engage.
I'm saying this as someone who has pretty bad social anxiety, doesnt really like talking to strangers, and someone who has pretty bad depression.
>Someone shouts something positive at them, they respond and start a conversation, and from there a friendship might start.
The trouble is that this very much isn't what was happening. There was no room to respond, and in general I they think they weren't even yelling at any particular person. You certainly could stop and talk to them, but anyone willing to do that wouldn't be the kind of person who didn't know how to start a friendly interaction.
> I can easily imagine someone who is on their own for the first time suddenly realizing they don't really know how to make new friends or talk to people
I can't. If you have trouble making friends that's obvious long before college.
> But lots of people are not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does, though, they will engage.
People shouting nice words at me gives me the same vibes as a stranger asking "how are you?" as a greeting, just more aggressive and annoying. I may engage in a conversation but not if it's generic smalltalk.
I'm curious, as someone in my life seems to think I don't care about them, for those of you who have been in such depression, what have other people done that helped you realize they loved you?
Signaling to an in-group and projecting identity is the point of these actions. The results are abstracted away and don't matter to people who do this.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but I recently met a girl with an amazing smile and tons of confidence who stared in to my eyes for hours on end and it's exactly that which had such an effect on me.
The ONLY times I feel lonely are when I’m with people. I love being alone. People need to chill out and appreciate being alone more. God I’m so happy I’m not an extrovert it must be awful.
My extroverted friend was so bad during Covid sometimes he would go to business just to be able to talk to someone.
People used to look at me really strangely when I said "I'd been hoping for this since I was fourteen" about the stay home measures during Covid.
I think I'm reasonably fun at parties/events/neighbourhood conversations, and I'll go, have a good time, converse and joke around and whatever, but then I need a couple months to come back from it. I have near zero desire to be with people. It's exhausting.
There are 3 or 4 people in the world that I spend time with that don't make me feel like that. Good thing my wife is usually one of them.
I concur, and I'm like you, but I also think we're edge cases. I believe most people are like your friend, which is why these studies of the gen pop usually turn out the way they do.
I left the city last year after living there for over a decade. I'm now out in the suburbs in an older neighborhood with lots of trees and big lots. I live alone and I've never been happier. Love how peaceful it is out here, and my neighbors mostly keep to themselves.
I do wonder whether much of the introversion/extroversion problem boils down to those who have a rich inner life and can become lost in thought for hours and those who require constant external stimulation. It is likely a spectrum.
I'm extroverted but generally don't like people. So I could interact all fine and leave a good impression, it's just I prefer not to and mind my own business instead of listening politely to ramble. So there's no general solution to this.
It seems the solution would be to find people you like. If you struggle to find people you like then the solution seems it could be to figure out what you like about yourself.
I have never felt any reason to have it any other way.
I already read that humans are "supposed" to be social, but then why am I happiest alone. I don't worry about it and I just live the way I like to live and it's worked out great.
Readit News
There are two variables, both adjustable. Loneliness is eliminated is when that delta is small or zero.
If you’re an introvert and don’t desire social connection and have none, you’re fine. But being in a situation that reminds you of your lack sometimes creates that desire, which creates that delta.
Likewise, if you’re an extrovert, you desire lots of social connection and when it falls below what you actually have you feel sad.
We can’t always control the amount of social connection we get due to circumstances, but we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by avoiding triggers that remind us.
> we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by avoiding triggers that remind us.
This makes me think of Instagram/Snapchat and notably the stories feature. If you are having a fine time on your own at home on a Friday night and then open someone’s story that shows them with a few other people having fun, it can create a sense of missing out and trigger loneliness, when in fact, you weren’t feeling particularly lonely right before that event.
According to the GP, by wanting more fulfilling social interactions they'll become more lonely, not less. Just because you want something doesn't mean you'll get it. If someone can only afford cheap junk food but that's all they know, the last thing you should do is show them gourmet food so they know what they're missing out on.
At the same time if I am forced into a situation where I’m alone and without internet, I fare much better and for much longer than people think I will. Certainly multiples of how long they can manage.
At the end of the day I think we confuse coping with contentment. Some people can cope endlessly, that doesn’t mean they are happy about it.
It's maybe analogous to someone who has always been overweight and therefore don't perceive a problem with it because they don't have a reference point on how much better being in shape feels.
Eg I have a few friends who left to their own devices would never make social plans and when I invite them to a BBQ they'll stand lamely to the side BUT at the end of the day they are much happier than if they sat home yet again. I am a mild case of this as well.
I think the comment you replied to is correct. Personally speaking not all social interaction is a positive contributor to one's sanity. Having the same shallow conversations over and over with different individuals while observing people express their narcissistic traits covertly within or over a group can have a corrosive effect on my sanity.
A BBQ could be good but a bit intense for your friends hence their reaction. Maybe inviting them to a more intimate gathering e.g dinner with your own family or a couple of friends would allow them to engage more and allow them to have a deeper connection to others or yourself.
You've had conversations with them about this? They admit to being happier? Do they want to engage more ... so when their foot / leg injuries heal they'll be able to walk comfortably to where the conservations are happening?
That is true, but a sad conclusion. I don't believe, that there are many people who truly want to be alone all the time. Most just rather be alone, than with mean idiots, who will hurt them again.
But avoiding other people and situations to not be reminded how alone you are, will also never allow you to be in a position, where you can indeed open up and connect to the right people.
This is a really magical feeling. Being connected to people who you like, where you just feel welcome and don't have the feeling to be on your guard all the time. There is a reason many people are obsessed with party and drugs as this will get them this feeling temporarily. But I want that feeling everyday and without drugs. But the daily grind makes it an exception.
This. Maybe a bit weird but often for me these connections has been with total strangers while traveling when I was younger. Sometimes it would be with another tourist and sometimes with a local. It's surprising how deep it can get quickly.
I think this is why I love the movie "Lost in Translation", I think it perfectly captures this emotion. But I think if you haven't had that kind of experience with strangers the movie is probably lost on you.
I'd just point out being an introvert does not mean you don't desire or dont have social interaction, just that it can be tiring instead of energizing. You could still very much crave social interaction as an introvert.
And when the delta becomes negative, loneliness turns into tiredness. E.g. when an introvert doesn't desire social connection and has too much.
As a blanket statement, this may not be valid, as there could be 'feedback loops':
> Buecker and her colleagues found that lonely people tended to be more introverted and neurotic and somewhat less agreeable and conscientious than less lonely people on average.
* https://www.psypost.org/2020/01/study-finds-lonely-people-te...
> Only on HN do I expect a formalization of loneliness. I'm not complaining.
I'm inclined to see this as a model, not a definition nor formalization. For me, the definition would be rooted in a subjective experience and would also include considerable formalization.
I don't do this lightly, but I think ChatGPT 4.0's comparison is quite lucid: "... formalization is more about defining and structuring the components or rules of a system or concept, while a model is about representing that system or concept in a simpler or more understandable way."
I enjoy this kind of pedantry. I don't see you complaining. :)
I find it funny that you use the words "lack" and "desire" exactly like Lacan, who explained why it is impossible to fill that lack.
Deleted Comment
I used to travel a lot for work and experienced first hand how large income disparities can affect people.
I also met enough long term expats who were really jaded. It always made me wonder if they became like that or if they were always like that.
When I visited a south east asian country I was very surprised by the wealth disparity. However, I'm not seeing the connection between spending money as an expat with a significantly higher income compared to the rest of the country and exploitation. If anything it could be argued that you are injecting more cash into the economy from outside.
Happy to be enlightened if I'm missing something!
> What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61272271-the-good-life
Meanwhile there's us 3 developer dudes who all get along fine but our relationship goes about as far as "all good?", "yep you?". And then of course talking about IT geek stuff. Kind of general problem with men I think. Very difficult to open up to other men.
Or maybe it's just a me thing.
Like, at work for me I would be most rewarded by other people who are engaged in that common work cause and interact within that context. Not with stories about family life or opening up about whatever.
Hanging out with friends is kind of pointless without a common cause. To do play some game or sport or actually do something that's worth doing and is fairly collaborative.
To me a friend is like "hey I'm building a fence, wanna help?". And the ability to be building a fence yourself and asking the same. Or whatever project you can imagine.
The "you good" shit is mostly a consequence of lacking that sort of common cause, at least in my experience.
Or just watching other people do stuff is good too. "Hold my beer" silly stuff that you can watch and joke and one up each other about.
But if someone started that family huggy stuff (barring needing help or talking about their problems) I'd be distancing myself from that hard. In my experience those people are out to get you, smile on a snake.
But I eventually realized that I was just the most convenient guy/person (most of her immediate coworkers were men) for her to complain about work while stuck at work. We never did anyhing together otside of work contexts.
Just yesterday at work I stayed until 9pm because a friend was waiting on some CI shit, I stayed to do today's work in advance. We were close before but we talked about a lot of personal stuff to each other, it's nice advancing the friendship to new levels.
But I also talk deep stuff with my male friends. It's not really with everyone but there's plenty of people who are ok with that.
I think men generally are about doing things together as opposed to 'just' being together. "Talking" isn't really counted as an activity for men, but is for women.
Get a bunch of guys together for paintball, or hunting, or sports, and relationships will form.
I know for me the heart of what I am isn't about 'opening up', it's about things like that IT geek stuff (but translated into what I do).
It feels like an emotional Dunbar number: I do best when there's just a couple people with whom I keep track of how they're doing in a personal way, and it matters a great deal but I won't feel at all the same way about twenty people at once. It seems like women are more likely to keep track of how large numbers of people are doing, in a social way, which won't always mean trying to HELP people: they can get caught up in drama when there's conflict among the people, and it takes on great importance.
I'll have a much smaller number of people like that, and will bind more loosely to them, and I think it's the same mechanism but it just doesn't scale the way it does with women. I don't see it as a problem, more as an observation.
guys bond over tasks, machines, sports, ect. you can talk about whatever you want with mates, along the 'plotline' of fixing a car.
prioritizing 'work families' at work sends the wrong signals. start a union if you want to intertwine your lives to the quality of a 'work family'.
The trick to understand all of this is to realize that humans are a tribal species. I don't mean in the in-group versus out-group stuff (though that is also a big piece of the human behavioral puzzle). What I mean is that for all of our most recent evolutionary history, our survival did not depend on our individual performance as much as it did the performance of our tribe.
A solitary Homo sapiens on the savannah is as dead and useless as a worker bee without a hive. Our entire cognitive and emotional systems have evolved to understand that deep truth. To be abandoned by the tribe is an existential threat, and to be accepted and valued by the tribe is winning.
Once you realize that, so much of human behavior makes more sense.
I think it really says something about modern American culture that we find the answer "surprising". For almost all of the history of Western civilization, it was so obvious that it didn't even need questioning. We're like fish flopping around on land who are finally realizing what water is.
Dead Comment
With people with less social contact, maybe they don't reorganize their memories with respect to social visibility and just by intensity or time spent in that experience.
There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of life are satisfied.
In addition to surveys, there are interviews at regular intervals, so observations of the participants are also used as data points.
> There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of life are satisfied.
Empirical evidence does not support this. There are such things as 'set points' of happiness:
* https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/meditation-for-moder...
Some folks have lower, and some higher, 'base levels' of happiness. It seems that some people are / can be 'inherently' happier than others.
That wouldn't correlate with smaller lifespan and worse health outcomes for people with less social contact pretty consistently observed (filtered for objections like "they have less social contact because they are sick, not the other way around").
>There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of life are satisfied.
In other studies, above a certain level like starvation and homelessness, "basic necessities" are not even the biggest factor in happiness. Meaning, social circle, and status are.
This is not true at all, in my opinion.
I used to believe everyone has approximately the same life satisfaction after their needs are met. I've always been quite happy, but I became much, much happier after I moved across the country and made really close friends with whom I spend a lot of time. Meanwhile, my old roommate still spends 8-5 in the office and then comes home and plays League of Legends. There is no way our life satisfaction is the same. Don't get me wrong, I was pretty happy going into the office and seeing my friends for an hour or two each day. But now that I have a life with much more time spent with deep friendships, I see that life satisfaction is not zero sum. You can be a certain amount of happy. And you can be even happier than that at no cost.
n = 1 here, all basic needs met… still working on the happiness thing
The study was to see how different people from differing socio-economic backgrounds turned out as they got older...
When I was about ~16/17 I told them to kick rocks.
They used to show up every year and interview me for an hour about how my life was progressing...
I lived on a famous hippy commune in Lafayette California until I was 4 years old... My mom knew Jim Jones (of the koolaid fame) and a bunch of other famous people from San Francisco in the 1970s...
Later, I found an article in Playboy Magazine (yes, no funny joke there) which was taken with the founder of the commune, Vik Baranco (I dont know how to spell his name) where he recvealed that the commune was being followed by the CIA...
I think the study from UCSD was a CIA front as I spoke with other kids from the commune and the weird shit that happened to them....
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EDIT: my mom was doing acid with the grateful dead, fleetwod mac, and a bunch of other people... who probably dont want to be named...
anyway - the 1970s and 1980s were briliant for computers.... BECAUSE OF ACID...
Look at Cisco, they developed the core of BGP while on acid in a hot-tub in Sunnyvale...
So much of tech is tied with psychs.
As kids we didn't really know what was going on over there, but we knew it was something a bit...unusual.
Plot twist: or, perhaps, even after that!
http://www.lafayettemorehouse.com/index.html
1) You must consider the dynamics of rejection. People may recognize and seek relationships, but find themselves unable to build them. However much you might want to have a relationship with someone, they have to reciprocate. And if there's something "wrong" with you, you're going to find that a lot of people will not want your company. Additionally, thanks to network effects, one person taking this stance can close a large swath of relationships that might otherwise come into being; being on the bad side of someone who is popular or well-connected can quickly turn you into a pariah.
2) Relationships don't just magically make you happier or healthier; they provide access to goods and services that fulfill needs, because affinity prompts people either to provide them directly or to direct you to places where you can get them. Not every relationship is equal, either, but having more of them means a greater chance of having some that cancel out or improve upon deleterious relationships or the lack of a relationships. Some relationships take more out of you than they give.
Discovering that the 'reach' of my work has extended farther than I expected… for instance, someone who's asked for particular code turns out to be in a homeless shelter as I once was, many years ago, and their connection is giving them hope for their future, or for another instance, someone's shouting me and my work out by name in a BBC radio interview and seems to get what I'm trying to accomplish… these things hugely add to my identification of my life as fulfilling and meaningful.
The one is very personal, and the other is easily understood as celebrity and promotion, but they're the same. If the purpose to life is making connections, a large circle of social friends (or a siamese-twin relationship with a romantic partner) isn't the ONLY option. There's all sorts of ways to connect, and finding meaningful work will almost certainly mean functional or even parasocial connections with lots of people.
And parasocial relationships are still relationships in this sense: they're one-to-many, in which you can't give what's normally understood to be friendship on the one-on-one level, but it doesn't work if you haven't got love for the collective entity of your fandom. I think parasocial relationships become more intense when the celebrity center of the relationship is really hungry for it. Modern examples aren't the only examples I can give: consider Johnny Carson, king of the parasocial relationship :)
I definitely relate to the latter. I can go for a long bike ride by myself and feel blissfully content, but standing in the corner at a social event where everyone else is having a good time is intensely lonely and isolating.
Oh it’s entirely easy to be super lonely when surrounded by other people. The easiest way to achieve this that I’ve found is being a +1 at a wedding. You’re surrounded with people you’ve never met who all know each other pretty well and have tight bonds. Makes you feel super isolated and alone in a way that just isn’t noticeable in an empty room.
People who they like and who like them. And you don’t think that that is a massive caveat? The original claim was just “people”, not “fantastic and awesome people”.
> “People feel more lonely when they’re around other people” is the type of stuff you could only find on the internet or in academia, you can logic yourself into it but it’s so far beyond common sense it’s insane
And who are you to make this statement? Only on the Internet and in academia? I don’t know what “only on the Internet” is supposed to mean. That everyone lies on the Internet or that none of them (us) are real people? I’ve seen people who have made this claim. On the Internet at least. (How candid are random people about this “in real life”?) They seemed sincere enough about it.
I don’t even know what the hell you are getting at with “logic yourself into”, as if how people feel is just a philosophical-analytical experiment gone wrong. Get a grip.
You might even be saying the same thing and not realize it.
They don't say people feel more lonely "when around people who they like and who like them".
They say LONELY people feel more lonely "when around people", that is, when they are around people who don't care for them.
Like a lonely person at a club full of people where everybody else seems to have friends or a partner.
That's what they say, which is absolutely common sense.
Not that people feel lonelier when with their friends - as you might have understood it.
Not necessarily. I often visit my mum and her partner. I love them both and they love me. Yet, I feel more lonely when I live with them than when I live alone. I can even see it in the intensity of my online chatting and dating app use. Presence of nice people just makes me more hungry for connection.
"Appetite comes with eating."
from my personal experience, being with the wrong crowd can definitely make you more lonely than being alone doing your own thing.
Just before I left I returned to a larger base with many more people and I felt the loneliness wash over me like an ocean current. The day I was assigned to burn duty, which I'd done before as a community responsibility, because I was late to something put me in tears, mainly because I realized the people I worked with at a larger base were not actually my friends and we did not share a bond. I had left those people behind.
My theory is that the forest requires you to do certain things every day so that you survive, which was one component of my avoided loneliness. If you do just this for a long time I'd suspect loneliness will still set in. You need people and, probably, a variety of them.
When I used to live in small towns, I would have a strong need to periodically visit a big city to restore my emotions. I love the feeling of being in a crowd even if I never talk to anyone. I love the bustle and noise and potential for new encounters.
Nature feels isolating to me. I wonder if I’m wired this way because I grew up in a big city. We’re wired to look for places where we can feel we’re “at home”, and that’s usually a function of childhood experiences.
There is nowhere on earth I am happier than at a family member's camp, deep in the woods away from everyone all by myself. Ultimately I think your last point is absolutely correct. I doubt I'd feel this way if this wasn't a lived experience while growing up.
If you are struggling with connection, stop thinking. Really. Stop thinking about whatever is going on with you and start listening. Talk with people and get to know them. Use that to determine if you would like to keep that person in your life or not. Connections are easy to make when you aren’t trying to force it. Just let that guard down, realize we all have a story, and ask folks who they are and they will gladly tell you. If you struggle with making conversation then I suggest you start there. Say Hi to anyone within 20 feet of you today. If they are there longer than 5 minutes, strike up a conversation. Make a joke. Commend them on their clothes or shoes or something visible. Show some empathy for what they are going through at the moment and you’ll be making friends in no time.
Like, "5 questions to ask someone you've just met." It might not be the best approach but I'm sure it's better than standing around. Some examples that spring to mind. "What brought your here to day?", "what's the best way to remember your name?", "where was the last place you went on holiday?". Etc.
I suspect that for people who are "bad" at connection any practice is good. I like to keep a pack of cards in my pocket for a couple magic tricks, as I can always then ask "would you like to see a trick?" Very rarely is the answer no.
But then could I honestly say any of this moves the dial drastically? Probably not, but I do meet more interesting people than I think I would otherwise.
It’s funny because I found myself feeling very isolated and lonely the last few few weeks and without even thinking my body just packed a bag and drove out to this spot. And I have to say, I feel a million times better if anyone out there is craving the same thing.
This is weirdly concerned with other people in the context of mental health advice for someone. "You're a bummer, go hide in a forest so we don't have to see you."
Dead Comment
You could be toxic, and they could just be pointing out things you need to hear.
People here the BS gurus to "clear the toxic people from their lives" and often estrange themselves from the people who actually care most for them...
You are not dumb, lazy, toxic, etc, but occasionally you do or say dumb, lazy, toxic things
I think for certain habits, beliefs, etc. people who avoid you aren't simply "unwilling to overlook this one bad thing". Maybe that one bad thing is actually just bad enough to poison you the person. [hypothetical you]
I totally agree for the other, more general case though. Not all catholics are pedos and I know plenty of catholics super frustrated with their leadership, excellent and loving people catholicism included.
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I never considered that benefit of religious organizations, but it's very true. It's rare to find another place in society with so much diversity.
You can’t lift anyone’s load, but sometimes you can get them to acknowledge them, and occasionally clear roadblocks.
It’s a an extremely odd feeling because from the outside I’m sure it looks like I have a great social life and good friends, but I’ve never felt more alone in my life. And I’m not sure how to address this conundrum, on one hand I want a stronger friendship with this new group of friends and don’t want to be alone, but at the same time it seems as if I would be happier if I disconnected myself from the group and was actually alone.
It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but that is not the experience for everyone.
In the end, I'd rather people try than not. Because I am observing that the more common trend is to not bother, because you're not going to get it right anyway.
There has to be some name for this phenomenon in psychology.
> It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but that is not the experience for everyone.
Maybe there is a cycle with families similar to the idea that good times create weak people which create hard times which create strong people who create good times.
A loving family creates people who only know love and don't understand disfunction of a family, who then create disfunctional families by not knowing how to avoid the pitfalls, which then creates people who have to struggle out of disfunction who then know how to create a loving family by avoiding the pitfalls of disfunction.
Not everything they do will be useful. Sometimes they don’t know what to do or are directed by others. When things don’t work well, those folks should be redirected to more useful things and not chastised (which can kill motivation).
Just my 2 cents
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Having an overly-loving, overprotective mother does not allow the child to establish boundaries in the same way as an emotionally abusive mother. Perhaps these children would become codependents or have fake, overdone empathy.
There are two sides to the trauma coin! And with just two comments into the post, perhaps we've already seen both?
In this statement, you're subtly doing the same thing - assuming the motivation of the volunteer.
I agree that "help" without actually understanding the need, or without the invitation of the helpee, tends to be more meddlesome than beneficial.
Dead Comment
In other words, what's P & Q here:
Personally, I'd put them orders of magnitude apart.I always felt hungry all the time, it wasn't till i started taking Semaglutide that hunger totally go away. When that did the thing I found was an understanding of people who don't have as much hunger as I used to, all saying things like "just eat less".
For those people who say Just eat less, they don't understand that for those who have a hunger issue.. that it's not making them feel any better.
Same with people who feel lonely or depressed... "Just smile or something"... That does the opposite of what you want it to do.
Moreover, I find the word "just" to be problematic. It often acts as a command to disregard all other possibilities, indicating a lack of interest in delving deeper. Perhaps this perception is influenced by my experience as a non-native speaker. In my previous meetings with numerous venture capitalists and “advisors”, some would evaluate my project and suggest that I "just" fix xyz. Is it really that straightforward? Have they considered other factors like abc? Do you want to learn more?
I also think going from an in shape 220->165 was way harder than going from obese->healthy. It involved cannibalizing tons of muscle instead of fat, and your body will fight to preserve muscle.
It wasn't no ice cream and soda, it was only having one plain hard boiled egg instead of two, pounding celery and sparkling water to fend off nighttime hunger, freaking out because I only poop once a week, having no energy or motivation and squashing philosophical doubts about the meaning of life.
If I can do it just to climb rocks easier it feels realistic for obese people to do it to improve their health.
I think that a lot of people have a difficult time understanding that good intentions can lead to bad outcomes.
We're evolutionarily hard wired to do what's best for ourselves, which often includes being altruistic to gain more social acceptance. That's why being "lonely" is a problem at all, we feel emotional pain to get us to work with the group, since that's what's always meant longer survival.
Determining which is which is a very hard problem. One strategy might be, "Don't do anything unless I'm absolutely certain it will lead to a good outcome." If you do that, you'll miss out on many opportunities that would have good outcomes but who's certainty isn't up to your standards.
So while the intention behind pointing out that good intentions can have bad outcomes is good, the outcome is bad.
When I was young it was drilled into me about making sure everyone is accepted and has friends, all that. So I would be the kid who would go make friends with the lonely kid.
But then I would learn why they don't have friends, and I wouldn't want to be their friend either. Which makes the whole thing even worse, because now you came to them and then left them. So I kind of gave up on it.
The reason I haven't done it earlier is because back in those days I had no health insurance and I knew it would be cost-prohibitive for me.
Looking for professional help can be even more depressing. Besides the money issue it’s very hard to find a therapist you click with. I went to quite a few therapists. Some felt almost hostile or dismissive towards me and others just useless.
I'd say "go talk to a professional" is more or less the only useful advice one can give there.
Having someone with an objective position who can help you see things differently is extremely powerful.
Ignoring who is giving this advice and the actual state of the person being given the advice, this is more of a side effect of the poor (for patients) health care system in the US and negative perception of mental issues compared to physical issues.
Untrained people can give bad support, especially to someone who is clinically lonely or depressed.
The professional can actually help in a way that random people can't.
On the physical side of companionship there is the paid-for "Girlfriend Experience" in the same vein.
These are truly depressing considerations.
The majority of our group was definitely in the camp of "I want to give to other people the help I needed." We ran a stupid amount of events -- everything form mental health counseling with the campus counseling services people, collabs with a queer healthcare providers, open dinners with free catered food, cooking classes, open parties on weekends which alternated between dry/not-dry, sponsored (like one of their friends would contact us) dorm cleaning/decorating to deal with depression tornadoes, open study sessions during exam season, we had "rent-a-spotter" (obviously actually free) in the gym for people who didn't anyone to go with, a few of the guys were in the campus runners club so they did open morning jogs, holiday parties for people who couldn't or ya know couldn't go home, and yes standing in the quad with signs giving out high fives and hugs.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/worker-refusing-contribute-towards-...
As an uplifting note, I’m happy and much less lonely 20+ years later :)
I know I've felt depressed in my life. I can tell you, during those times, I almost certainty wouldn't have even noticed people shouting at me. At worst, it would have been a neutral effect, if it registered at all.
Is it going to happen every time? Nope. But lots of people are not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does, though, they will engage.
I'm saying this as someone who has pretty bad social anxiety, doesnt really like talking to strangers, and someone who has pretty bad depression.
The trouble is that this very much isn't what was happening. There was no room to respond, and in general I they think they weren't even yelling at any particular person. You certainly could stop and talk to them, but anyone willing to do that wouldn't be the kind of person who didn't know how to start a friendly interaction.
I can't. If you have trouble making friends that's obvious long before college.
> But lots of people are not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does, though, they will engage.
People shouting nice words at me gives me the same vibes as a stranger asking "how are you?" as a greeting, just more aggressive and annoying. I may engage in a conversation but not if it's generic smalltalk.
"Apparently everyone else is loved"
Living near traffic noise increases your chance of stroke
Probably not the best place to be putting impressionable young people looking for connection
Second, not everything is about cars and bikes and shit, my god.
My extroverted friend was so bad during Covid sometimes he would go to business just to be able to talk to someone.
People used to look at me really strangely when I said "I'd been hoping for this since I was fourteen" about the stay home measures during Covid.
I think I'm reasonably fun at parties/events/neighbourhood conversations, and I'll go, have a good time, converse and joke around and whatever, but then I need a couple months to come back from it. I have near zero desire to be with people. It's exhausting.
There are 3 or 4 people in the world that I spend time with that don't make me feel like that. Good thing my wife is usually one of them.
I do wonder whether much of the introversion/extroversion problem boils down to those who have a rich inner life and can become lost in thought for hours and those who require constant external stimulation. It is likely a spectrum.
I have never felt any reason to have it any other way.
I already read that humans are "supposed" to be social, but then why am I happiest alone. I don't worry about it and I just live the way I like to live and it's worked out great.