From someone who had been lonely for a better part of his life, there is a solution that works.
Build a bit of confidence (gym being the simplest way) and get out there, because whoever you are, there is someone else out there who looks precisely for you. But you aren't gonna meet them if you sit tight, so get out.
Internalize this: you are attractive and you have worth, right now. You are good enough. And someone is waiting for you out there.
Build confidence _and then_ just be yourself. Because if you lack confidence in yourself, how can you convince another person to have confidence in you?
You imply that lack of confidence is the most common issue one has to fix.
What if you're introverted, intellectual and not part of the bread & circus tribe (which should be the case for some people on HN)? What does "get out" mean, then? You won't see me at a nightclub, a bar or any place made for people to socialize over inane discussions, alcohol and crap "music".
Going out mainly means going out through your door and to nice and interesting places.
That can be parks, museums, gym, hacker spaces and yes also clubs.
A new (ancient) trend, that maybe works for you, is called ecstatic dance.
The basic idea is, no alcohol, no drugs, no talking (inside the main area) - just good music and dancing - till ecstasy. Expressing the language of the body. This connects people.
I was feeling lonely and hopeless then I read your post, saw the cure was “ecstatic dance” and lol’d, loudly. I was reminded of the episode of peep show (the great British sitcom) where the lads try out ecstatic dance. I will have to rewatch that today. I thank you for the smile and for one of the most unique loneliness cures I’ve ever read, and I’ve read many. For me the super market has been the easiest way to encounter other humans, but maybe I’ll try ecstatic dance.
Glad I could make you laugh. I have not seen the peep show, so no idea what was in it, or whether it has anything to do with what I know as ecstatic dance, but in either case I do recommend to go for it, if you have the chance. Worst case, you don't like it and go away. Best case, you have fun and connect with just the right people.
Every ecstatic dance I attended was different (also on different places, organised by different people) but all of them were worth it.
When you are in a place with perhaps the most mundane music, if it gets even the least bit decent and you get up there and dance ecstatically, the band will love it.
If there are no dancers and you get up there at all the band will probably love it.
They might just not play so mundane after that.
And others who may be the least bit inspired will often get right up there with you, hesitating much less than they would have normally done.
Even if it's all by yourself.
There's a song about that, Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol:
Where he basically draws the dead up onto their feet, he ecstatically blows them all away, they love him anyway and everybody ends up boogieing like zombies.
>You won't see me at a nightclub, a bar or any place made for people to socialize over inane discussions, alcohol and crap "music".
You won't see most people, they're usually hanging out socially with others they met like that or at equivalent places they prefer to gather whether or not alcohol was prominent, discussions were inane or music was crap.
Or whether there was anything like music at all.
But if there is music, you know what to do ;)
Trust me, I'm a scientist.
OTOH there's a lot to be said for striving to widen social circles using remote technology more so than direct contact. Haven't gotten around to that yet so I don't have much to add there.
EDIT added anyway: Helpful tip: It's probably better to leave your phone at home so it doesn't get broken while ecstatically dancing or anything else. People that are interested in what they see will often be understanding and more than willing to text your phone while it is still in repose back in its coffin. You can then power back up and raise the phone from the grave when the time is right. But it's well recognized that a lot of people need to raise their gaze and their fingers well above the plane of a touchscreen, to further points of interest more than they do.
"When you are in a place with perhaps the most mundane music, if it gets even the least bit decent and you get up there and dance ecstatically, the band will love it.
If there are no dancers and you get up there at all the band will probably love it.
They might just not play so mundane after that.
And others who may be the least bit inspired will often get right up there with you, hesitating much less than they would have normally done."
Definitely, but it takes a lot of courage to do that. I am a very good dancer and I often was the only one dancing - and yes, the band of course loves it and usually also most other people.
But it is always a struggle to really let go and ignore all the thoughts of what others might think and just take the empty space in front of the band and go wild.
Ecstatic dance in the way I experienced it, is specially made to not have that crowd of judging outsiders and rather tries to create a safe space where everyone can just move how he or she feels like without being judged. (also phones are banned there, so no fear that someone might take a video of you, which is something that defninitely happens when dancing in public spaces).
You are onto something here. I myself have overcome this horrible state and the no alcohol thing is pretty key, along with, some better drugs/scene & the essence of hacker spirit: curiosity. My story is a bit long, but Iam willing to share if it is of interest or possibly even of help to someone. It is a horrible state and not easily solved by someone deep in that hopeless state.
“Get out there” means “just pick something—anything!!—and show up.”
Go to a local gathering place (cafe, bar, church, literally wherever people hang out), look at the pinboard to find an upcoming thing to go to. Ask people what they do for fun. Whatever you do, don’t look for the “perfect” thing. It doesn’t exist, and waiting for/seeking it gets in the way of you actually meeting people.
Be curious.
Isn’t that a fundamental trait of the intellectual? Consider everything, turn over every stone?
The world is crawling with interesting people who would be your friends.
Socialization is a give-and-take; expect to give (maybe listen to some “crap music” with others) before you can take.
One more thing: it sounds like you’ve built a superiority complex. Kill that. It’s a facade you’ve built to insulate yourself. You’ll never meet others with it … or you’ll just meet other snobs.
Consider that there may be someone out at those “inane” events who feels the same as you, but is out there looking for you to show up!
Addendum: this has momentum. Once you start meeting people and feeling more confident, it won’t feel like work anymore. At that point, you may actually find yourself engaging people like your former self.
I am a loner/socially awkward and used to run a bit before 2020.
Then in 2020, since we were confined I used to run close to my house. I used to see a bunch of folks regularly running but was apprehensive about approaching them. One day one of them said Hi and now I am thankful and happy to be part of that group.
There are still periods when I like to run alone and avoid the group but they welcome me whenever I am ready. I am a lot happier since joining this group.
More people have joined this group in last two and a half years and am good friends with some of them.
I am not sure but I think the group has helped some of them with their loneliness like me.
There is some sense of satisfaction when you improve your timing but a bigger source of satisfaction is when you are helping others with their running or just spending time with them.
I was lucky to be found by the group and sometimes I wish we can find more people who would be interested even a little bit but are apprehensive like I was/am.
1. Keep it really simple. Just show up. You don’t have to solve what happens next, or make a perfect first impression, or be a perfect person. Give yourself the same grace you would others.
2. The gratitude you feel for having found the group. Imagine how the others you’ve helped feel having found the group.
A lot of people won't get your sarcasm, but I agree with this. Not that simple, life isn't fair, some people are more attractive/charismatic/interesting than others. Also, if you are geeky or considered weird by others, you can only find comfort with other people like you.
And the blanket suggestion that gym somehow solves everything is stupid. Personall experience: I tried it and ended up no better and with knee issues with which doctors can't help (just rest some, sure, like 8 months now since it began). Started playing computer games again and giving less shit about everything, feel happy again. Escapism does work.
Life is far from fair indeed - I have a deformed hip from a childhood illness that has caused me a lifetime of pain. I should probably have already had it replaced at an age that would be several decades younger than average for that surgery, but I'm too scared of the recovery and living with parts of my skeleton replaced by metal and plastic.
That said, I started a gym routine last year to try and relieve anxiety. I'm quite limited (you have no idea how much you use your hips until you get 8/10 pain for a few days after aggravating them). So it means low-impact activities and upper-body workouts. I didn't think it would make any difference in my appearance; I just needed to move in any way I could. After a few months I started getting comments about putting on muscle and overall looking better. (I lost of lot of weight which is more attributable to cleaning up my diet concurrently to a gym routine) A co-worker I met assumed I must be ex-military which I found funny because the childhood illness I had is specifically named in their document of medical exclusions. I don't think it's any secret that people treat you better when you appear more fit, and it is something that you have some control over.
But I don't believe that looks are motivation enough to get you to the gym every day (at least for me it is not); it's much better to do it for your well-being. Ideally, you can find exercises that both workaround your injuries and that you enjoy. Also, it's not like you need to go hard at the gym for two hours a day every day of the week; just do what you can and take pride in what you are able to achieve within your limits.
I've spent a lot of my life regretting my circumstances in unhealthy ways which I ultimately regret. I can't say that everything is wonderful now or even good, but they are better.
"with knee issues with which doctors can't help (just rest some, sure, like 8 months now since it began)."
Usually knee issues do not heal with resting, but with moving. And rather get worse over time while remaining passive (in resting position only some blood flows through the whole knee, and the muscle detoriates quickly and without a strong muscle, even more stress gets onto the knee)
So unless you have a very special condition where competent doctors especially said, only resting will help, rather get active again with light activity. Walking, cycling, dancing, climbing, ...
Every exercise that moves the body, without putting too much stress on it.
Competent doctor told to rest. Left knee MRT showed a "stress break" (don't know correct terminology in English). Problem is there has been no stress for last 6-7 months apart from time I was trying to start running (ironic). Either it doesn't heal for half a year or it's something else. I also had to wear this cloth knee support thing for a couole of weeks after some extra long walking with friends, as the knee didn't like any load at all.
It's not over yet, there will be excercise, waiting in line for a specialist, but not walking/cycling/dancing/climbing, execises you do at home when you have an injury.
Anyway, I tried to exercise, I got an injury, and I felt worse than without exercise, cause something was taken away from me.
"I also had to wear this cloth knee support thing for a couole of weeks after some extra long walking with friend"
My experience with bandages is, only use them when you absolutely have to. Otherwise your body gets used to them and sees even less need to make the knee work on its own.
In general, I am not a doctor, but went through years of working out how to fix bad knees and went from doctor to doctor, operation etc.
(most doctors were actually very bad for anything not routine)
What helped in the end, was establishing a habit of doing special knee exercises whenever possible. And lots of adequate sport in moderation. Climbing and Trampolin may sound crazy, but are actually pretty good for the knees if done on a light level and also walking barefeet helped a lot. In general, trying to get the muscles around the knee as strong as possible, as then the muscles can hold your knee to replace whatever is broken inside your knee.
"Anyway, I tried to exercise, I got an injury, and I felt worse than without exercise, cause something was taken away from me."
And I would be careful with your conclusion, in my opinion you just did too much of wrong exercise. That is bad, yes (and is also what messed up my knees initially). So maybe try to find activities or exercises that are fun, but not too hard. And yes, it sucks not being able to do, what you could do before. At some point I allmost thought I would never be able to run again. And I definitely will never get back to the state of before - but I managed to do quite a lot again. Anyway, all the best for your recovery.
The question is "why don't lonely people interact with each other".
The answer is that being in need of emotional comfort does not imply the ability to provide it, so after some time they are bad fit even for each other. The same goes with "why don't unattractive people date each other".
I think as people get older, after 30, they become set and comfortable in their world of loneliness. The focus narrows so that they only look for the perfect, the one "solution" to their loneliness; "the one." The focus becomes singular when the solution to loneliness is multifaceted; get out, do activities, meet many people, etc. Ergo they remain lonely.
A face value may sound like an absurd joke but it’s 100% the truth. The unfortunate reason many people do not see it this way is that it is a difficult skill to practice if you’ve built a lifetime/identity ignoring it.
I think loneliness, like many of the world's solvable problems, is in fact an information problem. Solvable somehow by an information system. There are more humans now than at any time, we are more densely packed, and have more means of communication or establishing contact than ever before, with the ability to communicate over great distance without (technical or economic) difficulty or significant cost. Yet loneliness is all around us and is a plague of our times.
I'm not sure what "the answer"is, but I think those who work in and with information systems in the broadest sense, might contribute to its cure.
Monetization is a problem. Early on apps like tinder and even some dating websites worked, but at some point the incentives to keep people isolated and single win out. If the app works, people stop using it. Similar to how engagement works on most social media, it isolates and makes people more hostile rather than fulfilling the need that brought the user there in the first place. Should call it anti-social media. Economics ensure that the problem is never to be solved by any technology platform that attempts to. Maybe if the government builds their own non-monitized apps, that might work. But, security is hard, given great power competition, government funded dating apps would have difficulty on that front. Inject a lot of fake profiles and you could collapse birth rates. I sometimes wonder if that isn’t the point of TikTok, an app that decreases birth rates in a subtle and indirect way.
I know a thing or two about loneliness, and overcoming it. It would be a long post to take you through, but if anyone is interested or experiencing it, I can post it in the hopes it can help or be interesting, I already wrote it, but seemed a bit long.
Difference between "oneliness" and "loneliness" is crucial. I was little astonished when Lex Fridman told us that he does not have "Inner Voice" commenting all his doings.
I have sometimes spent 6 months alone in wilderness and eventually the Inner Voice kicks in. It seems to be a mechanism to maintain sanity. Upon returning to civilization the Voice soon disappears.
In my case the Voice is a film director, mostly Werner Herzog, who might say, "now the subject has finally lost his marbles and does not make bear-proof stash for his food".
This is fantastic. I want to cultivate this to get myself to do things I know I should do. "the subject has used external input without sanitization, a non-sane activity to be sure" in the voice of The Stanley Parable narrator. [I wouldn't really do this, it's just an example folks.]
If anything, I became more lonely when I made enough money to not have to work. I stopped interacting with society as much because it was no longer a requirement.
Okay, if we take your comment as the “full truth” then you have successfully identified the cause of your loneliness so the solution for you, specifically you, would be to give your money away.
Well, that's a bit extreme. There are more emotions to experience than just loneliness.
I'll certainly be going back to work, but more because it gives me a sense of purpose and less because I think working is a necessary (or even good) solution to address loneliness. My comment was intended to highlight that there's no silver bullet to this issue.
Modern society has many alluring activities which don't necessitate forming bonds with other humans, the world keeps shifting around even if you stay the same, and it's easy to find yourself dissatisfied with the status quo while also feeling like your lifestyle is an accurate reflection of the way you desire to live.
Five years ago I was in a relationship, shared a house with 5 other people, social media wasn't as stigmatized, and my peers and I were all in our twenties. I had transitioned to fully remote work, but I felt overwhelmed by the amount of personal interactions I was having. Space was more desirable than connectedness.
Fast-forward a bit, I moved out of a group living situation post-covid, broke up with my partner which segmented our friends, many people settled down with children and stopped going out, and Facebook became uncool. These things happened slowly, and I was enamored with my job, so it didn't weigh on me as it was occurring. Then, when the job was finished, I realized I had settled into a lifestyle where I had no external pressure to leave the house, could go weeks without using my voice, didn't have readily available ways of quickly connecting with people, and that I would need to take significant actions to address the situation in ways that I'd never needed to in my life thus far.
Adding a job back into the mix will help in some ways. Management certainly forces me to use my voice. And, of course, it's possible to put myself out there and make friends with twenty-somethings who want to go out all the time, but it feels less natural when there's a larger age gap. It's a lot of work, too, as it's easier to meet friends through friends than forge relationships from scratch. I can change my personality entirely and decide I want to settle down, to try and better guarantee having a close partner, but that's certainly never been something I've seen myself doing. Or I can try to re-envision myself as an extrovert and try to find it implicitly appealing to socialize rather than just something that addresses a need, but that's never been a trait I've seen in myself.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I feel my personality and desires have remained consistent throughout my life, but society and culture has shifted around me. If I want to be less lonely then I need to change myself and build an appreciation for activities which result in socialization, or settle for different/worse interactions that are still useful for addressing loneliness, but these decisions weren't necessary in my teens and twenties. People were just around all the time. And yes, I'm sure some of that has to do with people being busy working, but it's a lot more than that, too.
Thanks for taking the time to write a more nuanced take; especially in the face of my snark.
I addressed this elsewhere in this thread, but my comment was addressing the people who do suffer from these issues.
You are lucky you have the privilege you do. You are unencumbered by these basic needs, and so will have to look harder at finding solutions to your problem with loneliness. Maybe therapy? You, again, have the rare combination of both the time and money to be able to try that.
But you are likely in a <1% of the population category, and hey, sometimes things written on the internet are meant for people other than ourselves.
Is the rest of your circle in the same position as you are? Usually the problem is being the one retired while the rest of your friends still have to work
If that’s the case then how do you solve the proximity problem when you have $0 and 0 free time?
Honestly this thread is chock full of: “I’m rich and still lonely!” people who are so far off the mark on rationalizing my suggestion that I feel a need to amend my gp:
“pay people more, work them less, and learn how to have empathy for other people”
Perhaps for you. Do you believe this as an American statistic, or global one?
What evidence ca you provide?
I feel like all of the articles I read about comparing work across time say people worked less before industrialization; although I think it’s a silly thing to compare and more of a thought experiment.
Either way what relief does your position provide, even if correct, to the many underpaid and overworked people living in your city?
How does your opinion fit into the current uptick in people having to work multiple jobs, and people saying they will be unable to ever retire.
It seems that a society would require more people in order for this to be so, so that the same level of services can be provided due to the decrease in productivity. Accordingly, more services will be needed to account for that increase in people. This raises the question of whether there is a point where the two trends reach some type of harmony. Perhaps the evolution of "AI" and robotics will get us there (or not).
Ultimately, this raises the question of whether all this actually ultimately places us in a better position, e.g., the state of humanity as seen in something like the anime Darling in the Franxx. Interestingly, this is similar to the notion that poorer people that work less desirable jobs for less money are less lonely.
My point being is that people want to be rich and loneliness takes a backseat. The least lonely people I know are all working class and near the poverty level. In contrast, most of the well off people I know are a lot more lonely.
Why indeed? Your bosses must love you defending your own mistreatment. You should put this quote on your CV.
> you can always work less.
Do you honestly think you can tell that to a person struggling financially while working 3 jobs?
> most of the well off people I know are a lot more lonely.
In a society of such aggressive wealth disparity as ours, a result of underpaying and overworking the majority of the population, a lot of wealthy people self isolate, and become lonely, because they had to harm others to get that wealth or are afraid the poors will try to take it from them.
Do those wealthy people somehow deserve my sympathy, or the focus of the efforts of this scientific inquiry, more than the people working multiple jobs yet are unable to ever retire?
Let lines A and B be non-parallel. They must intersect, because parallel lines do not intersect, by definition). Orthogonal lines are not parallel, but they must lie in the same plane (by definition of orthogonal). Therefore orthogonal lines must cross at exactly one point.
Loneliness has almost nothing to do with work hours or pay. People in literally all of human history worked and yet we've only had ubiquitous loneliness for like 30 years.
One way to interpret parent kubielid - he is referring to the infinite rat race for diminishing marginal returns.
> all of human history worked
And you are also correct. They probably had a tough life and for those humans, the reward was survival and more. I can only imagine waking up on a cold morning, no running water, stepping out on the fields, using average manual tools. They probably stuck around in groups.
The article is a joke. But your "Pay people more, work them less" comment is tipping off people. You must be on to something lol.
> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
I have to go online to find the clubs?
In America, there's consolidation everywhere in search of greater efficiency and profits. From local tennis clubs merging into city-wide organizations managed through an app to monopolies emerging in corporate landscape.
Dependent of the cause yes. Loneliness caused by rejection based on miscalculated perceptions of others is an unfortunate reality. Loss of family and friends due to death is not solved by science, however, coping mechanisms for management may help.
Interesting that of all places Phil McAuliffe was in Korea. Korean culture is very welcoming. Once a connection is made, one becomes part of the family.
At times loneliness can spur one to push past fears such as travelling alone or attending an event solo.
a part of everyone knows both a major cause and way of improving loneliness yet we lie to ourselves and look to science to give us an excuse continue to ignore what we know to be true.
We have built a world that revolves around money and almont everything that gets built that wants to grow no matter how pure in intentions succumbs and instead of using peoples desire for connection to actually make connections with people perverts it in a way to make more money.
And we let this happen to us because its easy, it feels good in the moment they are careful to give us just enough of a taste of a real connection to keep us coming back but not letting us develop real connections that would "graduate" us to real human connections that would reduce our reliance on them thus reducing their profits.
If Television stayed live, local, honest, people you seen around your local town, it would encourage engagement.
youtube could have focused on sharing videos with friends, could have ignored likes/dislikes and didnt focus on popularity and parasocial relationships.
Facebook could have encouraged not on finding, adding, expanding, friends and engaging on the platform, but instead encourage real connections by encouraging prodding for real world meetups suggestions on games to play in person, finding people who like to do the similar things and suggesting times and places they can do it together with a focus on existing friends and connections. And not showing as much on what people have done but what they can do together.
Its not that these things aren't possible on the networks now but its not how these sites use their influence and primary resources, and really it would be stupid for them to do, because they are businesses and their goal is to make money, they will only improve peoples lives as long as it doesn't get in the way of making money.
Part of use realize what they are doing we know they put profits above us, but they deliver what we expect a little bit of happiness a little bit of connection, we know it wont satisfy us but its easy, real easy with no risk, why put effort in for maybe a solid human connection when you can have that quick and easy hit right now.
If you read this far, why is scientific studies, or science in general not going to fix this? Because even if there is perfect research that spells out exactly the issue and lays out exactly how to not be lonely 2 things are going to happen.
1. Companies will exploit it in a way to make money if not right away then over time putting us right back to where we were.
2. We wont do it because we prefer the easy/fast way even if its worse.
this isnt going to change, its not that we cant have real connections, its just we have never had so many easy alternatives before, for a lot of people being alone has become the default we grew up with instead of the exception.
There was an article here a day or two ago highlighting Brutalist churches that got a modicum of attention. Having experienced a bit of Brutalist architecture, I mostly thought of it as ugly (at least the exteriors; the experience of occupying it is a bit more nuanced), but I found the pictures of these churches to be rather profound; they used the style to cast a sense of awe that I found really compelling (and I say this as someone who tried for a long time to believe in religion but always failed).
And looking that the dates, they were all mid-century construction and I realized that nothing like them is being built today (at least in my awareness). I don't mean that particular style, but nothing with any style at all; it's all homogenized, optimized, and built-to-cost. It's another part of the lesson of my lifetime that we live in an economy, not a country.
Betteridge's law not withstanding, for the first time in human history, things like loneliness have become the subject of scientific inquiry. This has happened over the last ~50ish years, if that.
As Feynman says, figuring out which of our theories are true, and which of our ideas are subject to the illusion of explanatory depth is important. Especially when it comes to things we think we know, like interpersonal relationships and our own psychology.
True, the social sciences are quite young compared to other scientific fields. But already we have estimates for distinguishing what impacts between and within person variation in loneliness. At the moment, most of this work is done at a very general level; the work tries to characterize various populations of people.
However, one of the newer / more cutting-edge methods of studying things like loneliness involves pinging them multiple times a day to see how their emotional state is changing over time. (So called Ecological Momentary Assessments if you are curious.) Some researchers are using such designs to try and figure out / model what makes an individual tick.
Clinical psychology, anecdotal folk wisdom, research psychology, and potentially even Neuroscience will eventually converge. In my opinion, one semi-unique challenge is that the set of skills that makes one a good researcher and one a good people person are not highly correlated. This doesn't matter for Chemistry (etc.), but I think it matters more for the social sciences.
The problem with social sciences isn’t that they’re young, it’s that they’re all junk science. They’re all filled with poorly defined experiments, theories that you can never properly test, results that you cannot reproduce and that nobody’s going to try to, and if the topic of a study is even slightly political or controversial, you’ll often find that a study can’t feasibly be conducted, or it will be conducted by people who don’t want it to be rigorous in the first place.
I’m skeptical that a lot of these questions even can be answered scientifically at all, but rather confident that they’re not going to be by the existing system.
There is plenty of junk, I'll grant you that. But there is also variation in study quality, which ipso facto implies that some studies might just even be good. I take what you are talking about to be the relative immaturity of social sciences.
> But there is also variation in study quality, which ipso facto implies that some studies might just even be good.
The fact that there's variation doesn't at all imply that any of it is any good. It could vary from "embarrassingly flat-earth-theory-in-2024" bad, to "unable to produce a falsifiable hypothesis" bad.
And even when some of it is good (controls, reproducability, etc), it gets completely ignored by practitioners[1]. Imagine if doctors prescribed eye of newt even when there's studies proving the efficacy of paracetemol.
[1] By practitioners I mean therapy and therapists. You could send 100 random people to 100 different therapists and all of them would report that a followup visit has been recommended. As far as therapists are concerned, there is no such thing as "You're perfectly normal. Congratulations and come back only when you have a problem"
> However, one of the newer / more cutting-edge methods of studying things like loneliness involves pinging them multiple times a day to see how their emotional state is changing over time.
That would seem to have a strong Heisenberg problem. "I'm not so lonely any more, sociologists keep asking for my important opinion."
Fair point. It's controlled for statistically; while there are no perfect measures, it's a decently novel lens into daily experience. Even Apple Health does a version of it now.
Yeah, by pointing out society demands too much socialization, juicing our biochemistry into addiction, and making us feel depressed when we’re alone.
All hands on deck meant more when it actually required all hands to build a church or barn.
We can’t use history to understand how to relate to the world anymore. People were often wrong more than right and far less civil. All those people socializing in the past were forced to under threat of violent burning at the stake or being sold into slavery.
Just LARPing historical patterns without contextualization is insane
First sentence of article: "One Wednesday in May 2023, a small group gathered at an outdoor café in Barcelona, Spain, sipping coffee in the late morning sunshine and talking about their lives."
Can we please stop starting articles with fucking anecdote leads, Jesus Christ it's been like twenty years of this, get a new thing my God.
It’s a piece in the popular press. People connect more with writing that is evocative rather than something that reads like a navel-gazing journal article or TPS report.
11 is actually pretty good at that. If one actually travels, as opposed to go to do a pre-organised tour, you end up interacting with tons of different people out of sheer necessity.
You'll never catch me volunteering again. It always felt like I was getting used and then discarded. I can be miserable by myself, I don't need to provide free labour to others who then go back home to their loved ones and friends. Society is not entitled to my productivity.
Build a bit of confidence (gym being the simplest way) and get out there, because whoever you are, there is someone else out there who looks precisely for you. But you aren't gonna meet them if you sit tight, so get out.
Internalize this: you are attractive and you have worth, right now. You are good enough. And someone is waiting for you out there.
What if you're introverted, intellectual and not part of the bread & circus tribe (which should be the case for some people on HN)? What does "get out" mean, then? You won't see me at a nightclub, a bar or any place made for people to socialize over inane discussions, alcohol and crap "music".
That can be parks, museums, gym, hacker spaces and yes also clubs.
A new (ancient) trend, that maybe works for you, is called ecstatic dance. The basic idea is, no alcohol, no drugs, no talking (inside the main area) - just good music and dancing - till ecstasy. Expressing the language of the body. This connects people.
Every ecstatic dance I attended was different (also on different places, organised by different people) but all of them were worth it.
If there are no dancers and you get up there at all the band will probably love it.
They might just not play so mundane after that.
And others who may be the least bit inspired will often get right up there with you, hesitating much less than they would have normally done.
Even if it's all by yourself.
There's a song about that, Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2qZ6zc6ts
Where he basically draws the dead up onto their feet, he ecstatically blows them all away, they love him anyway and everybody ends up boogieing like zombies.
>You won't see me at a nightclub, a bar or any place made for people to socialize over inane discussions, alcohol and crap "music".
You won't see most people, they're usually hanging out socially with others they met like that or at equivalent places they prefer to gather whether or not alcohol was prominent, discussions were inane or music was crap.
Or whether there was anything like music at all.
But if there is music, you know what to do ;)
Trust me, I'm a scientist.
OTOH there's a lot to be said for striving to widen social circles using remote technology more so than direct contact. Haven't gotten around to that yet so I don't have much to add there.
EDIT added anyway: Helpful tip: It's probably better to leave your phone at home so it doesn't get broken while ecstatically dancing or anything else. People that are interested in what they see will often be understanding and more than willing to text your phone while it is still in repose back in its coffin. You can then power back up and raise the phone from the grave when the time is right. But it's well recognized that a lot of people need to raise their gaze and their fingers well above the plane of a touchscreen, to further points of interest more than they do.
They might just not play so mundane after that.
And others who may be the least bit inspired will often get right up there with you, hesitating much less than they would have normally done."
Definitely, but it takes a lot of courage to do that. I am a very good dancer and I often was the only one dancing - and yes, the band of course loves it and usually also most other people.
But it is always a struggle to really let go and ignore all the thoughts of what others might think and just take the empty space in front of the band and go wild.
Ecstatic dance in the way I experienced it, is specially made to not have that crowd of judging outsiders and rather tries to create a safe space where everyone can just move how he or she feels like without being judged. (also phones are banned there, so no fear that someone might take a video of you, which is something that defninitely happens when dancing in public spaces).
Go to a local gathering place (cafe, bar, church, literally wherever people hang out), look at the pinboard to find an upcoming thing to go to. Ask people what they do for fun. Whatever you do, don’t look for the “perfect” thing. It doesn’t exist, and waiting for/seeking it gets in the way of you actually meeting people.
Be curious.
Isn’t that a fundamental trait of the intellectual? Consider everything, turn over every stone?
The world is crawling with interesting people who would be your friends.
Socialization is a give-and-take; expect to give (maybe listen to some “crap music” with others) before you can take.
One more thing: it sounds like you’ve built a superiority complex. Kill that. It’s a facade you’ve built to insulate yourself. You’ll never meet others with it … or you’ll just meet other snobs.
Consider that there may be someone out at those “inane” events who feels the same as you, but is out there looking for you to show up!
Addendum: this has momentum. Once you start meeting people and feeling more confident, it won’t feel like work anymore. At that point, you may actually find yourself engaging people like your former self.
Two things you mention that are powerful:
1. Keep it really simple. Just show up. You don’t have to solve what happens next, or make a perfect first impression, or be a perfect person. Give yourself the same grace you would others.
2. The gratitude you feel for having found the group. Imagine how the others you’ve helped feel having found the group.
A great story—thank you for sharing.
And the blanket suggestion that gym somehow solves everything is stupid. Personall experience: I tried it and ended up no better and with knee issues with which doctors can't help (just rest some, sure, like 8 months now since it began). Started playing computer games again and giving less shit about everything, feel happy again. Escapism does work.
That said, I started a gym routine last year to try and relieve anxiety. I'm quite limited (you have no idea how much you use your hips until you get 8/10 pain for a few days after aggravating them). So it means low-impact activities and upper-body workouts. I didn't think it would make any difference in my appearance; I just needed to move in any way I could. After a few months I started getting comments about putting on muscle and overall looking better. (I lost of lot of weight which is more attributable to cleaning up my diet concurrently to a gym routine) A co-worker I met assumed I must be ex-military which I found funny because the childhood illness I had is specifically named in their document of medical exclusions. I don't think it's any secret that people treat you better when you appear more fit, and it is something that you have some control over.
But I don't believe that looks are motivation enough to get you to the gym every day (at least for me it is not); it's much better to do it for your well-being. Ideally, you can find exercises that both workaround your injuries and that you enjoy. Also, it's not like you need to go hard at the gym for two hours a day every day of the week; just do what you can and take pride in what you are able to achieve within your limits.
I've spent a lot of my life regretting my circumstances in unhealthy ways which I ultimately regret. I can't say that everything is wonderful now or even good, but they are better.
Usually knee issues do not heal with resting, but with moving. And rather get worse over time while remaining passive (in resting position only some blood flows through the whole knee, and the muscle detoriates quickly and without a strong muscle, even more stress gets onto the knee)
So unless you have a very special condition where competent doctors especially said, only resting will help, rather get active again with light activity. Walking, cycling, dancing, climbing, ...
Every exercise that moves the body, without putting too much stress on it.
It's not over yet, there will be excercise, waiting in line for a specialist, but not walking/cycling/dancing/climbing, execises you do at home when you have an injury.
Anyway, I tried to exercise, I got an injury, and I felt worse than without exercise, cause something was taken away from me.
My experience with bandages is, only use them when you absolutely have to. Otherwise your body gets used to them and sees even less need to make the knee work on its own.
In general, I am not a doctor, but went through years of working out how to fix bad knees and went from doctor to doctor, operation etc. (most doctors were actually very bad for anything not routine)
What helped in the end, was establishing a habit of doing special knee exercises whenever possible. And lots of adequate sport in moderation. Climbing and Trampolin may sound crazy, but are actually pretty good for the knees if done on a light level and also walking barefeet helped a lot. In general, trying to get the muscles around the knee as strong as possible, as then the muscles can hold your knee to replace whatever is broken inside your knee.
"Anyway, I tried to exercise, I got an injury, and I felt worse than without exercise, cause something was taken away from me."
And I would be careful with your conclusion, in my opinion you just did too much of wrong exercise. That is bad, yes (and is also what messed up my knees initially). So maybe try to find activities or exercises that are fun, but not too hard. And yes, it sucks not being able to do, what you could do before. At some point I allmost thought I would never be able to run again. And I definitely will never get back to the state of before - but I managed to do quite a lot again. Anyway, all the best for your recovery.
The answer is that being in need of emotional comfort does not imply the ability to provide it, so after some time they are bad fit even for each other. The same goes with "why don't unattractive people date each other".
Good analogy.
How is it "actively" harmful?
Negative? Maybe. Harmful? Doubtful, but lets give you the benefit of the doubt anyway.
actively harmful (different from just harmful)? I do not see it.
I'm not sure what "the answer"is, but I think those who work in and with information systems in the broadest sense, might contribute to its cure.
I have sometimes spent 6 months alone in wilderness and eventually the Inner Voice kicks in. It seems to be a mechanism to maintain sanity. Upon returning to civilization the Voice soon disappears.
In my case the Voice is a film director, mostly Werner Herzog, who might say, "now the subject has finally lost his marbles and does not make bear-proof stash for his food".
Pay people more, work them less.
Then “interacting” would be a requirement again.
I'll certainly be going back to work, but more because it gives me a sense of purpose and less because I think working is a necessary (or even good) solution to address loneliness. My comment was intended to highlight that there's no silver bullet to this issue.
Modern society has many alluring activities which don't necessitate forming bonds with other humans, the world keeps shifting around even if you stay the same, and it's easy to find yourself dissatisfied with the status quo while also feeling like your lifestyle is an accurate reflection of the way you desire to live.
Five years ago I was in a relationship, shared a house with 5 other people, social media wasn't as stigmatized, and my peers and I were all in our twenties. I had transitioned to fully remote work, but I felt overwhelmed by the amount of personal interactions I was having. Space was more desirable than connectedness.
Fast-forward a bit, I moved out of a group living situation post-covid, broke up with my partner which segmented our friends, many people settled down with children and stopped going out, and Facebook became uncool. These things happened slowly, and I was enamored with my job, so it didn't weigh on me as it was occurring. Then, when the job was finished, I realized I had settled into a lifestyle where I had no external pressure to leave the house, could go weeks without using my voice, didn't have readily available ways of quickly connecting with people, and that I would need to take significant actions to address the situation in ways that I'd never needed to in my life thus far.
Adding a job back into the mix will help in some ways. Management certainly forces me to use my voice. And, of course, it's possible to put myself out there and make friends with twenty-somethings who want to go out all the time, but it feels less natural when there's a larger age gap. It's a lot of work, too, as it's easier to meet friends through friends than forge relationships from scratch. I can change my personality entirely and decide I want to settle down, to try and better guarantee having a close partner, but that's certainly never been something I've seen myself doing. Or I can try to re-envision myself as an extrovert and try to find it implicitly appealing to socialize rather than just something that addresses a need, but that's never been a trait I've seen in myself.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I feel my personality and desires have remained consistent throughout my life, but society and culture has shifted around me. If I want to be less lonely then I need to change myself and build an appreciation for activities which result in socialization, or settle for different/worse interactions that are still useful for addressing loneliness, but these decisions weren't necessary in my teens and twenties. People were just around all the time. And yes, I'm sure some of that has to do with people being busy working, but it's a lot more than that, too.
I addressed this elsewhere in this thread, but my comment was addressing the people who do suffer from these issues.
You are lucky you have the privilege you do. You are unencumbered by these basic needs, and so will have to look harder at finding solutions to your problem with loneliness. Maybe therapy? You, again, have the rare combination of both the time and money to be able to try that.
But you are likely in a <1% of the population category, and hey, sometimes things written on the internet are meant for people other than ourselves.
Like the other 99% of everyone.
I do hope you find your tribe again.
If that’s the case then how do you solve the proximity problem when you have $0 and 0 free time?
Honestly this thread is chock full of: “I’m rich and still lonely!” people who are so far off the mark on rationalizing my suggestion that I feel a need to amend my gp:
“pay people more, work them less, and learn how to have empathy for other people”
What evidence ca you provide?
I feel like all of the articles I read about comparing work across time say people worked less before industrialization; although I think it’s a silly thing to compare and more of a thought experiment.
Either way what relief does your position provide, even if correct, to the many underpaid and overworked people living in your city?
How does your opinion fit into the current uptick in people having to work multiple jobs, and people saying they will be unable to ever retire.
Ultimately, this raises the question of whether all this actually ultimately places us in a better position, e.g., the state of humanity as seen in something like the anime Darling in the Franxx. Interestingly, this is similar to the notion that poorer people that work less desirable jobs for less money are less lonely.
Citation needed.
Aside from despising the “productivity” defense, the 4 day work weeks has shown to increase “productivity“.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-four-day-workwe...
My point being is that people want to be rich and loneliness takes a backseat. The least lonely people I know are all working class and near the poverty level. In contrast, most of the well off people I know are a lot more lonely.
Why indeed? Your bosses must love you defending your own mistreatment. You should put this quote on your CV.
> you can always work less.
Do you honestly think you can tell that to a person struggling financially while working 3 jobs?
> most of the well off people I know are a lot more lonely.
In a society of such aggressive wealth disparity as ours, a result of underpaying and overworking the majority of the population, a lot of wealthy people self isolate, and become lonely, because they had to harm others to get that wealth or are afraid the poors will try to take it from them.
Do those wealthy people somehow deserve my sympathy, or the focus of the efforts of this scientific inquiry, more than the people working multiple jobs yet are unable to ever retire?
Also, orthogonal lines share a common point of intersection.
Perhaps you’re feeling the transition in increased disparity between minimum wage and cost of living that occurred ~30 years ago?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/politics/minimum-wage-inflati...
> all of human history worked
And you are also correct. They probably had a tough life and for those humans, the reward was survival and more. I can only imagine waking up on a cold morning, no running water, stepping out on the fields, using average manual tools. They probably stuck around in groups.
You think financial pressure has zero bearing on your mental health?
What bearing does your mental health have on your capacity to form and nurture relationships?
If you read the article then you’d know the org has been given 5M euro and so far has come up with:
> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
You’ll need spare cash and spare time for those solutions.
>> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
I could have saved them $5M by loaning them my copy of “Bowling Alone”
> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
I have to go online to find the clubs?
In America, there's consolidation everywhere in search of greater efficiency and profits. From local tennis clubs merging into city-wide organizations managed through an app to monopolies emerging in corporate landscape.
Only the orange site would get angry at someone suggesting they should be paid more and have more free time to pursue their interests.
Interesting that of all places Phil McAuliffe was in Korea. Korean culture is very welcoming. Once a connection is made, one becomes part of the family.
At times loneliness can spur one to push past fears such as travelling alone or attending an event solo.
Who knows? I've internalized "hell is other people" innovative ways my entire life
If Television stayed live, local, honest, people you seen around your local town, it would encourage engagement. youtube could have focused on sharing videos with friends, could have ignored likes/dislikes and didnt focus on popularity and parasocial relationships. Facebook could have encouraged not on finding, adding, expanding, friends and engaging on the platform, but instead encourage real connections by encouraging prodding for real world meetups suggestions on games to play in person, finding people who like to do the similar things and suggesting times and places they can do it together with a focus on existing friends and connections. And not showing as much on what people have done but what they can do together.
Its not that these things aren't possible on the networks now but its not how these sites use their influence and primary resources, and really it would be stupid for them to do, because they are businesses and their goal is to make money, they will only improve peoples lives as long as it doesn't get in the way of making money. Part of use realize what they are doing we know they put profits above us, but they deliver what we expect a little bit of happiness a little bit of connection, we know it wont satisfy us but its easy, real easy with no risk, why put effort in for maybe a solid human connection when you can have that quick and easy hit right now.
If you read this far, why is scientific studies, or science in general not going to fix this? Because even if there is perfect research that spells out exactly the issue and lays out exactly how to not be lonely 2 things are going to happen.
1. Companies will exploit it in a way to make money if not right away then over time putting us right back to where we were. 2. We wont do it because we prefer the easy/fast way even if its worse.
this isnt going to change, its not that we cant have real connections, its just we have never had so many easy alternatives before, for a lot of people being alone has become the default we grew up with instead of the exception.
And looking that the dates, they were all mid-century construction and I realized that nothing like them is being built today (at least in my awareness). I don't mean that particular style, but nothing with any style at all; it's all homogenized, optimized, and built-to-cost. It's another part of the lesson of my lifetime that we live in an economy, not a country.
As Feynman says, figuring out which of our theories are true, and which of our ideas are subject to the illusion of explanatory depth is important. Especially when it comes to things we think we know, like interpersonal relationships and our own psychology.
True, the social sciences are quite young compared to other scientific fields. But already we have estimates for distinguishing what impacts between and within person variation in loneliness. At the moment, most of this work is done at a very general level; the work tries to characterize various populations of people.
However, one of the newer / more cutting-edge methods of studying things like loneliness involves pinging them multiple times a day to see how their emotional state is changing over time. (So called Ecological Momentary Assessments if you are curious.) Some researchers are using such designs to try and figure out / model what makes an individual tick.
Clinical psychology, anecdotal folk wisdom, research psychology, and potentially even Neuroscience will eventually converge. In my opinion, one semi-unique challenge is that the set of skills that makes one a good researcher and one a good people person are not highly correlated. This doesn't matter for Chemistry (etc.), but I think it matters more for the social sciences.
I’m skeptical that a lot of these questions even can be answered scientifically at all, but rather confident that they’re not going to be by the existing system.
The fact that there's variation doesn't at all imply that any of it is any good. It could vary from "embarrassingly flat-earth-theory-in-2024" bad, to "unable to produce a falsifiable hypothesis" bad.
And even when some of it is good (controls, reproducability, etc), it gets completely ignored by practitioners[1]. Imagine if doctors prescribed eye of newt even when there's studies proving the efficacy of paracetemol.
[1] By practitioners I mean therapy and therapists. You could send 100 random people to 100 different therapists and all of them would report that a followup visit has been recommended. As far as therapists are concerned, there is no such thing as "You're perfectly normal. Congratulations and come back only when you have a problem"
That would seem to have a strong Heisenberg problem. "I'm not so lonely any more, sociologists keep asking for my important opinion."
All hands on deck meant more when it actually required all hands to build a church or barn.
We can’t use history to understand how to relate to the world anymore. People were often wrong more than right and far less civil. All those people socializing in the past were forced to under threat of violent burning at the stake or being sold into slavery.
Just LARPing historical patterns without contextualization is insane
Can we please stop starting articles with fucking anecdote leads, Jesus Christ it's been like twenty years of this, get a new thing my God.
2) Pick up a religion and just put in the minimum effort (i observe shabbat)
3) Consume psilocybin when weed doesn't work or you need a tolerance break
4) Pick up a hobby with community online/offline
5) Argue with people on X
6) Play games with strangers
7) Join a club with common interests
8) HN
9) Volunteer
10) Absolutely avoid social media like DM'ing with ppl
11) Travel
surprised you did not mention physical exercise. that is by far most helpful.