6 ms·

Man, this one really hit close to home for me. There was a time a few years ago when I realized every friend I had in the world was a co-worker. When I left my

Man, this one really hit close to home for me. There was a time a few years ago when I realized every friend I had in the world was a co-worker. When I left my job a few years back, I lost almost all of them. We'd try to stay close, but it never worked very well. Everyone, myself included was just too busy. The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely.

foobarian 9y ago
It seems like church/organized religion is a useful channel for connecting people outside work. I'm not a zealot or believer by any means but the times I tagged along to Catholic services I was impressed the most by the post-service socializing and general connectedness of the churchgoers.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I have noticed that too. Churchgoers have an instant network wherever they go. I am not a believer but that's a nice trait. I don't know of anything else that can be compared.
  - Godel_unicode 9y ago
    Pretty much any popular group activity fits that pattern. I play basketball and hack on Python, and both have been excellent ways to meet interesting people in new towns. It helps (with basketball at least) to be good, but mostly you just have to be a friendly person and go hang out at the gym/Meetup.
  - sulam 9y ago
    AA. Which is basically church. :)
- darkmighty 9y ago
  I feel there's a really enormous market for this kind of non-religious gathering. And not centered in any particular activity either: when people lack religion they usually go for hobbies/sports, but that's an entirely different affair that doesn't necessarily relieve loneliness (especially if it is competitive, 1v1 or solo). Not everyone has the necessary skill for a hobby, the necessary funds, etc. What we really crave is a place for discussing ethics, morals and general life guidelines. Church has many interesting properties that have been abandoned (due to obsolescence of the content, but not the form!): you can be just a passive observer in Church. You're with other people, which generally act supportively in this environment, and you can just be there amongst others without speaking, only hearing both comforting and hopefully useful ethical guidelines. You're hearing that you're loved and that everyone should love eachother -- which is usually true in the first case, and generally accepted in the latter -- but sometimes a reminder is really due. Then if you have a problem you don't feel like sharing with anyone else, you have this guy, the priest, which has essentially a confidentiality agreement that you can safely tell him whatever. If you have a problem you can ask for guidance. The priest can usually pull some strings to get other churchgoers to assist you if necessary too (especially easy but important things like emotional support). What we have today as non-religious individuals are for the most part psychologists, which have many issues: -- You don't get the participation feel from joining a large group of people, and interacting with the ones you are interested in that group; -- They tend to view your problems as disorders, when sometimes all you need is the presence of a group of people for alleviating light emotional distress; -- They don't feel too confident giving advice, and they probably shouldn't, since they may not have experience with your situation (whereas some churchgoers might); and very important: -- They are expensive, while church is completely free. In a web jargon, psychologists don't scale very well. Suppose everybody went to see a psychologist, and each psychologist had 10 patients. Then at least 10% of the population needs to be psychologists. Instead you could get k -- a lot better than 1 -- mutual confidants by connecting with a k person subgroup out of a larger meeting. And when you can't find a suitable subgroup, you have a speaker giving general advice for a very large number of people. We need non-religious churches.
  - Numberwang 9y ago
    Here's an example of that: https://www.sundayassembly.com/ https://www.sundayassembly.com/ I've never gone, but I've thought about it.
  - eru 9y ago
    Church of England or the Unitarians might be non-religious enough for you? (I'm not a Christian, so can't say too much.)
    - darkmighty 9y ago
      From what I've read, Church of England is definitely a religious organization. Unitarianism however seems largely non-religious, but still might not be ideal due to still being rooted in catholic dogma and morals -- it is still classified as a "Christian theological movement".
      - eru 9y ago
        Word on the street is that half of the Church of England's priests are closet-agnostics. Or at least it's close enough to true that this is a common quip. If you want something that's certified to be Christian-free, you might want to look up the humanist branches of the Freemasons. Or some of the humanist Quakers. Or just pick any random hobby like swing dancing for a community around it.
  - minikomi 9y ago
    Weak become heros / and the stars align...
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > They are expensive In some countries. In other they're free.
  - philippnagel 9y ago
    There is also https://www.theschooloflife.com/ https://www.theschooloflife.com/.
- danjc 9y ago
  Communities form because of shared interest. Churches become communities because of shared beliefs. Having a worldview perspective in common is perhaps the most powerful way for people to be united. Remove religion to create a church-like experience and you have nothing to hold people together. Also worth noting that in most churches people have a reason greater than their own selfish interests in socializing to hold them together.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The obvious counter example is UU, which doesn't necessarily share beliefs other than a kind of social responsibility to do charitable work. Unfortunately the median age in UU seems to be about 80. I'm not sure 20-somethings looking for community are going to find it among grandparents.
    - drdeadringer 9y ago
      When I've attended services, and for a while I was one of 5 people between ages 12 and 45 at one particular UU church, I heard it said that if UUs could better their retention rate they'd have very serious growth.
Aaargh20318 9y ago
> The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely. Not to be rude, but how can that be ? Isn't your wife supposed to be your best/closest friend ? I'm a loner myself and have no experience with relationships so I have no idea what it's like to be in one but you make it sound kind of pointless.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > Isn't your wife supposed to be your best/closest friend? No, although that's a common misconception; it can turn out that way, but rarely does, and there's nothing of necessity wrong with a relationship in which it does not. I was married myself for about a decade, and also painfully lonely through most of it despite being nearly never physically alone. I've operated under the impression that this had to do with the abusive nature of that relationship, and wasn't representative of any general case. Now I'm starting to wonder if I might not have been wrong about that. Certainly I still hesitate to draw any kind of general conclusion from my own experience of marriage - but I'm hearing a lot more lately from men whose experiences in this regard are similar, despite their relationships generally not appearing to be so.
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    Then why have a relationship at all ?
    - throwanem 9y ago
      Well, for one thing, it's the best model our society makes available for raising and supporting kids. That's not to say it is necessarily a very good model, but I think if you have to choose between your kids growing up with their parents in a stable and functional, if not especially warm or happy, relationship on the one hand, and your kids growing up with divorced parents on the other, it's very hard to find any way to justify the latter choice on the basis of their welfare. Quite aside from that, though, I'm still not seeing any reason to assume that relationships in general exhibit this problem - only that it's not quite as uncommon as the highly atypical nature of my own experience led me to surmise. (Or what I hope to be the highly atypical nature, anyway. If marriages like mine are anything except vanishingly uncommon, that's a serious problem. There are so many improbable circumstances around the way mine started that I've seen no reason to assume many similar relationships exist - but on reflection it occurs to me that I've failed to account for the possibility of stochastic convergence.)

foobarian 9y ago

It seems like church/organized religion is a useful channel for connecting people outside work. I'm not a zealot or believer by any means but the times I tagged along to Catholic services I was impressed the most by the post-service socializing and general connectedness of the churchgoers.

maxxxxx 9y ago
I have noticed that too. Churchgoers have an instant network wherever they go. I am not a believer but that's a nice trait. I don't know of anything else that can be compared.
- Godel_unicode 9y ago
  Pretty much any popular group activity fits that pattern. I play basketball and hack on Python, and both have been excellent ways to meet interesting people in new towns. It helps (with basketball at least) to be good, but mostly you just have to be a friendly person and go hang out at the gym/Meetup.
- sulam 9y ago
  AA. Which is basically church. :)
darkmighty 9y ago
I feel there's a really enormous market for this kind of non-religious gathering. And not centered in any particular activity either: when people lack religion they usually go for hobbies/sports, but that's an entirely different affair that doesn't necessarily relieve loneliness (especially if it is competitive, 1v1 or solo). Not everyone has the necessary skill for a hobby, the necessary funds, etc. What we really crave is a place for discussing ethics, morals and general life guidelines. Church has many interesting properties that have been abandoned (due to obsolescence of the content, but not the form!): you can be just a passive observer in Church. You're with other people, which generally act supportively in this environment, and you can just be there amongst others without speaking, only hearing both comforting and hopefully useful ethical guidelines. You're hearing that you're loved and that everyone should love eachother -- which is usually true in the first case, and generally accepted in the latter -- but sometimes a reminder is really due. Then if you have a problem you don't feel like sharing with anyone else, you have this guy, the priest, which has essentially a confidentiality agreement that you can safely tell him whatever. If you have a problem you can ask for guidance. The priest can usually pull some strings to get other churchgoers to assist you if necessary too (especially easy but important things like emotional support). What we have today as non-religious individuals are for the most part psychologists, which have many issues: -- You don't get the participation feel from joining a large group of people, and interacting with the ones you are interested in that group; -- They tend to view your problems as disorders, when sometimes all you need is the presence of a group of people for alleviating light emotional distress; -- They don't feel too confident giving advice, and they probably shouldn't, since they may not have experience with your situation (whereas some churchgoers might); and very important: -- They are expensive, while church is completely free. In a web jargon, psychologists don't scale very well. Suppose everybody went to see a psychologist, and each psychologist had 10 patients. Then at least 10% of the population needs to be psychologists. Instead you could get k -- a lot better than 1 -- mutual confidants by connecting with a k person subgroup out of a larger meeting. And when you can't find a suitable subgroup, you have a speaker giving general advice for a very large number of people. We need non-religious churches.
- Numberwang 9y ago
  Here's an example of that: https://www.sundayassembly.com/ https://www.sundayassembly.com/ I've never gone, but I've thought about it.
- eru 9y ago
  Church of England or the Unitarians might be non-religious enough for you? (I'm not a Christian, so can't say too much.)
  - darkmighty 9y ago
    From what I've read, Church of England is definitely a religious organization. Unitarianism however seems largely non-religious, but still might not be ideal due to still being rooted in catholic dogma and morals -- it is still classified as a "Christian theological movement".
    - eru 9y ago
      Word on the street is that half of the Church of England's priests are closet-agnostics. Or at least it's close enough to true that this is a common quip. If you want something that's certified to be Christian-free, you might want to look up the humanist branches of the Freemasons. Or some of the humanist Quakers. Or just pick any random hobby like swing dancing for a community around it.
- minikomi 9y ago
  Weak become heros / and the stars align...
- DanBC 9y ago
  > They are expensive In some countries. In other they're free.
- philippnagel 9y ago
  There is also https://www.theschooloflife.com/ https://www.theschooloflife.com/.
danjc 9y ago
Communities form because of shared interest. Churches become communities because of shared beliefs. Having a worldview perspective in common is perhaps the most powerful way for people to be united. Remove religion to create a church-like experience and you have nothing to hold people together. Also worth noting that in most churches people have a reason greater than their own selfish interests in socializing to hold them together.
- closeparen 9y ago
  The obvious counter example is UU, which doesn't necessarily share beliefs other than a kind of social responsibility to do charitable work. Unfortunately the median age in UU seems to be about 80. I'm not sure 20-somethings looking for community are going to find it among grandparents.
  - drdeadringer 9y ago
    When I've attended services, and for a while I was one of 5 people between ages 12 and 45 at one particular UU church, I heard it said that if UUs could better their retention rate they'd have very serious growth.

Aaargh20318 9y ago

> The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely. Not to be rude, but how can that be ? Isn't your wife supposed to be your best/closest friend ? I'm a loner myself and have no experience with relationships so I have no idea what it's like to be in one but you make it sound kind of pointless.

throwanem 9y ago
> Isn't your wife supposed to be your best/closest friend? No, although that's a common misconception; it can turn out that way, but rarely does, and there's nothing of necessity wrong with a relationship in which it does not. I was married myself for about a decade, and also painfully lonely through most of it despite being nearly never physically alone. I've operated under the impression that this had to do with the abusive nature of that relationship, and wasn't representative of any general case. Now I'm starting to wonder if I might not have been wrong about that. Certainly I still hesitate to draw any kind of general conclusion from my own experience of marriage - but I'm hearing a lot more lately from men whose experiences in this regard are similar, despite their relationships generally not appearing to be so.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  Then why have a relationship at all ?
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Well, for one thing, it's the best model our society makes available for raising and supporting kids. That's not to say it is necessarily a very good model, but I think if you have to choose between your kids growing up with their parents in a stable and functional, if not especially warm or happy, relationship on the one hand, and your kids growing up with divorced parents on the other, it's very hard to find any way to justify the latter choice on the basis of their welfare. Quite aside from that, though, I'm still not seeing any reason to assume that relationships in general exhibit this problem - only that it's not quite as uncommon as the highly atypical nature of my own experience led me to surmise. (Or what I hope to be the highly atypical nature, anyway. If marriages like mine are anything except vanishingly uncommon, that's a serious problem. There are so many improbable circumstances around the way mine started that I've seen no reason to assume many similar relationships exist - but on reflection it occurs to me that I've failed to account for the possibility of stochastic convergence.)