3 ms·

> A "remote social life" is not even close to the same thing and chats online or the phone with "disposable friends" and strangers who have a clear and easy dis

> A "remote social life" is not even close to the same thing and chats online or the phone with "disposable friends" and strangers who have a clear and easy disconnect from your real life don't fill the hole a lack of enduring, present human contact leaves and usually take precious energy with no real benefit. Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anecdotally, I and others I know have formed deep, meaningful relationships with people online. I think the hardest part of that is finding small communities - i.e, it's hard to make meaningful connections in a sub-reddit filled with 100,000 people, but in niche forums and chatrooms, with userbases in the dozens, I think it's much more feasible.

hestipod 9y ago
I've been in this situation to worsening degrees for 15 years...It really upsets me to hear people say I am causing it (self fulfilling) or not doing it right. I am glad you were able to make connections online...it's not something that replaces that need in me. I need real life face to face interaction. It is also farther down the list than my immediate problems and having a new friend is not going to fix my life or even make it bearable right now...I know for some people solidarity in suffering helps but relationships of any kind drain me with all thats going on and I have to ration my energy. The loss of connections is just another effect of my major issues that piles on and without addressing those the rest can't change. Sorry if I sound rude...I don't intend it. It's just so hard to hear the same "just get a hobby" or "just make friends online" or "you must just be doing it wrong since it works for me" stuff repeatedly. If it were something that worked for me I'd be doing it because this life is pure misery for me from most all angles.
- doughj3 9y ago
  You don't come off as rude and I didn't mean to imply you're causing it; sorry if my comment was upsetting. I was trying to point out that it's easy to get stuck in your kind of situation and become, for lack of a better word, pessimistic. Obviously everyone is different and, as you say, "online socialization" may just not fill that need for you (and others). Given the situation of relative isolation physically / geographically ("rural unconnected America"), I was only trying to offer the idea that connecting to people online can be possible for some, though it does take time and effort which may be hard to expend after years of feeling there is no return on that investment. Again, apologies if I painted with too broad a brush.
  - hestipod 9y ago
    I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc but I like tech and find this site refreshing because of the politeness and respect in interactions like this one. I can apologize and it will be taken at face value, and someone can apologize to me and its sincere. I've been missing that sort of mature intellectual/emotional honesty in interaction irl and online for a long time. So thanks :)
    - shrimp_emoji 9y ago
      >I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc WELL THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM! I'm a latecomer to two of those three things, but they're tremendous specs for shut-ins! Due to tons of moving, the most and best friends I've ever had have been people online, so maybe my psyche is too warped to feel the lack of physical interaction. In fact, I think the real world is a terrible place[0], and my ability to express myself is much greater here. But online social life is much like real life social life; friends come and go, enemies are eternal, and, if you don't try to meet new people, making new connections becomes harder. Enter programming and nerd stuff. I've become more disconnected from my online friends, most of them non-technical, as I sank deeper in an online introversion of stuff they can't relate to like makefiles and Linux. I've become less interested in things that aren't those things, eroding our common ground. I can't even hold conversations anymore unless they're about how awful Gnome 3 is! Conversely, contact with the VERY FEW nerdy friends I've had and still find is higher than ever, but that's a small crowd. And they can't like me that much because most of them are smarter than me, so all I do is leech them for knowledge, which is not how you build a healthy relationship, hesti -- it's gotta be a symmetric take AND give! But they don't have to like me; I like them, and I'm locked in an eternal struggle of autism to feel several human emotions. [0] https://youtu.be/Ctryg4zg8FU https://youtu.be/Ctryg4zg8FU
      - anthk 9y ago
        OpenBSD user here. A lot of people in Spain hang out by appearance, to show. Even a lot of people do this at bars to drink or have fake talks about soccer so they are not seed as nerds/freaks. There is a lot of hypocrisy in society. I would like to be more North-European: just hang out by pleasure, not from habit doing it meaningless.
- NutriSugar 9y ago
  >Sorry if I sound rude...I don't intend it. It's just so hard to hear the same "just get a hobby" or "just make friends online" or "you must just be doing it wrong since it works for me" stuff repeatedly. If it were something that worked for me I'd be doing it because this life is pure misery for me from most all angles. I have found it enlightening to try to view fiscal and relational matters with the lens of the other. Imagine if I made a post telling a poor individual that they should "just go learn some job skills", "learn to code", or "they must be doing it wrong because I've found it easy to get a decent job". Such a post would be viewed as profane. Being a libertarian on fiscal matters gets me labeled as heartless, yet I find libertarian is the best approximate description of the system everyone operates on with regards to relational matters. I've heard many people describe the libertarian approach to helping others as "I've got mine, F you", which is the way I feel treated as a 'socially poor' person. To even bring up the topic of relationship resources/needs being unequal has gotten me some very negative labels in other online communities.
- rndmize 9y ago
  This is probably going to sound like terrible advice, but I'd pick up an MMO. If you're stuck in a rural area and have physical issues with travel or can't afford it, your options for face-to-face contact are pretty much nil. Games with a heavy social component at least get you some parts of human contact - chat, voice, group problem solving and objectives, something in common to discuss.
notheguyouthink 9y ago
I agree, I've been part of very fulfilling online communities. I'd say the only bad thing about them was that for much of the interaction, it required a seat at my computer. There's something to be said for back porch beers, etc. That, to no surprise, doesn't work for me with love relationships of course. My (now) wife and I had a long distance relationship and it was very, very difficult. Unlike the online communities, it was a struggle more than fulfilling - it left me longing for more, etc.
WorldMaker 9y ago
I don't think "deep, meaningful relationships with people online" can truly be effective as a solution until we solve the "endorphins/oxytocin/dopamine deficiency problems". As a species we evolved a ton of inter-related neural pathways that "feed" on inter-personal physical touch as a activator. (Everyone could use at least one 20 second hug a day to light up those pathways.) Loneliness is going to remain a problem, despite well formed and meaningful online relationship groups, so long as people remain touch deficient. It's quite possible we could medicate that visceral, species-wide need away in the near future, but at least for now, physical relationships are always going to have that profligate advantage of primal neural hormone joy that we need to feel less "lonely", even and especially in a crowd of (virtual) friends.

hestipod 9y ago

I've been in this situation to worsening degrees for 15 years...It really upsets me to hear people say I am causing it (self fulfilling) or not doing it right. I am glad you were able to make connections online...it's not something that replaces that need in me. I need real life face to face interaction. It is also farther down the list than my immediate problems and having a new friend is not going to fix my life or even make it bearable right now...I know for some people solidarity in suffering helps but relationships of any kind drain me with all thats going on and I have to ration my energy. The loss of connections is just another effect of my major issues that piles on and without addressing those the rest can't change. Sorry if I sound rude...I don't intend it. It's just so hard to hear the same "just get a hobby" or "just make friends online" or "you must just be doing it wrong since it works for me" stuff repeatedly. If it were something that worked for me I'd be doing it because this life is pure misery for me from most all angles.

doughj3 9y ago
You don't come off as rude and I didn't mean to imply you're causing it; sorry if my comment was upsetting. I was trying to point out that it's easy to get stuck in your kind of situation and become, for lack of a better word, pessimistic. Obviously everyone is different and, as you say, "online socialization" may just not fill that need for you (and others). Given the situation of relative isolation physically / geographically ("rural unconnected America"), I was only trying to offer the idea that connecting to people online can be possible for some, though it does take time and effort which may be hard to expend after years of feeling there is no return on that investment. Again, apologies if I painted with too broad a brush.
- hestipod 9y ago
  I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc but I like tech and find this site refreshing because of the politeness and respect in interactions like this one. I can apologize and it will be taken at face value, and someone can apologize to me and its sincere. I've been missing that sort of mature intellectual/emotional honesty in interaction irl and online for a long time. So thanks :)
  - shrimp_emoji 9y ago
    >I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc WELL THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM! I'm a latecomer to two of those three things, but they're tremendous specs for shut-ins! Due to tons of moving, the most and best friends I've ever had have been people online, so maybe my psyche is too warped to feel the lack of physical interaction. In fact, I think the real world is a terrible place[0], and my ability to express myself is much greater here. But online social life is much like real life social life; friends come and go, enemies are eternal, and, if you don't try to meet new people, making new connections becomes harder. Enter programming and nerd stuff. I've become more disconnected from my online friends, most of them non-technical, as I sank deeper in an online introversion of stuff they can't relate to like makefiles and Linux. I've become less interested in things that aren't those things, eroding our common ground. I can't even hold conversations anymore unless they're about how awful Gnome 3 is! Conversely, contact with the VERY FEW nerdy friends I've had and still find is higher than ever, but that's a small crowd. And they can't like me that much because most of them are smarter than me, so all I do is leech them for knowledge, which is not how you build a healthy relationship, hesti -- it's gotta be a symmetric take AND give! But they don't have to like me; I like them, and I'm locked in an eternal struggle of autism to feel several human emotions. [0] https://youtu.be/Ctryg4zg8FU https://youtu.be/Ctryg4zg8FU
    - anthk 9y ago
      OpenBSD user here. A lot of people in Spain hang out by appearance, to show. Even a lot of people do this at bars to drink or have fake talks about soccer so they are not seed as nerds/freaks. There is a lot of hypocrisy in society. I would like to be more North-European: just hang out by pleasure, not from habit doing it meaningless.
NutriSugar 9y ago
>Sorry if I sound rude...I don't intend it. It's just so hard to hear the same "just get a hobby" or "just make friends online" or "you must just be doing it wrong since it works for me" stuff repeatedly. If it were something that worked for me I'd be doing it because this life is pure misery for me from most all angles. I have found it enlightening to try to view fiscal and relational matters with the lens of the other. Imagine if I made a post telling a poor individual that they should "just go learn some job skills", "learn to code", or "they must be doing it wrong because I've found it easy to get a decent job". Such a post would be viewed as profane. Being a libertarian on fiscal matters gets me labeled as heartless, yet I find libertarian is the best approximate description of the system everyone operates on with regards to relational matters. I've heard many people describe the libertarian approach to helping others as "I've got mine, F you", which is the way I feel treated as a 'socially poor' person. To even bring up the topic of relationship resources/needs being unequal has gotten me some very negative labels in other online communities.
rndmize 9y ago
This is probably going to sound like terrible advice, but I'd pick up an MMO. If you're stuck in a rural area and have physical issues with travel or can't afford it, your options for face-to-face contact are pretty much nil. Games with a heavy social component at least get you some parts of human contact - chat, voice, group problem solving and objectives, something in common to discuss.

notheguyouthink 9y ago

I agree, I've been part of very fulfilling online communities. I'd say the only bad thing about them was that for much of the interaction, it required a seat at my computer. There's something to be said for back porch beers, etc. That, to no surprise, doesn't work for me with love relationships of course. My (now) wife and I had a long distance relationship and it was very, very difficult. Unlike the online communities, it was a struggle more than fulfilling - it left me longing for more, etc.

WorldMaker 9y ago

I don't think "deep, meaningful relationships with people online" can truly be effective as a solution until we solve the "endorphins/oxytocin/dopamine deficiency problems". As a species we evolved a ton of inter-related neural pathways that "feed" on inter-personal physical touch as a activator. (Everyone could use at least one 20 second hug a day to light up those pathways.) Loneliness is going to remain a problem, despite well formed and meaningful online relationship groups, so long as people remain touch deficient. It's quite possible we could medicate that visceral, species-wide need away in the near future, but at least for now, physical relationships are always going to have that profligate advantage of primal neural hormone joy that we need to feel less "lonely", even and especially in a crowd of (virtual) friends.