22 ms·

An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

109 points by laurex 8y ago

camillovisini 8y ago
Past discussion of the Op-Ed this is a response of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521499
pointillistic 8y ago
Not sure what's the point of these letters, reminds me of the comments section in the NYT which I find politically overcharged and offensive. It was an article that resonated with many people. Does it make people feel better to ridicule loneliness. You can brush off poverty but it still there...
- whorleater 8y ago
  Letters to the editor are internet comments before internet comments were a thing. The intent was to display variety of opinions relating to a topic so you weren't beholden to just the newspaper's stance. Not totally sure why they continue to publish letters, I suppose they're usually higher quality than internet comments because they require more effort.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    They're higher quality because they're curated. It's possible that the average submission is better than the average internet comment due to the level of effort required. Or perhaps some of it is due to the fact that the printed letters are archived for posterity. But regardless, the average letter is not printed. There is only room for a select few.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  I should mention the letter seem to cover a spectrum of opinions, from doubting the problem to bemoaning it. Finding solid evidence that loneliness is increasing is a problem. I believe that it is but it is something that's simply hard to demonstrate. I think Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone was one of the most convincing arguments for the breakdown of community in the US but even that careful, well documented study had it's significant critics. Equally, one could point to the epidemic of suicides and opioids but again, one could frame doubts. Anyone know other arguments.
puranjay 8y ago
It's going to become worse as more and more work becomes remote only
- scirocco 8y ago
  And less physical visits are required for daily life
jackthrow1 8y ago
I am not an american. But i have no one in my life. And unlike that 16 years old who feels lonely although she/he is in fact "surrounded by nice people", i am not surrounded by anyone. The funny thing is half an hour ago i wrote about what Ive been already knowing for a good decade: people are small coin. Bargaining chip. They come and go. What a coincidence. I decided to reiterate that because some situation reminded me of it, but I dont talk about it in absolutely most cases. I genuinely think that communication is mostly woethless and not to be spent time on. Had friends, had online friends, many of both types, had more than 200 skype contacts and got rid of them all. Do I regret? It would be a lie to say yes. I almost dont reject any more connections since 2016, I hardly have any. I saved all the messages Ive been writing to anyone during the last 2 years. Its refresging to read them and see how much time you invested in taljing to someone who you have hard time remembering at all. I think Internet opened my eyes to this fact. Communication is worthless. You know one other thing Ive benn thinking about last week? AVOID humans. I didnt write that anywhere back then. The essence of the idea is that networking is worthless. Waste of time. Talking to machines may spread your words 100x more than talking to humans. Just make a bot taljing on your behalf. You may say that I will become self absorbed and self righteous for nothing because no one can correct me. Thats untrue. Occasionaly I can write like i do now, in a completely alien space. If i feel like it, i will return for answers and critique. But I dont want that, I will not return. I read a lot of what others write and post and make and that keeps my thought going and helps me prevent it from becoming stale. The thing is, they are not writing or posting that TO me. But still I know what they think. Honestly, I hugely dislike real life talking anymore. What a waste of everything. I wont lie, I can interrupt anyone who approaches me with a talk and say directly "I am not interested". Or "Dont talk to me". I dont care how they feel. Remember, they all are a passing substance, an ephemera, a hallucination. Dont get me wrong, they are real humans. But theres no need in caring about what they feel. There are too many humans. Today these, tomorrow others. Caring for what they think or what they want from you when you dont want anything from them is a waste of capacity. You know whats funny. When you need something from them in return, you just come to them and ask. That easy. Funny bit is they, been rejected, still often do what you ask for. They are afraid to break the thousand-year-old lie saying "what you give is what you get". No such thing.
- 8y ago
kr4 8y ago
Yogic view of loneliness (and ways to overcome it) is quite different from our contemporary ideas. http://omswami.com/2018/10/loneliness.html http://omswami.com/2018/10/loneliness.html
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Pamar 8y ago
  Interesting, thanks. I will add this to my own article on this (featured already on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17794060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17794060) - Looks like loneliness (in the sense of "being alone") is more or less inescapable, the trick is to transform it in Solitude, in the sense of "being content even when alone".
smnrchrds 8y ago
For me, the most interesting thing about all these loneliness articles is how often they make it to HN's first page. It says more about HN/tech community then America as a whole.
- ausbah 8y ago
  Maybe it has something to do with the role technology plays in this issue.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    I don't know. We can blame technology. Or we can actually go out and join something. Maybe serve at a local food bank. Worst case, you're still lonely but some hungry people get fed. Incidentally, how are you going to find a good food bank to help out at? I bet it looks like "technology": search engines, smart phone apps, web pages, email, digital calendars, navigation instructions, and signup forms.
    - bobbygoodlatte 8y ago
      Of course this is great advice for an individual. It's always possible to effect change at the margins. But this sort of advice at a population-level feels meaningless. It's entirely fair to search for root causes to large-scale dysfunction. Otherwise the trend will just grow worse
      - ThrowMeDown01 8y ago
        I like to point out that the English language has a beautiful way to describe it by having two distinct words ("anyone", "everyone") instead of just one, unlike my native German ("jeder"): If something somebody proposes in response to a population-wide problem works for anyone it should also be tested if it works for everyone. A lot of "how to get ahead and gain wealth" suggestions come to mind too that fail the second test.
    - goldfeld 8y ago
budadre75 8y ago
I've been seeing this topic in the media for quite a few years now, and I just wonder why there doesn't seem to have any solution either from the private or public sectors. Is it because loneliness is not huge enough, or it's like poverty that has to be dealt by yourself? Those social media and apps trying to help just make loneliness and anxiety worse as many other articles suggest.
- castratikron 8y ago
  In Japan there are government programs set up to get single people together. Some cities reserve entire bars or areas for singles only. There are government run speed dating services as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-government-dating-services-2016-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-government-dating-s...
  - budadre75 8y ago
    I don't think there's anything in the US for the reasons I mentioned.
- qnsi 8y ago
  Also, this is a very frequent topic here on HN. A lot of people complaining, some suggesting similar things as everywhere on the Internet. I am really surprised there is this gap here. Maybe it's because anything targeted to fight social isolation is bringing strange people in? It's natural to meet people in college, but meetups are known for bringing creepy people in that only want to hit on women.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I don't think it'll get better any time soon. When I was a teenager, I couldn't wait to start driving. That led to hanging out at the town bowling center with a group of like-minded friends. My kids mostly talk to their friends online. None of them seem to have the same burning desire to drive places-- they like to get together, but they're also fine communicating on the phone. It doesn't seem as closely connected.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  When I was a teenager, I had friends who were pretty much accidents of geography and school districting. This is not to say that they weren't real friends, but there was nothing really fundamentally holding us together other than being kids in the same place at the same time. I remember feeling lonely a lot. After touring a dozen colleges, I picked my eventual alma mater because I met a bunch of computer science students who I recognized as my tribe. It was like an epiphany. I'm still close with many friends from this era (28 years ago), even as I've moved and expanded/changed my tribe. I haven't felt truly lonely since high school. When you're young you're on fixed rails without a lot of control. The internet makes it possible to find people you really connect with, even if you don't see them in person all the time. Don't prejudge the level of connection. The only friend from high school that I still keep in regular touch with is someone I met BBSing (ahh, the 80s).
  - clarry 8y ago
    > The internet makes it possible to find people you really connect with How?
- scirocco 8y ago
  Nowadays teenagers hanging out sit with their phones up their faces. Constantly texting/sending photos on Snapchat, instagram, fb, whatsapp and then picking up the phone every 2 minutes for any updates. And we thought Generation Y was going to be difficult to manage...
wenc 8y ago
Here's an interesting article: "Why is it hard to make friends over 30?" [1] "As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html?fbclid=IwAR2OOyMBHuRYlmoodgUP4IytWePx1Ky6SZag-zfxW3F9mk72S3_wLzH8P-g https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-...
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  I'd add a fourth...People being able to interact spontaneously and without fear. It's hard to strike up a micro-conversation. People either aren't able or aren't willing. Long to short, "friends"is two way street. And such things can't happen without communication.
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    > It's hard to strike up a micro-conversation. This really varies a lot. In urban areas where few people are "from there", you'll find chatting with strangers happens less often. In small towns and neighborhoods full of locals, it happens a lot more.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  I make new friends of all ages all the time. At church. It does provide "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other". And not by coincidence. One of the major goals of church is to help people form healthy and significant relationships (that is, friendships).
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    Yeah, as an atheist, the weekly unforced meetup you guys have is the one thing I do envy. I wonder how many of the churchgoers secretly have no real faith and are only there for the company...
chiefalchemist 8y ago
No surprise really. More and more is personalized and self-centric, which is replacing the shared experience. Of cource more and more people are feeling they don't belong, there's less and less to belong to.
azdgajjsh 8y ago
I think the funny honey badger video is useful in becoming less of a shut in: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg That, and remembering that life eventually ends: you literally have nothing to lose unless you are doing something totally reckless and/or against the law. You will find that as you become more like the honey badger, people will find that refreshing and seek you out. Because we all have the same problems and want to be honey badgers internally.
chess44 8y ago
I had no desire to make friends until college. I was so content with just hanging out by myself that I didn't even realize that other people were making friends. When I got to college I finally realized that I was so different from everyone else. I basically had to start from zero social skills and work my way up which is/was extremely painful. Can anyone relate? I think it has something to do with my parents because they aren't social at all.
- jgrowl 8y ago
  I feel ya. For me though, after college I realized that I was still happier mostly alone. I think I might be a bit autistic though (seriously).
- baddox 8y ago
  My experience is that having friends to hang out with was “easy” through high school, because you’re basically “stuck” around a fairly small number of peers in your neighborhood and school. In college there was still some of that, with dorm mates and classmates in your major. After that, it’s really only coworkers that you are “automatically” going to spend a lot of time with, and it becomes much more important to have the social skills to actively find friends. As everyone says, hobbies and social groups (like religions and clubs) are probably the best way to do this.
  - ryacko 8y ago
    “Boring time” or dedicated idleness is excellent for socialization, which is what I think creates the best environment for creating friendships.
    - baddox 8y ago
      That’s precisely my experience. To be honest, after college I’ve found that hobbies are not that great for finding very close friends. Shared interests are certainly great for meeting people, but just because you occasionally make pottery or hike with someone doesn’t mean you’ll connect on a deep level.
WalterBright 8y ago
I have a hard time finding people who like to work on old cars. I joined a mopar club for a while, but all they did is talk about meeting minutes and the budget. Never going over to Bob's house and getting his wreck back on the road. I run into people now and then who have a classic in their garage, but they never seem interested in having a group of people helping out. None of my friends in the tech business have the remotest motorhead tendencies. Nobody in college did, either. I had a group of friends who did this in high school, and have a lot of great memories of it.
- ethanwillis 8y ago
  Yea, I've recently gotten into working on cars for fun. I've gotten 2 cars I bought at auction from no start/no crank to running in the past few months.. But no one around me is interested in tinkering. Hopefully I can find someone to help me with an engine rebuild (my next major learning goal). Then messing with turbos. People in tech are especially averse it seems to me to wanting to do manual labor type things like this.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Heck, it's fun to even just go visit the other guy while he works on his car, drink beer, and insult his execrable taste in cars. And vice versa :-)
    - ethanwillis 8y ago
      I'll never feel shame for liking crappy Toyota Tercels. It was my first real car and you can hypermile the shit out of them :)
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    I finally got my '72 dodge back on the road. It's an unusual concoction of all go and no show parts. It's got a roller valve train in a 340 block, which is highly unusual for a streetable build, with a gear drive too instead of a chain. The fun thing is that imparts an unusual sound to the engine, which is a good conversation starter.
derReineke 8y ago
I enjoyed the women from Chicago's point. That having that old-time gym feeling is not something that's the best for most people. It's one of those silly ideas that tries to sum up a big problem and give it a small fix. I remember a friend showed me something their aunt or something posted about dirt roads. It was a similar idea to the gym thing. It's absurd.
tootahe45 8y ago
I know it's opinion, but it's hard to take the NYT seriously when the writers always blame Republicans where politics is almost completely irrelevant.
- yellowbuilding 8y ago
  Maybe. A friend who I spoke to for the first time in a long time made a pretty good point to me the other day. Neither of us are liberals, btw. Both of us are into so many of the same things. We just have different careers, and we are approximately equally jealous of eachother’s careers. We talked about what we have been doing while feeling lonely and we each had different stories of why we were not able to spend time around people we wanted to be around. He couldn’t afford to live in the city anymore and had to move to the Midwest where now he makes a wage that will probably never allow him to move back. I, on the other hand, can never leave the city because there are no jobs for me elsewhere and I would not be able to come back. Neither of us are comfortable investing in homes because we both feel unhappy where we are. Job wise, we both have problems with our companies we work for, but like our coworkers. We feel very distant from what we are doing and recognize that the inability to change careers or better our situations gives us a lack of hope. His situation is slightly different because he is in a higher management position, but neither of us feel we can talk to anybody nearby about these things or we will be outed as not being this imaginary committed perfectly obsessed careerist type. Basically, everything we have depends on our entire stories, everything we have ever done. We don’t have the privacy to have a multifaceted life without feeling like some fraud. He relates this to our society being so obsessed with individuals instead of letting us just be ourselves, separate from our jobs and our income and wellbeing. We don’t have the option of dreaming because the risk is just too great. We have seen our friends lose everything by taking risks. Ultimately, I have to agree. We have let this obsession of making our personalities our lives get the best of both. It’s the core idea behind individualism, which we are taught is a great thing and I always believed it. I still do in most cases, but now i feel stuck inside my individual self, lonely like alll the other individuals. We are so obsessed with ourselves as individuals, we lose sight of ourselves as parts of greater wholes, like families and neighborhoods. I am not sure I can separate this from politics.
dang 8y ago
Submissions about loneliness have company at least: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Loneliness%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Loneliness%20points%3E10&sort=...
factsaresacred 8y ago
> Loneliness, however, is a symptom of large changes in society, many caused by policies that Republicans have pursued over decades. What neurosis is one suffering that loneliness has to be pinned on the political party one dislikes? I don't understand how Americans can wade through media so thick with political bias. It's exhausting and increasingly permeates everything. And if Republicans are to blame, as the author insists, then so too are Democratic policies of changing demographics at such a pace as to erode social trust. Not to mention the constant assault for merely belonging to a majority demographic. Tell people in despair that they're too "privileged" to opine, on the one hand, and that their days are numbered, on the other, and they begin to feel strangers in a strange land.
- dash2 8y ago
  The bias is not in the media in this case. These are letters to the editor.
  - tnecniv 8y ago
    The NYT still published it, which i think counts as "media." Even if they don't necessarily agree it's an implicit endorsement that this is a well reasonable argument.
dash2 8y ago
Offtopic, I followed the link in the last letter to that Senate committee and got: Sorry, a potential security risk was detected in your submitted request. The Webmaster has been alerted. Then I tried https://www.senate.gov/ https://www.senate.gov/ and got the same thing. Is there a reason for this? I'm in the UK browsing on Firefox.
- JChase2 8y ago
  The senate site has had SSL issues for me for years. It's very weird. If you go to: http://www.senate.gov/senators/leadership.htm http://www.senate.gov/senators/leadership.htm and try SSL, it redirects to http. Strange. Like it's not set up recursively or something or that directory has it's own .htaccess or w/e that doesn't use SSL?
  - dash2 8y ago
    You literally mean the website of the United States senate just doesn't work, and hasn't for years? I mean, I absolutely cannot find a way to access that site without getting the same "unauthorized" message. This can't be true... can it?
odiroot 8y ago
If USA, with its outgoing culture has a loneliness epidemic, then Europe (at least the western part) is already long gone.
- watwut 8y ago
  Those are two different things. Loneliness is more about important relationships with people who matter to you and you matter to them. You don't have to be outgoing and chat with everybody to have that. Outgoing people easy to chat with can still be lonely, deep friendship is not the same as chatting briefly in a bus.
InGodsName 8y ago
I had trouble making friends untill i came across a movie called "The Social Network". Before, i was like Zuck (fb founder, the one who blogged about his girlfriend) from the movie, very annoying but always spewing ultimate truth regardless of whether it hurts people or not. Now i act like Sean Parker (Napster founder, the one who brought Peter Theil on board as an investor) from the movie, either people ignore me or become my friend. Those of you who go blank at new people. I suggest you pick a character and play it with all honesty, if nothing atleast it will be entertaining. Are there other movies which teach you how to make friends?
- screye 8y ago
  Don't you think this kind of defeats the propose of having a friend ? Sure, you don't want to be an asshole like social network zuck, but that doesnt mean one should suppress themselves just to please others. I have thought of friendship as a distinctly tiered system. I very carefully reveal parts of me to a lower tier of friends (mostly acquaintances), and use those reactions to gauge of I want to reveal more of myself to them. Trust and exposing vulnerability are IMO at the Crux of what friendship is. There is a certain irrationality and lack of equal exchange that goes into being a friend. Like sometimes inconveniencing yourself to help a friend, without any clear short term reward in sight. If I had to always act like someone else in front of my friends, then I would say I don't have friends at all.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
mmirate 8y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again: loneliness isn't the problem; it's our physical dependence on non-loneliness that is the problem.

109 points by laurex 8y ago

Past discussion of the Op-Ed this is a response of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521499

pointillistic 8y ago

Not sure what's the point of these letters, reminds me of the comments section in the NYT which I find politically overcharged and offensive. It was an article that resonated with many people. Does it make people feel better to ridicule loneliness. You can brush off poverty but it still there...

whorleater 8y ago
Letters to the editor are internet comments before internet comments were a thing. The intent was to display variety of opinions relating to a topic so you weren't beholden to just the newspaper's stance. Not totally sure why they continue to publish letters, I suppose they're usually higher quality than internet comments because they require more effort.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  They're higher quality because they're curated. It's possible that the average submission is better than the average internet comment due to the level of effort required. Or perhaps some of it is due to the fact that the printed letters are archived for posterity. But regardless, the average letter is not printed. There is only room for a select few.
joe_the_user 8y ago
I should mention the letter seem to cover a spectrum of opinions, from doubting the problem to bemoaning it. Finding solid evidence that loneliness is increasing is a problem. I believe that it is but it is something that's simply hard to demonstrate. I think Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone was one of the most convincing arguments for the breakdown of community in the US but even that careful, well documented study had it's significant critics. Equally, one could point to the epidemic of suicides and opioids but again, one could frame doubts. Anyone know other arguments.

puranjay 8y ago

It's going to become worse as more and more work becomes remote only

scirocco 8y ago
And less physical visits are required for daily life

jackthrow1 8y ago

I am not an american. But i have no one in my life. And unlike that 16 years old who feels lonely although she/he is in fact "surrounded by nice people", i am not surrounded by anyone. The funny thing is half an hour ago i wrote about what Ive been already knowing for a good decade: people are small coin. Bargaining chip. They come and go. What a coincidence. I decided to reiterate that because some situation reminded me of it, but I dont talk about it in absolutely most cases. I genuinely think that communication is mostly woethless and not to be spent time on. Had friends, had online friends, many of both types, had more than 200 skype contacts and got rid of them all. Do I regret? It would be a lie to say yes. I almost dont reject any more connections since 2016, I hardly have any. I saved all the messages Ive been writing to anyone during the last 2 years. Its refresging to read them and see how much time you invested in taljing to someone who you have hard time remembering at all. I think Internet opened my eyes to this fact. Communication is worthless. You know one other thing Ive benn thinking about last week? AVOID humans. I didnt write that anywhere back then. The essence of the idea is that networking is worthless. Waste of time. Talking to machines may spread your words 100x more than talking to humans. Just make a bot taljing on your behalf. You may say that I will become self absorbed and self righteous for nothing because no one can correct me. Thats untrue. Occasionaly I can write like i do now, in a completely alien space. If i feel like it, i will return for answers and critique. But I dont want that, I will not return. I read a lot of what others write and post and make and that keeps my thought going and helps me prevent it from becoming stale. The thing is, they are not writing or posting that TO me. But still I know what they think. Honestly, I hugely dislike real life talking anymore. What a waste of everything. I wont lie, I can interrupt anyone who approaches me with a talk and say directly "I am not interested". Or "Dont talk to me". I dont care how they feel. Remember, they all are a passing substance, an ephemera, a hallucination. Dont get me wrong, they are real humans. But theres no need in caring about what they feel. There are too many humans. Today these, tomorrow others. Caring for what they think or what they want from you when you dont want anything from them is a waste of capacity. You know whats funny. When you need something from them in return, you just come to them and ask. That easy. Funny bit is they, been rejected, still often do what you ask for. They are afraid to break the thousand-year-old lie saying "what you give is what you get". No such thing.

8y ago

kr4 8y ago

Yogic view of loneliness (and ways to overcome it) is quite different from our contemporary ideas. http://omswami.com/2018/10/loneliness.html http://omswami.com/2018/10/loneliness.html

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Pamar 8y ago
Interesting, thanks. I will add this to my own article on this (featured already on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17794060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17794060) - Looks like loneliness (in the sense of "being alone") is more or less inescapable, the trick is to transform it in Solitude, in the sense of "being content even when alone".

smnrchrds 8y ago

For me, the most interesting thing about all these loneliness articles is how often they make it to HN's first page. It says more about HN/tech community then America as a whole.

ausbah 8y ago
Maybe it has something to do with the role technology plays in this issue.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  I don't know. We can blame technology. Or we can actually go out and join something. Maybe serve at a local food bank. Worst case, you're still lonely but some hungry people get fed. Incidentally, how are you going to find a good food bank to help out at? I bet it looks like "technology": search engines, smart phone apps, web pages, email, digital calendars, navigation instructions, and signup forms.
  - bobbygoodlatte 8y ago
    Of course this is great advice for an individual. It's always possible to effect change at the margins. But this sort of advice at a population-level feels meaningless. It's entirely fair to search for root causes to large-scale dysfunction. Otherwise the trend will just grow worse
    - ThrowMeDown01 8y ago
      I like to point out that the English language has a beautiful way to describe it by having two distinct words ("anyone", "everyone") instead of just one, unlike my native German ("jeder"): If something somebody proposes in response to a population-wide problem works for anyone it should also be tested if it works for everyone. A lot of "how to get ahead and gain wealth" suggestions come to mind too that fail the second test.
  - goldfeld 8y ago

budadre75 8y ago

I've been seeing this topic in the media for quite a few years now, and I just wonder why there doesn't seem to have any solution either from the private or public sectors. Is it because loneliness is not huge enough, or it's like poverty that has to be dealt by yourself? Those social media and apps trying to help just make loneliness and anxiety worse as many other articles suggest.

castratikron 8y ago
In Japan there are government programs set up to get single people together. Some cities reserve entire bars or areas for singles only. There are government run speed dating services as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-government-dating-services-2016-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-government-dating-s...
- budadre75 8y ago
  I don't think there's anything in the US for the reasons I mentioned.
qnsi 8y ago
Also, this is a very frequent topic here on HN. A lot of people complaining, some suggesting similar things as everywhere on the Internet. I am really surprised there is this gap here. Maybe it's because anything targeted to fight social isolation is bringing strange people in? It's natural to meet people in college, but meetups are known for bringing creepy people in that only want to hit on women.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I don't think it'll get better any time soon. When I was a teenager, I couldn't wait to start driving. That led to hanging out at the town bowling center with a group of like-minded friends. My kids mostly talk to their friends online. None of them seem to have the same burning desire to drive places-- they like to get together, but they're also fine communicating on the phone. It doesn't seem as closely connected.

stickfigure 8y ago
When I was a teenager, I had friends who were pretty much accidents of geography and school districting. This is not to say that they weren't real friends, but there was nothing really fundamentally holding us together other than being kids in the same place at the same time. I remember feeling lonely a lot. After touring a dozen colleges, I picked my eventual alma mater because I met a bunch of computer science students who I recognized as my tribe. It was like an epiphany. I'm still close with many friends from this era (28 years ago), even as I've moved and expanded/changed my tribe. I haven't felt truly lonely since high school. When you're young you're on fixed rails without a lot of control. The internet makes it possible to find people you really connect with, even if you don't see them in person all the time. Don't prejudge the level of connection. The only friend from high school that I still keep in regular touch with is someone I met BBSing (ahh, the 80s).
- clarry 8y ago
  > The internet makes it possible to find people you really connect with How?
scirocco 8y ago
Nowadays teenagers hanging out sit with their phones up their faces. Constantly texting/sending photos on Snapchat, instagram, fb, whatsapp and then picking up the phone every 2 minutes for any updates. And we thought Generation Y was going to be difficult to manage...

wenc 8y ago

Here's an interesting article: "Why is it hard to make friends over 30?" [1] "As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html?fbclid=IwAR2OOyMBHuRYlmoodgUP4IytWePx1Ky6SZag-zfxW3F9mk72S3_wLzH8P-g https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-...

chiefalchemist 8y ago
I'd add a fourth...People being able to interact spontaneously and without fear. It's hard to strike up a micro-conversation. People either aren't able or aren't willing. Long to short, "friends"is two way street. And such things can't happen without communication.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  > It's hard to strike up a micro-conversation. This really varies a lot. In urban areas where few people are "from there", you'll find chatting with strangers happens less often. In small towns and neighborhoods full of locals, it happens a lot more.
humanrebar 8y ago
I make new friends of all ages all the time. At church. It does provide "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other". And not by coincidence. One of the major goals of church is to help people form healthy and significant relationships (that is, friendships).
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Yeah, as an atheist, the weekly unforced meetup you guys have is the one thing I do envy. I wonder how many of the churchgoers secretly have no real faith and are only there for the company...

chiefalchemist 8y ago

No surprise really. More and more is personalized and self-centric, which is replacing the shared experience. Of cource more and more people are feeling they don't belong, there's less and less to belong to.

azdgajjsh 8y ago

I think the funny honey badger video is useful in becoming less of a shut in: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg That, and remembering that life eventually ends: you literally have nothing to lose unless you are doing something totally reckless and/or against the law. You will find that as you become more like the honey badger, people will find that refreshing and seek you out. Because we all have the same problems and want to be honey badgers internally.

chess44 8y ago

I had no desire to make friends until college. I was so content with just hanging out by myself that I didn't even realize that other people were making friends. When I got to college I finally realized that I was so different from everyone else. I basically had to start from zero social skills and work my way up which is/was extremely painful. Can anyone relate? I think it has something to do with my parents because they aren't social at all.

jgrowl 8y ago
I feel ya. For me though, after college I realized that I was still happier mostly alone. I think I might be a bit autistic though (seriously).
baddox 8y ago
My experience is that having friends to hang out with was “easy” through high school, because you’re basically “stuck” around a fairly small number of peers in your neighborhood and school. In college there was still some of that, with dorm mates and classmates in your major. After that, it’s really only coworkers that you are “automatically” going to spend a lot of time with, and it becomes much more important to have the social skills to actively find friends. As everyone says, hobbies and social groups (like religions and clubs) are probably the best way to do this.
- ryacko 8y ago
  “Boring time” or dedicated idleness is excellent for socialization, which is what I think creates the best environment for creating friendships.
  - baddox 8y ago
    That’s precisely my experience. To be honest, after college I’ve found that hobbies are not that great for finding very close friends. Shared interests are certainly great for meeting people, but just because you occasionally make pottery or hike with someone doesn’t mean you’ll connect on a deep level.

WalterBright 8y ago

I have a hard time finding people who like to work on old cars. I joined a mopar club for a while, but all they did is talk about meeting minutes and the budget. Never going over to Bob's house and getting his wreck back on the road. I run into people now and then who have a classic in their garage, but they never seem interested in having a group of people helping out. None of my friends in the tech business have the remotest motorhead tendencies. Nobody in college did, either. I had a group of friends who did this in high school, and have a lot of great memories of it.

ethanwillis 8y ago
Yea, I've recently gotten into working on cars for fun. I've gotten 2 cars I bought at auction from no start/no crank to running in the past few months.. But no one around me is interested in tinkering. Hopefully I can find someone to help me with an engine rebuild (my next major learning goal). Then messing with turbos. People in tech are especially averse it seems to me to wanting to do manual labor type things like this.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Heck, it's fun to even just go visit the other guy while he works on his car, drink beer, and insult his execrable taste in cars. And vice versa :-)
  - ethanwillis 8y ago
    I'll never feel shame for liking crappy Toyota Tercels. It was my first real car and you can hypermile the shit out of them :)
- WalterBright 8y ago
  I finally got my '72 dodge back on the road. It's an unusual concoction of all go and no show parts. It's got a roller valve train in a 340 block, which is highly unusual for a streetable build, with a gear drive too instead of a chain. The fun thing is that imparts an unusual sound to the engine, which is a good conversation starter.

derReineke 8y ago

I enjoyed the women from Chicago's point. That having that old-time gym feeling is not something that's the best for most people. It's one of those silly ideas that tries to sum up a big problem and give it a small fix. I remember a friend showed me something their aunt or something posted about dirt roads. It was a similar idea to the gym thing. It's absurd.

tootahe45 8y ago

I know it's opinion, but it's hard to take the NYT seriously when the writers always blame Republicans where politics is almost completely irrelevant.

yellowbuilding 8y ago
Maybe. A friend who I spoke to for the first time in a long time made a pretty good point to me the other day. Neither of us are liberals, btw. Both of us are into so many of the same things. We just have different careers, and we are approximately equally jealous of eachother’s careers. We talked about what we have been doing while feeling lonely and we each had different stories of why we were not able to spend time around people we wanted to be around. He couldn’t afford to live in the city anymore and had to move to the Midwest where now he makes a wage that will probably never allow him to move back. I, on the other hand, can never leave the city because there are no jobs for me elsewhere and I would not be able to come back. Neither of us are comfortable investing in homes because we both feel unhappy where we are. Job wise, we both have problems with our companies we work for, but like our coworkers. We feel very distant from what we are doing and recognize that the inability to change careers or better our situations gives us a lack of hope. His situation is slightly different because he is in a higher management position, but neither of us feel we can talk to anybody nearby about these things or we will be outed as not being this imaginary committed perfectly obsessed careerist type. Basically, everything we have depends on our entire stories, everything we have ever done. We don’t have the privacy to have a multifaceted life without feeling like some fraud. He relates this to our society being so obsessed with individuals instead of letting us just be ourselves, separate from our jobs and our income and wellbeing. We don’t have the option of dreaming because the risk is just too great. We have seen our friends lose everything by taking risks. Ultimately, I have to agree. We have let this obsession of making our personalities our lives get the best of both. It’s the core idea behind individualism, which we are taught is a great thing and I always believed it. I still do in most cases, but now i feel stuck inside my individual self, lonely like alll the other individuals. We are so obsessed with ourselves as individuals, we lose sight of ourselves as parts of greater wholes, like families and neighborhoods. I am not sure I can separate this from politics.

dang 8y ago

Submissions about loneliness have company at least: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Loneliness%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Loneliness%20points%3E10&sort=...

factsaresacred 8y ago

> Loneliness, however, is a symptom of large changes in society, many caused by policies that Republicans have pursued over decades. What neurosis is one suffering that loneliness has to be pinned on the political party one dislikes? I don't understand how Americans can wade through media so thick with political bias. It's exhausting and increasingly permeates everything. And if Republicans are to blame, as the author insists, then so too are Democratic policies of changing demographics at such a pace as to erode social trust. Not to mention the constant assault for merely belonging to a majority demographic. Tell people in despair that they're too "privileged" to opine, on the one hand, and that their days are numbered, on the other, and they begin to feel strangers in a strange land.

dash2 8y ago
The bias is not in the media in this case. These are letters to the editor.
- tnecniv 8y ago
  The NYT still published it, which i think counts as "media." Even if they don't necessarily agree it's an implicit endorsement that this is a well reasonable argument.

dash2 8y ago

Offtopic, I followed the link in the last letter to that Senate committee and got: Sorry, a potential security risk was detected in your submitted request. The Webmaster has been alerted. Then I tried https://www.senate.gov/ https://www.senate.gov/ and got the same thing. Is there a reason for this? I'm in the UK browsing on Firefox.

JChase2 8y ago
The senate site has had SSL issues for me for years. It's very weird. If you go to: http://www.senate.gov/senators/leadership.htm http://www.senate.gov/senators/leadership.htm and try SSL, it redirects to http. Strange. Like it's not set up recursively or something or that directory has it's own .htaccess or w/e that doesn't use SSL?
- dash2 8y ago
  You literally mean the website of the United States senate just doesn't work, and hasn't for years? I mean, I absolutely cannot find a way to access that site without getting the same "unauthorized" message. This can't be true... can it?

odiroot 8y ago

If USA, with its outgoing culture has a loneliness epidemic, then Europe (at least the western part) is already long gone.

watwut 8y ago
Those are two different things. Loneliness is more about important relationships with people who matter to you and you matter to them. You don't have to be outgoing and chat with everybody to have that. Outgoing people easy to chat with can still be lonely, deep friendship is not the same as chatting briefly in a bus.

InGodsName 8y ago

I had trouble making friends untill i came across a movie called "The Social Network". Before, i was like Zuck (fb founder, the one who blogged about his girlfriend) from the movie, very annoying but always spewing ultimate truth regardless of whether it hurts people or not. Now i act like Sean Parker (Napster founder, the one who brought Peter Theil on board as an investor) from the movie, either people ignore me or become my friend. Those of you who go blank at new people. I suggest you pick a character and play it with all honesty, if nothing atleast it will be entertaining. Are there other movies which teach you how to make friends?

screye 8y ago
Don't you think this kind of defeats the propose of having a friend ? Sure, you don't want to be an asshole like social network zuck, but that doesnt mean one should suppress themselves just to please others. I have thought of friendship as a distinctly tiered system. I very carefully reveal parts of me to a lower tier of friends (mostly acquaintances), and use those reactions to gauge of I want to reveal more of myself to them. Trust and exposing vulnerability are IMO at the Crux of what friendship is. There is a certain irrationality and lack of equal exchange that goes into being a friend. Like sometimes inconveniencing yourself to help a friend, without any clear short term reward in sight. If I had to always act like someone else in front of my friends, then I would say I don't have friends at all.
- deleted 8y ago
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mmirate 8y ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again: loneliness isn't the problem; it's our physical dependence on non-loneliness that is the problem.