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This same old tired story... It turns out happiness takes lot of work. Having a healthy social life takes a lot of trying, failing, and some successes that you

This same old tired story... It turns out happiness takes lot of work. Having a healthy social life takes a lot of trying, failing, and some successes that you cherish. Some people tragically take their co-workers as their friends and the office as their social environment. That's really dangerous. You need to go out there and try, be awkward, fight to make some close friends in the real world. Office drama and venting over a beer after work is not a social life. Also the office is not a dating pool. Being depressed that your office doesn't have any cute girls or boys... oh boy, I've seen it! Isolation and depression is due to lacking social skill and not having the drive or insight to develop that skill. Remote work is hardly related. It's related only because people take the office as their social scene and of course when they go remote they lost their entire social scene.

blondie9x 7y ago
Well said. Very well said.
cthalupa 7y ago
A lot of this comment isn’t born out in reality. Around 30% of marriages in the US are from people who met in the office, plenty of people make life long friends from people they met at work, etc. I’m not saying that should be the primary place you look for friends or an SO, but plenty of people are successful doing it.
- blondie9x 7y ago
  This becomes a bigger topic but if those people never had worked together they probably wouldn't have met and more over is that a initiated out of convenience or pressure of having to date or hang out with a co-corker because they are always around and you have to see them frequently or daily? What happened to meeting people naturally outside of a forced setting?
  - cocomittens 7y ago
    I mean if you are somewhere 1/3 of the whole day you naturally get to know the people you are around everyday. As well as the fact that you already have a filter of commonality, everyone I work with already has been filtered to live in the same town, at the same company and is also a fellow engineer. No one's harassing someone into dating them due to being around them a lot and if they did that sounds like some type of #metoo situation and probably would get you fired pretty quickly nowadays. If you don't want to date a coworker you are free to not date them but I don't see how, for example my coworkers that just got married have an inferior relationship because they didn't meet 'naturally'. In fact I would consider getting to know someone by talking to them everyday one of the most natural forms vs meeting someone online.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Bonding with people who you work together with for a common goal seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. And I've never been "forced" to take or stay at a particular job.
- shrimpx 7y ago
  It's true that a lot of it happens that way. It's not particularly healthy and has extreme side effects in situations like the one at hand (suddenly moving to full time remote) People should diversify their social life.
  - cthalupa 7y ago
    So I shouldn't become friends or lovers (when hierarchically/power dynamic appropriate) with people at work just because I might go full remote at some point in the future?
viraptor 7y ago
> Isolation and depression is due to lacking social skill and not having the drive or insight to develop that skill. You are oversimplifying the issue. Please find some insight that there's more nuance here.
- shrimpx 7y ago
  I'm referring to the situation at hand: going remote and finding oneself isolated and depressed. That is, one felt socialized enough in the office but now that they're remote they're isolated and finding the "being remote" as the cause. This clearly means that the core source of socialization (and therefore non-isolation) is that the social group was at the office. People who can develop relationships in a variety of contexts don't feel alone and depressed when remote. There may be other issues; time zone problems, being left out of the loop at work etc., from companies that are not well set up for it. But those are not the issues at hand.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    I don't mean the issues part, but the "if you have drive and information you can fix social skills". If only it was that easy. Specifically, isolation and lack of motivation are also caused by depression. You're basically recommending "not having depression would really help for your depression".
    - shrimpx 7y ago
      I tried to avoid clinical depression... If we're talking clinical depression I want to exclude myself from this conversation because I'm not an expert. I'm talking about social laziness. Few people have the guts to go introduce themselves to a stranger (in an appropriate context of course) and strike a conversation and try to make a friend. At the office this is "built in" and you get a level of socialization for free. So many people rely on these perks and leave it at that. Tons of firsthand observation here.
kpennell 7y ago
ha, I need to get enough HN points so I can downvote comments like this.
ko5ta 7y ago
Friendships form in places where you have continuous interactions with people over some common theme... school, soccer, pottery class, church, meetup and... you guessed it, work. It's perfectly normal to connect with people you like at work and create long lasting friendships. There is no rule that states your common ground and interest with people at work has to be work related.

blondie9x 7y ago

Well said. Very well said.

cthalupa 7y ago

A lot of this comment isn’t born out in reality. Around 30% of marriages in the US are from people who met in the office, plenty of people make life long friends from people they met at work, etc. I’m not saying that should be the primary place you look for friends or an SO, but plenty of people are successful doing it.

blondie9x 7y ago
This becomes a bigger topic but if those people never had worked together they probably wouldn't have met and more over is that a initiated out of convenience or pressure of having to date or hang out with a co-corker because they are always around and you have to see them frequently or daily? What happened to meeting people naturally outside of a forced setting?
- cocomittens 7y ago
  I mean if you are somewhere 1/3 of the whole day you naturally get to know the people you are around everyday. As well as the fact that you already have a filter of commonality, everyone I work with already has been filtered to live in the same town, at the same company and is also a fellow engineer. No one's harassing someone into dating them due to being around them a lot and if they did that sounds like some type of #metoo situation and probably would get you fired pretty quickly nowadays. If you don't want to date a coworker you are free to not date them but I don't see how, for example my coworkers that just got married have an inferior relationship because they didn't meet 'naturally'. In fact I would consider getting to know someone by talking to them everyday one of the most natural forms vs meeting someone online.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Bonding with people who you work together with for a common goal seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. And I've never been "forced" to take or stay at a particular job.
shrimpx 7y ago
It's true that a lot of it happens that way. It's not particularly healthy and has extreme side effects in situations like the one at hand (suddenly moving to full time remote) People should diversify their social life.
- cthalupa 7y ago
  So I shouldn't become friends or lovers (when hierarchically/power dynamic appropriate) with people at work just because I might go full remote at some point in the future?

viraptor 7y ago

> Isolation and depression is due to lacking social skill and not having the drive or insight to develop that skill. You are oversimplifying the issue. Please find some insight that there's more nuance here.

shrimpx 7y ago
I'm referring to the situation at hand: going remote and finding oneself isolated and depressed. That is, one felt socialized enough in the office but now that they're remote they're isolated and finding the "being remote" as the cause. This clearly means that the core source of socialization (and therefore non-isolation) is that the social group was at the office. People who can develop relationships in a variety of contexts don't feel alone and depressed when remote. There may be other issues; time zone problems, being left out of the loop at work etc., from companies that are not well set up for it. But those are not the issues at hand.
- viraptor 7y ago
  I don't mean the issues part, but the "if you have drive and information you can fix social skills". If only it was that easy. Specifically, isolation and lack of motivation are also caused by depression. You're basically recommending "not having depression would really help for your depression".
  - shrimpx 7y ago
    I tried to avoid clinical depression... If we're talking clinical depression I want to exclude myself from this conversation because I'm not an expert. I'm talking about social laziness. Few people have the guts to go introduce themselves to a stranger (in an appropriate context of course) and strike a conversation and try to make a friend. At the office this is "built in" and you get a level of socialization for free. So many people rely on these perks and leave it at that. Tons of firsthand observation here.

kpennell 7y ago

ha, I need to get enough HN points so I can downvote comments like this.

ko5ta 7y ago

Friendships form in places where you have continuous interactions with people over some common theme... school, soccer, pottery class, church, meetup and... you guessed it, work. It's perfectly normal to connect with people you like at work and create long lasting friendships. There is no rule that states your common ground and interest with people at work has to be work related.