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I think the inability to find a price here also has to do with value. To develop a relationship with someone requires that you offer value in the form of conve

I think the inability to find a price here also has to do with value. To develop a relationship with someone requires that you offer value in the form of conversation, entertainment, etc. People are most attracted to attractive people. (And by "attractive" I mean primarily personality characteristics.) Most people seem to actually have an aversion to lonely people whether conscious or subconscious. Perhaps it's an old social defense mechanism from times in our history where it was dangerous to associate with unpopular people. You were more likely to be shunned as well and less likely to be given mating opportunities. I often go out of my way to talk to the wall flowers and shy people that no one is talking to, but I've found by and large, they are also much harder to talk to! It's much more work to stoke the conversation, and we all know there's a threshold there, below which, the conversation just isn't stable. Putting two wall flowers together has a much lower conversational success rate (which is a basic minimum hurdle to continuing any kind of social relationship) than two social people. It's a tough nut to crack, and I don't think unknown intentions is the problem.

ardy42 7y ago
> I think the inability to find a price here also has to do with value. To develop a relationship with someone requires that you offer value in the form of conversation, entertainment, etc. I think part of the problem here is forcing everything to be viewed through the lens of market economics and trying to make every human activity a kind of market exchange. Markets are a powerful paradigm in some contexts, but they're not the end-all-be-all of human behavior. Loneliness may be a product of marketization of social relationships, so market-thinking won't offer a path out.
- Invictus0 7y ago
  Perhaps where the market thought model breaks down is that in a marketplace, the value of the product offered is compared against the price and the transaction goes forward or does not. Friendship requires some sustained investment and so might be modelled more like a chemical reaction: high activation energy to gain new friends with comparatively lesser energy going into the interaction once the friendship has been established. With this model, it makes sense that individuals would seek to maintain existing friendship instead of acquiring new ones because the energy expenditure is much lower in the former than the latter.
- akurzon 7y ago
  I'm glad you bring up this perspective; I feel that reducing these kinds of subjects to some analogy of market forces ends up being really dehumanizing. Especially with things like loneliness and social interaction, it seems that portraying it as trades and estimates of value will sanitize the subject so much that it stops being helpful. A similar topic (dating on Tinder becoming a market) was covered pretty well recently by The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-dating-odds-economy-apps-tinder-math/606982/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-da...
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Does it stop being helpful though? I somewhat understand the idea of "you can't talk about humans like that", but in the end I don't buy it. If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"? Of course, the usefulness depends on how well the market concept fits the situation, but I don't feel like rejecting the idea on principle is helpful. It's similar to the idea of "you can't put a price tag on a human life", when of course we're doing that and we need to do it.
    - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
      " If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"?" Consider the following: It doesn't accurately describe the situation and that is what people are arguing.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        I don't really see that argument, it looks more like "you shouldn't think of humans in those terms". Not "this doesn't work, look, that model has no predictive power", just "it's not okay to think like that". To me, that's mostly just closing your eyes and wishing really hard that human reality isn't profane and cannot be (roughly) described by (relatively) simple models. I see similar reactions in discussions about free will (or lack thereof) where some people seem to be insulted by the idea that humans aren't special and fundamentally different from animals, not just (much) smarter versions with opposable thumbs.
- cvlasdkv 7y ago
  I agree the commodification of social relations definitely results in bad outcomes for mental health. Terms like the "sexual marketplace" are particularly abhorrent.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- bobcostas55 7y ago
  >'It’s a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. It’s what’s known as ” the law of the market”. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.'
- _jal 7y ago
  Yes. The market lens is deeply distorting, frequently obscuring more than it illuminates. You can try to shove anything involving scarcity into the economic analysis framework. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But it frequently will say nothing about other major aspects. Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But... For some reason, a lot of folks get econ brain worms and start discounting other modes of analysis. It is really too bad; economic analysis has a lot of non-obvious insight, but ends up frequently being blinkered.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. What would that look like?
    - stuxnet79 7y ago
      From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with each other [1] [1] Richard Dawkins - Selfish Gene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
      - luckylion 7y ago
        Wouldn't that still fit nicely in a market concept? Considering it as a market with options (in this case: different degrees of relatedness?) where every actor tries to optimize their success works well with the valuation of options being defined by an external metric.
- rland 7y ago
  This exchange triggered me: I'm so sick of the "market" paradigm. It's seeped so deeply into every cultural value we have blinded us to many parts of life. Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. This idea has completely outlived its usefulness and is like a sort of cultural grey goo that corrodes humanity from the inside out. Sorry, rant over.
  - ardy42 7y ago
    > Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. You might want to check out The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and it's been eye-opening.
pmoriarty 7y ago
"I often go out of my way to talk to the wall flowers and shy people that no one is talking to, but I've found by and large, they are also much harder to talk to!" Conversational ability comes with practice, and those people probably just haven't gotten enough practice yet. Also, some people are just naturally reserved, and it takes a while for them to warm up to you and start talking more freely.
- Guzba 7y ago
  Parent comment seemed to connect the topic of loneliness to wall flowers and shy people, implying they are lonely. Parent then explained that trying to engage with them is difficult, which may explain why they are lonely. You have offered explanations for why they are difficult to engage with. This seems to miss the point. If they are lonely because they are difficult to engage with, excuses are not relevant or compassionate. What might be a solution?
jhayward 7y ago
I wonder why some people think that relationships are transactions. I also associate such thinking with lower empathy and stronger sociopathy tendencies.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  Not sure why everyone is hammering me on that one, since I don't think of relationships as transactional and I was just continuing the language of the analogy presented in the article. Conversations however, which are almost ubiquitously a prerequisite for friendship and connection, ARE heavily transactional on a fundamental level. I do think that it is important to consider what you look like to other people though. Are you offering them positivity, wit, humor, etc.?
- mLuby 7y ago
  Relationships are inherently transactions. Literally the defining act is transferring things between people, be those ideas, items, emotions, actions, etc. Perhaps you mean that some people view relationships as zero-sum, that in any interaction someone is gaining at the other's expense. That is rather obviously incorrect, yet as a strategy serves social parasites well (so long as they remain a minority).
Swizec 7y ago
As someone who can switch on and off, honestly I’m a wallflower much of the time just because I’m not in the mood. Or I’m tired. Or I’m there out of social obligation. You’ll find me nigh impossible to engage in conversation. Because I’m actively trying not to. But find me in a social mood and I’m the life of the party. It really depends.
bane 7y ago
I find many "wallflowers" have deep passions that they'll love to talk about if they think they are being taken seriously. But many of those same people often haven't cultivated the ability to chat about non-passionate topics (small talk) -- and it takes purposeful effort to build up the small talk muscles and do it well and not everybody takes the time to do it. A source of loneliness can be not readily finding other people who share the same deep, unique, passions and that can turn into a vicious cycle that feeds the loneliness monster.
agilebyte 7y ago
I think there are more "primary" characteristics like kindness or say dependability that we often miss in these kinds of conversations (sic.). Yes there's conversation, entertainment and prowess in bed?, but there are also more basic values that a person cannot help bit bring to a relationship.

ardy42 7y ago

> I think the inability to find a price here also has to do with value. To develop a relationship with someone requires that you offer value in the form of conversation, entertainment, etc. I think part of the problem here is forcing everything to be viewed through the lens of market economics and trying to make every human activity a kind of market exchange. Markets are a powerful paradigm in some contexts, but they're not the end-all-be-all of human behavior. Loneliness may be a product of marketization of social relationships, so market-thinking won't offer a path out.

Invictus0 7y ago
Perhaps where the market thought model breaks down is that in a marketplace, the value of the product offered is compared against the price and the transaction goes forward or does not. Friendship requires some sustained investment and so might be modelled more like a chemical reaction: high activation energy to gain new friends with comparatively lesser energy going into the interaction once the friendship has been established. With this model, it makes sense that individuals would seek to maintain existing friendship instead of acquiring new ones because the energy expenditure is much lower in the former than the latter.
akurzon 7y ago
I'm glad you bring up this perspective; I feel that reducing these kinds of subjects to some analogy of market forces ends up being really dehumanizing. Especially with things like loneliness and social interaction, it seems that portraying it as trades and estimates of value will sanitize the subject so much that it stops being helpful. A similar topic (dating on Tinder becoming a market) was covered pretty well recently by The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-dating-odds-economy-apps-tinder-math/606982/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-da...
- luckylion 7y ago
  Does it stop being helpful though? I somewhat understand the idea of "you can't talk about humans like that", but in the end I don't buy it. If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"? Of course, the usefulness depends on how well the market concept fits the situation, but I don't feel like rejecting the idea on principle is helpful. It's similar to the idea of "you can't put a price tag on a human life", when of course we're doing that and we need to do it.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    " If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"?" Consider the following: It doesn't accurately describe the situation and that is what people are arguing.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      I don't really see that argument, it looks more like "you shouldn't think of humans in those terms". Not "this doesn't work, look, that model has no predictive power", just "it's not okay to think like that". To me, that's mostly just closing your eyes and wishing really hard that human reality isn't profane and cannot be (roughly) described by (relatively) simple models. I see similar reactions in discussions about free will (or lack thereof) where some people seem to be insulted by the idea that humans aren't special and fundamentally different from animals, not just (much) smarter versions with opposable thumbs.
cvlasdkv 7y ago
I agree the commodification of social relations definitely results in bad outcomes for mental health. Terms like the "sexual marketplace" are particularly abhorrent.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
bobcostas55 7y ago
>'It’s a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. It’s what’s known as ” the law of the market”. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.'
_jal 7y ago
Yes. The market lens is deeply distorting, frequently obscuring more than it illuminates. You can try to shove anything involving scarcity into the economic analysis framework. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But it frequently will say nothing about other major aspects. Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But... For some reason, a lot of folks get econ brain worms and start discounting other modes of analysis. It is really too bad; economic analysis has a lot of non-obvious insight, but ends up frequently being blinkered.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. What would that look like?
  - stuxnet79 7y ago
    From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with each other [1] [1] Richard Dawkins - Selfish Gene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
    - luckylion 7y ago
      Wouldn't that still fit nicely in a market concept? Considering it as a market with options (in this case: different degrees of relatedness?) where every actor tries to optimize their success works well with the valuation of options being defined by an external metric.
rland 7y ago
This exchange triggered me: I'm so sick of the "market" paradigm. It's seeped so deeply into every cultural value we have blinded us to many parts of life. Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. This idea has completely outlived its usefulness and is like a sort of cultural grey goo that corrodes humanity from the inside out. Sorry, rant over.
- ardy42 7y ago
  > Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. You might want to check out The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and it's been eye-opening.

pmoriarty 7y ago

"I often go out of my way to talk to the wall flowers and shy people that no one is talking to, but I've found by and large, they are also much harder to talk to!" Conversational ability comes with practice, and those people probably just haven't gotten enough practice yet. Also, some people are just naturally reserved, and it takes a while for them to warm up to you and start talking more freely.

Guzba 7y ago
Parent comment seemed to connect the topic of loneliness to wall flowers and shy people, implying they are lonely. Parent then explained that trying to engage with them is difficult, which may explain why they are lonely. You have offered explanations for why they are difficult to engage with. This seems to miss the point. If they are lonely because they are difficult to engage with, excuses are not relevant or compassionate. What might be a solution?

jhayward 7y ago

I wonder why some people think that relationships are transactions. I also associate such thinking with lower empathy and stronger sociopathy tendencies.

Enginerrrd 7y ago
Not sure why everyone is hammering me on that one, since I don't think of relationships as transactional and I was just continuing the language of the analogy presented in the article. Conversations however, which are almost ubiquitously a prerequisite for friendship and connection, ARE heavily transactional on a fundamental level. I do think that it is important to consider what you look like to other people though. Are you offering them positivity, wit, humor, etc.?
mLuby 7y ago
Relationships are inherently transactions. Literally the defining act is transferring things between people, be those ideas, items, emotions, actions, etc. Perhaps you mean that some people view relationships as zero-sum, that in any interaction someone is gaining at the other's expense. That is rather obviously incorrect, yet as a strategy serves social parasites well (so long as they remain a minority).

Swizec 7y ago

As someone who can switch on and off, honestly I’m a wallflower much of the time just because I’m not in the mood. Or I’m tired. Or I’m there out of social obligation. You’ll find me nigh impossible to engage in conversation. Because I’m actively trying not to. But find me in a social mood and I’m the life of the party. It really depends.

bane 7y ago

I find many "wallflowers" have deep passions that they'll love to talk about if they think they are being taken seriously. But many of those same people often haven't cultivated the ability to chat about non-passionate topics (small talk) -- and it takes purposeful effort to build up the small talk muscles and do it well and not everybody takes the time to do it. A source of loneliness can be not readily finding other people who share the same deep, unique, passions and that can turn into a vicious cycle that feeds the loneliness monster.

agilebyte 7y ago

I think there are more "primary" characteristics like kindness or say dependability that we often miss in these kinds of conversations (sic.). Yes there's conversation, entertainment and prowess in bed?, but there are also more basic values that a person cannot help bit bring to a relationship.