8 ms·

"they're all full of lonely developers and other socially awkward people - short guys looking for girlfriends, unattractive/aging women looking for husbands, et

"they're all full of lonely developers and other socially awkward people - short guys looking for girlfriends, unattractive/aging women looking for husbands, etc." So...people like you? you sound really judgemental man. Since you have no friends(so nothing to hold you where you are, right?), and apparently a good source of income, I'd advise you to go remote, travel, try digital nomadism, go to meetups, meet other travelers, maybe try coworking spaces? hacker houses/airbnbs with people from lots of different places?

blindmute 5y ago
This is the total opposite of what you should do. Why would you uproot yourself to meet a bunch of transient people you'll never see again, or if you do it's once per year because they live across the world, when you're explicitly lonely and looking for friends? Those meetings are so pointless compared to cultivating relationships in a permanent place. OP needs to put down roots in some place he likes and then start finding people he can hang out with regularly. If you do it right, you'll know the cashiers where you shop and the tailor and the butcher and etc. This is how you develop your social life, not by the equivalent of mindless scrolling but for irl socializing.
starkd 5y ago
Even supposedly "unattractive" or "aging" women can start to look more attractive as you get to know them. It's really amazing the transformation that can happen. So much of what is attractive is subjective. It's hard to see that when younger, but it's true. Besides, the attractiveness we associate with youth inevitably fades anyway.
- codegrappler 5y ago
  I can attest to this. In my 30’s with kids and suddenly women with well behaved kids are more attractive to me. You can find attraction in qualities as much as looks.
  - desmosxxx 5y ago
    Never thought this would happen to me as looks was almost the only thing that mattered (as much as I didn't want that to be the case), but it did. After my first horribly failed marriage (and damaged kids due to wife being a complete failure), something clicked in my head and I finally find personality extremely important. Not sure if it's an age thing or just a change after trauma, but it's been a very positive change. Weight is still somewhat important at the extreme, but otherwise it's been a 180* shift - really fascinating.
- chihuahua 5y ago
  Those aging women, how dare they get older, inconveniencing OP with their existence in the same timeline.
  - captainredbeard 5y ago
    You aren't wrong. A sober look at how society judges people should remove all surprise surrounding this topic, unfair as it may be - men are judged primarily by financial / dominance success / physical indicators of dominance (e.g. height) and women are primarily judged on their appearance / youth.
  - tenonyx 5y ago
    Eh, I wish them all best of luck, I'm sure they're great people. My point was that people seem to attend various hobbies to find romantic partners, rather than friends.
    - tluyben2 5y ago
      But putting it the way you did; maybe if we saw a picture of you and if you look like a hunchback smurf then you maybe can say things the way you put them. 'People who attend various hobbies tend to do that to find romantic partners' is a fine way of putting it instead. But you are right; I find that too, which is why I just go work in bars (I mean; sit and code, not serve beer!) instead of trying to meet people at hobbies (Which, for me, are all nerd/hardware/software things anyway). Even without drinking (which I don't do during working time), it is very easy to meet tons of people. And it works everywhere. The best craft beer bar in my new town (I move often) is open 8 am to 2 am, it's always busy and over 90% of the people just drink coffee there (with 15 beers on draft + more in bottles), the entire day. I work there and when I need a break, I just look around for 5 minutes and someone will make eye contact and start talking. Works everywhere I have been I found (in the US, EU, Asia).
      - jirf_dev 5y ago
        In this scenario do you just sit at the bar and start working? I’ve never been at a bar where this wouldn’t be very strange. But I’ve only been to bars at night on the weekends.
- purplecats 5y ago
  i mean... it doesn't fade away right. it's cyclical. your children will be born to the same fate.
- dosethree 5y ago
  we’re all just skeletons with skin sacks stretched over them
tenonyx 5y ago
> So...people like you? you sound really judgemental man. I know it sounds bad, but I don't want to meet people like me. I really don't like myself right now :) I'm looking for a way out from this state, not a way to settle in. It's like you can't treat depression by hanging out with other depressed people, it'll make you worse. > Since you have no friends(so nothing to hold you where you are, right?), and apparently a good source of income, I'd advise you to go remote, travel, try digital nomadism, go to meetups, meet other travelers, maybe try coworking spaces? hacker houses/airbnbs with people from lots of different places? Traveling and digital nomading is definitely on my list, the pandemic delayed the plans. I'm afraid though, that it'll only lead me to meeting more and more developers. I tried a bunch of coworking spaces in my area, and this is exactly what happened. Meetups in my area were also only tech-related.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Work on yourself first, buddy. Learn to be happy, then people will naturally enter your life and stick around.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    This is the right advice, but it's worth noting how hard this is when you're doing the software dev grind, unless you're one of those people discussed in other threads recently who manages to settle in at a company where they don't really expect much more than 2-3 hours of work per day (not judging, I miss this kind of work) Working on yourself is a more-than-full-time job, and it can take years of work for someone who's developed so much self-loathing. Hobbies are for people who aren't constantly busy with other obligations. And if you're working in solitude in software full-time, you're going to have a hard time finding a hobby that you can just get laser-focused on, not to mention time for exercise if your hobby isn't athletic.
  - tenonyx 5y ago
    That's how it worked in the past! That's what I want to achieve. But there are no people who could enter, at least not in this isolated job.
zebraflask 5y ago
At the risk of going off-topic, I'm a little taken aback by how we're all still in the middle of a global pandemic. Vaccines don't provide bulletproof immunity and aren't intended to be a license to gather in groups, etc., without precautions. From that description, your neighbors don't sound particularly appealing. What's there to be envious of re: that?
- Klonoar 5y ago
  You can cast your disapproval at what those neighbors are doing, and it might even be perfectly valid (I'd agree with you). It does absolutely nothing to quell that envy that OP is feeling, though - I know the feeling well, and I know many of my friends feel the same way. This is a long tail of the whole pandemic that doesn't really get discussed.
oliv__ 5y ago
Just wanted to second the traveling and staying at Airbnbs: if you just book a "room" with locals (as opposed to the full place), it's a great way to meet (usually) open minded people with a different culture that can completely reset your expectations of what life is or should be.
andrew_ 5y ago
Sounds to me like they need less of the developer space, not more. There's more to life than the screen. Fulfillment comes in many forms.
lupire 5y ago
If OP looks down upon his current neighbors for childish, superficial reasons, I doubt relocating will fix his broken "Instagram-warped" perspective.
cscurmudgeon 5y ago
I think you put your finger on the pulse. OP is probably very shallow and this could explain his loneliness.
- tim333 5y ago
  Bit of a negative take.
aklemm 5y ago
This was my reaction too. You can’t put off a judgmental vibe like that and expect to attract many cool people.

blindmute 5y ago

This is the total opposite of what you should do. Why would you uproot yourself to meet a bunch of transient people you'll never see again, or if you do it's once per year because they live across the world, when you're explicitly lonely and looking for friends? Those meetings are so pointless compared to cultivating relationships in a permanent place. OP needs to put down roots in some place he likes and then start finding people he can hang out with regularly. If you do it right, you'll know the cashiers where you shop and the tailor and the butcher and etc. This is how you develop your social life, not by the equivalent of mindless scrolling but for irl socializing.

starkd 5y ago

Even supposedly "unattractive" or "aging" women can start to look more attractive as you get to know them. It's really amazing the transformation that can happen. So much of what is attractive is subjective. It's hard to see that when younger, but it's true. Besides, the attractiveness we associate with youth inevitably fades anyway.

codegrappler 5y ago
I can attest to this. In my 30’s with kids and suddenly women with well behaved kids are more attractive to me. You can find attraction in qualities as much as looks.
- desmosxxx 5y ago
  Never thought this would happen to me as looks was almost the only thing that mattered (as much as I didn't want that to be the case), but it did. After my first horribly failed marriage (and damaged kids due to wife being a complete failure), something clicked in my head and I finally find personality extremely important. Not sure if it's an age thing or just a change after trauma, but it's been a very positive change. Weight is still somewhat important at the extreme, but otherwise it's been a 180* shift - really fascinating.
chihuahua 5y ago
Those aging women, how dare they get older, inconveniencing OP with their existence in the same timeline.
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  You aren't wrong. A sober look at how society judges people should remove all surprise surrounding this topic, unfair as it may be - men are judged primarily by financial / dominance success / physical indicators of dominance (e.g. height) and women are primarily judged on their appearance / youth.
- tenonyx 5y ago
  Eh, I wish them all best of luck, I'm sure they're great people. My point was that people seem to attend various hobbies to find romantic partners, rather than friends.
  - tluyben2 5y ago
    But putting it the way you did; maybe if we saw a picture of you and if you look like a hunchback smurf then you maybe can say things the way you put them. 'People who attend various hobbies tend to do that to find romantic partners' is a fine way of putting it instead. But you are right; I find that too, which is why I just go work in bars (I mean; sit and code, not serve beer!) instead of trying to meet people at hobbies (Which, for me, are all nerd/hardware/software things anyway). Even without drinking (which I don't do during working time), it is very easy to meet tons of people. And it works everywhere. The best craft beer bar in my new town (I move often) is open 8 am to 2 am, it's always busy and over 90% of the people just drink coffee there (with 15 beers on draft + more in bottles), the entire day. I work there and when I need a break, I just look around for 5 minutes and someone will make eye contact and start talking. Works everywhere I have been I found (in the US, EU, Asia).
    - jirf_dev 5y ago
      In this scenario do you just sit at the bar and start working? I’ve never been at a bar where this wouldn’t be very strange. But I’ve only been to bars at night on the weekends.
purplecats 5y ago
i mean... it doesn't fade away right. it's cyclical. your children will be born to the same fate.
dosethree 5y ago
we’re all just skeletons with skin sacks stretched over them

tenonyx 5y ago

> So...people like you? you sound really judgemental man. I know it sounds bad, but I don't want to meet people like me. I really don't like myself right now :) I'm looking for a way out from this state, not a way to settle in. It's like you can't treat depression by hanging out with other depressed people, it'll make you worse. > Since you have no friends(so nothing to hold you where you are, right?), and apparently a good source of income, I'd advise you to go remote, travel, try digital nomadism, go to meetups, meet other travelers, maybe try coworking spaces? hacker houses/airbnbs with people from lots of different places? Traveling and digital nomading is definitely on my list, the pandemic delayed the plans. I'm afraid though, that it'll only lead me to meeting more and more developers. I tried a bunch of coworking spaces in my area, and this is exactly what happened. Meetups in my area were also only tech-related.

darkerside 5y ago
Work on yourself first, buddy. Learn to be happy, then people will naturally enter your life and stick around.
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  This is the right advice, but it's worth noting how hard this is when you're doing the software dev grind, unless you're one of those people discussed in other threads recently who manages to settle in at a company where they don't really expect much more than 2-3 hours of work per day (not judging, I miss this kind of work) Working on yourself is a more-than-full-time job, and it can take years of work for someone who's developed so much self-loathing. Hobbies are for people who aren't constantly busy with other obligations. And if you're working in solitude in software full-time, you're going to have a hard time finding a hobby that you can just get laser-focused on, not to mention time for exercise if your hobby isn't athletic.
- tenonyx 5y ago
  That's how it worked in the past! That's what I want to achieve. But there are no people who could enter, at least not in this isolated job.

zebraflask 5y ago

At the risk of going off-topic, I'm a little taken aback by how we're all still in the middle of a global pandemic. Vaccines don't provide bulletproof immunity and aren't intended to be a license to gather in groups, etc., without precautions. From that description, your neighbors don't sound particularly appealing. What's there to be envious of re: that?

Klonoar 5y ago
You can cast your disapproval at what those neighbors are doing, and it might even be perfectly valid (I'd agree with you). It does absolutely nothing to quell that envy that OP is feeling, though - I know the feeling well, and I know many of my friends feel the same way. This is a long tail of the whole pandemic that doesn't really get discussed.

oliv__ 5y ago

Just wanted to second the traveling and staying at Airbnbs: if you just book a "room" with locals (as opposed to the full place), it's a great way to meet (usually) open minded people with a different culture that can completely reset your expectations of what life is or should be.

andrew_ 5y ago

Sounds to me like they need less of the developer space, not more. There's more to life than the screen. Fulfillment comes in many forms.

lupire 5y ago

If OP looks down upon his current neighbors for childish, superficial reasons, I doubt relocating will fix his broken "Instagram-warped" perspective.

cscurmudgeon 5y ago

I think you put your finger on the pulse. OP is probably very shallow and this could explain his loneliness.

tim333 5y ago
Bit of a negative take.

aklemm 5y ago

This was my reaction too. You can’t put off a judgmental vibe like that and expect to attract many cool people.