12 ms·

Who People Talk to When They're Struggling

69 points by toomuchtodo 1mo ago

MrDrDr 1mo ago
Is the true in America? I’m in the UK, and while social isolation, particularly for men is probably worse than it was, I think many, myself included, have at least one person we can turn to in times of crisis. Or am I in a bubble?
- toomuchtodo 1mo ago
  The author of this piece, Ryan Burge, typically relies data that is scoped to the US for his pieces (to the best of my knowledge). You would have to reach out to him to inquire about the UK, if any similar data is available for analysis, etc. With that said, the ARDA appears to have global data available at https://thearda.com/ https://thearda.com/ > This post has been unlocked through a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment for the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). The graphs you see here use data that is publicly available for download and analysis through link(s) provided in the text below. Code for this post can be found at https://gist.github.com/ryanburge/0895d855fdc93c3ce26b034349edcb49 https://gist.github.com/ryanburge/0895d855fdc93c3ce26b034349... (Ryan also wrote "The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us," which I highly recommend; he is exceptionally data driven within this domain, no affiliation besides subscribing to his Substack) https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781587436697_the-vanishing-church https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781587436697_the-...
- dirtybirdnj 1mo ago
  This is absolutely true in america. My partner left me and my social life has completely collapsed. I have nobody to talk to when things get difficult. I am estranged from my father, my mother is disabled and requires increasing medical support. I'm an only child, I have no local family. Once the floor drops out from under you there is nothing to stop the rapid decent to nothingness. There is a generation of discarded people who have nobody left. When we lose our last threads of social connection there's no way back. Beyond hopeless. Enjoy your bubble. america is completely fucked.
  - reactordev 1mo ago
    Call 211
  - mancerayder 1mo ago
    I think it helps to live in a city. The cities have their problems, they're expensive and dirty, but there are loads of older single adults, and even an introvert can sit at the same bar once a week and meet people, or go to meetups or a weekly class and slowly meet people. Hell, in bad times even chatting with a bartender was nice. Being in your shoes in a suburban setting surrounded by families and neat little houses (or huge fields in a country setting) I imagine is hard. I'm only making assumptions. Have you thought about traveling long weekends or abroad longer? Perfectly doable solo.
    - TFNA 1mo ago
      Meetups aren't as effective as you think. I have seen complaints from multiple large European cities that general social meetups don't actually result much in people exchanging contacts and meeting again in future; it feels like a one-off encounter with other human beings, and that makes it dismal. There is even a predatory industry now of for-profit social meetups because people are so lonely, and knowing that one is being exploited only makes it more dismal. For more specialized hobby meetups, it is a common complaint that one's fellows are only met while practicing the hobby, they never become general friends that one can meet regularly with, let alone turn to in emotionally heavy times. I wouldn't recommend solo travel as a way to socialize unless one knows the person's age. It's a sad fact that over the age of about 30-35, solo travelers (especially men) can no longer take advantage of the social opportunities of the backpacker scene; you might get a few nice chats, but most travelers will be very wary of you.
  - KittenInABox 1mo ago
    Learning how to develop a social network independently is a skill. If your partner leaving you collapses your social life, do you live in a small town where the narrative has turned against you, or did you simply rely on them to be the adult in the room and set up playdates for you like you're a child? Go to bookclubs.com and start a book club, or join a book club, or go to a local library and do any of the social stuff. Go to a crochet club, even empty-handed, chances are the fiber arts people will have plenty to spare. These are friendships that have to be forged and worked on day in and day out to strengthen them, like a sword.
- tokai 1mo ago
  Precovid social isolation was the same in US and UK. [0] This investigation have numbers that say that Brits are experiencing more social isolation than untitedstateians. [1] [0] https://publica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/DiJulio-et-al.-Loneliness-and-social-isolation.pdf https://publica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/DiJulio-et-al.-Lon... [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2838875 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
  - graemep 1mo ago
    its not a signficant difference though. 22% vs 23% for total reporting isolation.
  - antonvs 1mo ago
    > unitedstateians We're going to need a better name for them. Trumpistanians perhaps?
zdw 1mo ago
This whole blog is fascinating, assuming that you're interested in the intersection between (recent) history, demographics, politics, and religion in the US. For example - this one about generations and trust was surprising to me: https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/gen-z-doesnt-trust-anyone https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/gen-z-doesnt-trust-any... or this on perception of the religiosity of holidays: https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/is-christmas-a-religious-holiday https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/is-christmas-a-religio...
ConfusedDog 1mo ago
I'm part of Freemasonry. All members are at least vested for criminal conducts, my lodge at least is very strict on background investigation, so it's easier to pick trustworthy brothers to talk to. I'm probably one the youngest members and benefitted from wisdom and patience from older brothers. I'm not a church member but that would be a good alternative.
- freedomben 1mo ago
  [dead]
- sersi 1mo ago
  I had a great experience when I was part of a lodge. I'm atheist and so could join a Droit Humain lodge in France (which does not require belief in a Great Architect of the Universe and is mixed). I'm now in Hong Kong but unfortunately have failed to find a lodge that doesn't require a belief in God and that is mixed (I refuse to go to a male only lodge). It's a pity because I found freemasonry to be hugely beneficial in terms of friendship, interesting discussions and support.
  - Screaming_O 1mo ago
    Or you could just choose to believe in God. It's not that bad, there are worse things.
    - tavavex 1mo ago
      Most atheists can't 'just choose' to believe in a god. This is also why most religious converts come from other religions and not non-belief. If they thought about their opinion and made that decision consciously, the suspension of disbelief is gone. Religion will just feel too unreal, artificial and human-made. It's like asking a kid to just choose to believe in Santa after they spotted their parents hiding the gifts.
      - Screaming_O 1mo ago
        If choosing to believe in Santa means he continues to get an extra present every Christmas, and revealing his lack of faith means he doesn't, then it makes sense for him to choose to continue to believe in Santa for as long as possible.
randusername 1mo ago
It's also about where you go with your struggles. Do you go home and talk to your spouse? Do you go to church and talk with your pastor? Do you go to your therapist or to the local bar? > Comfort with mental health care has become another facet of political sorting in the U.S. I'm skeptical. Bars and churches and friends are way cheaper and more accessible in red states. It's hard enough to get poorer, less educated men comfortable going to the doctor, let alone a therapist.
- embedding-shape 1mo ago
  > Bars and churches and friends are way cheaper and more accessible in red states. Just as a curiosity, as I don't have any experience of red states myself, how easy would it be for a closet homosexual to come out and get support from their bar, churches and friends in a red state, typically?
  - eastbound 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - toomuchtodo 1mo ago
      I empathize with the straight white Christian as a fellow human, and wish them support (I donate to organizations that provide crisis support, but this does not scale, we need more scale [community building via robust government support imho]), but also recognize that religious belief is rapidly declining in the US [1], ~100k churches are anticipated to close over the next 5-10 years [2], and so while this support should be provided to the religious folks who need it, it is not a growing or long term support need [3] (imho, specifically in the context of a religious leader providing said support) from a systems thinking perspective. Citations below for this area of the knowledge graph. TLDR This is a human support capacity and capability issue. We should fix it, to the best of our ability, imho. [1] Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45916273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45916273 - November 2025 (1 comment) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 (citations) [3] When Are Half Your Members Going to be Dead? - https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/when-are-half-your-members-going https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/when-are-half-your-mem... - January 29th, 2026 > The means are denoted in red, and you can see that most of the numbers are at least 55 years old. For instance, the average adult member of an Episcopal church is 61 years old. For Southern Baptists, it’s 58. The Assemblies of God are doing a bit better on this metric at 54. But look at the modal age for a lot of these groups—this is probably the most important metric when it comes to understanding the future of American Protestant Christianity. For many, the modal age is significantly higher than the mean. In a bunch of mainline Protestant denominations, it’s between 67 and 69 years old. For the Assemblies of God, the modal age is 69, which is 15 years older than the mean. What does this mean? Well, the mean can be pulled down by a decent chunk of younger folks. If you have a good core of 30-year-olds, they can counterbalance those 60-year-olds in that calculation. That’s not true for the mode. It gives you a much better sense of when “the tipping point” is going to come. [4] The Generational Collapse of American Religion - https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-collapse-of-american https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-colla... - January 19th, 2026 ("So why do overall levels of attendance decline? Well, because each successive birth cohort is less religiously active than the previous one. That’s the main driver of religious decline—it’s a decay function across cohorts.") As an atheist, this topic is one of many that stays on my mind and keeps me awake sometimes. How A Decline In Churchgoing Led To A Rise In ‘Deaths Of Despair’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 - December 2025 (2 comments) Find Your People - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44074017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44074017 - May 2025 (283 comments)
ianjbutler 1mo ago
> The preamble is straightforward: “How comfortable would you be talking about your mental health and emotional well-being with each of the following?" Seems like a pretty broken premise, ranking comfort instead of what you expected to help most. Also related, people are typically more comfortable confessing to strangers or under circumstances that won't endanger an existing relationship, which seems like a big part of why confession is anonymous. Self-reporting here is probably basically the same as asking "according to your community norms, how are you supposed to answer a question like this?" without much real reveal
- moralestapia 1mo ago
  Broken? How much does the author owe you? My guess is zero. If he didn't measure what you wanted to be measured ... that's your problem.
  - ianjbutler 1mo ago
    premise!=promise
  - mjmjmjmj 1mo ago
    ad hominem. gp did not demand/expect anything. did they owe /you/ anything?
- cobertos 1mo ago
  > ranking comfort instead of what you expected to help most But don't we, in real times, turn to the people we're comfortable talking to? We are not machines ranking the effectiveness of our peers for best outcome, though some of us surely still weigh that! It would be nice to go the most effective route, but sometimes that brings a lot of pain, judgement, or unforseen externalities. (and hopefully we pick our close social relationships to make us more effective too!) > "according to your community norms ..." ... without much real reveal It puts data to what our understanding of those norms are. I don't know if there's a bigger reveal than "yeah, people generally are pretty comfortable with their spouse" Tbh I was surprised anyone would/could open up and have an emotional conversation with a neighbor (when looking at risk vs reward). But, there are a lot of types of neighbors too.
roshanabdullah1 1mo ago
depends. many talk to their loved ones. which actually help in so many ways!
analog8374 1mo ago
deepseek!
mannanj 1mo ago
Right before COVID I stumbled across mens groups, they were a way I first learned I could get my underlying needs for getting seen met in a way no other mechanism in society offered. Society was trying actually to meet this need in so many other pseudo forms, but where it fell short and what I needed was: - a safe space to share what my experience without needing to be fixed or someone giving me unsolicited feedback - place where competition was turned off (sports groups, board game nights, video games etc had previously been this but since they were competitive they met a different need) - a cadence that met regularly and where space for me to speak with structure was a requirement I liked this so much I even formed one in DC before I was pushed away for work to an abusive Dallas Capital One environment (which my men helped me navigate while my coworkers accepted the abuse being blind to it). I Highly recommend trying a mens groups, find one on Facebook or Google, or try the project mankind groups or No Mr Nice Guy’s Dr Glover runs one online. The one I was a part of longest is also open: embodied masculine (more extreme embodiment based group) but starting off get your toes wet first.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- Taikonerd 1mo ago
  I really like this answer. I wish there were a men's group near me.
  - jmcqk6 1mo ago
    It's likely there is, though it might be difficult to find. One place you can look is the local unitarian universalists. These can vary widely, but often you'll find them open to all religions (including non-religious), and full of open, curious, non-judgemental people. One thing about UU's is that it's not dogma based. There's nothing you have to believe to be a UU. Instead, it's covenant based. You are in the community when you adhere to the agreements of the community. These are usually things like mutual respect, deep listening, etc.
    - mannanj 1mo ago
post_break 1mo ago
I'd be curious about the results in the main graph if it included no one. That would be much more telling, because right now it appears that most people talk to at least someone.
NGRhodes 1mo ago
[flagged]
someguyiguess 1mo ago
Don’t talk to anyone. Internalize it and transmute it into something powerful instead.
- ramon156 1mo ago
  what a fabled way of thinking
- moffkalast 1mo ago
  Yeah, a heart atrack at 50 lmao
- jmcqk6 1mo ago
  This is a risky path. If you internalize it in unhealthy ways, you're empowering your shadow, and it will find inconvenient, self-defeating ways to express it.
jeffrallen 1mo ago
To those who answer "my spouse", please think carefully about building an alternative support system if/when it happens that the mental health situation you are dealing with comes from a breakdown in ability to communicate with your spouse. I recently went thru a rough period triggered by how my spouse was feeling. If you've both always counted on having the other ready to listen, and that's temporarily impossible for acute reasons, the shock is enormous, and almost undermined my problem solving ability to understand I needed to find a psychologist to talk to. We're ok now, but it could have easily gotten way worse before it got better. Having a solid relationship is unfortunately not a protection from losing the security it gives you, psychologically.
ameliaquining 1mo ago
I feel like "large language model" should be on these graphs. For better or for worse, it's the answer to these questions for an increasing number of people.
- fragmede 1mo ago
  Yes. The unfortunate reality though is we don't know how many times they have saved lives (it's much greater than zero), vs how many have been lost (RIP Adam, et al).
bongoman42 1mo ago
This is a solved problem in 2026. You can create as many bots with varied personalities to talk to. Therapists have a vested interest in you continuing to talk to them and can induce neuroses in susceptible individuals.
- jmcqk6 1mo ago
  Talking to bots can induce psychosis in some individuals. This isn't a solved problem, nor is there a universal solution. People need connection, but the varieties of connection are vast. What works for one person, can be terrible for another. Maybe talking to bots gives you what you need, which is great for you. But projecting your solution to everyone else is not a rational step to take.
ddasdasdsa 1mo ago
[flagged]

69 points by toomuchtodo 1mo ago

Is the true in America? I’m in the UK, and while social isolation, particularly for men is probably worse than it was, I think many, myself included, have at least one person we can turn to in times of crisis. Or am I in a bubble?

toomuchtodo 1mo ago
The author of this piece, Ryan Burge, typically relies data that is scoped to the US for his pieces (to the best of my knowledge). You would have to reach out to him to inquire about the UK, if any similar data is available for analysis, etc. With that said, the ARDA appears to have global data available at https://thearda.com/ https://thearda.com/ > This post has been unlocked through a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment for the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). The graphs you see here use data that is publicly available for download and analysis through link(s) provided in the text below. Code for this post can be found at https://gist.github.com/ryanburge/0895d855fdc93c3ce26b034349edcb49 https://gist.github.com/ryanburge/0895d855fdc93c3ce26b034349... (Ryan also wrote "The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us," which I highly recommend; he is exceptionally data driven within this domain, no affiliation besides subscribing to his Substack) https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781587436697_the-vanishing-church https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781587436697_the-...
dirtybirdnj 1mo ago
This is absolutely true in america. My partner left me and my social life has completely collapsed. I have nobody to talk to when things get difficult. I am estranged from my father, my mother is disabled and requires increasing medical support. I'm an only child, I have no local family. Once the floor drops out from under you there is nothing to stop the rapid decent to nothingness. There is a generation of discarded people who have nobody left. When we lose our last threads of social connection there's no way back. Beyond hopeless. Enjoy your bubble. america is completely fucked.
- reactordev 1mo ago
  Call 211
- mancerayder 1mo ago
  I think it helps to live in a city. The cities have their problems, they're expensive and dirty, but there are loads of older single adults, and even an introvert can sit at the same bar once a week and meet people, or go to meetups or a weekly class and slowly meet people. Hell, in bad times even chatting with a bartender was nice. Being in your shoes in a suburban setting surrounded by families and neat little houses (or huge fields in a country setting) I imagine is hard. I'm only making assumptions. Have you thought about traveling long weekends or abroad longer? Perfectly doable solo.
  - TFNA 1mo ago
    Meetups aren't as effective as you think. I have seen complaints from multiple large European cities that general social meetups don't actually result much in people exchanging contacts and meeting again in future; it feels like a one-off encounter with other human beings, and that makes it dismal. There is even a predatory industry now of for-profit social meetups because people are so lonely, and knowing that one is being exploited only makes it more dismal. For more specialized hobby meetups, it is a common complaint that one's fellows are only met while practicing the hobby, they never become general friends that one can meet regularly with, let alone turn to in emotionally heavy times. I wouldn't recommend solo travel as a way to socialize unless one knows the person's age. It's a sad fact that over the age of about 30-35, solo travelers (especially men) can no longer take advantage of the social opportunities of the backpacker scene; you might get a few nice chats, but most travelers will be very wary of you.
- KittenInABox 1mo ago
  Learning how to develop a social network independently is a skill. If your partner leaving you collapses your social life, do you live in a small town where the narrative has turned against you, or did you simply rely on them to be the adult in the room and set up playdates for you like you're a child? Go to bookclubs.com and start a book club, or join a book club, or go to a local library and do any of the social stuff. Go to a crochet club, even empty-handed, chances are the fiber arts people will have plenty to spare. These are friendships that have to be forged and worked on day in and day out to strengthen them, like a sword.
tokai 1mo ago
Precovid social isolation was the same in US and UK. [0] This investigation have numbers that say that Brits are experiencing more social isolation than untitedstateians. [1] [0] https://publica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/DiJulio-et-al.-Loneliness-and-social-isolation.pdf https://publica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/DiJulio-et-al.-Lon... [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2838875 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
- graemep 1mo ago
  its not a signficant difference though. 22% vs 23% for total reporting isolation.
- antonvs 1mo ago
  > unitedstateians We're going to need a better name for them. Trumpistanians perhaps?

zdw 1mo ago

This whole blog is fascinating, assuming that you're interested in the intersection between (recent) history, demographics, politics, and religion in the US. For example - this one about generations and trust was surprising to me: https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/gen-z-doesnt-trust-anyone https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/gen-z-doesnt-trust-any... or this on perception of the religiosity of holidays: https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/is-christmas-a-religious-holiday https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/is-christmas-a-religio...

ConfusedDog 1mo ago

I'm part of Freemasonry. All members are at least vested for criminal conducts, my lodge at least is very strict on background investigation, so it's easier to pick trustworthy brothers to talk to. I'm probably one the youngest members and benefitted from wisdom and patience from older brothers. I'm not a church member but that would be a good alternative.

freedomben 1mo ago
[dead]
sersi 1mo ago
I had a great experience when I was part of a lodge. I'm atheist and so could join a Droit Humain lodge in France (which does not require belief in a Great Architect of the Universe and is mixed). I'm now in Hong Kong but unfortunately have failed to find a lodge that doesn't require a belief in God and that is mixed (I refuse to go to a male only lodge). It's a pity because I found freemasonry to be hugely beneficial in terms of friendship, interesting discussions and support.
- Screaming_O 1mo ago
  Or you could just choose to believe in God. It's not that bad, there are worse things.
  - tavavex 1mo ago
    Most atheists can't 'just choose' to believe in a god. This is also why most religious converts come from other religions and not non-belief. If they thought about their opinion and made that decision consciously, the suspension of disbelief is gone. Religion will just feel too unreal, artificial and human-made. It's like asking a kid to just choose to believe in Santa after they spotted their parents hiding the gifts.
    - Screaming_O 1mo ago
      If choosing to believe in Santa means he continues to get an extra present every Christmas, and revealing his lack of faith means he doesn't, then it makes sense for him to choose to continue to believe in Santa for as long as possible.

randusername 1mo ago

It's also about where you go with your struggles. Do you go home and talk to your spouse? Do you go to church and talk with your pastor? Do you go to your therapist or to the local bar? > Comfort with mental health care has become another facet of political sorting in the U.S. I'm skeptical. Bars and churches and friends are way cheaper and more accessible in red states. It's hard enough to get poorer, less educated men comfortable going to the doctor, let alone a therapist.

embedding-shape 1mo ago
> Bars and churches and friends are way cheaper and more accessible in red states. Just as a curiosity, as I don't have any experience of red states myself, how easy would it be for a closet homosexual to come out and get support from their bar, churches and friends in a red state, typically?
- eastbound 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - toomuchtodo 1mo ago
    I empathize with the straight white Christian as a fellow human, and wish them support (I donate to organizations that provide crisis support, but this does not scale, we need more scale [community building via robust government support imho]), but also recognize that religious belief is rapidly declining in the US [1], ~100k churches are anticipated to close over the next 5-10 years [2], and so while this support should be provided to the religious folks who need it, it is not a growing or long term support need [3] (imho, specifically in the context of a religious leader providing said support) from a systems thinking perspective. Citations below for this area of the knowledge graph. TLDR This is a human support capacity and capability issue. We should fix it, to the best of our ability, imho. [1] Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45916273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45916273 - November 2025 (1 comment) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 (citations) [3] When Are Half Your Members Going to be Dead? - https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/when-are-half-your-members-going https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/when-are-half-your-mem... - January 29th, 2026 > The means are denoted in red, and you can see that most of the numbers are at least 55 years old. For instance, the average adult member of an Episcopal church is 61 years old. For Southern Baptists, it’s 58. The Assemblies of God are doing a bit better on this metric at 54. But look at the modal age for a lot of these groups—this is probably the most important metric when it comes to understanding the future of American Protestant Christianity. For many, the modal age is significantly higher than the mean. In a bunch of mainline Protestant denominations, it’s between 67 and 69 years old. For the Assemblies of God, the modal age is 69, which is 15 years older than the mean. What does this mean? Well, the mean can be pulled down by a decent chunk of younger folks. If you have a good core of 30-year-olds, they can counterbalance those 60-year-olds in that calculation. That’s not true for the mode. It gives you a much better sense of when “the tipping point” is going to come. [4] The Generational Collapse of American Religion - https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-collapse-of-american https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-colla... - January 19th, 2026 ("So why do overall levels of attendance decline? Well, because each successive birth cohort is less religiously active than the previous one. That’s the main driver of religious decline—it’s a decay function across cohorts.") As an atheist, this topic is one of many that stays on my mind and keeps me awake sometimes. How A Decline In Churchgoing Led To A Rise In ‘Deaths Of Despair’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 - December 2025 (2 comments) Find Your People - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44074017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44074017 - May 2025 (283 comments)

ianjbutler 1mo ago

> The preamble is straightforward: “How comfortable would you be talking about your mental health and emotional well-being with each of the following?" Seems like a pretty broken premise, ranking comfort instead of what you expected to help most. Also related, people are typically more comfortable confessing to strangers or under circumstances that won't endanger an existing relationship, which seems like a big part of why confession is anonymous. Self-reporting here is probably basically the same as asking "according to your community norms, how are you supposed to answer a question like this?" without much real reveal

moralestapia 1mo ago
Broken? How much does the author owe you? My guess is zero. If he didn't measure what you wanted to be measured ... that's your problem.
- ianjbutler 1mo ago
  premise!=promise
- mjmjmjmj 1mo ago
  ad hominem. gp did not demand/expect anything. did they owe /you/ anything?
cobertos 1mo ago
> ranking comfort instead of what you expected to help most But don't we, in real times, turn to the people we're comfortable talking to? We are not machines ranking the effectiveness of our peers for best outcome, though some of us surely still weigh that! It would be nice to go the most effective route, but sometimes that brings a lot of pain, judgement, or unforseen externalities. (and hopefully we pick our close social relationships to make us more effective too!) > "according to your community norms ..." ... without much real reveal It puts data to what our understanding of those norms are. I don't know if there's a bigger reveal than "yeah, people generally are pretty comfortable with their spouse" Tbh I was surprised anyone would/could open up and have an emotional conversation with a neighbor (when looking at risk vs reward). But, there are a lot of types of neighbors too.

roshanabdullah1 1mo ago

depends. many talk to their loved ones. which actually help in so many ways!

analog8374 1mo ago

deepseek!

mannanj 1mo ago

Right before COVID I stumbled across mens groups, they were a way I first learned I could get my underlying needs for getting seen met in a way no other mechanism in society offered. Society was trying actually to meet this need in so many other pseudo forms, but where it fell short and what I needed was: - a safe space to share what my experience without needing to be fixed or someone giving me unsolicited feedback - place where competition was turned off (sports groups, board game nights, video games etc had previously been this but since they were competitive they met a different need) - a cadence that met regularly and where space for me to speak with structure was a requirement I liked this so much I even formed one in DC before I was pushed away for work to an abusive Dallas Capital One environment (which my men helped me navigate while my coworkers accepted the abuse being blind to it). I Highly recommend trying a mens groups, find one on Facebook or Google, or try the project mankind groups or No Mr Nice Guy’s Dr Glover runs one online. The one I was a part of longest is also open: embodied masculine (more extreme embodiment based group) but starting off get your toes wet first.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
Taikonerd 1mo ago
I really like this answer. I wish there were a men's group near me.
- jmcqk6 1mo ago
  It's likely there is, though it might be difficult to find. One place you can look is the local unitarian universalists. These can vary widely, but often you'll find them open to all religions (including non-religious), and full of open, curious, non-judgemental people. One thing about UU's is that it's not dogma based. There's nothing you have to believe to be a UU. Instead, it's covenant based. You are in the community when you adhere to the agreements of the community. These are usually things like mutual respect, deep listening, etc.
  - mannanj 1mo ago

post_break 1mo ago

I'd be curious about the results in the main graph if it included no one. That would be much more telling, because right now it appears that most people talk to at least someone.

NGRhodes 1mo ago

[flagged]

someguyiguess 1mo ago

Don’t talk to anyone. Internalize it and transmute it into something powerful instead.

ramon156 1mo ago
what a fabled way of thinking
moffkalast 1mo ago
Yeah, a heart atrack at 50 lmao
jmcqk6 1mo ago
This is a risky path. If you internalize it in unhealthy ways, you're empowering your shadow, and it will find inconvenient, self-defeating ways to express it.

jeffrallen 1mo ago

To those who answer "my spouse", please think carefully about building an alternative support system if/when it happens that the mental health situation you are dealing with comes from a breakdown in ability to communicate with your spouse. I recently went thru a rough period triggered by how my spouse was feeling. If you've both always counted on having the other ready to listen, and that's temporarily impossible for acute reasons, the shock is enormous, and almost undermined my problem solving ability to understand I needed to find a psychologist to talk to. We're ok now, but it could have easily gotten way worse before it got better. Having a solid relationship is unfortunately not a protection from losing the security it gives you, psychologically.

ameliaquining 1mo ago

I feel like "large language model" should be on these graphs. For better or for worse, it's the answer to these questions for an increasing number of people.

fragmede 1mo ago
Yes. The unfortunate reality though is we don't know how many times they have saved lives (it's much greater than zero), vs how many have been lost (RIP Adam, et al).

bongoman42 1mo ago

This is a solved problem in 2026. You can create as many bots with varied personalities to talk to. Therapists have a vested interest in you continuing to talk to them and can induce neuroses in susceptible individuals.

jmcqk6 1mo ago
Talking to bots can induce psychosis in some individuals. This isn't a solved problem, nor is there a universal solution. People need connection, but the varieties of connection are vast. What works for one person, can be terrible for another. Maybe talking to bots gives you what you need, which is great for you. But projecting your solution to everyone else is not a rational step to take.

ddasdasdsa 1mo ago

[flagged]