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Ask HN: How to be alone?

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Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#421

Post by janilowski »

There are no tricks but you can manage it to an extent.

- Find activities you can do *outside*, regularly, preferably with a group. Things that worked for me: Learn japanese (group lessons only! Invite everyone for a beer afterwards), find a literature club, go swimming every other day, go cycling when bored.

- Reach out to friends and acquaintances you didn't speak to in a while. Some won't reply, others will be delighted you reached out. Most people meet their s/o through mutual acquaintances.

- Go on websites like Meetup (or whatever event board is most popular on your area) and go to every event you can manage. If you're not the type to strike conversations with random strangers then find events looking for speakers or hosts and people will come up to you themselves.

It's *very normal* to feel empty when a large part of your life is suddenly not there. I couldn't get rid of that feeling at any point when I was alone. Fill in the empty time and space, try finding someone else in a while but don't rush it—otherwise you risk yet another breakup.

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#422

Post by greekrich92 »

robeym wrote: post #413

It's not good for us to be completely alone. We are social beings, and community is part of who we are. We search for truth in relationships, politics, games, drugs, anything. We search to the end of ourselves but end up with the same emptiness and questions. The truth, wholeness, community, and love we need and seek is often in the place we're too afraid to look - the Christian church. Even if you're not religious,…

If OP finds this compelling, please consider a Quaker church to avoid the dogmatic and political baggage.

Or perhaps a Unitarian church or Buddhist temple.

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#423

Post by bmikaili »

noosphr wrote: post #368
rfc3092 wrote: post #248

To get things out of the way: yes it is hard being alone. But it is also hard to be with someone and is very hard to take care of kids and family and such. And it is waaay harder to be with wrong person. There are no easy roads in life and being single is one of the easiest. Now I’ll focus on practical advise: - gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. - besi…

- gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. Do you people even go to the gym at all? You need time to recover. Between 3 to 5 days is the most you can humanly do. And that's if you vary your exercises as suggested by a (good) personal trainer. Any more than that and you're just asking for overtraining syndrome. Doubly so if you're nearly 40. Edit: after seeing…

You can do splits or cardio.

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#424

Post by jamespo »

rfc3092 wrote: post #248

To get things out of the way: yes it is hard being alone. But it is also hard to be with someone and is very hard to take care of kids and family and such. And it is waaay harder to be with wrong person. There are no easy roads in life and being single is one of the easiest. Now I’ll focus on practical advise: - gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. - besi…

Were you in full time employment whilst doing all this?

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#425

Post by BinaryMachine »

noosphr wrote: post #368
rfc3092 wrote: post #248

To get things out of the way: yes it is hard being alone. But it is also hard to be with someone and is very hard to take care of kids and family and such. And it is waaay harder to be with wrong person. There are no easy roads in life and being single is one of the easiest. Now I’ll focus on practical advise: - gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. - besi…

- gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. Do you people even go to the gym at all? You need time to recover. Between 3 to 5 days is the most you can humanly do. And that's if you vary your exercises as suggested by a (good) personal trainer. Any more than that and you're just asking for overtraining syndrome. Doubly so if you're nearly 40. Edit: after seeing…

I go everyday but started just using Sundays for walks outside.

30min resistance and 30min "Jeffing" (called the run-walk method, run-walk-run).

Saturdays since I have more time 1:30hr resistance, 1hr-2hr cycling outside.

Eating healthy is also important, cook for yourself always. Meal prepping saves so much money.

I think time is also against me and life is moving quickly that if I don't spend everyday on body and mind its a wasted day.

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#427

Post by narag »

bko wrote: post #407
rfc3092 wrote: post #248

To get things out of the way: yes it is hard being alone. But it is also hard to be with someone and is very hard to take care of kids and family and such. And it is waaay harder to be with wrong person. There are no easy roads in life and being single is one of the easiest. Now I’ll focus on practical advise: - gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. - besi…

> But it is also hard to be with someone and is very hard to take care of kids and family and such. And it is waaay harder to be with wrong person. Strong disagree. It's a different kind of hard. People can handle hard. Running a marathon is hard but a million do so every year for no reason other than maybe it's hard. The difference between taking care of kids and having a family is that it's meaningful and to most d…

I don't know what "being with the wrong person" means.

Congratulations.

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#429

Post by heyitsdaad »

That’s too young to get married. You never learned to be alone.

Embrace the fact that this is an opportunity: The wall is now empty, you can draw anything you want!

Focus on yourself : Read books, go to gym, eat healthy/cook

To socialize : meetup or equivalent, sports with people/hike

Do not date. Do not get on apps. Do not hook up.

Minimize drinking.

Read psychology and philosophy. Do not read self improvement books.

Give yourself time, it fixes everything.

Once you are happy with the person you have become (i.e. you look back at this post and realize you are at a higher level of consciousness) you can date.

Re: Ask HN: How to be alone?

#430

Post by kakacik »

noosphr wrote: post #368
rfc3092 wrote: post #248

To get things out of the way: yes it is hard being alone. But it is also hard to be with someone and is very hard to take care of kids and family and such. And it is waaay harder to be with wrong person. There are no easy roads in life and being single is one of the easiest. Now I’ll focus on practical advise: - gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. - besi…

- gym every day. No excuses. If you don’t know what to do or lack motivation- get a personal trainer. Do you people even go to the gym at all? You need time to recover. Between 3 to 5 days is the most you can humanly do. And that's if you vary your exercises as suggested by a (good) personal trainer. Any more than that and you're just asking for overtraining syndrome. Doubly so if you're nearly 40. Edit: after seeing…

Yeah especially 38 approaches the barrier (or crossed, depends on genes and previous lifestyle) when body changes for the worse. Weaker, builds strength slower, regeneration takes longer, injuries come easier. Very bad and outright dangerous advice that scare away more people than actually help.

I'd say start with 2x a week, and 2 very important points - start gently since by description body isn't used to working out so it may take many weeks for it to grow connective tissue to handle new load; and start with a coach who will not push you like many love to do, but give you a gradual introduction and help avoid beginner's mistakes and injuries.

The main point is to not make every workout a hated chore that must be done, since such motivation won't last very long and subconsciousness will easily find ways to start avoiding that. Everybody I knew that subscribed to such regime from 0 and wanted to be pushed hard gave up in few months. Such a mindset is reserved further down the line, for specific types of personalities and not an universally good approach.

Once some form of affinity if not outright love for workouts and feeling/effects after forms, and routine sets in, find other sports. Don't just do gym mindlessly every day unless that's the only choice of activity... its rather sad use of all that gained potential when there are so many better, more fun & rewarding activities. Do group sports if you like them (I personally don't), and/or join groups of people doing such activities (ie hiking club must be almost everywhere, its such a basic and great thing).

Some 15 years ago I started ie organizing climbing sessions out of loneliness in similar situation as yours and amount of friends and women that entered my life in short period was non-trivial. Thats further down the line, but just a group similarly-minded people are already a massive boost. Be yourself, find your new hobbies or better passions, and this hard period will be over.

Do NOT spend most of your free time in front of screen, playing games or other rather toxic activities. They will make all negative things worse since its a very lonely hobby despite being in contact with many folks (multiplayer, singleplayer is even worse).

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