51–60 of 235 posts
> "People with higher I.Q.s were less content when they spent more time with friends. Psychologists theorize that these folks keep themselves intellectually stimulated without a lot of social interaction, and often have a long-term goal they are pursuing." Therein lies the rub. Having friends makes you happier, as long as your friends are intellectually stimulating. I've been trying desperately for years to make some…
I know people keep trying (unsuccessfully) to make startups that help you "find friends", but it would be nice if one of these actually took off. I currently live in an area where I find it somewhat difficult to make new friends, and I'm not entirely sure why that's the case. Generally speaking, the people where I live are more interested in football/beer than technology/startups, but I actually don't think that is t…
I think/hope my start up, Krewe ( https://www.gokrewe.com ), has found the right formula. I believe the key elements are access and comfort. Krewe places people into a group with five of their peers, making it comfortable to hang out at first. You don't have to single anyone out, it works kind of how things worked in your youth. And everyone lives within a half mile radius, so it's really convenient to meet up often.…
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you drop people into randomly assigned groups of people who live within a certain distance without giving the user a chance to screen that group for people they already may know and need to avoid?
This is such an obvious potential problem that it didn't occur to me that your service wouldn't account for it. In my case it's at least not a dangerous situation, although I'm betting the other person in my new group is really not going to be pleased to get this particular notification email. But I imagine overlap will be a problem, particularly when your userbase is still small.
I have to ask--are there any women working at your company? Anyone over 25?
This may seem like a nuisance question to you, but for many women I know (and for myself), the inability to screen potential groups is an immediate dealbreaker. It's a safety issue at it's most extreme, but it's also just common sense. For many women this is an absolute dealbreaker in a way men might not understand.
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From the body language you describe it sounds like those people don't actually want to continue talking with you (for whatever reason). Carnegie is great. Follow up by reading a book or two about body language. While it's far from a hard science, it'll give you some more insight into what a person is thinking/feeling.
I think the Carnegie book isn’t that great, because it’s easy to misinterpret the rules . An often mentioned strategy is to be a good listener. This gets repeated ad nauseam, but is it actually true? I found that people become more open if you put a story on the table first. It’s like an investment. You open yourself a little bit and tell something about yourself, whereas a question about the other person asks them t…
I worked on a boat in the middle of the ocean for many years. I've been grounded for the last few years and tried to make friends. The experiment has been a massive waste of time and energy. I did so much for so many people trying to be nice and helpful and got so little in return. From an economic point of view, I'm completely self reliant and don't need anything from anyone else. I invested so much in other people…
Our lizard brains aggressively pre-filter potential friends by estimating expected value add. One property that contributes to perceived value is scarcity, and this leads to a sort of counterintuitive result: it may be easier to make friends if you don't really want or need them (or at least you appear that way). If you are self-reliant, happy, and occupied most of the time, your time and attention are scarce (from the perspective of others). This signals value and makes others want to be your friend. Obviously, this doesn't mean you should be constantly unavailable. But it does mean that being constantly available to hang out, talk, do favors, etc. will probably make you less desirable as a friend.
For all the negative things folks have been saying on here about SF (expensive, etc.) there's a huge positive that overshadows all of it for me: I've made more new friends in the last 3 years since I moved to SF than, I'd honestly say, my previous decade living in NYC. I'm 37 now and feel like I have more of a community than in college. I think the key to finding real friends and friendships is to be in a place where…
I made more friends in NYC in 2 years than real friends in SF in 4. That's not to blame people, because hey, it takes two to tango and my behavior sabotaged my own success. But even though I am in tech, I still never felt comfortable in the monoculture of SF than while in NY.
I worked on a boat in the middle of the ocean for many years. I've been grounded for the last few years and tried to make friends. The experiment has been a massive waste of time and energy. I did so much for so many people trying to be nice and helpful and got so little in return. From an economic point of view, I'm completely self reliant and don't need anything from anyone else. I invested so much in other people…
I have found that "giving" with the expectation of getting something in return is just wrong headed. Give because you want to give. Of course you have to be careful of the takers. Friend of mine for many years was moving, he called me and asked me to help. I said "Roy, you are worth 10 million bucks, go pay someone to help you!" and he did. There are endless supplies of good people in the world. But it takes effort,…
I disagree. I think there is a reasonable expectation that someone who is a contractor who consistently asks for large favors to help for a couple hour to put up blinds.
I don't need friends.What we see in movies and the media is a myth, once again, an unobtainable expectation.
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Don't limit yourself to "intellectually stimulating". Lots of people have something to teach us about life if we open ourselves to them and go beyond "specialist, PhD etc.".
I agree with this. Everyone has something unique to offer, and not everyone enjoys philosophizing over "deep" conversation topics. (Although I will admit it can get annoying at times when someone spends ten minutes listing all the coupons they clipped from this week's Kroger advertisement...)
Then what are you agreeing with? The GP is specifically looking for people that do. If he/she didn't want intelligent conversations, he/she wouldn't have complained about not being able to find intelligent friends.
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To start with, Put contact info in your hacker news profile. Then when you say interesting things, folks who are a bit more shy can contact you directly. Also reach out to those who interest you. Who knows, some of these brilliant generalists might have time to chat.
having contacts online isn't really the same thing as a "friend", right?
I worked on a boat in the middle of the ocean for many years. I've been grounded for the last few years and tried to make friends. The experiment has been a massive waste of time and energy. I did so much for so many people trying to be nice and helpful and got so little in return. From an economic point of view, I'm completely self reliant and don't need anything from anyone else. I invested so much in other people…
You are probably choosing the wrong people to be friends with. And yeah, doing things for people doesn't work in the same way that being the errant boy for the girl you liked in elementary or high school didn't work either.