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All the lonely people

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Re: All the lonely people

#71

Post by elcapitan »

flamedoge wrote: post #64
ptaipale wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it is in many countries, but for some reason the U.S. doesn't seem to work that way. I was a bit surprised when my son spent a year in high school in the U.S. and I found out how youth football (soccer) system works there. Over here in Europe, we have a plethora of local clubs that collect the young and old to train and play, and to work together to organise everything, fund it, and so on. In the U.S. the footbal…

meetup.com seems to be alive in every city....

How is the target audience for Meetup elsewhere? I live in Berlin and I noticed that it's almost exclusively developers (which is fun, but sometimes weird - I went to a street cycling meetup and everybody else was a dev too). Maybe the dominance of German clubs in organized leisure is the reason for that.

Re: All the lonely people

#72

Post by sverige »

aaron695 wrote: post #66

> When she couldn’t find her way back home, confused and scared, she screamed for help. She banged on people’s doors and tried to claw her way into vehicles, setting off car alarms. > Neither offered to help, nor called 911 — they pulled the curtains shut and went back to bed. This is a insult to my intelligence. This sort of emotive bullshit is both a lie (This is not what happened) and totally unconstructive. There…

So you doubt that the reporting is accurate? I don't. It's very believable to me that people would ignore some disturbance outside in a suburban neighborhood.

Granted, this is an anecdote that illustrates one of the stranger aspects of isolation, and probably wouldn't happen everywhere, but I think that's the point: in some places, absolutely no one will help you.

So, to say it's a lie without any evidence to the contrary is unconstructive.

Re: All the lonely people

#73

Post by fratlas »

some_hero-_- wrote: post #50

I was a semi introvert and extrovert guy but after working for one startup for more than 3 years in isolated environment makes me feel like i am fully introvert. There is no one with whom i can express my feelings openly. I don't have friends to hangout, and the most depressing thing is the people of my age have all this thing. What's more awkward is I can't even able to approach people, seems like i forgotten how to…

I can empathise with this - I was edging on being an extravert until I took about a year of remote work. I think social skills come from practice and exposure, so when you stop interacting with people for great lengths of time, your skills weaken and you want isolation out of fear of showing your ineptitude. It's a vicious cycle; the only solution I have found is putting yourself in a social environment by force (i.e. workplaces, clubs etc).

Re: All the lonely people

#74

Post by 13of40 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Again, something my grandfather taught me, was that it was important to walk around your neighborhood and say "hi" to the people who lived there. He called it "Being neighborly." We also, periodically but not on a particular schedule, put together a block BBQ where people can bring food, or not, and share a moment together to talk about what is going in or what they are worried about etc. Generally people respond wel…

I can't even imagine a block party in my neighborhood. We'd have the 24 year old tech multi-hundred-thousandaire from across the street mingling with the Mormons to the right and the shut-in imminent foreclosure retiree to the left bumping shoulders with the gangster guys on the corner and the kitty-corner mother-of-twelve trying to feed her kids up on hot dogs but keep them from listening to any of the conversation. Then some douchebag would blow down the street in his Mustang at 40 miles an hour, totally oblivious to the barbecues and plastic tables covered in red plastic cups...

Re: All the lonely people

#75

Post by alexland »

ojbyrne wrote: post #10

I grew up in Canada and now in the US and after reading this, the first thing I thought of after reading this is - there are vastly fewer neighborhood bars in Canada. Strict drunk driving laws (obviously more important) and cold winters seemed to lead to the only viable bars being large clubs or in downtown cores where there's tourists.

That's a very interesting thought. I've also noticed that in Metro Vancouver the majority of pubs are on busy streets or in dense city areas, rather than neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the people I know (mostly 20-somethings) tend to gravitate towards the city core for social outings, and so I end up very rarely trying the few neighborly pubs in the suburbs.

Re: All the lonely people

#76

Post by ThrustVectoring »

xj9 wrote: post #6
protomyth wrote: post #4

One institution not mention (and given the publication, I find it a bit odd) is the local churches. It is one of the large connection points that have started to fade. The amount of social welfare the churches supported has not been replaced.

This is something that needs to be addressed. We are becoming more secular over time, but we aren't replacing the communities that churches create with secular equivalents, at least not on the same scale. Feeling connected is important, we really need to work on that.

That's a large part of why I'm into social dancing.

Re: All the lonely people

#77

Post by hueving »

sseagull wrote: post #22
kstenerud wrote: post #16

The more I read about this, the more weird I think I must be. I've always preferred being alone. My time in San Francisco was utter hell. I couldn't get a moment away from people and noise. Now I live in complete isolation. My nearest neighbor is two miles down a dirt road. I only go into town to stock up on foods, which I vacuum seal and stuff in the deep freeze (enough to last me 3 months at a time). I've never bee…

I get that feeling as well, sometimes. Even though I don't want quite your level of isolation, I don't mind working alone or not talking to anyone else in person for days (except my wife). I sometimes think of it as the 'tyranny of the extroverts'. Since they are, well, extroverted, they are the ones controlling the narrative of what's 'normal', while the introverts are too introverted to really speak up. Extroverts…

I'm introverted and I still prefer more population because it offers a lot more diversity in restaurants and grocery stores (I like to eat all kinds of stuff). I also enjoy the bustle of people even though I don't prefer to talk to any random individual.

Re: All the lonely people

#78

Post by hueving »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #76
xj9 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that needs to be addressed. We are becoming more secular over time, but we aren't replacing the communities that churches create with secular equivalents, at least not on the same scale. Feeling connected is important, we really need to work on that.

That's a large part of why I'm into social dancing.

Is there such a thing as anti-social dancing?

Re: All the lonely people

#79

Post by hueving »

jmspring wrote: post #23
protomyth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt we will since it would take a common belief that emphasizes charity and group togetherness. The most interesting secular meeting place is McDonalds for a lot of older people. Its cheap and you can often sit there a while, but McDonalds doesn't really have an equivalent of the local preacher.

Or Taco Bell or whatever local cheap eatery is in the local neighborhood.

McDonald's has something particularly attractive about it to older folks though. Might be nostalgia since it was the first big fast food thing, or maybe it's just cheap coffee. Not sure, but the one near me always has a couple of groups of old folks chatting there at 7-10am on sundays.

Re: All the lonely people

#80

Post by abraham_s »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Again, something my grandfather taught me, was that it was important to walk around your neighborhood and say "hi" to the people who lived there. He called it "Being neighborly." We also, periodically but not on a particular schedule, put together a block BBQ where people can bring food, or not, and share a moment together to talk about what is going in or what they are worried about etc. Generally people respond wel…

Strangers greeting me on the street was a culture shock when I moved from India to US (to Salt Lake City,UT). Often my brain won't process it in time to return the greeting before the person has passed me. Sometimes I will bungle the reply (saying "same to you" in reply to "Good Morning") or just smile in return or nod. If you have greeted someone on the street and hasn't gotten any response back, please don't take it to heart.
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