As someone who has bad social anxiety, I find that forcing myself to be social seems to have a much more negative effect on my health than being lonely.
Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
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Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#52I miss being alone so much I could cry. It wasn't long ago that I could get up in the morning to my empty apartment, stay in my apartment all day (I worked from home), and only see people when I felt like it. Throwing massive parties for 50+ people every month or so works amazingly well for both socialization and increasing your social standing. Nowadays I work from an office with a bunch of other people around me at…
> Sure I love her and I definitely can't afford my own rent I know it's none of my business, but even if it's somewhere tiny or far, getting your own place might be the best thing you've ever done... Just throwing it out there. (It is my strong conviction that love and rent should not be in the same sentence.)
Love and rent are always in the same sentence. I have a very pragmatic view of longterm relationships in that they are 50% love, 50% practical matters and benefits that come from joining lives. For both parties. Especially for any potential 3rd parties.
It's like getting a business partner for your personal life.
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#53I miss being alone so much I could cry. It wasn't long ago that I could get up in the morning to my empty apartment, stay in my apartment all day (I worked from home), and only see people when I felt like it. Throwing massive parties for 50+ people every month or so works amazingly well for both socialization and increasing your social standing. Nowadays I work from an office with a bunch of other people around me at…
> and increasing your social standing As a scrappy programmer who spends a lot of hours each week working in solitude on projects, I know I would simply fail in my pursuits if I cared in any deep, identifying way about "social status." It's the type of mindset I've been trying to escape for years after attending an elite university that had an annoyingly sizable amount of people with 'country club' mindsets (albeit a…
Calling yourself a scrappy programmer and denouncing social standing improves your social standing with other programmers.
Surprise, we're social animals, we care deeply and intrinsically about this crap. Best to embrace it and understand it for what it is. That way at least you're in control.
There are a lot of pragmatic benefits that come from having good social standing. Everything from an emotional support structure when things go wrong, to ease of accessing resources when you need them. For example: if you alienate everyone around you and destroy your social standing, then nobody will help you when your startup blows up and you're about to get kicked out on the street. You'll need a couch to crash on for a few days, but nobody to ask for it.
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm 24 and I am (almost(?)) where you are for something more than couple of years now. Except(?)I have a girlfriend so I guess this "saves" me a bit. Many times I catch myself thinking about contacting some of my old friends or some people I got to know the latter years, to do something more than the usual stuff I get to do with my girlfriend, but I don't. I haven't figured out if I'm the picky b@st@srd or my "friend…
Having your girlfriend be your entire social life is one big single point of failure. It's a bit like having your life's savings only in stocks of your employer.
The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket. - Andrew Carnegie
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#55As someone who has bad social anxiety, I find that forcing myself to be social seems to have a much more negative effect on my health than being lonely.
It goes away after you have tried talking to strangers a thousand times. Living in a big city helps. You won't see them twice if you fuck up. State something obvious and see how it goes.
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#56As I've gotten older I've become more and more picky about who I want to spend time with. It used to be, when I was a lot younger, that I would be pretty indiscriminate: as long as someone wanted to spend time with me, and they were nice enough, and we could find something to do together that we enjoyed, like watching a movie, playing a game, or just hang out and talk about something (usually meaningless), that would…
If you don't mind me asking, how old are you, approximately?
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your description of drifting apart from friends resonates with me. I've felt the same thing, where it's increasingly forced to care about people I no longer can connect with. I'm married and my wife has gone through a similar transformation. We're also fairly introverted, in the sense that social situations leave us feeling tired afterwards. The funny thing is that time together is like being alone: it isn't exhausti…
What's wrong with being tired though? You go out for a bit and socialize and then crashing on the couch with Netflix until you fall asleep feels more satisfying.
For us introverts, socializing is exhausting in a way that's very different from being physically tired or just sleepy. For me, it's a similar sort of exhaustion that comes from doing a tedious task for a long time. The kind of exhaustion you might experience if you had to write the same sentence out on a piece of paper by hand a thousand times. Wouldn't you think twice before signing up for such an experience? I often endure it because occasionally there are really fulfilling interactions and transfers of information that happen, but most of the time I find people in social situations don't want to engage their intellect at all and so the interaction is pure tedium.
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#58As I've gotten older I've become more and more picky about who I want to spend time with. It used to be, when I was a lot younger, that I would be pretty indiscriminate: as long as someone wanted to spend time with me, and they were nice enough, and we could find something to do together that we enjoyed, like watching a movie, playing a game, or just hang out and talk about something (usually meaningless), that would…
I'm 38 now and I no longer enjoy all the interactions with my friends that I used to. Often once we get started I can get into it, but the thoughts I have in advance come up like a cost-analysis proposition in my head. Part of me is convinced that socialising with friends is work. I know my friends have started to feel the same as they've gotten older too.
I blame things like instant messaging for making those baseline friendship interactions too easy and too disposable and too convenient.
My response is to get out there and I socialise anyway. If someone makes efforts to be friendly to me I man the fuck up and return in kind and I recognise the way I feel for the fault that it is. It's a dead end that leads to unhappiness. Hanging out with people (not just your friends, ANYONE) is like exercise for your mental health. The more you hate and dread it the more you probably need it so it's best to just get it over with because it'll become easier with renewed practise.
Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
>started to notice how little I had in common with the people I spent time with What do you mean by this, specifically? I've wrestled with the idea of finding people I have more "in common with," but I've ended up at a place where I think the idea of "best friends" is kind of an overblown myth, or at least it's a LOT rarer than people think it is. What's the fun in hanging out with someone who's the same as you, anyw…
> What do you mean by this, specifically? Well, I guess I can elaborate a bit. I have a bunch of obscure interests, and most people haven't even heard of them, much less share them or are nearly as interested in them as I am. I used to be ok with that, and would hang out with people who would want to talk about and do things that I have absolutely no interest in, but after a while I realized that I was wasting my tim…
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Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>started to notice how little I had in common with the people I spent time with What do you mean by this, specifically? I've wrestled with the idea of finding people I have more "in common with," but I've ended up at a place where I think the idea of "best friends" is kind of an overblown myth, or at least it's a LOT rarer than people think it is. What's the fun in hanging out with someone who's the same as you, anyw…
> What do you mean by this, specifically? Well, I guess I can elaborate a bit. I have a bunch of obscure interests, and most people haven't even heard of them, much less share them or are nearly as interested in them as I am. I used to be ok with that, and would hang out with people who would want to talk about and do things that I have absolutely no interest in, but after a while I realized that I was wasting my tim…
There's nothing wrong with the path you've chosen for yourself but I can say based on my anecdotal experience that human social dynamics, particularly in groups, can be counter-intuitive and are definitely a "you get what you put in" kind of thing (not to be confused with being a doormat for your "friends").
I think it's remarkably important to surround yourself with people that are meaningful to you; that to me is different from things in common. Having things in common helps provide a medium for bonding but it's rarely the specific activity that is the focus for bonding, it's the shared experience that is.
There are lots of people that I call friends with whom I have little in-common, but there's a specific experience I've had with them or perhaps one specific thing to bond over that has created a strong connection.
Meaningful conversation is important too but I often find that trying to have a conversation I want to have can be productive. Many people are actually very interested in different ways of thinking or approaching life.