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Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

nautil.us

61–70 of 122 posts

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#61
post #4

I moved into an apartment alone about a year ago now. I absolutely delight living alone and being by myself in a way that I didn't think was possible. I was worried that I'd be lonely and miserable, but I'm not. Sometimes I want some company, but usually I'm content to spend time alone reading or coding or, hell, just thinking.

I experienced something similar. Having my own small apartment was one of the best feelings I've ever experienced in my life. I'm a bit antisocial, but not severely so. I'm more introverted than anything else, and I discovered that I'm incredibly productive when I have a space to myself that I can retire to whenever I want and over which I have complete control. All my life I struggled with issues related to introver…

I'm very much introverted and like doing my own thing a lot. My wife is the same way. I was worried about the same thing you are. The key is to find someone who gets you and can relate to that feeling. My home is still a safe escape for me, but my home is my wife now as cheesy as that sounds.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#62

Earlier 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…

You're on the Internet. Can't you just tell us what those obscure interests are?

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#63
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fiance is extremely introverted. We eventually realized that she needed this "apartment to myself" feeling at least once a week in order to function in the real world and do the extrovert obligations she needed to do. So we instituted "introvert time", where I work late until around 10PM and leave our place to her for about five hours after she gets home. This is enough for her to take the time to walk around undr…

curious... what are you guys gonna do when you have kids?

They parents grow up. You don't realize how much more growing up you have to do until you have kids.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#64

I moved into an apartment alone about a year ago now. I absolutely delight living alone and being by myself in a way that I didn't think was possible. I was worried that I'd be lonely and miserable, but I'm not. Sometimes I want some company, but usually I'm content to spend time alone reading or coding or, hell, just thinking.

That's not uncommon, and there's nothing wrong with fully appreciating that. There's certainly a difference between enjoying solitude and being lonely. However both need to be kept in check and paid attention to I think in order to have a balanced existence.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#65
post #3

I 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…

What are you referring to here?

"this prevalence of forced-upon social contact makes me too tired to build a real social network"

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#66

Earlier 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.

If a poor man is happy, who are you to tell him to get richer?

For me, being in the same situation, my partner is often more company than I need or want. And I only see them on weekends.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#68
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced something similar. Having my own small apartment was one of the best feelings I've ever experienced in my life. I'm a bit antisocial, but not severely so. I'm more introverted than anything else, and I discovered that I'm incredibly productive when I have a space to myself that I can retire to whenever I want and over which I have complete control. All my life I struggled with issues related to introver…

I'm currently dealing with if I want to rent out an apartment by myself or if I want to find a roommate/friend to share it with. On one hand, YAY NO PEOPLE AND FULL CONTROL OF THE PLACE; on the other hand, I don't want to get depressed when I start missing seeing people when I get home. I feel like living on my own would help me so much socially/physically/emotionally than finding someone to room with.

Roommates should be seen as a business transaction. I would not rely on then for social interaction. Some of the horror stories suggest they could be very detrimental to your mental health. Also a quick way to find out you don't like your friend as much as you thought you did is to live with them 24/7.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#69
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, as always, this is generalisation and individual experiences may vary ;) (is this grammatically correct?). This is not a critique of your argument, but most of the time if discuss these kind of articles (or general psychological things) there are always counterexamples. This is the real world, not math.

Since you asked for feedback: > this is generalisation Should be: "this is a generalization". It's understandable though. > This is not a critique of your argument Again understandable, but should be something like "I am not criticizing your argument". The rest is correct I think. Hope I got everything right, I'm not a native speaker either :)

As a native en_GB speaker, "This is not a critique of your argument" sounds perfectly idiomatic to me

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 oft…

Introvert is total bs. All those introverts are spending tons of time socializing online and then are burnt out once it comes to additional socializing outside of their phone.
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