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Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

nautil.us

71–80 of 122 posts

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#71
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"

I'm around people all day every day. This leaves me too tired to work on having real friends. As a result, I'm lonely because I have no real friends. Sure I have my girlfriend and she's awesome, but you can't bitch about your girlfriend to your girlfriend, you know?

Here's an example from Scrubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bExo_DpfokI "Nothing sucks as much as feeling all alone no matter how many people are around"

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#73
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nope.

I'm an introvert, I spend the vast majority of my time with my wife. I rarely talk to others at work, and I almost never comment or interact with anyone on social media. Talking to people in any medium is exhausting.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#74
post #73
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nope. I'm an introvert, I spend the vast majority of my time with my wife. I rarely talk to others at work, and I almost never comment or interact with anyone on social media. Talking to people in any medium is exhausting.

[deleted]

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#75
post #42

As 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…

> 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 be enough. But the things you described are meaningful. Watching movies, playing games, and spending precious time doing "pointless" things are what life is about, in…

> That is, assuming you want friends.

I thought that the point was that he didn't.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#77
post #50
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I come home, there's my girlfriend. Sure I love her and I definitely can't afford my own rent, but sometimes I just wish I could come home to an empty apartment, you know? This may be naïve, but have you and her talked about this? I understand it may be possible for her to interpret wrong, but it sounds like something that you two can work out without needing to rent a separate apartment.

It's more like, if I'm going to have roommates anyway, I want it to be my girlfriend. And I do enjoy living with her, it's just that I also miss being alone. She'd probably spend a lot of time at my place, or vice-versa, anyway so it definitely makes sense to live together. It's also one of those things that are nearly impossible to back down from without harming the relationship once you reach this stage.

Yeah, what I was getting at was maybe setting aside a few days in the week when you come back to an empty apartment.

I've been in relationships where I've spent a weekend at hers, but tell her I need to go for a walk by myself. It may come off weird, but most of them have been cool with it once I explain and offer reassurance that it's not because the relationship is fracturing.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#78

As 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…

and how rarely we talked about or did anything that was really meaningful for me

Just to check, have you found this to be important to you through experience or are you just sort of assuming that meaning is important? Those groups and couples aren't really doing anything meaningful. They're just hanging out with each other because it's fun.

If you're experiencing envy of people just hanging out and having fun then maybe your goals and your wants aren't aligned as well as they could be.

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#79
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"my partner" = "them"?????

Re: Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social

#80
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"my partner" = "them"?????

"Them" is used here as singular non-gendered pronoun.
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