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Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#111

Post by tinymollusk »

hestipod wrote: post #36
irremediable wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry to hear you're struggling with loneliness. Out of interest, how are you stuck? (Obviously, feel free not to indulge me if you'd rather not discuss your situation with a well-wishing but uninformed stranger.)

My life was destroyed by medical errors and my present situation is the culmination of things collapsing and not being able to shrink anymore. Been saying for ages I am gonna lay the story out here and hope for some miracle plan. Intend to post tomorrow morning. Was going to today (keep stalling out of fear of negative or null results, and things keep happening) but this morning my amazing 1mpbs spotty rural internet…

I'm very sorry that you have to suffer through this alone. All I can offer is my electronic compassion -- I hope you are able to find even 1 small thing in this world that brings you joy. Sometimes that seed can flower into something beautiful :).

I also encourage you to post part or all of your story tomomrrow. I look forward to reading it.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#112

Post by cpsempek »

wccrawford wrote: post #68
cpsempek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research is pretty conclusive that to have tight friendships you need vulnerability to some degree I have to admit I don't quite understand this sentence, especially how research might define a "tight friendship" and "vulnerability". Can you provide some information about said research? This topic interests me.

I don't think you can have a really, really tight bond with someone if you never give them a chance to hurt you. If you don't share information about yourself that they could use to hurt you, then you haven't actually trusted them, and the bond you feel isn't as strong as it could be.

Yes, this makes sense as a hypothesis, it certainly feels right, but the parent comment was referring to research establishing a relationship between tight friendship and vulnerability. How are these things defined in such research, measured, etc.? That is what I am unable to understand.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#113

Post by tripa »

atomical wrote: post #106
doughj3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The church may be looking for those things; the churchgoers, however, not so much.

Q: Would you like to become a member? A: No thank you. I'm an atheist who is just here for the social interaction and community. How does this end well?

I actually don't see why it shouldn't. As mentioned above, most churchgoers are nice people, and I can't conceive of anyone throwing the atheist out on grounds of “convert or leave”.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#114

Post by factsaresacred »

As a counter-point to the majority of great comments so far, I've been alone for 18 months building an online business and haven't felt nearly as lonely as I did working in my previous job and surrounded by people.

Physical Loneliness, i.e. unwelcome solitude, can be crushing. However there exists a deeper, less visible loneliness as well. A mental isolation of one from one's truth: a job one hates, a partner one no longer loves, friends one has outgrown, a path one no longer wishes to thread.

At the end of the day, which is more painful—and more common—I wonder?

A quote from a truly beautiful article* on this subject springs to mind:

> Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns.

*https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-solitu...

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#115

Post by hestipod »

tinymollusk wrote: post #111
hestipod wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My life was destroyed by medical errors and my present situation is the culmination of things collapsing and not being able to shrink anymore. Been saying for ages I am gonna lay the story out here and hope for some miracle plan. Intend to post tomorrow morning. Was going to today (keep stalling out of fear of negative or null results, and things keep happening) but this morning my amazing 1mpbs spotty rural internet…

I'm very sorry that you have to suffer through this alone. All I can offer is my electronic compassion -- I hope you are able to find even 1 small thing in this world that brings you joy. Sometimes that seed can flower into something beautiful :). I also encourage you to post part or all of your story tomomrrow. I look forward to reading it.

I do have a cat that brings me joy lest I sound joyless. She is often less appreciative of our relationship and I fear I may simply be a carefully manipulated treat dispenser in her eyes, but I love her anyway. Thanks for the compassion in any form.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#116

Post by Pigo »

rb808 wrote: post #101
colmvp wrote: post #57

I think loneliness is especially bad for men as we are prone to hide our mental health and true feelings/emotions, not seek medical attention when we need it, and generally have less intimate discussions with friends as compared to women. So a lot of men end up suffering loneliness for a long period of time without any emotional support. It feels like one of those things which creeps on you, and before you know it, y…

I saw mentioned here that men are quick to give up friends, with work & family & wife's social calendar there really isn't much time for anything else. I need to make an effort to make friends cause really all I ever see is work colleagues and other parents of our children's friends.

I had a family for almost ten years, and then suddenly I only had part of my family once in awhile. It's especially hard to get back into that mode when it's not where you planned to be or even wanted to be.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#118

Post by shrimp_emoji »

hestipod wrote: post #88
doughj3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't come off as rude and I didn't mean to imply you're causing it; sorry if my comment was upsetting. I was trying to point out that it's easy to get stuck in your kind of situation and become, for lack of a better word, pessimistic. Obviously everyone is different and, as you say, "online socialization" may just not fill that need for you (and others). Given the situation of relative isolation physically / geo…

I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc but I like tech and find this site refreshing because of the politeness and respect in interactions like this one. I can apologize and it will be taken at face value, and someone can apologize to me and its sincere. I've been missing that sort of mature intellectual/emotional honesty in interaction irl and online for a long time. So thanks :)

>I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc

WELL THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM!

I'm a latecomer to two of those three things, but they're tremendous specs for shut-ins! Due to tons of moving, the most and best friends I've ever had have been people online, so maybe my psyche is too warped to feel the lack of physical interaction. In fact, I think the real world is a terrible place[0], and my ability to express myself is much greater here. But online social life is much like real life social life; friends come and go, enemies are eternal, and, if you don't try to meet new people, making new connections becomes harder. Enter programming and nerd stuff. I've become more disconnected from my online friends, most of them non-technical, as I sank deeper in an online introversion of stuff they can't relate to like makefiles and Linux. I've become less interested in things that aren't those things, eroding our common ground. I can't even hold conversations anymore unless they're about how awful Gnome 3 is! Conversely, contact with the VERY FEW nerdy friends I've had and still find is higher than ever, but that's a small crowd. And they can't like me that much because most of them are smarter than me, so all I do is leech them for knowledge, which is not how you build a healthy relationship, hesti -- it's gotta be a symmetric take AND give!

But they don't have to like me; I like them, and I'm locked in an eternal struggle of autism to feel several human emotions.

[0] https://youtu.be/Ctryg4zg8FU

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#119

Post by taurath »

Yes it is, especially in the US. A "successful" person lives in subdivisions, cul-de-sacs, or nimby enclaves, we're in our cars most of the time to get anywhere because everything is too far to walk except for exercise. There's little expectation of shared culture other than the weather, and on top of that there are very few spaces that people can mix together without sharing a hobby.

If you go out to a suburban or rural area, you have 4 socializing options: the grocery store (not very good for actually meeting people), the bar (if an alcoholic and can afford it), the church (if religious), or the school (if you have kids). Guess what happens to most 18-30 year olds with no kids in those areas? They either move, become religious zealots, get addicted to drugs, have a family at a young age with dicey economic prospects, or completely lose themselves to video games. We need to create better, denser spaces where culture and socialization can thrive in american towns and cities.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#120

Post by Omnus »

jchrisa wrote: post #83
hliyan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Perhaps this is not exactly what you meant, but I do feel that shared spaces are shrinking and private spaces are expanding. I found this particular quote from The Atlantic quite telling: "The United States is in some ways becoming a medieval society, in which people live and work in the modern equivalent of castles--gated communities, apartment buildings with doormen, and office buildings with guards--and tr…

Sell your car and start biking year round. You won't be lonely for long.

What on Earth could you possibly mean by that? You'll magically make deep, abiding, social ties by riding a bicycle?
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