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Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

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Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#141

Post by AstralStorm »

BurningFrog wrote: post #90
stirfrykitty wrote: post #37

I may be in the minority, but the older I get the more I want to be alone. I love my wife and kids, but there is almost too much pressure anymore to do this, do that. There are too many hands on my time. I recharge only when alone. I cannot do it with the TV on, kids in the background, etc. It's one of the reasons I like hunting. Just me and the great outdoors. I really like getting up at 0430 and being in the deer b…

You have a wife and kids and a job. You have s full, rich social life, and are not who this discussion is about. Congrats :)

Kids will move out, wife will get old and both of you will need help.

We become people who need help once again later in life.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#142

Post by [deleted] »

notus wrote: post #112
taborj wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is an "introvert" vs "extrovert" situation. I'm introverted and I'm like you - spending time with folks after work is a chore. I prefer to hang around "known associates" as it were - my wife, my kid, my in-laws, my friends. Spending time with folks outside those circles is draining for me; I dread doing it, and I look forward to getting home again. However, I have a few folks in my close circles that a…

It's funny I used to think I was an introvert for so many years because I spent so much time alone. My therapist always used to tell me different and I just thought he was disconnected on that subject. How could I be an extrovert when I spent so much time alone? Wasn't until I started having managers tell me the same that I started to consider it. Turns out I really like being around people but I had a few painful ex…

[deleted]

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#143

Post by hestipod »

rayiner wrote: post #124
MiroF wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing. Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.

I love cities, structurally. But I find the people soul-killing. I just have very little in common with young, childless people anymore. Even when we're experiencing the same things, we're not really experiencing the same things. If I go to MOMA, it's because I want to show my daughter Starry Night. I'm scoping out tickets to take her to Hamilton, because I feel guilty for going without her. My kids are super well-be…

>The default is people like me.

I think not finding things in common with young people isn't abnormal. My childhood was miserable partly BECAUSE of the sameness of it all. I find the suburban vanilla Stepford ways soul-killing. I had no exposure to culture. The internet didn't exist yet. I was ignorant and brainwashed in many ways. I felt out of place and like I was a freak because I didn't believe what I was told was "correct". The city was "bad" and "city folk" were "bad". The family and people in those places still have the same narrow beliefs and I am still "wrong". The people I know that grew up in multicultural cities had so much richer experiences and opportunities to grow and explore their beliefs and ideas without their parents ideologies infecting them as much.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#144

Post by hestipod »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #129
homonculus1 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to tarnish this discussion with disgusting racial paranoia

...what the fuck are you talking about?

I think they took PoC to mean "Person of Color" rather than whatever the parent comment meant, which I think was quite clearly not that.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#145

Post by DoreenMichele »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #101
BurningFrog wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of this is culture (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism"... I seriously doubt it. I think all modern rich cultures have this. Sweden certainly does. As everyone gets rich enough to get your own house, you end up lonely, as you're no longer naturally interacting with others, since you don't need to.

Huh. Maybe its paradox of choice then? In our past we were pretty much forced into a community, and this is still largely true of the impoverished, but once you have a certain amount of wealth you're able to choose your community, and so PoC kicks in and paralyzes you.

PoC = paradox of choice

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#146

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

hestipod wrote: post #144
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...what the fuck are you talking about?

I think they took PoC to mean "Person of Color" rather than whatever the parent comment meant, which I think was quite clearly not that.

I can buy that. I thought it would be obvious what I meant from simply having read the words "paradox of choice" earlier in the sentence. Of course, that doesn't explain how anyone could have seriously thought that "Person of Color" made any sense at all in this context...

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#147

Post by hestipod »

ixtli wrote: post #32
toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree entirely with this. I can only speak for myself and my wife (mid 30s), but we are making active efforts to combat this in our family and social circle. Our house is large enough to take in parents (parents still have hangups about how "they should be able to take care of themselves and live by themselves"; we'll be waiting if and when they change their mind), extended family, and friends, we host family dinne…

There might not even be anything you can do if its systemic! Honestly as I get older (im 32) i find how fucking lucky i was to have been brought up in a really really strong family (half is italian, half is european jewish.) Its amazing the degree to which this has helped me be a normal person with good coping mechanisms.

I've always been envious of such families. Only one person in my family was really a quality person, and he passed long ago. I moved abroad for a time to a country where families are closer and while it was exhausting and intense in it's own way after my childhood, it was amazingly "safe" feeling. The relationship that brought me into that fold is gone, and while I don't miss my partner, I miss those people in their family greatly.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#148

Post by homonculus1 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #146
hestipod wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they took PoC to mean "Person of Color" rather than whatever the parent comment meant, which I think was quite clearly not that.

I can buy that. I thought it would be obvious what I meant from simply having read the words "paradox of choice" earlier in the sentence. Of course, that doesn't explain how anyone could have seriously thought that "Person of Color" made any sense at all in this context...

You're getting warmer!

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#149

Post by rayiner »

hestipod wrote: post #143
rayiner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love cities, structurally. But I find the people soul-killing. I just have very little in common with young, childless people anymore. Even when we're experiencing the same things, we're not really experiencing the same things. If I go to MOMA, it's because I want to show my daughter Starry Night. I'm scoping out tickets to take her to Hamilton, because I feel guilty for going without her. My kids are super well-be…

>The default is people like me. I think not finding things in common with young people isn't abnormal. My childhood was miserable partly BECAUSE of the sameness of it all. I find the suburban vanilla Stepford ways soul-killing. I had no exposure to culture. The internet didn't exist yet. I was ignorant and brainwashed in many ways. I felt out of place and like I was a freak because I didn't believe what I was told wa…

Having rich experiences and exploring different ideas is admirable, in some respects, but I'm not convinced that's a good basis for sustainable, tight-knit communities. Your choice of phraseology is interesting--parents "infecting" kids with their ideologies. Most people would consider it a key function of parenting (and society) to socialize children in the community's values, rules, and orthodoxies.

One of the things I find ironic about "experience seeking" is how often people go to places like India or China to have "rich experiences." But people from those places generally would relate much more easily to people like your parents. Circling back to the topic at hand--people in my home country of Bangladesh, where there is a rigid social order and strict indoctrination of children, may suffer from many things, but loneliness is not one of them.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#150

Post by fencepost »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #34
ryanmercer wrote: post #13

I'm 34 and once you add in the weekends I am and talking is extremely discouraged at work, in an open office, so even at work you're basically alone just siting there listening to music or podcasts all day. At Gym1 I talk to my lifting coach but most of the time I'm in my head focused on training, after that at Gym2 I'm just trying to do my accessory work and conditioning and don't talk to anyone other than "hey" bac…

I have found that truly open office plans act as significant discouragers of social contact at the office. Everyone except for the truly oblivious are hyper-aware of how any pleasant extraneous conversations they have are being heard by every single other person in the room. With a small team maybe that's not so bad if everyone has good chemistry, but not so with a large team. When everyone has their own office or cu…

Making an open office kitchen unappealing with 2 words: microwave fish
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