251–260 of 522 posts
I never knew short guys and unattractive/aging women are not normal people. Is life a hollywood movie?
I now consider it a super-power, and a luxury—to have someone totally external to my normal life, that I talk to regularly, who understand me, and who is paid to help me. It’s the only relation in my life where the dialog is 100% about me, and my well being, where I don’t have to have any considerations for anything, or anyone else, else at that time.
Highly recommend it!
Just wanted to add that the wholesale adoption and normalization of WFH and remote culture in tech is worrying and will only make this type of issue worse and more common. Personally, I had consistently been able to make good friendships at work across several positions at different companies/cities/countries. That's until WFH and remote work hit, where now I rarely see coworkers in person (if at all), and often people are not in the same city. We feel more like automatons these days.
Tech work seems no longer a reliable vector for creating meaningful friendships or a social life outside of work. Like OP, many of us will have to learn to meet people outside of work.
While perhaps a loaded suggestion, if you have the tolerance for it, I’d suggest attending a church. You can utilize the social aspect without fully committing to the spiritual aspects. The reason I suggest it is because of it’s role as the post-college college where you can build deep relationships and people of all ages are genuinely wanting to network specifically to build a community. They’re not doing happy hour…
The worst thing that could happen would be your life gets wrapped into a religious community. This is why people of seeming average intelligence stay in churches. Everyone is pretending to believe the nonsense because if anyone admits (often even just to themselves) just how stupid it is, poof goes their friends, community, perhaps even their marriage.
> I’m not even spiritual and I avoid a lot of the overly churchy parts.
Literally EVERY SINGLE PERSON in a church says this. I knew of a literal cult, whose leaders ended up in jail, and THEY said this. Everyone says this because what's written in these books is indefensibly stupid that it's embarrassing.
WTF is wrong with short men and unattractive women, are they not humans with emotions who can make friends? In my experience these regular folks are the ones with whom you can have strong friendships that are not just skin deep. Maybe your attitude of treating unattractive people as beneath you needs to be fixed before you can find meaningful relationships.
If the OP only wants to be friends with attractive women and tall guys, more power to him but he won't get much sympathy for me for that comment. Opportunities in life comes in many shapes and forms. That short guy or unattractive woman who they could've made friends with could've also opened up more social opportunities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to learn to like yourself before others will though, having a deep sense of self loathing, even self consciously, will put people off of you, you emanate a deep proverbial psychological stink - and it turns people away.
That might be a step further than is necessary. I don’t think you have to like yourself, and it’s much easier to like yourself if someone else likes you first. However, I do agree that you need to get past self-loathing to at least self-acceptance of some kind. Mostly because self-loathing means putting your attention on yourself, and that is what makes it hard to connect with other people. It’s ok to not have a high…
You have you not actively dislike yourself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to learn to like yourself before others will though, having a deep sense of self loathing, even self consciously, will put people off of you, you emanate a deep proverbial psychological stink - and it turns people away.
I think that's true, its just not helpful advice. Simply "chosing" to be happy is like simply "chosing" to be a milioniare.
Everyone proceeds to tell him to go to therapy, lol.
Book clubs. Films clubs. Run clubs. Hell, take up fishing and go to meetups (super social sport, believe it or not).
There are many varied ways to connect with other people. If it is a romantic partner you want to meet and you are a straight man, skip fishing meet ups and replace that recommendation with Yoga or Zumba.