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On Aging Alone (2021)

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Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#291

Post by taylorius »

jjfoooo6 wrote: post #270
taylorius wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I can share - and needless to say, the vast majority of the problem is on my side. My wife is indeed a great woman - very emotionally focussed though, in quite an intense way, and highly intelligent in an intuitive way. She's honest and loyal though, and good looking. A real catch, in other words. The problem that I bring, is that I don't really have a core personality (at least, not one that anyone sees - I ha…

I'm 35, am in therapy, just got out of a breakup, and have two good friends with a dads who divorced their moms at around your age. Since you've been receptive to my other comments I'll share a bit about how your comment strikes me. > I have my own inner thoughts but they can be rather dark, and need extensive filtering before being presented to the world at large This really sounds like a good thing to reality check…

I think you're right - I will talk to someone before doing anything drastic.

I've taken more than enough of people's time today (thank you and others for your insights - they are really useful). I did want to clarify something about my thoughts though - it's not that they're always dark and horrible at all - but they are rather opaque to an outsider. As I mentioned, I grew up alone for large swathes of time, and I learned to have conversations with myself, as a form of companionship. Such conversations form my inner life - but its difficult to let someone else in on them. As an example, here's Bill Burr with a story about muffins, which I relate to so much - it still makes me cry with laughter even though I've watched it about 1000 times. :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnOg01N1u3w

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#292

Post by seydor »

For younger people loneliness is much harder. Having a partner/social creds is a social signal, and being lonely is seen as a negative signal. These are both self-reinforcing loops. In the case of lonely people, it often leads to permanent learned helplessness or rationalization of loneliness as a natural condition

This is not going to change as long as loneliness is not talked about, and lonely people live in the closet.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#293

Post by nradov »

the_only_law wrote: post #234
frontman1988 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we will probably see some whacky things come out of Japan soon in this regards. The median age is 47. It's a country of old people and childless youth.

What happened to Japan? They were on the upswing for part of the 20th century and from what I’ve heard, a lot of people in America looked at Japan like one might look at China nowadays, a dangerous economic rival to keep a watch on. I don’t know much about contemporary Japanese though, and am not sure where to start. I am curious how they went from a threatening world economy to a nation with large dysfunctional yout…

Much of Japan's upswing was an illusion created by borrowing money to build bridges to nowhere. They did have a real advantage in quality manufacturing, but that wasn't a sustainable advantage since other countries figured out how to do the same.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#294

Post by throwaway892238 »

eska wrote: post #150
throwaway892238 wrote: post #95

Do not try to fight loneliness. It is a natural part of life, like thunderstorms. You can try to tease it apart, understand how it works, where it comes from, try to predict it, come up with coping mechanisms. But the storms still come regardless. They are here for a reason, with their appropriate place in a natural system. But we don't need to understand the reason to accept it. Acknowledge the feeling, sit with it…

Isn’t coping associated with denial? An IMO better term is acceptance (of things that are outside one’s control).

Denial is one of hundreds of different coping strategies. They're just tools people use to deal with unwanted emotions or behaviors.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#295

Post by jakzurr »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #231
jakzurr wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 60's. Wasn't going to retire yet, but covid changed my mind. It seemed easier & safer. (Finances not so easy, but oh well.) Parents gone a while now. Three siblings still living; all married; 2 nephews. Whole family seems a bit strange to me, but wouldn't trade them for anything. Maybe I'm the strange one. ;) Only a handful of real friends, maybe half are gone now, but got a couple new ones in their 30's. O…

Right, being alone is not the same as being lonely. I guess you realize that, but you did not explicitly state it. I keep hearing the Beatles song in my head now. Elenor Rigby.

OK, now that is it.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#296

Post by aortega »

Talanes wrote: post #42
aortega wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They can't date older women because older women spot their bullshit a mile away and steer clear. I think you should stop demonizing men's natural sexual preferences. Key word here is natural, we don't choose what we like. Nature choose for us, and young women are better at having children. Same reason young girls choose tall, rich men, because they are better at surviving and have more resources for raising children…

We don't know what the default state of human attraction is because we don't have access to a control population of human beings without the same shared societal history of the rest of us. Which is to say, it's incorrect to broaden your personal attractions to all men, and especially incorrect to try and couch it in some argument of biological naturalism.

So you are saying sexual attraction is cultural? because that's exactly what the gay community is fighting against since the 1950s.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#297

Post by walleeee »

denton-scratch wrote: post #260
walleeee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposition and compromise need not derive from a transactional relationship model One can just as well feel compelled to constantly compromise if one's acquaintances don't share one's needs and values, for instance

Compromise is indispensable. I can't imagine sustaining a relationship with someone who wouldn't compromise, and I can't imagine anyone wanting a relationship with me, if I were the kind of stubborn ass that doesn't compromise.

agreed, it's necessary and good in some quantity, although compromise in personal relations seems distinct from the sort of compromise demanded by e.g. social pressure or professional or political circumstance, and in any case finding a comfortable balance between compromise and self-assertion is not always easy

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#298

Post by jjfoooo6 »

taylorius wrote: post #291
jjfoooo6 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 35, am in therapy, just got out of a breakup, and have two good friends with a dads who divorced their moms at around your age. Since you've been receptive to my other comments I'll share a bit about how your comment strikes me. > I have my own inner thoughts but they can be rather dark, and need extensive filtering before being presented to the world at large This really sounds like a good thing to reality check…

I think you're right - I will talk to someone before doing anything drastic. I've taken more than enough of people's time today (thank you and others for your insights - they are really useful). I did want to clarify something about my thoughts though - it's not that they're always dark and horrible at all - but they are rather opaque to an outsider. As I mentioned, I grew up alone for large swathes of time, and I le…

There's nothing anyone appreciates more than a listening ear to unsolicited advice on the internet :)

Thanks for the clip, Bill Burr is hilarious

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#299

Post by tasuki »

globular-toast wrote: post #243
majormajor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think dating is off the menu? I know almost-40s that are actively dating. Maybe it's harder in certain areas? I could see this being an advantage of cities...

Actively dating means they are not building good relationships. My experience so far is women over 30 are dead inside and way less attractive which means I'm not willing to go to much effort for them. I'm mid-30s, look a little younger than my years and relatively good looking so getting dates is pretty easy. But finding that "spark" that starts a relationship is a completely different matter.

> My experience so far is women over 30 are dead inside

Care to elaborate?

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#300

Post by saltcured »

eska wrote: post #150
throwaway892238 wrote: post #95

Do not try to fight loneliness. It is a natural part of life, like thunderstorms. You can try to tease it apart, understand how it works, where it comes from, try to predict it, come up with coping mechanisms. But the storms still come regardless. They are here for a reason, with their appropriate place in a natural system. But we don't need to understand the reason to accept it. Acknowledge the feeling, sit with it…

Isn’t coping associated with denial? An IMO better term is acceptance (of things that are outside one’s control).

I don't know how much these terms vary by locale or specialty, but within behavioral medicine in the US, coping is ambivalent and a normal part of nearly any condition. A lack of coping would be unambiguously bad, but here can be both good and bad coping mechanisms in a qualitative sense. Coping skills are taught to help people restore balance to their lives if they have reached a point of having a clinical disorder, i.e. where the condition has negatively affected their ability to live and function. A good coping mechanism mitigates the disorder, while a bad coping mechanism may add another layer of dysfunction instead. A meta-level skill is to become more aware of these differences to self-adjust towards more beneficial outcomes.
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