I’ve been single all my life • Hacker News Board

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#201

Post by biql » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:13 AM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #107

scohesc wrote: post #70

I've been single all my life as well, heading into my 30's and it's getting to the point where I feel like the crippling loneliness is absolutely killing me on the inside, likely going to lead me to an early death. Trying not to seem "needy" or come off as desperate is hard and is definitely a turn-off. I avoided social situations all my life because I was (and still am) afraid of rejection. I minimized the amount of…

I minimized the amount of time I socialized with people because I felt inherently different, that I didn't belong, that somehow my presence was offensive/offending to people try traveling to places where you clearly do not fit in. i have made similar experiences, not as strong, but i always felt like an outsider in school and in my environment mainly because i didn't want to fit in. living in a different country made…

Travelling changed the perspective so much of me, I realised that a lot of things I was hesitant to do or even thinking was directed by the unpalatable attachment to the static environment.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#202

Post by randomdata » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:13 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #128

fernly wrote: post #99

I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many. Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men liv…

> "Introversion is the state of primarily obtaining gratification from one's own mental life". If this is true, then why do we find so many introverts in online forums?

No doubt because forums are entirely about the individual. The prompts that spark one’s own mental state may technically come from other humans, but that is ultimately immaterial. If those prompts were generated by some kind of GPT-like model nothing would change. For all I know you are a GPT model, but it matters not. The entertainment derived from writing this comment is the same.

Interaction with real people is a shared experience; something very different.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#203

Post by schrodinger » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:14 AM UTC

dangwhy wrote: post #159

JohnFen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone wiser than me once commented -- nobody is going to knock on your door. If you want to meet people, you have to get out there and do things that put you around people.

> do things that put you around people. I tried skiing through which i met tons of people but very few single women. Tried bjj, no women at all. Hiking and camping groups, again no single women. I still do all of these activities but very few women. I've actually never met a woman ,single or otherwise, mountain biking, which is my main goto in summer. Truth is that women don't generally do a lots of activities.

Indoor rock climbing is something I’ve found to be pretty gender-diverse a well as welcoming!

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#204

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:15 AM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #161

throwntoday wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a numbers game I think to enter into a relationship knowing there will be an expiration date speaks more to your character. Almost sounds like "I'm with them unless something better comes along or their shortcomings become more than I want to deal with". If you genuinely love someone, you will stand by them, work on any problems, and remember that you chose to build a future together. Given that the divorce ra…

> Given that the divorce rate in my community is less than 1% we're probably doing something right. Or something wrong. Low divorce rate doesn't mean low unhappiness rate. I know several men and women in utterly trash relationships, who'd be better off alone, but who stay married because "this is the way". It's a mix of "must have kids at all costs" (even if that cost is the parents and kids having awful lives becaus…

[deleted]

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#205

Post by bingobongodude » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:15 AM UTC

numbers_guy wrote: post #95

hombre_fatal wrote: post #83

I'd wonder how many women this guy (and guys who relate to this post) are incidentally meeting every week. When I was in my mid 20s after uni, it was basically zero. Just women at work, if even that. If so, this is basically the result you can expect and nothing is going to change until you get those numbers up. The common thread I see with guys not meeting women is almost never "I meet a lot of women but they never…

He lives in Germany too, where it takes way more effort to turn an incidental encounter into something more. And I agree with you. I think, for a lot of these guys, if you literally never ever get a good chance, then of course that you go into "monk mode". I only fell in love the first time at 22, because I met a girl who I found amazing. The second time at 28, again because I very randomly met a girl who was amazing…

>He lives in Germany too, where it takes way more effort to turn an incidental encounter into something more. Hogwash. You are used to a different culture is all. As a German it does not take more effort to turn an encounter into "something more", you are just not used to the customs.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#206

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:16 AM UTC

3m wrote: post #52

>Also, if it doesn’t work out, I’m scared of leaving a broken heart in another person. This is a telling statement. It really highlights his inexperience and immaturity with regards to relationships (not that this is in doubt - it is after all the subject of his post). Being the cause of, and the sufferer of a "broken heart" is a formative experience. There's nothing like healing a broken heart to teach you that actu…

[deleted]

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#207

Post by TheHegemon » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:18 AM UTC

schrodinger wrote: post #203

dangwhy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do things that put you around people. I tried skiing through which i met tons of people but very few single women. Tried bjj, no women at all. Hiking and camping groups, again no single women. I still do all of these activities but very few women. I've actually never met a woman ,single or otherwise, mountain biking, which is my main goto in summer. Truth is that women don't generally do a lots of activities.

Indoor rock climbing is something I’ve found to be pretty gender-diverse a well as welcoming!

Been bouldering pretty heavily for the last three years but I have not found it to be a very good place for meeting people.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#208

Post by augusto-moura » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:19 AM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #135

mattrighetti wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He lives in Germany too, where it takes way more effort to turn an incidental encounter into something more. This is a classic, I've heard people say stuff like this in basically every country that I visited. I don't think it is something that can be measured, it's just something super subjective and a bit of a stereotype. From my experience, I've noticed that typically individuals will say this of people with thei…

… this sort of stuff is not just a “stereotype”. This stuff is real. This is measurable. I am Portuguese - Brazilian. The gap between meeting and making new friends is gargantuan between the two countries. You can meet Brazilians for an hour or two and they’ll invite you to some gathering at their home. Portuguese people will do this less. And I’ve lived in England where this is even harder to make friends. London is…

I have to agree with this as a Brazilian. More over you can see the differences between countries very easily, it becomes even more apparent when you look to non-western non-eurocentric countries. Each country in Asia has its own way of meeting new people.

BUT there always exceptions (a lot of exceptions actually), and you shouldn't change your country based only on that. It is easy to find exceptions, shy people on Brazil, extroverts on Portugal, people who want something serious, or just date you a few times. The world is very diverse and there is a LOT of people that you can talk too. I can't say that these cultural differences make that big of a difference to be honest

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#209

Post by notch898b » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:19 AM UTC

fernly wrote: post #99

I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many. Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men liv…

Marrying another introvert is great until it leads to offspring. Then the kid sucks and sucks your mental energy for dealing with people to the point you barely even want to interact with the spouse or anyone else.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#210

Post by DoreenMichele » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:20 AM UTC

hgsgm wrote: post #199

DoreenMichele wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of everyone wanting my head on a pike: A. We don't really know what introversion and extroversion are. B. The higher the IQ, the more likely they are to qualify for the label "introvert." So in at least some cases, it's possible smart people just give up on trying to connect socially because they get a lot of negative feedback from other people and it's mostly downside for them, so they stop bothering. Mo…

I suspect introversion is correlated with my IQ because high IQ people enjoy thinking, and thinking is easier when you're by yourself without distractions.

I think it's more complicated than that.

I did volunteer work eons ago for tagfam.org and I test as a middle-of-the-road extrovert but spend a lot of time in geeky circles where most people are basically painfully shy and many people interpret my middle-of-the-road extroversion as "God, what a ridiculous attention monger!!!!!"

I've gotten enough negative feedback over it, I spend less time on forums than I used to. I'm not an introvert but even I eventually give up on bothering if it's mostly downside.