Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships?

I don’t have many friends. But I have very deep connections with few people, and it’s getting better as I get older. I’m still under 30. Most of my friends are nearing 50.

Anecdotally, know yourself. And make an effort. Cast your nets deep, not wide. Have morals, have ideas, have grounding principals. Principals that are malleable over time and experience. It helps to have a “North Star” in life.

I live by: Live very simply, be genuine, be honest no matter what, love deeply.

Have “strong opinions held loosely”. Don’t have shallow insights, be educated, read deeply, learn deeply.

Don’t be a sheep. That is the default most boring state in the world. It makes for boring people and interactions. Question that status quo. But don’t do it just because a person on the internet said, see how it relates to your principles.

I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years, it happens, many times was due to how I was as a person at the time.

But learning from my partner has made me a more principled person, comfortable in my own skin now.

I have a very small amount of close relationships with friends, and they are relationships not bound by time or upkeep or location.

We mostly catch up when we can a few times a year, and have deep life discussions and catching up on their life. It helps that they are genuinely some of the smartest people I’ve ever met.

I facilitate a lot of the meetups. I’ve learnt to be okay with this, I people have busy lives. Younger me used to take this personally, and think “why do I have to do everything”, but that’s just my role, and the relationships are worth the effort.

I say this from experience, most interactions with people are very shallow. I think people shy away from connections as there is a world full of potential connections. Analysis paralysis and perfection.

So you just have to be the bigger person and make the effort, but you also have to determine whether a person is worth making an effort for.

To answer that question, look for people that are:

- not materialistic; genuine; caring; kind; honest to a fault; living life

This is really well said. I think the key parts you’ve identified are:

- being emotionally vulnerable (but not an emotional doormat!)

- not being desperate

I really struggled with emotional vulnerability, and this took time to get comfortable with, with many fails.

Being desperate is also tricky, because when you’re lonely you yearn to make contacts. I won’t lie, this part is hard, but working on yourself FIRST seems to be the key anecdotally.

Be the best version of yourself. When I say this, I mean the best “genuine” version. That means, genuinely caring, not desperate, not toxic, letting go of grudges, challenging insecurities and strong negative beliefs.

Note that “best you” does NOT mean “rich”, “powerful”, “hot and ripped”, “best dressed”, “most girlfriends” and “coolest car” …. lol

Some people think the above when they are younger, because our whole lives we are sold that that is what success looks like. Sure, to a very shallow world view it may be “success”.

But being happy, caring, genuine, and honest is much harder and much more related to success in my opinion.

> but is it possible that you are the one doing the comparing, and not them?

> Do you feel that you are doing how you want in life, or that you aren't successful enough, and feel triggered or self conscious about other people doing well in general?

I have asked myself these questions many times, and I do think I have been fairly exhaustive in my introspection.

I genuinely think that a good number of people who reach out to me do so purely to lift themselves up, by comparing themselves with me on certain dimensions.

I am never the person initiating extremely violating questions such as: “How much do you make? How big is your house? Which neighborhood do you live in? Do you own or rent? How much can you squat? Based on your years of experience, your net worth should be in this ballpark, am I correct?” Etc etc.

No, I do not compare myself to others, I genuinely wouldn’t want what they have, in the dimensions that they are comparing themselves with me.

Could I be a person of extreme virtue and continue interacting with these people? Of course I could, but why should I, if it makes me unhappy? I am happy not to interact with them, there is nothing I need to change.

I have several relationships that work exactly like what you described (especially family, significant other, childhood friends), and I cherish those.

I think this is a good rule to live by that I should incorporate. I fear that energy I spend on people who just aren’t into me will leave me bitter and reluctant to spend that energy on others, which will have compounding effects as I get later into life. Giving myself a firm limit of energy spent will help ensure it persists longer.

I've found that I have to enjoy doing things with someone to foment a friendship, not just enjoy hanging out with them.

I suppose it's the time I spend with them doing stuff (activities like games or sports) that gives us the ability to be more personal, gradually