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A practical guide to reducing loneliness

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Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#101

Post by rhines »

wincy wrote: post #41
s0rce wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I have never made a long standing connection with someone I've met while going to a store in a city. I've gotten to know store owners for stores I've frequented over years but not just randomly running into customers. It seems like most cities I've lived in you don't really just start talking to people randomly, maybe I'm just not very friendly but it seems like a survival instinct to avoid crazy folks.

My wife is from New York and has this instinct you speak of. She gets mad when I talk to bank tellers. I grew up in the Midwest and chat with everyone. It makes sense too, because even in a city of a million, very often I’ll start chatting with someone and realize that we know someone in common. Happens all the time. My wife said such a thing would NEVER happen in New York, there’s just too many people.

Would you be willing to talk a bit more on how you get into that kind of conversation? I feel like bridging the gap between the necessary discussion of "Can you deposit this cheque please? Thanks." to the personal discussion of "Oh wow you went to Sycamore high and played on the hockey team? Don't suppose you know Johnny?" is a real art if you don't want to sound like a probing weirdo, and I have no idea how to do it.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#102

Post by imbnwa »

selestify wrote: post #58
adkadskhj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. My thought process here[1] is that real friendships only occur from time. So you need long hours with people, whom you either get along with or you don't. You can choose the group of people to increase your odds for sharing interests or personality overlaps to help your chances, but it still requires time. This is why work friendships in my experience are quite easy, even for an introverted hermit like myself. O…

> This is why work friendships in my experience are quite easy, even for an introverted hermit like myself. Often common interests between people, and _tons_ of time bonding. Really depends on your team, in my experience. Nothing wrong at all with being a middle-aged parent who's too busy to do things with coworkers outside of work, of course. It's a workplace, and we're here to do work, not hang out. But my friendsh…

Unfortunately it feels like a lot of "culture fit" is actually "do I want to hang out with you"

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#103

Post by throwawayboise »

rhines wrote: post #101
wincy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is from New York and has this instinct you speak of. She gets mad when I talk to bank tellers. I grew up in the Midwest and chat with everyone. It makes sense too, because even in a city of a million, very often I’ll start chatting with someone and realize that we know someone in common. Happens all the time. My wife said such a thing would NEVER happen in New York, there’s just too many people.

Would you be willing to talk a bit more on how you get into that kind of conversation? I feel like bridging the gap between the necessary discussion of "Can you deposit this cheque please? Thanks." to the personal discussion of "Oh wow you went to Sycamore high and played on the hockey team? Don't suppose you know Johnny?" is a real art if you don't want to sound like a probing weirdo, and I have no idea how to do it…

Start with something pleasant and impersonal just to see if they're interested in talking. "Having a good day?" can lead to "how do you like working here" can lead to "you look familiar, are you originally from around here" can lead to "Oh wow you went to Sycamore High." If you get the sense that the other person isn't chatty or seems put off, you just stop talking.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#104

Post by throwawayboise »

wincy wrote: post #41
s0rce wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I have never made a long standing connection with someone I've met while going to a store in a city. I've gotten to know store owners for stores I've frequented over years but not just randomly running into customers. It seems like most cities I've lived in you don't really just start talking to people randomly, maybe I'm just not very friendly but it seems like a survival instinct to avoid crazy folks.

My wife is from New York and has this instinct you speak of. She gets mad when I talk to bank tellers. I grew up in the Midwest and chat with everyone. It makes sense too, because even in a city of a million, very often I’ll start chatting with someone and realize that we know someone in common. Happens all the time. My wife said such a thing would NEVER happen in New York, there’s just too many people.

It's weird because the New Yorkers I know are fearless talkers who will engage anyone on any topic.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#105

Post by Leparamour »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #90
spaetzleesser wrote: post #87

This is the typical advice by extroverts: “just go out and have fun . If I can do it why can’t you do it?”. Most lonely people know already what to do in theory but for whatever reason they can’t pull it off. That’s certainly the story of my life. I know what I should do but I can’t execute it correctly. I mess up small talk all the time and for some reason never get better. It seems some of my social circuits haven’…

This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy? One underrated benefit of therapy is that it can help you analyze social situations and build the necessary skills to be more social. Therapists are professionals at talking to people and building a rapport after all.

>This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy?

Your advice (as well-meant as it may be) is exactly as helpful as the extrovert, mentioned by the parent, who gives the advice to "just have more fun". It's not a lack of knowing what to do. It's a profound lack of "activation energy".

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#106

Post by wincy »

throwawayboise wrote: post #104
wincy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is from New York and has this instinct you speak of. She gets mad when I talk to bank tellers. I grew up in the Midwest and chat with everyone. It makes sense too, because even in a city of a million, very often I’ll start chatting with someone and realize that we know someone in common. Happens all the time. My wife said such a thing would NEVER happen in New York, there’s just too many people.

It's weird because the New Yorkers I know are fearless talkers who will engage anyone on any topic.

She is like that now, but maybe it’s because she grew up in a middle class suburb on Long Island. She’d get cat called by construction workers and stuff, and tried to make herself as unnoticed as possible.

Now she’s considered really aggressive by midwesterners but she’s also known for getting things done because of that.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#107

Post by lisper »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #35

Semi-related: I suspect a big draw of social media is that it resembles actual human communication while also conferring a lot more control to all parties. Vulnerability is not required. Communication is stripped of almost all of its context, and is often asynchronous. There is little expectation of any sort of real commitment. People are easily muted, unfollowed, and blocked. In sanitizing away the messiness of real…

Oh yes. I used to be tremendously socially awkward and insecure, and that led to a lot of loneliness. Then about 15 years ago I decided to make a concerted effort to try to understand points of view with which I vehemently disagree. So I, being an atheist, started hanging out with religious people. Today I run a meetup group dedicated to this. We have everything from atheists to young-earth creationists. We recently picked up a couple of Muslims, and next week we're getting our first Mormon. It has been tremendously rewarding because I can now get along with just about everyone (except Trump supporters -- still working on that one).

I'm not saying that you should necessarily follow this particular model, but getting out of your social comfort zone, while not easy, can pay big dividends over time.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#108

Post by golemiprague »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #90
spaetzleesser wrote: post #87

This is the typical advice by extroverts: “just go out and have fun . If I can do it why can’t you do it?”. Most lonely people know already what to do in theory but for whatever reason they can’t pull it off. That’s certainly the story of my life. I know what I should do but I can’t execute it correctly. I mess up small talk all the time and for some reason never get better. It seems some of my social circuits haven’…

This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy? One underrated benefit of therapy is that it can help you analyze social situations and build the necessary skills to be more social. Therapists are professionals at talking to people and building a rapport after all.

Very true, knowing what to do is very different to bringing oneself to do it and dieting is a very good example. How many times therapists can actually change eating habits? From what I know the rates are low, similiar to any other coaching schemes of neutritionist or whoever is in the business of making people thin.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#109

Post by nonbirithm »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #90
spaetzleesser wrote: post #87

This is the typical advice by extroverts: “just go out and have fun . If I can do it why can’t you do it?”. Most lonely people know already what to do in theory but for whatever reason they can’t pull it off. That’s certainly the story of my life. I know what I should do but I can’t execute it correctly. I mess up small talk all the time and for some reason never get better. It seems some of my social circuits haven’…

This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy? One underrated benefit of therapy is that it can help you analyze social situations and build the necessary skills to be more social. Therapists are professionals at talking to people and building a rapport after all.

Therapists are in extremely short supply right now. I recently got a wait-list for four months where I live.

The intervening period of time reminds me that I'm supposed to be in therapy, that I might need therapy, but am instead unable to see anyone. That makes my day-to-day life feel wrong, moreso than if I had never considered it as an option.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#110

Post by blagie »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #89

An important realization to have is that all of the fun events in your life, all of the dinner parties and hikes and trivia nights, all of them had to be planned by somebody. And at some point, you need to start planning your own events. Yes, planning events sucks. You need to corral people, sync up schedules, negotiate different likes/dislikes. But you gotta do it if you want to see people. I have friends who don't…

And I get miserable at dinner parties.

What I want is a platform where I can randomly chat with people who have common interests. Think Omegle, but without 95% of the userbase being teenage boys who, for some reason, think it's a good way to meet women and get laid.

Think of hallways conversations at conferences. I like conferences -- including well-run virtual ones -- and I'd like to be able to drop in on them anytime.

I like my coworkers, including former ones. Think of the watercooler at work.

When I want to chill, I sign on, and I get connected to a random someone, but a random someone who has something interesting to talk about.

I wouldn't even mind being able to designate a few people I want to hook up with, in the intellectual sense. If we happen to sign on around the same time, we'll chat.

I'd build it, but I'm busy.

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