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A practical guide to reducing loneliness

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Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#131

Post by monort »

blagie wrote: post #110
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 anyti…

I want this too! How will this service match you with interesting people? Something like okcupid compatibility algorithm with less focus on relationship?

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#132

Post by curun1r »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #120
hardwaregeek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have done therapy and also CBT. Part of it was in a group setting. It was pretty successful for some in the group but for others like me it did nothing. I have come more and more to the conclusion that some people are naturally not good at math and others aren’t good in social situations. I am sure there are therapists who could help me do better but finding therapists and working with them is by itself a very ener…

If 1-on-1 and group therapy isn't your thing, you might look into T-Groups [0][1]. The ones I've attended were mostly social interactions with strangers where there was an expectation everyone would give blunt, straight-forward feedback as to how people's communication was landing. The facilitators also had a few structured learning/exercises to keep things moving, but most of it was group directed. T-Groups are popular in MBA programs as a way to help future leaders better understand their communication styles, be more authentic and more receptive to noticing the reactions of the people they're leading. They're somewhat of a middle ground between group therapy and communications training exercises that you see in some corporate settings. But they can be pretty powerful in surfacing feedback that people are normally too polite to give you directly as well as giving you structured practice in building authentic relationships.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-groups

[1] https://www.edbatista.com/2018/06/a-brief-history-of-t-group...

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#133

Post by schwartzworld »

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’…

You've pointed out the irony: it's not that easy and yet it is. I'd be skinnier if I skipped dessert more often, and while it isn't that simple, skipping dessert is the only sure way to get skinnier. There is no simpler or more effective measure I could take.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#134

Post by sascha_sl »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #96
sascha_sl wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are easily muted, unfollowed, and blocked. But also, social media creates perfect conditions for such things to become necessary. Some people are especially easy to dehumanize. People say things to me on social media they wouldn't dare say to my face with irritating regularity.

Yeah. I wouldn't advocate to remove those features due to the sheer amount of toxicity present on social media. However, their existence reinforces the issues I brought up: it's too easy to cut people out because they said something slightly wrong, they reinforce filter bubbles, and they make it easy to see relationships formed via social media as easily replaced.

There's usually a lot more nuance to the "slightly wrong" aspect.

Sometimes it is something minor the person just isn't well-versed in. Then the response seems to be proportional to how big their audience is; the bigger the audience the larger the transgression, the "you should really know better".

But then there's also little hints at some more deep-seated issues, things where I'd also find an excuse to leave as soon as possible when I met someone like this in real life. The most common thing I see there is someone considering a group less human because of some arbitrary reason (race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity), and I don't mean the constant unwilful ignorance fueling microaggressions (I am though one way or another affected by that, they're mostly annoying and rarely uncomfortable enough to end a conversation) but very clear disregard or even disgust for some demographic.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#135

Post by spaetzleesser »

schwartzworld wrote: post #133
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’…

You've pointed out the irony: it's not that easy and yet it is. I'd be skinnier if I skipped dessert more often, and while it isn't that simple, skipping dessert is the only sure way to get skinnier. There is no simpler or more effective measure I could take.

Very true. Simple things can be extremely hard or impossible.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#136

Post by ashneo76 »

adkadskhj wrote: post #42
BuildTheRobots wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons I'm so quick to suggest Hackspaces to geeky adults looking for social contact. Due to the massively varied nature of activities there tends to be a couple of sub-groups that cater to your specific interests (even if it's only an interest that month) and overall tends to be a group of decent people that you can easily progress through the smalltalk phases and into actual friendships.

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…

I don't think that is weird. There is only so much partying and drinking I can do. The real friendship happens outside the club. Meeting once a month at a happy hour doesn't cut it even. It's volunteering together, workouts, game nights, dinners, where that happens.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#137

Post by culopatin »

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’…

I don’t think you read the post very well or you’re picking on things just to say “No, I’m an introvert and so I can’t and that’s the end of that”.

It doesn’t say just go out and do things. It says “whenever you do these things, just do this instead”. And it shows some clear suggestions to try. Put down phone and say yes to any opportunity are what stick out for me. None of them are very risky. Maybe you won’t talk to your neighbors, but you’ll have to want it to change it, it won’t come to you. And so it gives some suggestions of things that are potentially available to you.

My life changed quite a bit after I watched Yes Man and decided to give it a try. It made me realize how much I would said no to things for reasons that were 100% made of negative assumptions. It was all in my head. I didn’t go as far as Jim Carey but I started saying yes or asking if I could join to things I would normally decline and just get FOMO at home.

It’s a very introvert lonely person thing to say “I tried and I suck therefore I can’t” and now I answer to that “Can’t never could”. And I feel like I can say that because I was one of them.

Yes I sucked too, I still think I’m not good at small talk, so what? I stay away from my phone in social gatherings and just observe, at some point just by being engaged you’ll have something to say. Some people might even like you because you’re not “the annoying one who wants to hear themselves talk”.

All it takes is not “go out and do things” it takes saying yes and not sheltering yourself, it takes not running away from the opportunity. It all cascades after. It’s like compound interest if socialization. Once you open yourself to one thing and keep investing in that, lots of gatherings open.

Right now I feel like I need to decline some because I get a bit socially exhausted at times, but 6 years ago i would get depressed on the weekends because I wanted to go do something and had no one to do it with.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#138

Post by blagie »

monort wrote: post #131
blagie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anyti…

I want this too! How will this service match you with interesting people? Something like okcupid compatibility algorithm with less focus on relationship?

I don't think it's be rocket science. I'd put in my interests. I might even put in where I work, what conferences I go to, and what hobbies I have.

If there were a way to do so privately, I'd love if it worked from my web browsing, Youtube, etc. history as well -- things I did recently. If I just read an awesome article about the war between Azerbaijan an Armenia we all missed among COVID19, of if I just spent a few hours playing with Webcomponents, I wouldn't mind chatting with someone who did the same.

I think a service like this would quickly learn how to peer people for fruitful conversations. A key would be to keep this multidimensional; if you line up 65% with software engineers, and 55% with cricket players, you should get peered with both (or have a choice). A lot of the recommender systems seem to bucket me in just one place.

I explicitly want zero focus on relationships. This should not be a dating service. The instant anything like that shows up, things go south very quickly. The standards should be the same as e.g. in your work environment.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#139

Post by deathlight »

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’…

Have you considered the possibility of autism spectrum disorder?

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#140

Post by blagie »

dublinben wrote: post #115
blagie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anyti…

Dinner parties aren't the only kind of gathering you can plan to socialize with people you know, they're just a common format. You can meet a friend for coffee just to talk and catch up. You could even just schedule a phone call, so you don't even have to be physically together. Many people will play online multiplayer games together to have an excuse to talk with friends.

That presumes friends and time.

I have friends, but little time. My friends have little time too. The odds of us having time to schedule together at the same time are close to zero.

The same thing was actually true in college too -- I went to an intense school -- but we had lounges in the dorm. When I was tired or burnt out, I'd drift into a lounge. There was usually someone else in one of the lounges.

That's kinda what I want. Only virtually.

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