Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found • Hacker News Board

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#201

Post by chrisseaton » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #189

Yoric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hobbies might not be sufficient for a social life. I used to train seriously in mixed-martial arts. While I had no issue with any of my training mates, I also had zero interest in hanging out with them. Likewise for other, strictly cerebral, activities.

One thing that is valuable is activities with downtime where you’re forced to get to know one another outside of the activity. If you do something like martial arts or rowing (which I do), it’s when you travel for competitions that you bond. Activities like skiiing where you share housing for the season gives downtimebto get to know people between the activity. Hiking and camping is another good one where you spend t…

Or the military reserves - no better place to meet a large number of adults.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#202

Post by intrasight » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #191

intrasight wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is a social taboo - I think it's more of a self-imposed taboo because we've been told forever that men and woman can't just be friends. I've found that if you are clear that you just want to be friends then there is no discomfort, and they will treat you nearly exactly the same as they treat there female friends. They will share their feelings, their concerns, their aspirations. That what needs to…

> Oh, and be prepared for lots of these friends sending signals that they would like to be more than friends. How you handle that is obviously up to you. That’s exactly why it’s difficult. This doesn’t happen with my male friends.

Oh, it can happen with male friends too ;)

In my case at the moment I am still married so I have that shield. I will lose that when I get divorced.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#203

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #87

I run 300 forums, and I had a startup for them. The lofty goal of the startup was to "cure loneliness" but I never told the users that. My path to doing this was to encourage interest based communication, in a way that would allow them to take it offline. How? Well to make it interest + geography, i.e. horology nerds in Cumbria, cyclists in London, petrol heads in Cornwall, audiophiles in Suffolk. By binding together…

Is it still active? Pity you could not get funded but then again, good things rarely come in the guise of fundable businesses. Kudos for doing this.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#204

Post by capableweb » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

lojack wrote: post #188

reaperducer wrote: post #148

I think part of the problem is that social media, and Facebook in particular, has cheapened the meaning of the word "friend." I see people on HN all the time saying that they have better friends far away via social media than they have in their own neighborhoods and offices. It's popular inside the tech bubble to believe that digital communication is as good or better than real communication, but it isn't. That's a l…

I'm not sure I buy your explanation at all. Social media may make distant friends feel closer, but I don't think this explains the lack of close friends. I understand that this is a data point of 1, but this article and the HN comments all ring true to me, and I hardly ever use social media. Most of my not very close friends also don't use social media. A friend of mine tried creating a group on facebook to help coor…

It feels like a probable reason. Imagine moving to another place while still keeping exactly the same contact with the same people in the old place and imagine doing the same, with no contact of the same people.

In the later case, you will most likely force yourself out to meet and engage with people because eventually you will long it. You might not need a lot of it, but seems human really need at least some other human contact (most of us at least).

In the first case, you get human contact, but only the surface. Would probably take you way longer to realize you need that in-person human contact.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#205

Post by buro9 » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #203

buro9 wrote: post #87

I run 300 forums, and I had a startup for them. The lofty goal of the startup was to "cure loneliness" but I never told the users that. My path to doing this was to encourage interest based communication, in a way that would allow them to take it offline. How? Well to make it interest + geography, i.e. horology nerds in Cumbria, cyclists in London, petrol heads in Cornwall, audiophiles in Suffolk. By binding together…

Is it still active? Pity you could not get funded but then again, good things rarely come in the guise of fundable businesses. Kudos for doing this.

Platform is still active, the 250k monthly uniques is the current number.

But I haven't been able to do much other than keep it in maintenance mode for the last 4 years. I've let other forums be created and expanded it, but haven't had time to address it's flaws and improve it.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#206

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

tonystubblebine wrote: post #63

paganel wrote: post #5

As a man is pretty damn hard keeping friends after the age of 30, especially if you happen to go trough a divorce when suddenly more than half (if not more) of your friends get to “choose” the other side. Yeah, you get to ask your friends back from high-school or college out for a beer but chances are they’re also in a middle of a divorce or they’re too busy with family requirements (can’t blame them) or too stressed…

An important post-30 strategy that I use is to assume that all friends with children are prisoners in their own home. You know exactly where they are. You know they don't have plans. They are desperate for adult conversation. That means you can invite yourself over, bring takeout, and basically make their day. I'm coupled but this should work as a single. Our parent friends say it's actually easier to be friends with…

> That means you can invite yourself over

It is fairly common for a man to marry a woman who does not like his friends. Then, the wife does not want the husband’s friends at their home. So, you cannot invite yourself over, and the man is so busy with giving his wife sufficient attention and with childraising that he cannot easily go out to meet his friends in another location.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#207

Post by capableweb » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

viburnum wrote: post #59

Can’t find it right now, but I recall some research showing that friendship for men is basically with whatever other men you’re around the most. If you’re a man and want more friends, you probably need to get a new job. Or make a long-term commitment to showing up to the same place where other men are also committed to showing up (AA meetings, church, sports team, etc). Or just be friends with the husbands of your wi…

> some research showing that friendship for women is basically with whatever other women you’re around the most. If you’re a woman and want more friends, you probably need to get a new job. Or make a long-term commitment to showing up to the same place where other women are also committed to showing up (AA meetings, church, sports team, etc). Or just be friends with the wifes of your husband’s friends.

I replaced "men" with "women" and it still feels true. Think this is just in general how humans build friendships with each other. Maybe also add "making an effort to hang out with your already existing friends friends"

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#208

Post by hogFeast » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

throwaway66920 wrote: post #170

hogFeast wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is talking about the UK. There is a huge bias against single males here. To give one example: the number and size of tax benefits aimed at families is massive. Spending on these is something like £33bn...that may or may not sound huge to you but the total NHS budget (i.e. healthcare costs for 70-80m people) is ~£115bn. Not everyone thinks this. But it is definitely far to say that is the general view (and it is wh…

This is silly and naive. Tax benefits for families exist to help and encourage families. Society is better off when people can afford to raise a family. To twist it into an anti single man view is way off base.

Yes, when a powerful, politically active group forces another less powerful, politically inactive group to subsidise them it is definitely not discriminatory. You should tell that to India, those idiots thought making them pay for their own colonisation was bad...their society was better off. I can see now, it is so obvious.

> Society is better off when people can afford to raise a family.

Alternate theory: society is better off when people act like adults, and raise a family when they can afford to do so. No subsidies. No govt holding your hand. Even if you ignore the fiscal effect - it is huge because it is politically impossible to cut welfare that such a substantial amount of people receive, that is why govt spending in areas serving truly vulnerable people like care had to be slashed so aggressively - that is not what the policy is intended to do.

The (original) focus of the policy was to increase labour force participation amongst single parents. This worked. But, as you are showing, it has become something totally different. And it is now a big feeding trough for a huge share of the population (something like 10%+ of the working population receive WTCs).

Govt is not there for social engineering, it is there to help people who cannot help themselves. If someone is poor then they should get help. And this should be through focused policy that is aimed at poverty, not these insanely complex systems that backfire (tax credits are the prime example of this kind of policy). The system we have now means that the govt cannot actually take care of people who need help because of the obscene cost (again, tax credits alone are 30% of the NHS budget) of helping those who don't (but now feel deserving because they are helping society or whatever bollocks you are trying to say).

It is extraordinary to totally ignore how this policy has actually worked out (esp. the cost and esp. against the original aims), offer some half-baked inaccurate theory of govt (govt should be involved in the sex lives of citizens), and then call an interpretation that is based in reality naive...but that is basically where we are with govt spending now. Greedy middle-class people scraping the bottom of the poor person's barrel.

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#209

Post by RoddaWallPro » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #141

buro9 wrote: post #87

I run 300 forums, and I had a startup for them. The lofty goal of the startup was to "cure loneliness" but I never told the users that. My path to doing this was to encourage interest based communication, in a way that would allow them to take it offline. How? Well to make it interest + geography, i.e. horology nerds in Cumbria, cyclists in London, petrol heads in Cornwall, audiophiles in Suffolk. By binding together…

This is awesome. I've long felt a nostalgia for the close-knit forums I participated in as a kid. One was a worldwide group centered around an online game (CyberNations), the other was just a group of kids with similar interests in one metro area who met up occasionally. Both were vital for me in coping with feeling like I didn't fit in at all at school. It's great to see that that kind of close, friendly, personal I…

I also played CyberNations as a kid and found social solace there. Did you ever play a similar game called LunarWars?

Re: Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

#210

Post by draw_down » Sun, Sep 22, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

black_puppydog wrote: post #180

Sorry, I know this will trigger some folks, but this is exactly why I never understood the backlash against "toxic masculinity" that I see from (male) friends whenever the term comes up. Who said it's supposed to be toxic only for others? Being a stereotypically "manly" man would prevent me in particular from expressing some of the things that make me feel the least lonely, from simple things like cooking and being p…

That’s not what triggering means, come on