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Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

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251–260 of 344 posts

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#251

Theory: human relationships can be hard, very hard, and any technology that confuses one into thinking he can enjoy his time without the 'burden' of human interactions is pushing this issue deeper.

I think of this theory like how lead poisoning works, where the lead can pass through the blood–brain barrier and substitute in (poorly) for calcium, causing all sorts of toxicity effects. Or how drinking sea water can fool your throat for a second into thinking you've taken care of your thirst. Online social interactions are plentiful and easy and often don't as quickly or sharply trigger social anxiety. But they ar…

The other day I raised my hand to high five a stranger in a dance event and she didn’t notice and passed the other way. I remarked how I haven’t felt something like that in awhile. Imagine if you had to watch everyone left swipe you in tinder or reject your resume personally.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#252

I think a huge factor is the growing theme of social interaction being unacceptable. Back in the day you could walk up to and make friends with almost anyone, it wasn't weird to interact with strangers, thus making new acquaintances. Modern society stigmatizes that kind of interaction, don't talk to people you don't know if you don't want to be ostracized. You could want to befriend someone in a crowd, but come up wi…

Outside of specific venues, no one I encounter has similar interests. Really disincentivizes me to talk to them.

To counter that, I try to keep up with the local sports, as a base for small talk.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#253
noted this elsewhere - but toplevel - if you are ever in downtown Seattle, feel a bit lonely (work trip?) and want to get lunch or coffee with Someone From The Internet, I am usually up for such a thing on a work day. email in profile, etc.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#254

these are fucking insane psychos they should be hunted down and killed these worthless fucks will piss and shit on anything

We've banned this account. Commenting like this will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#255

I think a huge factor is the growing theme of social interaction being unacceptable. Back in the day you could walk up to and make friends with almost anyone, it wasn't weird to interact with strangers, thus making new acquaintances. Modern society stigmatizes that kind of interaction, don't talk to people you don't know if you don't want to be ostracized. You could want to befriend someone in a crowd, but come up wi…

I think you hit the nail on the head. I would also add that the whole minefield of communicating with someone of the opposite sex, especially if you are a man. It seems that you have a high risk of being called up for harassment if you want to start a friendly conversation with a female as a male for example. This is a direct consequence of the whole metoo thing. Over the last 15 years, society has been more and more…

Hm. As a woman, I can't say I've ever thought of harassment when men have started friendly conversation with me. Is that not a bit of an exaggeration? If a man catcalled "nice tits" or something, then yeah, that would be harassment. But conversation? Not nearly the risk your describing, I don't think.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#256

Has anyone else noticed that clicking on this link causes them to be logged in as "Pam" on the site? That doesn't seem great...

yeah sloppy, it sets a session token; session-setting URLs should be hard to share, not easy. thank god it asks for a password before you can do anything bad, but the e-mail exposure in the settings flow isn't great. fortunately the x_id param isn't sequential.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I would also add that the whole minefield of communicating with someone of the opposite sex, especially if you are a man. It seems that you have a high risk of being called up for harassment if you want to start a friendly conversation with a female as a male for example. This is a direct consequence of the whole metoo thing. Over the last 15 years, society has been more and more…

Hm. As a woman, I can't say I've ever thought of harassment when men have started friendly conversation with me. Is that not a bit of an exaggeration? If a man catcalled "nice tits" or something, then yeah, that would be harassment. But conversation? Not nearly the risk your describing, I don't think.

I agree with you, but I think people avoid even the possibility//higher risk associated with the awkward start of the conversation.

I work in tech and some of my male coworkers privately tell me that they avoid talking to womens they don't know at networking events or at conferences because of the way it might be interpreted nowadays.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#258

I'm 21 years old, I grew up online. I started on myspace and chat via gmail, eventually moving to Facebook. Fast forward through an early highschool graduation, and taking most college classes online: I have no idea how on Earth I am to socialize with people in the real world. I quit and deactivated Facebook in January, and since I have felt so truly alone. Each day I ride an uber to my dev job, work mostly by myself…

I'm sorry to hear this.

I used to have major struggles like this when I was younger. I think people like us are very much in our own heads, maybe too much. Sometimes it's good for us to just jump out there and socialize. Sometimes all it takes is to pretend to be outgoing for 2 hours at a time. Go to a conference for work, or play sports at the gym, whatever. Of course it's a challenge every time, and I'm oversimplifying (I'm definitely no mental health professional). It took me years -- decades really -- to get more comfortable being outgoing. But a life lived with good relationships is truly a more fulfilling life.

Progress in this area often happens by way of other activities, because it's just less initially awkward, and people have things in common. Do you like sports? Join a softball team. Music? Take lessons, and play shows and meet people. Go to the same restaurant regularly and get to know the staff. Volunteer and help others. Join a church or an organization with people that share your beliefs. Have conversations with people you come across -- take interest in the Uber drivers' lives, and you'll quickly become their favorite customer. Once you have good connections with a group of people, before you know it you'll start meeting their friends, and so on, and eventually you'll have your own group of buddies that you'll see around town.

Also, you're connecting with others on Hacker News, which is something. I think you might have more of a knack for this than you realize. I would say to do what you're doing here -- people don't have enough conversations in the real world, so people that do so stand out as being friendly.

It hurts me to hear of other people going through what I went through and still do from time to time. But if I could boil what I've learned down to one piece of advice, I would say, show others that you care about them. They're very likely going through struggles similar to what you are experiencing.

Every person in our lives is a gift, and it's easy for all of us to forget this.

Wishing you the best!

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I would also add that the whole minefield of communicating with someone of the opposite sex, especially if you are a man. It seems that you have a high risk of being called up for harassment if you want to start a friendly conversation with a female as a male for example. This is a direct consequence of the whole metoo thing. Over the last 15 years, society has been more and more…

Hm. As a woman, I can't say I've ever thought of harassment when men have started friendly conversation with me. Is that not a bit of an exaggeration? If a man catcalled "nice tits" or something, then yeah, that would be harassment. But conversation? Not nearly the risk your describing, I don't think.

Most women would not consider such an ordinary social interaction to be harassment, but suppose a small fraction do - being perceived or accused of harassment is such a negative thing that it can be a strong deterrent even if there's a low chance of it actually happening.
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