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A practical guide to reducing loneliness

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Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#61

Post by ahnberg »

A lot of my meaningful contacts and relationship building has been because I didn't put down the phone. Being an introvert in a crazy extrovert world is insanely draining.

Social media, digital communication and so forth has surely saved a huge part of my life. It has opened doors, allowed me to connect and establish friendships with people all over the world. It allows me to keep in touch with remote friends and close ones alike. All in all summing up to the feeling that I am less lonely.

Excluding Corona time this also means that I have people to actually meet when I want to go out. So it is not a replacement for "real life" meeting with people. It is an augmentation.

Each to their own; but I personally am somewhat tired of the constant norm of bashing on "digital" and phone and so forth.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#63

Post by ackbar03 »

FinanceAnon wrote: post #12

Very superficial advice. I don't see how small-talk with strangers can fix loneliness long term.

I agree with this. I'd have periods of times where I'd feel super lonely and I'd go out and meet new people through group events introduced by friends or whatever. However usually it ends up feeling like a waste of time. It sounds super elitist but I'm rarely impressed by new people I meet and usually the ones I meet seem so different I'm not even sure I really even want to know them better. It seems super contradictory and sometimes I'd go home feeling worse

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#64

Post by PrimalDual »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #50
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.

Most people here could benefit from talking to everyone and honing that skill, especially single guys, instead of just lambasting it as “small talk”. When you don’t talk to people, you throw out a great amount of serendipity in life. e.g. Most of my friends right now and women I’ve dated I’ve met in lines at the coffee shop, parking my rental bike at the dock, and other unlikely places. I wasn’t always that person so…

I agree with your approach to the point I think it’s the only way to really tackle loneliness and making friends. You just have to talk to strangers, often about nothing.

Unfortunately for the less socially trained, the advice in the article seems pretty daunting. It reminds me of of the quote “people won’t remember what you said but they’ll remember how you made then feel”. I am pretty sure I’ve made a few people feel awkward or mildly uncomfortable in my time trying to do this.

Naturally, I’ve gotten better but since it’s not something I do frequently I’m still pretty bad at it. I really wish there were a systematic way to train talking to strangers in an environment where it’s ok to make minor social missteps. Unfortunately it seems to me that such an environment is some stage of development that I missed at an earlier age. Is there some way forward that doesn’t just involve eating the losses as a cost of learning?

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#65

Post by throwaway823882 »

> A Practical Guide to Reducing Loneliness Right Now: 11 awkward, life-affirming ways to connect with others.

The most practical way to reduce loneliness is not to connect with others. Become content living alone. Later you can connect to people when it's not a need. But you should understand what's driving the need, and come up with coping mechanisms.

For example, say you really want to show someone a cool picture you just took. Would you still take it if you weren't going to show it to anyone else? If yes, then consider when you will look at it again, tuck it away, and go on with your day. If no, then don't take it.

Don't let your needs control how you live your life, or your emotions.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#66

Post by throwawayboise »

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…

Yes, I am friendly with many people at work, but these relationships have never developed into anything beyond that.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#67

Post by stakkur »

Here's my practical, psychology-based guide to reducing loneliness:

1. Find ways to help other people.

2. Help them.

3. Do it again.

Reducing loneliness is not about 'having friends', it's about making efforts to participate in the larger group--and the primary way to begin doing that is by helping other people.

To simplify: step outside yourself to be less by yourself.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#68

Post by throwawayboise »

conistonwater wrote: post #47
hattmall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's depression. I'm guessing these tips are more for the technically lonely, which is probably a much higher number in the past due to WFH and quarantines.

That's not true at all. Also, historically, there's been a trend of attributing negative things to depression. I've read John Cacioppo's work (here's an interview: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/how-lonel... ), and as far as I know it's both scientifically well-founded and at least somewhat actionable.

I would agree about attributing too much to depression. I'm not saying depression isn't real, but there's a motivator to attribute things to it because it creates more customers for pills that will allegedly fix it.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#69

Post by [deleted] »

conistonwater wrote: post #47
hattmall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's depression. I'm guessing these tips are more for the technically lonely, which is probably a much higher number in the past due to WFH and quarantines.

That's not true at all. Also, historically, there's been a trend of attributing negative things to depression. I've read John Cacioppo's work (here's an interview: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/how-lonel... ), and as far as I know it's both scientifically well-founded and at least somewhat actionable.

[deleted]

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#70

Post by em-bee »

Tade0 wrote: post #48

I feel like there should be separate sets of advice for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s etc. Anyway, I've met quite a few very lonely people (seems contradictory, but loneliness doesn't necessarily mean someone isn't going out at all) and a the few things that did work for them - at least temporarily - were: -Getting a roommate, or moving to a shared apartment. There's nothing weird about doing this in your 30s anymore…

on gaming: one of the local MUDs where i played has frequent real-life gettogethers for an afternoon, dinner of even out of the city for a weekend.

another gaming related activity is boardgames. check if your city has a boardgame meetup. if not, start one.

also hobbies

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