i like loneliness. in my teens i could not encourage my friends to travel so i went on my own and was happy. in my twenties i would comfortably break up my relationships if i knew i could be happier alone. i have worked overseas for extended periods alone. i am old now but i am happy alone. i enjoy my huge garden alone. i avoid crowds. I online shop instead of travelling to a store if i can. I just have no connection to people around me anymore and i have been able to recognise this need in me and encourage myself to follow my own understanding of a happy life. I have no real regrets. I am in a good position financially and have nobody to really bother me. I can look ahead to the next month or two and feel happy knowing there is nothing on the horizon to displace my solitude.
Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#782Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love this but I think you'll be surprised at your success rate. Everyone is struggling with this, not just you. Right on the heels of covid we were debating whether to have a NYE party or just go to a friend's house for a low key thing. We were paralyzed a bit feeling like, why we weren't invited to other parties ourselves? Won't everyone already be busy doing other stuff? In the end my wife took the leap and invit…
In my experience, the problem is not a low success rate, but the burnout from being the only person that invites people to do things. At a certain point you want to see some reciprocation to create community. It can definitely happen, but a lot of folks still fall back on the habits. You have to invite and then also start asking people who's gonna host the next one and get them on the hook, and then not burnout from…
>In my experience, the problem is not a low success rate, but the burnout from being the only person that invites people to do things.
This is what mostly happened with me, I just got burned out from always having to be the one to organise everything or nothing would happen, which is what ended up happening after I stopped, we just stopped meeting up and eventually grew completely apart.
Now, I'm in a completely different country and I don't even have anyone's contacts anymore. But that's been life for me, people come and people go, never to stay.
I've accepted it by now, it can still hurt from time to time, but it is what it is, one should not force their will onto others, I believe.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#783It looks like every comment here is suggesting that lonely people should do something to feel less lonely. But that's not how you stop an epidemic.
The epidemic is a systemic things, and you don't solve systemic things by giving advice to individuals. You solve systemic things by changing the whole culture. and you change the whole culture by large scale initiative.
That said, I have no idea about what to do!
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#784You have to be the one who creates things to do. Really, that’s it. You want to play D&D together, you host and DM. You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing. You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with. Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little…
> and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive As opposed to non-nerds of course, who are famously fine with rejection. In all seriousness, there is no evidence to suggest that being a nerd (read: having nerdy interests) is related to being more emotionally stunted than the average person. You're just perpetuating a bad stereotype.
You might be working with a different definition of "nerd" compared to OP. From wikipedia:
> A nerd is a person seen as over-intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills.
It's not a stereotype that nerds are socially awkward but rather "nerd" is the name for the stereotype.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#785there isn't a loneliness epidemic. There is a diffuse inability to stay truly alone. Acquiring that ability would also teach how to not stay alone when needed. Otherwise, people wouldn't resort to social media. Going to party aimlessly and hanging out isn't necessarily better. It depends on who you hang out with and what you do. This is just my opinion, of course.
You need both. My sense is that only a minority of people are hardwired to preferably live as hermits. And whilst it's an important life skill to be happy alone, everyone has their breaking point, it's no coincidence that one of the best predictors of longevity is how rich ones social life is.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#786Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the trick is getting off social media. When I was a computer nerd in the 2000s, I noticed people used to like to hang around and chat, but I mostly didn't. Now, everyone is an internet addict, and I was just ahead of the curve. No one hangs around and chats anymore. When you get off social media, real life becomes far more interesting. The problem with addiction is that it's so stimulating that everything els…
Maybe it’s ironic that I’m saying this because right now I’m scrolling HN while waiting for my flight to board rather than trying to strike up conversations with people … but when I was riding the bus home a few days ago, I got fed up with the algorithmic feed (too many “you’re single because you don’t follow a dating coach that will tell you to gaslight people” ads in a row). I put my phone away and just decided to…
It's honestly very scary, and if people aren't on their phone, they have something masking the outside world and blasting noise into their ear.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#787Less technology in the day-to-day life, for example, which would mean lots of us here on this forum getting out of this industry for good.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#788In urban areas, we really should have less cars. But it’s emblema of a deeper issue; the interests of control and convenience in one’s time has crowded out everything else. If you have an established social circle and a decent income there’s never been a better time to take charge of your social life. Unfortunately the most able to change the system for those who have neither of these things are the least likely to understand. It’s a tough and old question to be honest
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#789[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#790I think this is quite an interesting question. Especially for the developer audience. If you're an engineer, then you likely have similar tendencies to a lot of other engineers. You want to spend time alone, but you also feel the need to combat this loneliness, isolation and depression that it leads to. You want to connect, but struggle to do so. The internet, software, reddit and other places became a safe haven, but then they perpetuated what was hindering you in the first place. I say these things because I'm that person. I lost decades to this sort of escapism that comes from an online world. Unfortunately the answers rarely work for us at the time we're going through this. It's rare for someone to just break out of the cycle. Something has to change, but it's a change that comes from deep within yourself.
Sometimes you have to reflect on the why. Why am I here, why am I in this situation. And often it's that deeper internal reflection that starts to motivate something, change something. Listen, I lost decades. And I still struggle. But no one else can solve this for you.
In terms of the loneliness epidemic itself. You have to split it into many separate categories. Isolation comes in many forms. For the online generation, who grew up with the internet, we are specific category. But I'll tell you, the path to fixing it has more to do with understanding why we are here than filling the time with arbitrary activities or socialising. Yes we need human connnection and yes we should explore, learn and grow. But fundamentally the first question we should be asking, why am I here, what is my purpose, now what should I do with that.
In my case, I did find talking to someone helped, but only after coming to the realisation that I needed to talk to someone and then proactively seeking it out. As much as we want to solve the problem for many people, they have to walk a path before they can see the truth. We can offer alternatives, but people will only find what they're looking for when they're ready.