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A practical guide to reducing loneliness

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Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#81

Post by em-bee »

bhalina wrote: post #78
csdtx wrote: post #29

Loneliness comes from a lack of community and people who you can trust. You will not build a community and find people who you can trust through small talk and involving yourself in groups that are based on transient interests that can be changed in an instant. There is a reason gangs and groups have some sort of hazing and acceptance ceremony.

But can you make real connections without small talk first?

yes, join an activity where you have to actively do something together. the conversation will then focus around what you are doing.

when you play boardgames you talk to learn the rules of the game and you use the player interactions that make up the game.

when you volunteer you talk about the work needs to be done.

any hobbies or sports you talk about how to do things.

you make connections by frequently interacting with the same people. do it long enough, be a reliable helper, and you'll make friends.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#82

Post by watwut »

stakkur wrote: post #67

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.

You can be constantly helping and lonely at the same time. Plenty of caregivers and volunteers ends up like that.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#83

Post by nradov »

wincy wrote: post #41
s0rce wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I have never made a long standing connection with someone I've met while going to a store in a city. I've gotten to know store owners for stores I've frequented over years but not just randomly running into customers. It seems like most cities I've lived in you don't really just start talking to people randomly, maybe I'm just not very friendly but it seems like a survival instinct to avoid crazy folks.

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.

Oh your wife is from New York? Does she know my friend Joe? Joe Smith?

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#84

Post by 542458 »

tombrossman wrote: post #27
542458 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question, what’s wrong with Medium (as a platform)? Also that link doesn’t work for me - server not found.

> Also that link doesn’t work for me - server not found. Are you using Cloudflare DNS? Related discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317

That’s an extremely interesting link, thank you.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#86

Post by munificent »

danenania wrote: post #52
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #35

Semi-related: I suspect a big draw of social media is that it resembles actual human communication while also conferring a lot more control to all parties. Vulnerability is not required. Communication is stripped of almost all of its context, and is often asynchronous. There is little expectation of any sort of real commitment. People are easily muted, unfollowed, and blocked. In sanitizing away the messiness of real…

I think of social media as "filler". It's similar to how empty calories trick our bodies into feeling full despite not providing any real nutrition.

Porn : Sex :: Social media : Community

A fraction of the risk for an even smaller fraction of the reward.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#87

Post by spaetzleesser »

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’t been wired correctly and are introducing errors.

Advice giving is a dangerous thing if you haven’t experienced the problem. I don’t have eating problems so for me it’s really easy not to eat that donut or the bucket of ice cream but I have learned and accepted that for some overweight people it’s an almost insurmountable problem. I can’t really relate but I have learned enough over the years to stay away from giving ignorant or condescending advice.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#89

Post by hardwaregeek »

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 plan events and don't actively reach out. Frankly I'm a lot less close with them because to see them, I have to actively reach out and remember to invite them.

Learning to meet new people is a great skill too because it means you're not stuck with friends who you don't like. I used to be friends with people who I didn't particularly like. But I was afraid to lose them because I didn't have a lot of friends. When you learn to make friends, you realize that it's not worth keeping people around whose presence you don't enjoy. You can cut them off and make new friends.

Re: A practical guide to reducing loneliness

#90

Post by hardwaregeek »

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’…

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.
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