Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

city-journal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 1001 posts

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#821

Post by abstractbarista »

oryyx wrote: post #818

I've been lonely for so long, I'm almost numb to it. I'm 28, and sometimes I don't even feel human. I can go weeks where the only words I utter to other humans are during the 10-20 minute catch-ups with my parents who live 2000 miles away. My only consistent communication is with a group of ~5 guys on Discord, where we mostly discuss the game we play together via text. I have never so much as cuddled with another per…

Hey I feel for you stranger. I don't know what to say really because I don't have it figured out, but try not to worry about wasting time. I guess it's all sort of pointless in the end so might as well gamble with yourself? Do something unusual, try to meet people with similar interests. Maybe go to a bar or a park? You're not a failure for not having experienced those things you listed.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#822

Post by bscphil »

cwp wrote: post #677
WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

I felt loneliness acutely this week. I live alone, spend most evenings alone, and on top, work's coding and research has been slow for 2 weeks. Collaborators are at conferences and on vacation, so I had much less work and much less face-to-face contact than usual. Given that I code on my own, distribute analyses via email, and occasionally meet if people are around, I barely talked to people some days this week. Goin…

I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation. If somebody proposed doing something together and I was able, I had to do it. That made a huge difference in my life. I did a lot of things that were... unexpected. (A few examples: I joined an ultimate frisbee league. I went skydiving. I joined a church group. I went to a strip club. I attended a wedding.…

>I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation.

That approach works great as long as you are currently getting invited to things. If it's been a year since the last time you were invited to anything, that's not going to solve your loneliness problem.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#823

Post by holler »

If anyone lives in Seattle and is feeling lonely hit me up! I'll grab coffee with you any time. I'm 35 & a few years ago my loneliness spiraled out of control and almost killed me. I had a lot of crap from my late teens -> late 20's and it led me to a dark place. I know what it's like to be in that place. I got sober and turned things around. Now I work remote and have a flexible schedule. Life is good! I love the goodness of humanity & meeting new people, so hit me up anytime, cheers!

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#824

Post by psychomugs »

cwp wrote: post #677
WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

I felt loneliness acutely this week. I live alone, spend most evenings alone, and on top, work's coding and research has been slow for 2 weeks. Collaborators are at conferences and on vacation, so I had much less work and much less face-to-face contact than usual. Given that I code on my own, distribute analyses via email, and occasionally meet if people are around, I barely talked to people some days this week. Goin…

I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation. If somebody proposed doing something together and I was able, I had to do it. That made a huge difference in my life. I did a lot of things that were... unexpected. (A few examples: I joined an ultimate frisbee league. I went skydiving. I joined a church group. I went to a strip club. I attended a wedding.…

This guy took that idea to the extreme: built an app to randomly join random Facebook events and forced himself to go wherever it took him.

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/06/08/53...

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#825

Post by oryyx »

cparsons3000 wrote: post #819
oryyx wrote: post #818

I've been lonely for so long, I'm almost numb to it. I'm 28, and sometimes I don't even feel human. I can go weeks where the only words I utter to other humans are during the 10-20 minute catch-ups with my parents who live 2000 miles away. My only consistent communication is with a group of ~5 guys on Discord, where we mostly discuss the game we play together via text. I have never so much as cuddled with another per…

Have you tried meeting or just talking to anyone on Okcupid or Tinder? Or tried chatting with folks on Twitch?

Yeah, I met some women (mostly on OKC) a couple years ago. Went on about 5 dates with 5 different women. Only clicked with one; we setup a second date, and she cancelled on me last minute to say that she was getting back together with her ex.

Honestly though, as much as I want to be with someone -- I don't know if it's the best time. I'm basically a depressed man-child, living on grant money and parental support. My self-esteem is ridiculously low, and I'm actually terrified of the physical aspect of dating. I have ZERO experience, and it's going to be obvious. That's gotta be a red flag for most women my age.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#827

Post by cwp »

drdeadringer wrote: post #701
cwp wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation. If somebody proposed doing something together and I was able, I had to do it. That made a huge difference in my life. I did a lot of things that were... unexpected. (A few examples: I joined an ultimate frisbee league. I went skydiving. I joined a church group. I went to a strip club. I attended a wedding.…

Do you still follow this "never no" rule, or did you come to a point or change in your life to ease up or ease off?

I think it lasted about 6 months before I completely abandoned it, but I had started to cheat even before then. The main reason I quit was "mission accomplished". I had made new friends, discovered some social activities I enjoyed and was generally happier. But also I noticed some downsides.

One was that people will exploit that rule, even if they don't know about it. That church group would have cheerfully turned me into one of their most dedicated and active members just by inviting me to all the things. They meant well, but I was sending mixed signals by accepting all their invitations even though I wasn't interested in their faith. Once I had been to a few events I had to start saying no.

Another was that once I had a bit of a social life going, I didn't want to let happenstance push me around so much. The choice was no longer between do this thing or stay home and mope; I started to have other options and I didn't want to just end up doing the first thing that presented itself.

All in all, it was a great way to change my habits, but not a good way to live life indefinitely.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#828

Post by cwp »

sk0g wrote: post #721
cwp wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a bout of this about 20 years ago, so I made a rule for myself: I wasn't allowed to decline an invitation. If somebody proposed doing something together and I was able, I had to do it. That made a huge difference in my life. I did a lot of things that were... unexpected. (A few examples: I joined an ultimate frisbee league. I went skydiving. I joined a church group. I went to a strip club. I attended a wedding.…

As much as I'd like to follow the rule, I think I have an actual, varied social life now, and this would be... Risky. I've been invited to a violent sounding orgy of the many male, one female kind (always been a dream of the girl's, but I do have someone I'm seeing). In the last few months, also been invited to an open Satanic book reading sessions. Beginner friendly, I had been told.

I didn't get into anything that extreme, but I did do some things that made me uncomfortable. That was sort of the point. I stopped when it didn't seem to be serving me well anymore.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#829

Post by mac01021 »

jniedrauer wrote: post #189
residentfoam wrote: post #106

I have been lucky enough to be able to work and live in several countries around the world. One thing in common I noticed in all these places is that guys and girls don't have time and don't want to commit to a stable long relation. They invest pretty much themselves and their time in their career, traveling , parties, dogs, cats and bitcoins :) ! The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40 years old! Travel the world…

Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not something I can justify personally. Not to mention, my child would have to live to see the impacts of climate change. There is coming a point (it has already passed, in my opinion), where we can no longer justify our purpose for existence as "creating more humans."

I'm not sure all that logic is sound.

First, having a child does not require you to travel more, get a bigger house, keep it warmer or cooler, buy non-second-hand clothes or do anything else with a significant carbon footprint beyond grocery shopping (which admittedly has a nontrivial footprint). It's not until adulthood that they'll really start to have a full fledged carbon footprint of their own.

Second, social animals that we are, a person's net total impact on the carbon footprints of others can be much larger than that person's individual, "direct" footprint. Raise your kid the right way and their footprint could, in a very real sense, be negative.

Third, there are some indications that the point in the future where we either solve climate change or fail catastrophically is near enough that it may have past before your kid reaches that damaging, adult phase.

Your kid would live to see the impacts of climate change, though. If we as a society would just put a price on carbon emissions and reimburse the externalized costs through a fee & dividend system, even that would not be a problem (in theory) because your kid would be compensated financially for any climate-change-induced hardship.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#830

Post by sizzle »

souprock wrote: post #649
beat wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty severe autism. The main reason we never just kicked him out is because he really can't function on his own. He'd suck at being homeless. That was hard for me to get used to, as I've been on my own since I was 18. And his sister moved out as soon as it was practical for her, although she lives just minutes away and we see her at least weekly. And if there's one piece of parenting advice I can offer, it's this..…

I might have one like that, unless you mean the non-verbal type. He has to go soon, probably age 20 at the end of summer. He did just barely manage an AA degree, so perhaps he is better off than yours. He is sometimes wildly inappropriate. He has to go for lots of reasons. One is that I'll have 11 other kids to devote my resources to. Another is that a bit more of a push might get him to fly. Another is that I've see…

If you don't mind me asking, how did you get in the position of providing for 11 children? This sounds like a remarkable story.
Post reply on HN