Comment by vog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vog | Hacker News Reader

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> I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance

Not true for Berlin, though. If you regularily visit some hackerspaces (or other meetups with like-minded people, such as various user groups such as Emacs user group, political groups such as FSFE, whatever), or go to university and study there, you have very good chances finding friends, some of whom may turn out to be very good friends.

Sometimes it seems hard to get into groups, but usually this is just a matter of having the courage to talk to people, and not so much a matter of being actively rejected by others (although that happens sometimes, too, of course, because every "club" has some low percentage of anti-social-minded people, but those people are easy to ignore).

I assume this is true for the other large cities in Germany as well (Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main, Munich, Bremen, etc.) but I don't know for sure.

EDIT: To those who downvoted: Do you care to elaborate? Did you have different experiences in Berlin? (especially as technically-minded people)

One problem with your comment is that you do not actually address the point you quote. Instead, you present an anecdote about how you went to lots of places where you met new people, had the courage to talk to them and made friends.

I agree that what you described is a good way (maybe the only way) to make friends. But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing a single digit percentage, at best.

For people who don't go to many social events/don't talk to many others there/don't deepen those ties as much, it's very easy to be lonely in basically any city. Making friends takes work, and success is not guaranteed; if you're not putting in that work for some reason, e.g. your personality, you'll end up without friends more likely than not.

Let me present my own anecdote: I grew up in Berlin, and I certainly met lots of new people through school, sports, study groups and so on, but I always kept those separate. If I were into golf, my fellow golfers would be my "golf people", nothing more. I don't tend to attempt conversations with strangers (or people I know, for that matter), so very few of those acquaintances even learned my name. In essence, I don't have any friends.

I wouldn't call myself lonely, though, since I'm happy that way. I wouldn't even know what I'd do with friends if I had any. But I'm pretty sure that there are lots of people (also in Berlin) who are living essentially the same friendless life as me and suffer for it.

> For people who don't go to many social events/don't talk to many others there/don't deepen those ties as much

Indeed! But my point is that making friendships in those cities is not prevented by the people or social norms in that country (while in Japan it apparently is, if I understood the previous comments correctly).

> But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing a single digit percentage, at best.

Of course. However, if most people would refuse me due to social norms, that number would have been easily dropped to zero.

> I don't tend to attempt conversations with strangers (or people I know, for that matter), so very few of those acquaintances even learned my name. In essence, I don't have any friends.

But that's a purely personal choice, not something imposed onto you by the society, isn't it?

> Making friends takes work, and success is not guaranteed;

That's the gist of it.

In our society, people think human relationships are obvious, should be natural and self evident.

It's a concept that is reinforced by the medias, but also by the childhood memories where it kinda was.

But in the adult world, there are many social contracts and artificial boundaries you have to overcome, and connecting with people IS work.

What's more, it's work a lot of people are not trained to do anymore. And it's work with important consequences, good and bad.

I lived in Africa for a while, and there, you HAVE to connect to people to live. In some countries, basic informations and services can only be obtains by direct contact with another human. So the locals have no problem with loneliness, they make and break relations with ease.

Our modern society are making us kinda handicaped in that mesure, providing so many ways to avoid human contacts: delivery services, text informations everywhere, listings of things, etc. You don't have to ask where to find a product, what it contains, the price, then negociate it. You go to the shop, read, then pay, sometime even to a machine, or order it online.

It clicked, going back. I realized how easier my life was, and what a "cheat code" it is to just be able to talk to a random girl or joke with the guy next to me in the waiting room. I don't miss my times of being an introvert. It had zero benefits for myself.

We may mock Japan, but we are not making progress ourself.

Meeting groups of people is certainly a good starting point (and probably what I'd do if I was trying to meet knew people), but it can take time before making actual friends and it's not guaranteed.

I can give my experience. I've always been in some kind of sport club or another (not a gym but group activities such as swimming, boxing...), I go there a few times a week, sometimes for years at the same club. I eventually get to know the people there (but it can take months), sometimes we hang out but rarely have I made friends there.

I also went to events designed to actually meet new people (for instance, europeans living in NYC, that kind of things). Not much success there. I tend to dislike these events as I'm not really comfortable in social events where I don't know anyone.

Then I made very good friends in total random circumstances. For instance, talking to a guy sitting in a coffeeshop next to me, or with a fellow hiker at the top of a mountain.

A few years ago I would wholeheartedly agree with you, but for me things have changed unfortunately.

Working in a startup job each day leaves me exhausted - not exhausted in regards to meeting people, but to planning such meetings. Too often I will just end up stuck to the internet.

The people I used to do things with either moved away or don't respond to such suggestions anymore.

Social circles seem to fall apart quickly without some condensation nuclei.

I hope working hours are getting more predictable now, so I will try the Meetup route.

I should use meetups more too. One mistake I have made is assuming that the first people that respond positively are going to be good friends, and compatible. Some natural sifting and more effort is needed even then. And self-examination and feeling as to what you want! I think this whole process helps us feel who we are. And projecting that, attracting similar-accepting humans. (while working on listning more and becoing better humans too!) / I think a bunch of people on here struggle, for obvious reasons no fault of our own, but there are definitely solutions to be found (see my other comment on this too nearby for one more). I'm reading and learning more here also.

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