Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
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IMO, the problem has nothing to do with the internet. Instead, the problem has more to do with poorly controlling marketing and homelessness. Political correctness also takes a toll.
When I lived in the Bay Area, most of the time I was randomly approached, "on the street," it was from a homeless person. Thus, I was less likely to be friendly to someone when I was in areas with high amounts of homeless people. If the Bay Area took care of the homeless situation better, there would be less people approaching me, and then it would be easier to interact with strangers.
But then, what about being in stores, malls, ect? I then need to put up defenses against aggressive marketing. That also makes it hard to be friendly. If we considered unsolicited marketing as insulting, we wouldn't need to keep our defenses up in places of commerce.
Even political correctness takes a toll. If I start talking with someone who has a different opinion than me, or is a difference race than me, faux pas get blown out of proportion. No one wants to make friends with someone who's going to scream at them for being a bigot because they lean a little right, or be labeled a libtard because they lean a little left.
There's aggressive marketing in the street too. Most often when someone approaches me on the street, they're trying to get money out of me. Either they're panhandlers, or they're selling me something, or seeking donations of some sort - which are all really the same thing.
The only exception is if they want to influence me in some way, i.e. they want my vote.
So ultimately, strangers approaching us in public areas are looking to get something out of us. They're not looking for a reciprocal social relationship. They're looking to get something: money, votes, support for their cause.
I do agree that it's a big part of the reason why Americans don't make social connections in public areas. I'm not sure about the solution though. The biggest problem in most places I lived was the panhandlers, and that's a big problem that causes a lot of issues in general, and doesn't seem to have a good solution.
This matches my experience as well (I suspect it might not in less urban areas, though). It's quite frustrating.
I also resent the fact that the people who are accosting me like this usually have the expectation that I owe them my attention. I'm pretty good at brushing them off/ignoring them, and I've seen quite a few get genuinely offended that I'm evading their pitch. Which is offensive to me in turn: they're trying to take advantage of my natural inclination to be social/respond to another human, and they're mad because I didn't fall for it? It's a parasitic situation. Sadly, I also agree with you that there's not really any way to fix it. The well is just poisoned...
Indeed, I lived in less urban areas, and people are more open to socialize there.
As for the rest, I agree and encountered the same as well. What they are doing is parasitic, but they are naturally offended if you ignore them. For marketers especially, consider that every time someone ignores them, it means they failed at their job. It's a bad situation for them, and for us.
When you socialize in public it would be while waiting in line together, or asking the person next to you at restaurant what they are having, or asking the person at the grocery store whether they think that product is better.
If you walk directly up to someone and it isn't a natural connection, everyone will always assume your trying to sell them something or bother them in some way.
The point of my comment is why this is happening. The reason "everyone" (in the US) assume that is because that is typically the reason. Because the typical people who approach us in the street are panhandlers and marketers.
It's like the early year of SPAM. When email just started, messages would usually receive attention, since they were usually from genuine people looking to connect. Then SPAM started, and many people started ignoring email completely, to the point it became effectively dysfunctional as a communication medium. It required an extensive, aggressive campaign to fight off SPAM, until email because a functional medium again.
In the same way, if somehow panhandlers and marketers stopped approaching us, we would be more open to socialize in public spaces, because we wouldn't assume (quite appropriately, as of now) that any stranger who tries to talk to us is just looking to get something from us.
But again, that isn't the case. If you talk to someone in line at the bakery, most will be very friendly. If you look at someone and make a b-line towards them while they are walking down the street, you will weird them out, no matter the country, culture, whatever.
Did you grow up in a culture that prized that ability? I've noticed that in the U.S. south, being able to make conversation was a point of pride. ("friendliness")
But not so much on the east coast. East coasters tend to be more clammed up and introverted.
You call it a 'faux pas,' others would call it casual racism or casual sexism, etc. Funny enough, when you point this out to a lot of people, they wind up being the ones to blow up about it.
It's kind like calling someone who hugs girls in greeting a casual molester.
That's why they're called opinions. Everyone has them, and accepting someone else's opinion is an important part of living in a diverse world.
I'm an introvert, I didn't date much in college, and I can't begin to count the number of faux pas extrovts made towards me. I'd never accuse someone of being a casual racist, sexist, ect, because they're different than me. The world runs smoother when I accept that most people aren't perfect.
There are likely tens of matches for me within a 5 minute drive, I just don't know how to find them.
I'm a friendly guy and would love to have that friend that feels comfortable stopping by unannounced or that I can share my latest batch of cheesecake with. I'd love to have regular friendly gatherings nearly every weekend. Literally the only thing stopping me is the first step of connecting. Once I'm there I can easily deal with step 2: "dating" the field to find a decent practical match with mutual interest in the relationship.
As long as your partner is aware and okay with it, ignore what others think.
Until the OP mentioned it, I had no idea that Bumble had a friend finding feature. It's a dating app, its advertising shows dating as its function. So I can't say I'd blame anyone that did judge me unreasonably, to be honest. It's not necessarily that fair, but we don't get to make our own rules of social interaction.
Life is too short to give too many f*ucks when you’re purposely optimizing for happiness while minimizing suffering you cause. Be happy, life is fleeting.
Affairs do happen. There's love in not giving your spouse unnecessary reason for worry.
And there's wisdom in not tooling up your phone in a way that makes moments of weakness more likely to result in an affair.
My wife would have no problem with it. But what if one of her friends saw me on the bus with Bumble open on my phone? If she spoke to my wife she'd be able to clear up the confusion. But what if she didn't? What if there ended up being a persistent rumour that neither myself nor my wife could clear up because no-one told us about it?
I'm not saying it's not sad, but it's the actual reality we live in. Social lives are complex in ways we can't really control.
I don't know about you, but I don't show random acquaintances all the apps on my phone.
Also, if someone saw you with Bumble BFF in a public place, they'd see you swiping left and right on pictures of men. Are you worried people will think you're gay?
It's kind of funny that in a thread that's ostensibly about making new friends your advice has turned to how to choose which friends to discard.
That said, I think for most of us the potential deterrent is much greater than that. My partner would absolutely mock me a little bit (because mocking each other is how we show love), and then probably sign up as well. My co-workers, on the other hand, would start gossiping. Having that icon seen on my home screen could be a career-limiting move.
Not saying that a dating app shouldn't include such a feature, but the association is going to be a huge headwind toward it becoming a pervasive platform for finding non-romantic friendships.
Again, I have to ask: why are you showing all the apps on your phone to your co-workers? I don't show my phone to my co-workers, and I certainly don't let them look through all the apps on it. And you don't have to put Bumble on your home screen.
In my experience, nearly everyone hopes that a meeting from a dating site will be more than platonic, even if you go out of your way to set platonic expectations. After all, it's much easier to become friends if you're attracted to each other!
I have found meetup.com to be exactly this. Not everybody at a meetup will click personally, but they're much more likely to share interests. One meetup group has completely changed my life, and I have met people I consider some of the best people I have ever encountered anywhere. And they all live right near me.
Thats what I went through and probably would be going through right now if it weren't for weddings/ bps I 'had' to go to and moving back home. We don't spend enough time together anymore b/c of the retarded 9-5 system we have and it just being easier to sit around and binge on content
Even though you may feel down... you get those small 'silces' of energy... even if they are brief.... You need to hit that 30 minute window of feeling pumped to go out and socialize.
Feeling pumped? Yeah ! lets do this! goes on meetup.com.... F* the next cool thing is Sept 2. 89 hours away..... 30 minute window of feeling pumped to go socialize fades away...
A better solution would be a queueing system like a video game a-la league of legends.... Want to socialize NOW.?!?! Did you just read an awesome book by Brandon Sanderson, or want to talk about FIFA ? Browse the dream app / Meetup 3.0 to see queue up spots nearby (hopefully situated at starbucks , mcdonalds, libraries or any other form of public space (that is shrinking in cities)).
I'd do it myself but the legalities of a startup just seem like a truck-ton of work here in Canada (harder to setup the equivalent of a LLC).
Pick one, put it in your diary, and go to it. No excuses.
In those 30 minutes of action, commit yourself to that future action. Make it easy, in those 30 minutes plan your outfit, how to get there, look up the venue on a map, plan how much cash you'll take or what cards or whatever. Whatever excuses you come up with usually, plan against them. The group will usually say how to find them in the bar or cafe or wherever, write it down.
Worst that can happen is you hate it and somehow make a fool of yourself. In front of people you will never ever see again, so who cares.
Reality is you'll be welcomed, and at least one person, if not many, will go out of their way to make sure you are included.
And even if your worst fear happened and it's a mini drama, you'll still get a win from going. You still get to feel great about trying.
And if it doesn't click or you don't like anyone, don't go to that one again. You can just never turn up again, without any consequence. You aren't obliged.
It's not so much 30 minutes of feeling motivated or energized, it's 30 minutes of something else entirely, that you can't really psych yourself back into in much the same way that you can't "snap out of" a depressed state.
But the little monster still talks you out of it at the last minute, with your hand on the doorknob to leave the house.
It can be beaten, and like I said, your advice is absolutely correct. But -- in my experience, at least -- reasoning about the situation is only part of the solution. Seeing the path does not automatically mean you will follow the path.
1. Colleges get expensive and matter a lot, so people leave home for college if they want to achieve. Time to make new friends.
2. After college, a lot of people go where the job is-- this might be far from your family and since you went to college with a lot of people from a lot of different places, probably far from them too. Goodbye friends.
3. It's not unlikely your job brings you to a city, and US cities are notorious for having the tall downtown where most city life exists and the quiet, expansive suburbs. You're young so you move downtown. Time to make new friends.
4. Downtown will be expensive, apartments will be for rent not sale, so you'll be moving about constantly. You never form meaningful connections with neighbors.
This point is interesting in that is, I feel, why people seem more glued to their phones today, interact with people around them less, and overall annoy each-other more. Their real friends are not necessarily the people around them: they live on your phone. You don't make an effort to meet people around you cause you might never see them again. Not even your neighbors: your lease is for just one year.
5. You eventually settle down and move to the suburbs. Time to make new friends. Everyone wants the lawn, but this also means houses are far between. How many people can your really interact with? Moreover, American suburbs are just that: houses. No one walks on the streets of suburbs, so meeting, bumping into and interacting with neighbors takes effort. All the time you spend shopping, working, having fun-- it's probably going to be around strangers downtown, not your neighbors.
6. You have kids, and your kids leave for college. They're not going to move back home, or to your neighborhood. They're going to go down the same path-- you better remind them to call.
7. You get very old, and then get put in a elderly home. Again, instability, and you probably have to find and make new friends.
A lot about this progression seems relatively normal but are unusual where I'm from.
1. People tend to only join other established groups rather than message individuals.
2. You can only send a hello to someone else and hope they see it or respond back (you can't even look at their profile from the Hangout section). Mostly, they won't respond.
3. Hangouts allows the same person to join as many groups as they want, even though the suggested events are happening at the same time.
4. Just like regular CS events, most people that say they will go often do not show up.
They need to seriously fix all that and develop it into its own app to flesh it out.
If you have pretty generic interests (wine, board games, and cheesecake), perhaps the best thing you can do is join a unitarian universalist church near you. It's all of the social benefits of church without the need to (pretend to) believe in anything specific.
Failing that, you can probably find another reasonable-ish religious community. There's a huge spectrum, and plenty of people do it casually just for the social aspect.
If you want people to be interested in you, be interesting!
During our market research, nearly everyone wanted to meet new friends and liked the idea. However, in practice noone thinks of using an app/website to make friends, and there's no driving motivator like with dating or employment.
We all know it's exciting to meet people serendipitously in person. However, being exposed to lots of profiles online that look similar and tell you everything up front takes the magic away.
Customers said "we want a friend app". You listened to them, you made them what they wanted because they were right.
But once you listen to what your customers are actually doing, you realize where you should be focusing your energy. Because the customer can't use the app "wrong", they'll use it how they use it.
You can even provide your (free-time) schedule for the other person to mark a suggested time to hang out.
Building a social network around local events seems obvious and honestly I am very surprised no one has executed it correctly yet. We have a plan for solving the chicken-and-egg problem by bootstrapping off of the existing event platforms.
Modern society stigmatizes that kind of interaction, don't talk to people you don't know if you don't want to be ostracized. You could want to befriend someone in a crowd, but come up with no good ways to go about the situation. See someone wearing a cool jacket and you decide you want to be their friend > Go up and introduce yourself > See almost every single person in the immediate area turn and spectate the interaction, instantly judging you as out of the ordinary. Really stretching the topic, even getting contact information is more difficult these days. 20 years ago you could meet someone, and they'd have no issue giving out their home telephone number. You'd ring them up and you could schedule to see a movie. Nowadays you are considered suspicious if you ask for someones phone number. I know people today that will absolutely not give out their phone number to anyone other than immediate family.If you are their friend and want to contact them, you have to do it over a social app like IG.
That and it can be hard to find people you fit in with well due to the rise of the internet and people staying inside. If you are a hermit and enjoy other hermits, you won't find them by going outside. Which means you are then stuck with trying to meet people online, and introducing yourself online is even harder than it is in person and met with the same hostility. I'm talking about guy > guy and girl > girl here. It's a whole different level of hell trying to befriend someone of the opposite sex these days. Most people assume you either want something sexual or unusual, not just friendship.
I think this is an underappreciated feature of "grinding": it gives players a great excuse to put in time and build social bonds.
In a way we deeply lacked the level of discussion we get now online, a lot of opinions couldn’t be discuss effectively with neighbours (for better and for worse). I see them as a lot more genuine than any interactions we had before.
Ideally we need both of them, but I think from now on there will always be a split between very personal online interactions and softer “human” interactions IRL.
Chicago is one of the few big cities that is still relatively open to these types of spontaneous interactions.
London on the other hand is not.
Camaraderie is harder, and making jokes others don’t like can be stigmatizing. I wonder if one’s culture of informality is just less assumably universal than it has been in the recent past. I also wonder if living in a city can desensitize you to how exhausting it can be to invest in a social interaction with no clear payoff.
Even 10 or 15 years ago - at the time I had a job that was 100% travel time, and found I could generally bootstrap a decent social life in a new town by just going to the nearest cafe and striking up conversations with neighbors.
Nowadays, though, most people are engrossed in some piece of electronics or other, and seem more inclined to regard attempts at socialization as an interruption.
(not that I disagree the phone as shield makes the problem worse).
It’s a terrible place to live alone when young and single, but that’s not what it’s for.
To replicate the 25 minute commute times that are completely normal across America's car-centric sprawl into a dense and transit-centric area, one has to live in the most central and premium real estate. Great if you can afford it. Most can’t.
We stopped building the sorts of places where you can still get somewhere going at a reasonable speed around the end of WW2, and made it illegal, so it's now very expensive to live in a sensible neighbourhood, there aren't many left. It's a simple supply and demand problem, though not so simple once you attempt to unpack the reasons as to why we have this simple supply and demand problem.
There's a banality to true evil. It's a quirk of human social psychology that when everyone is doing the wrong thing, it stops being the wrong thing. This why rape=bad, and destroying the planet=pretty alright if you ask me.
Typical American suburbia takes density way lower than that. People here seem to value that separation for reasons above and beyond their parking needs. For example, not hearing the neighbors' footsteps through the ceilings or their TVs and family disputes through the walls. Giving each child their own bedroom. Having room for play and gatherings in the backyard. This suggests that, even without cars, we'd still insist on a pretty low densities. (Since it is homeowners in the center who control land use in the center, the frustrations of outer-ring commuters under such an arrangement don't make a difference).
I'm fortunate that I can afford to live in a high-rise district and commute in reasonable time by train and elevator. But even with so many places a short walk from home, it's a big metro area - there are many more I want to go which are not so close. Without a car, I felt isolated and trapped. It's great to have neighborhood businesses, but you get tired of the monotony after a while.
Taking your example of meeting people online. I was on the internet in the late 90s as a teenager and it was incredibly easy and fun to meet people on IRC or ICQ and just chat. Some of those people I even eventually went on to meet in person. There was no motives, no romantic interests, whatever gender people were. Fast forward to now, these things seem unthinkable to do now both for adults and adolescents, safety concerns, predators, etc.
Take real life neighborhoods for example too. Growing up in the 80s and 90s in both Asia and America, when someone rings the door bell, you open the door and see who it is and talk to them. Nowadays this is almost not the norm anymore. In the past 2 years I have been assaulted and robbed as close as a block away from my house. I'm not opening the door to any stranger ringing my door bell, even if 99% of time they are harmless solicitors. There's far too many incidents of people abusing the trust and trying to cause harm when you let them in. I am not risking that.
I don't know what the answers might be to all of this. Is society actually getting more dangerous? Is it just that we're hearing more thanks to more news and internet? Is it overall income inequality in society that causes more crimes to occur? I have no answers to any of these.
A couple years back I knocked on the door of a stranger's house. A man answered it with "what the f*ck do you want?" I replied "the car in your driveway has its lights on." He softened up immediately and thanked me.
Does this actually exist? Could it be that it's become more acceptable for people to be dicks to each other, so why risk it?
I've stopped letting myself be bothered and it's actually done wonders for my social life. And most of them are staring because they wish they could be that open.
Who cares what these people (who are judging you for meeting someone in public) think?
They're very unlikely to be anyone meaningful if they're doing that, since being a good conversationalist is a trait that most successful people possess.
Some will get a sour look and resolutely look away, but many will smile and say something back.
I haven't had a bad experience doing that.
In public people wear headphones while walking, on public transportation, and even in grocery stores.
>Of course when you're a kid, you can be friends with anybody. Remember when you were a little kid what were the qualifications? If someone's in front of my house NOW, That's my friend, they're my friend. That's it. Are you a grown up.? No. Great! Come on in. Jump up and down on my bed. And if you have anything in common at all, You like Cherry Soda? I like Cherry Soda! We'll be best friends!
But I deleted my Facebook (really only social media I had) and I haven't had a hard time meeting new people. Really I'm doing a better job. I think this is more because I'm not using Facebook as a crutch. I used to just say "Oh I'll add you on Facebook" (which ironically is way more invasive than a phone number) and then never message them. We'd both like each other's posts and whatnot but it felt really disingenuous.
But since I haven't had that crutch it actually makes me work and focus on building real relationships. This even includes plutonic relationships with the opposite sex.
I'm not saying go out and delete your Facebook and other social media (at least for this reason), but that a lot of us just rely on it as a crutch and real relationships require work. I just think social media makes it easier to be a hermit and kind of tricks you into thinking you are building relationships when you aren't. I often here "I'd delete my Facebook but there are so many people that's the only way I can keep in contact with them." Liking somebody's status and photos isn't keeping in touch nor is it relationship building. But I think most people think treat those actions as if they were.
And I feel like now because of this people think it is weird to talk to someone they haven't talked to in even a few weeks. Hell, I'm okay if I haven't talked to someone in a few years. Life is busy. Life is strange. It is okay to not have to keep in constant and instant contact with people. And I think we forget this because we have technology that no longer makes this the norm. Because in the past instant and constant contact with someone meant you lived with them or extremely near them.
tldr: Relationships take work
What happens on Pluto stays on Pluto, right?
(This is my favorite autocorrect mistake of the week. Thanks for catching it)
I lived in the midwest. The town sizes ranged from 3000 to around 50k. I've never really had more than 2-3 friends at once, and sometimes didn't have that. My ex wound up with schizophrenia, but that's another story altogether.
I started being lonely at 10 or 11. That's only gone away in the last 6-10 years. Regular internet meant I've met folks I can simply be myself with. I moved - across an ocean - to be with one of those folks. I'm rarely lonely anymore, even with the internet. Even with the language barrier. Even with my weirdness.
For the first time in my life, here I feel like I kinda belong, and it is a mix of offline and online stuff. I'm even in a country that is "difficult" for folks to make friends with - or at least they say it is. On the other hand, it actually fits my personality better.
I don't find it hard to talk to folks online. Male or female (I tend to have more male friends than female, and don't care about the distinction. My male spouse is the opposite). sure, some folks are simply there to flirt, but I can shut them down pretty quickly.
Asking the "wrong" people out in middle school ('90s) sure was a fast track to being an outcast. Paradoxically, the rising positive presence of LGBTQ+ people in media in the '90s made things worse. People were on the lookout for us!
I don't know if it was worse than the '80s where our presence in the media was almost universally negative.
Later, I found Twitter, and met a friend (also bi) who had lived mere miles away all my life. We probably never would have met without the internet. Having backup when we hang out has actually made me more social because I'm not worried about being alone up against a crowd who decides it's time to make an example of someone.
You sound like you guys are half joking, but then, not really. So I can't tell.
If it is that bad, I guess people can be bigger arse-holes than I thought.
And that's with me being white and having the ability to pass as an ordinary dude most of the time. Trans women (especially of color) die every day, and that's just the ones who get reported on. Just as many get treated as "brawls gone wrong" or "tragic suicides" because their family didn't accept them and give correct information in the obituary.
There are more cisgender and heterosexual people willing to stand up against it, but that mainly helps when it comes to policy. It doesn't help much with the day to day for most.
edit: I do appreciate you asking. Way too many people assume things are fine now because there's gay people on TV, or some other arbitrary metric. There's still a long way to go.
It was weirdly easier being in a mixed "race" relationship back then. I got harassed by cops at times, slurs when out in public, and remember churches stating it was against god. But at least everyone didn't avoid me.
It was pretty normal to be minimally ignored and still find that I'm cautious of who I tell - women sometimes avoid me and men will sometimes make me an object. I truly think gay men have it worse simply because men are more likely to get beaten up by some groups. I think that it sometimes depends on where folks live as well on the severity of it all now.
Edit: I just came back to say thank you so much for asking about it :)
It's weird we are told not to trust anyone online but for some reason started using our real names/address/geotagging our events publically.
I agree there's some truth to this. But even more so think it's simply a lost art. Why strike up a cheap quick chat when all you have to do is stare at your device.
I'm old school (read: over 50 y/o white male) and I interact with people all the time. But it a skill to read someone and ideally make them laugh / smile.
I think you also have to have a certain amount of empathy (which I feel most ppl lack). "Hey. Nice shoes." or "I like you jacket" goes a long way. But that's more than clicking an icon. And it means you're taking a __small__ risk to engage someone else instead of waiting to have your own ego stroked.
I'm old, and I was instantly very suspicious this was some sort of scam, or she had a partner that was going to rob me, or whatever. I couldn't believe she was just trying to be nice.
She talked with me for a while, and was not put off by my suspiciousness. Eventually I agreed to the hug, and it was very nice, and then she left. That was it. She didn't want anything from me, she just wanted to give.
It's a unique experience in my life. And a much appreciated one.
I take public transit a lot and I always see people start random conversations with strangers over little things. People usually don't even respond too badly to the crazy people who talk to everyone. Unless they're being rude or agressive the worst reaction I tend to see is people politely ignoring people like that.
I also have random people come up and talk to me fairly regularly, i've had some great conversations with random people i've met.
My dad gave me a piece of advice he got from a friend of his when he was young about interacting with people in public. It helps to remember most people are just as nervous and afraid of you as you are of them, but at the same time, most people are looking for someone to talk to.
Paying attention to people's body language and reactions helps. If you pay attention you can usually tell the difference between someone who's nervous and someone who just doesn't want to talk.
People really aren't so bad. You gotta remember humans are social animals interacting with eachother is something we naturally do. Today's society may make it difficult, but those drives for human companionship are there.
I would also add that the whole minefield of communicating with someone of the opposite sex, especially if you are a man. It seems that you have a high risk of being called up for harassment if you want to start a friendly conversation with a female as a male for example. This is a direct consequence of the whole metoo thing.
Over the last 15 years, society has been more and more strict into defining what is an acceptable social behavior. You are supposed to stay in your lane and not talk to anyone basically, except in accepted places like a bar, sometimes.
I think in 20 years nobody will talk openly on the streets. All the interactions will take place in well defined "apps" or in defined places like a bar. Everything outside that will be looked down as weird.
This is already half happening with dating. You have a higher risk of creating an incident in real life so everyone is now using well defined dating apps with a well defined flow and a well defined experience.
The world is becoming more and more tasteless. Everything has to take place into well defined boundaries.
I work in tech and some of my male coworkers privately tell me that they avoid talking to womens they don't know at networking events or at conferences because of the way it might be interpreted nowadays.
I also think that it's easy to get sucked into circle-jerks that promote and exaggerate these fears of being accused of harassment. As long as you're considerate and respectful, no reasonable person would think you're harassing them. There are always unreasonable people, that shouldn't divide us into men vs women, into groups that fear interacting with each other.
To counter that, I try to keep up with the local sports, as a base for small talk.
Also I think it's a personal thing but I don't even try to make contact with anyone because of the whole climate of our society. Obviously it's divided and that's really bad on its own but I think about things like mansplaining. Basically you are reminded everywhere how bad it is and I agree on that but as an anxious person it makes even more less willing to make contact because I always have that thought of what if you are a doing something wrong, you will be accused of something etc.
Yeah reading back my comment doesnt really make any sense but... I feel that some people, some of us just meant to be forever alone for good or bad
At the time of 25, I just learned to drive and had my first beater 15-year-old car. I made lots of great friends when giving rides to Wal-mart to friends who are fellow international graduate students on that shitty car. I just made up bullshit reasons for me to go to Wal-mart every weekend and asked them if they want to tag along. Many were too shy to bother others, and would totally appreciate someone who would offer them a ride. I sort of became the go-to person when people needed a ride (friendship came with a cost, who would have guessed right?). One day, I was asked to give a student a ride from the airport two hours away because she couldn't ask anyone else to help. We became good friends after the ride I gave her and we developed a great relationship two years after.
There is a lot of stuff like that you can do to help others and maybe help yourself. You can volunteer in a place if you don't know where to begin. When you find yourself to be useful and kind to others, oh strangely, people will see that too.
>less willing to make contact because I always have that thought of what if you are a doing something wrong, you will be accused of something etc.
While some people are a pain in the ass, you will find most to be friendly and understanding when you're genuine. Don't be afraid of stories you read online of judgments and lawsuits. I found myself in a strange situation when I just had nothing to lose and I did many things against the advice to protect myself from being vulnerable and potentially receiving the short end of the stick. I have turned my life around doing just that. While I did indeed occasionally receive the short end of the stick, I have gained so many great friends and stories that totally made it worth it.
I do think a backlash is already underway against Facebook, at least. This is a step in the right direction, as social media seems to intensity loneliness. The internet can be a tool for community-building -- I see other comments mentioning meetup.com, and I've met many people through Twitter and other online social channels -- but none of the solutions (by my estimation) seem quite there yet in terms of helping people find groups that might suit them and providing a means for keeping people together long-term.
I actually think the most important solutions rest primarily in land use. The "new urbanism" ideas of walkability and mixed-use buildings seem to encourage more casual interactions (which ultimately becomes deeper interaction over time) as people live their lives. On the other hand, I live in Manhattan and I'm still lonely. It's hard to say what will work.
I guess that's not really coordinated social change, but I think tweaks to the context in which we live can have huge, positive social impacts.
"Redesigning neighborhoods to be walkable." Full stop.
In my opinion this includes /planning/ for Parking to have it's own space, preferably /under/ everything. (You don't have to dig down, it's an option build up to begin with!)
Also, relegate /any/ smoking to only designated shelters with negative draw and scrubbed exhausts. It should be a 1 day's pay fine + 4 days of community service for a violation.
Watch this as many times as you need to.
In the nineteenth century, teenagers were trekking across the continent with young wives and children in tow. Look at where we have arrived: mewling man-children.
Go join the Marines.
Considering the health issues caused by loneliness, it makes sense to me that doctors would want to do something about it, and what can they do but provide medical solutions?
Imagine if workers had actual careers, that didn't bounce them from city to city (unless they wanted to relocate).
How about if housing had minimum codes that encouraged actual privacy. (Such as being able to take a shower or do the dishes at 2AM without anyone around you hearing anything; also to doing them at 10PM without waking morning people and at 8AM without waking night people.)
Also if 'rent control' / housing cost control meant that if the market were over a given price more housing would be built in that market to drive the price down properly.
Housing also should not be an investment, that encourages poor behavior in all sorts of ways.
I don't have kids, and while I don't have a ton of friends, I'm lucky to have some good, close friends, who I don't (imo) have enough time for and don't get to see enough.
This one is kind of easy. I work A LOT too, but when I’m not, I’m also not: 1. Sitting at the computer, 2. Watching TV/Netflix, 3. Buried in my phone playing Candy Crush
A lot of things I used to say I couldn’t do, I started doing—purely by turning off the screens.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Average_annual_ho...
The construction workers should become destruction workers driven by supply side regulations aimed at keeping the price of housing 'stable' by encouraging the retirement of the lesser quality housing and the conversion of those areas to more socially productive uses. (Maybe parks, nature, or buildings more suitable to society's needs.)
Fast forward through an early highschool graduation, and taking most college classes online: I have no idea how on Earth I am to socialize with people in the real world.
I quit and deactivated Facebook in January, and since I have felt so truly alone. Each day I ride an uber to my dev job, work mostly by myself, then ride back to my apartment. I speak with my coworkers, but all business, and rarely speak with the drivers because it feels so awkward and strange.
To me, it feels like it's going to get worse. I am personally upset that my abilities to connect with other people my age feels so stunted because of the Web. And now, kids in this school district use smartphones in 6th grade.
A lot of this is likely bias, my mental health is really suffering, and I've bounced in and out of therapy for awhile. So take it with a grain of salt.
If you decide to not do something just because it feels strange, you will limit your growth in many ways.
Everything you haven't done very often feels strange.
Step out of your so-called comfort zone, make that a habit.
I am reasonably good at pushing myself at other things, like my career or learning new things. I just need to take that step with my social anxiety as well.
I've long suspected that Facebook serves a beneficial function for lonely singles, a way to socialize without having a partner or IRL friends. As a short term fix against loneliness I think that's great. That said, constant Facebooking can also get in the way of getting to know and keeping friends IRL.
Sounds to me you are poised to explore the big and growing world of people who prefer face-to-face relationships, i.e. the kind of relationships that matters most. Hang in there.
Some regions are worse - the PNW is notoriously bad regarding this.
My suggestion is to find a hobby - any hobby that doesn't seem gross and is within your means and personality - and take a class, then branch out regarding social groups from there.
oh yes - to you (& any other people reading this) - if you ever stop by Seattle, I'm always open for lunch downtown during the work week - and I love meeting Strangers From The Internet. We often have more in common than randos on the street. :)
I used to have major struggles like this when I was younger. I think people like us are very much in our own heads, maybe too much. Sometimes it's good for us to just jump out there and socialize. Sometimes all it takes is to pretend to be outgoing for 2 hours at a time. Go to a conference for work, or play sports at the gym, whatever. Of course it's a challenge every time, and I'm oversimplifying (I'm definitely no mental health professional). It took me years -- decades really -- to get more comfortable being outgoing. But a life lived with good relationships is truly a more fulfilling life.
Progress in this area often happens by way of other activities, because it's just less initially awkward, and people have things in common. Do you like sports? Join a softball team. Music? Take lessons, and play shows and meet people. Go to the same restaurant regularly and get to know the staff. Volunteer and help others. Join a church or an organization with people that share your beliefs. Have conversations with people you come across -- take interest in the Uber drivers' lives, and you'll quickly become their favorite customer. Once you have good connections with a group of people, before you know it you'll start meeting their friends, and so on, and eventually you'll have your own group of buddies that you'll see around town.
Also, you're connecting with others on Hacker News, which is something. I think you might have more of a knack for this than you realize. I would say to do what you're doing here -- people don't have enough conversations in the real world, so people that do so stand out as being friendly.
It hurts me to hear of other people going through what I went through and still do from time to time. But if I could boil what I've learned down to one piece of advice, I would say, show others that you care about them. They're very likely going through struggles similar to what you are experiencing.
Every person in our lives is a gift, and it's easy for all of us to forget this.
Wishing you the best!
I'll start working to implement some of these practices in my life. Finding a good organization sounds like a great idea and something I need to just do.
There's a makerspace a few blocks from my work. I think it's time to email them about membership!
Online social interactions are plentiful and easy and often don't as quickly or sharply trigger social anxiety. But they are a toxic replacement if you don't get any real interaction with your fellow humans.
Let's start with how kids grow up here since I think it affects their social life later in life. American parents are protective. Most kids, even in middle school, have very structured schedule where time with friends is usually not a priority like academics. Playdates are usually organized by the parents and they are usually short and not spontaneous. Kids who don't live in walkable urban areas with good public transit usually depend on their parents to drive them around to friends. I heard that in rural and poor areas it's even worse. People never go to each other house, instead they only meet at the Church.
Now let's talk about American adults. Americans seem to love communities. They are pretty involved in their communities which is great. However, they usually stay away from forming deep relationships and exposing themselves. Sometimes it feels like they don't want to be a burden on somebody else. Not sure exactly how to explain it. My impression is that many Americans have friends but usually not very close friends (at least based on my definition of close). Maybe the size of the country and the fact the people move often is also a factor.
My wife and I had this discussion the other day. Messaging or posting on FB or whatever is very flat. There's no depth to it at all. It doesn't replace hearing a loved one's voice or looking into their eyes or hugging them or even having a meal with them. When you go and you visit them and you see them, you realize how much you're missing and, yeah, it feels very isolating to realize that. Social media is a facade.
It's not like I touch my friends much when we're meeting up IRL anyway, and voice is more comfortable to me than being on video (or being visible irl), as I don't have to think about how I carry myself.
Tons of gamers do this and I don't think many of them are in the "lonely" camp. I'm not sure why voice channels haven't seen wider adoption outside of gaming.
When she finally decided to dump me, she did it by text, and refused to meet in person or even talk on the phone about it.
There used to be a time when constantly looking at a smartphone was the odd one out. Now it's the reverse.
Edit: not that I'm against it. I've had a very friendly chat with people in a mechanic's waiting room. It's just vanishingly rare.
At least for me I find it a bit more difficult to approach someone if I think they’re listening to something or on a call.
If you're going to make a hypothesis that A leads to B then you should at other countries that also have A (in this case, lots of smart phones and internet) and see if they also have B (in this case loneliness). That doesn't seem to be the case, certainly not anywhere near the rate in the US.
This basic practice refutes a really large percent of unfounded views, and so is really a good habit to get into when looking to explain things.
But, check this out...
Everyone misses that. All you have to do is initiate the conversation.
A few days ago I had a 30 minute discussion with a random dude on Swedish death metal bands because he happened to be playing a song from a band I know while I walked past his house. I've been walking for 5 years and this hasn't happened once, so I had stop and say something.
Every time I take the 90min train ride into the city I usually end up talking to someone for most of the way. I'm not a good conversationalist either or some super extroverted person. I'm just bored sitting on the train, and other people are too (even if they are flipping through their twitter feed).
It's prime pickings to start conversations because everyone is so deprived of it.
It's kinda like how one has to be careful measuring people interviewing for jobs, since someone who interviews poorly will spend many interviews before being hired but someone who interviews well will only do a few (on average). So measuring the average ability of the candidate in interviews will be worse than the average ability of people who have been interviewed.
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/19/594719471/guys-we-have-a-prob....
Another thing I've noticed is how many urban women get their exercise from "classes": barre, yoga, pilates, "orange theory", etc. Go into one of these and you probably won't see a single male there.
Yoga and pilates attracts mostly women, but they won't kick out males either (as in, I seen guys there, but like 1-2 for full class of women).
When I thought about it afterwards, maybe the mistake is to treat your socialization strategy as something inflexible "I do it that way" instead it is set of skills, habits and decisions that can be learned and tested.
Now, whenever you go to jury duty and there's a waiting period of some sort, everyone is of course on their smartphones. The reason for this isn't just for the fact that there might be more interesting things happening on the web than in the quiet courtroom, but instead it's because the smartphone generation can "hang out" with people exactly like them 24/7. To me it seems like a cold optimization of your social graph aided by technology. It does some wonders for loneliness (it's amazing that I can hang out with my friends anywhere in the world at any time and they all have the same interests as me), but it's also causing a lot of deep societal problems. Echo chambers, de-emphasis on local affairs, an ever-widening gap of political viewpoints, and a horrible "grass is always greener" psychological effect.
http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/09/43-loneliest-number-youll...
Journalists (like David Brooks in the New York Times) are getting it very wrong as well:
http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/16/no-no-epidemic-loneliness...
Think about it. In the olden days, if you went to college or moved to a new, somewhat distant town or country, that was it for your current social life. You lost contact with your existing friends, and you had to find new friends at the new location in order to not be lonely again.
That lack of communication forced you to meet new people on a regular basis, and likely made college/university a good place for it for so many young people. After all, you couldn't talk to your hometown friends as easily now, and your family was cut off too. You had to meet new people.
Smartphones and social media sites and other such things make it so you can easily keep up with the people you already know, and spend all your free time talking to those you're already in contact with. The need for finding new crowds has basically died.
I remember clearly a time in my life when I was very lonely and having a lot of trouble meeting people. Eventually, I crafted a theory that most of the people in my environment secretly did not want to meet anyone. This was either because they already had busy lives or they just didn't need to know yet another person who was just like them.
Shortly thereafter, I went back to university and encountered a lot of exchange students who were perhaps legitimately in need of friends and perhaps also coming from cultures which tended to be much less closed off to casual friendliness. This fixed the loneliness problem for me very quickly. Of course, it must also be acknowledged that the environment in university tends to facilitate social activity.
EDIT: going to "manage your subscriptions" presents you with a login page, so no danger.
Luckily it asked for a login when I went to the profile.
Looks like the original URL came from a daily briefing email.
You know how people speak up more if you say something wrong, than if you ask for the right answer? Well, what if people were more likely to make accounts, if we made them think they already had an account called "Pam"?
...brilliant!
Our smartphones, tablets, headphones definitely make us less approachable. But our attitudes towards work is also to blame. There is this culture of being busy in NYC all the time, it's almost as if people take pride in it. This probably shows in our body language too.
I feel especially alone on crowded trains. Everybody is staring at their phones or trying really hard to not make eye contact. No wonder a lot of out-of-towners feel NYC is an intimidating place and the people are rude.
Going by old movies at least, it seems like pre-information-age, you'd expect to see far more social interaction in a setting like that.
We took the subway and the bus, walked here and there, looked lost every now and then... people offered to help periodically, happily chatted on the subway... it was extremely impressive and we definitely would be up for living there sometime just based on how nice people were. There was a no-bs attitude which was refreshing, but they were also kind to the derpy tourists we were, in ways I'd never expect in Seattle.
I would choose this answer but wouldn't say I'm lonely. 46% is no surprise. What percentage responded usually/always lonely?
What is significant are the othet equivalent health risks.
One can be alone by choice and actually like it. “Lonely” connotates depression resulting from being alone.
Perhaps, but it may also help that person realize there are normal people in real life who don't share those ideas, despite being told that anyone they disagree with is a horrible person.
The bottom line is you cannot use logic to convince people their religious beliefs are wrong. Most rational people already know this about religions and religious people, the problem is they don't realize that right-wing politics (or any extremist politics for that matter) is also a religion.
Now before you try to argue that this only applies to the extremists, the problem in this country is that the entire right wing in this country is extremist. The only non-extremist position in this country is the mainstream Democratic party, which is basically center-right. The Republicans have gone full-on hard-right, so there's just no reasoning with anyone that buys into that stuff.
You can, but only if they are peripheral rather than fundamental beliefs, and your chain of logic starts with their fundamental beliefs. Well, at least as much as you can use logic to convince anyone of anything.
The problem (well, a problem) is that you can't easily discern, from the outside, a peripheral belief that depends on fundamental beliefs from a fundamental belief which is rationalized in terms of other fundamental beliefs (though circularity of support between beliefs is a pretty good sign that all are fundamental and the support is mere rationalization.)
There were 62,984,828 "deplorables" that voted for Trump in the last election. You're willing to paint with such a broad brush that you shun the 46.1% of the country who voted for Trump?
TL;DR: exit the media circuses and connect on a human level.
/grump
How is that the case?
18-to-22 seems like the easiest stage of adult life to make and keep friends.
These are the youngest adults. They go out regularly, meet each other in public venues like clubs and bars, they're often actively dating, especially now with the ubiquity of apps like Tinder.
Add to that the fact that they generally either just graduated highschool, or are attending college. College is probably the easiest place to make friends: you spend your entire life there with people your age who are intellectually compatible with you.
I don't know how they did that survey, but in my experience 18-22 year olds tend to have the most friends and active social lives of all adult ages.
Now, compare that to professionals who often have to relocate for work, and find themselves in a new location where they know nobody. There aren't really many social facilities to help these people make new friends.
So I really don't know how they arrived at the conclusion that 18-22s are the loneliest ages. The older people I know, especially in their 30s and 40s, are more prone to social isolation in every respect.
When I left college and started meeting young professionals, they seemed far more lonely than college students. Then when I started meeting older people in their 30s, they seemed lonelier still. Now the loneliest people I know are singles in their 40s.
The only exception seems to be that often people in their 30s get married, and then they typically seem less lonely, at least while the marriage is working.
For singles, though, there seems to be simple linear correlation between age and loneliness. So I'm sure when I get to know people in their 50s and 60s, they'll be even lonelier than the 40 year old singles I know now.
I'm very interested in the reasons for this, though. Loss of community structures without replacements? (Wider spread families for work, not going to church...)
And if you have to leave this behind getting the same level of social connection can be tough. Also some people are extremely friendly by nature, they love being around people and can engage easily, others are more reserved. Work colleagues are usually in a weird space, not strangers but not really friends.
Maybe human beings work best in known and close knit communities not urban alienated environments, clearly a lot of our happiness derives from social contexts, and we need that level of connectivity, interaction and support. Sometimes you want to be alone, but the rest of the time you want to be with people who love and care for you. Without it life becomes a bit empty and alienation becomes 'normal'.
I define my past loneliness as: Negative feelings, fed by:
- feeling bad in the first instance
- feeling powerless to improve my state
- feeling that others could improve my state, if only they would show sufficient interest in me
Gaining power to work on why I was feeling bad in the first instance (through health and lifestyle interventions) has had several effects over the years:
- it has improved my state so that I mostly feel good
- it has taught me many valuable things to share with others
The social aspect of my life has radically changed:
- I feel less dependent on others to feel good
- I have many things to share with others and enjoy sharing it
- My attitude and knowledge attracts others
- I am mentally/emotionally stable enough to withstand the ambiguities and stresses that relationships tend to give rise to
I don't claim to have solved loneliness, but I have solved my loneliness and I hope some will be helped by this insight.
The genius is Paul Jaminet. Check out his work if you think you might benefit. I've also benefited from paying attention to the blogs of Chris Kresser, Mark Sisson, and Scott Alexander (his health-related posts of course). Google Scholar and Sci-Hub get huge credit too.
Loneliness eventually becomes a motivator to find ways to stop being lonely. Usually that means improving yourself and coming to terms with some of your own faults so that you can stop being lonely. Sometimes it means being nicer to people. Sometimes it means making yourself get up the courage to go talk to that girl over there. Sometimes it means trying to get in better shape.
There are a lot of side effects from it, but you have to decide you are going to fix it and sometimes that means being lonely enough for it to no longer be tolerable.
In previous eras, simple proximity counted for something. Now, it doesn't matter and is even a negative with all the drama around workplace dating for example.
I was very popular in high school, and I have far, far fewer friends today, but I'm less lonely because of the level of my friendships - to use my self as an example.
Check us out on www.ayudacare.com if you are interested in what we're about.
> Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
Vs the actual result of the study:
> 46% of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone
I would have thought everyone feels lonely sometimes and I'm more suprised it is not higher. The title is clickbate.
It's away to have a brief moment of QT with someone. Taking it a step further, I wonder how much __good__ bacteria used to be exchanged between smokers, that also doesn't happen anymore.
I think for all it’s merits, we’ve gotta get people offline and engaging with each other in the real world. We’ve gotta get people out of their thought bubbles too, but I have no idea how to accomplish that. Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would probably help.
Right now people are just alone and grumbling, but give it another ten years and you will see this morph into alcoholism and/or drug abuse. Only a very few will be happy in a society where every interaction is a dick-measuring contest or chance to argue.
It's not too late to move to a hick town, find a spouse, pop out some kids and go to church/temple/mosque (no one gives a shit if you actually believe, it's about being around your neighbors). You will probably end up doing just as well financially as tech workers in SF who are doomed to be lifelong renters. You will definitely be happier.
Have you looked at rates of alcohol and opiate abuse recently? It's already happening.
Everything is better except for the light pollution.
they should be hunted down and killed
these worthless fucks will piss and shit on anything