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Comment by stuaxo | Hacker News Reader

It's possible to have friends outside of work - I reckon for most people their closest friends are no their work friends.

We can socialise more with our actual friends.

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I knew this argument would come haha! And realistically, how often do you do it? And how do you feel, having a day without any real social interaction? How about on a bigger scale? This can only be detrimental. How do you meet and make friends? How do you meet potential partners? The office always played a big role in that.

/edit: let me add, a big topic is disconnection, how dating apps destroy dating, how we don't have enough friends, how mental health deteriorates due to apps and lacking social skills. and then we want to stop going to a social outlet and stay home all day? seems obvious to me that this development is really a big problem.

> How do you meet and make friends?

It's impossible to make friends in London tube, almost impossible but rarely doable on regular bus routes, but definitely not at peak hours. Nobody misses commuting in London.

> How do you meet potential partners? The office always played a big role in that.

Let's not pretend, under the currently propagated safe space policies you can get fired and accused of abuse the next day after your timid demonstration of romantic sympathy towards someone at your workplace.

That’s extremely rare unless there’s a power differential. And even then, most places have proper HR declarations which protect all parties.

Is there a power differential between a junior engineer and a senior engineer? If you say yes, then I don't understand the original proposition here: are you only allowed to "appropriately" socialise and find partners at your workplace (as suggested by the OP) among the same rank individuals as yourself?

I was talking more about coworkers, not the commute. But still, I even have the feeling that commuting shows me different faces every day. That's not quality interaction, but social interaction after all.

> Let's not pretend, under the currently propagated safe space policies you can get fired and accused of abuse the next day after your timid demonstration of romantic sympathy towards someone at your workplace.

I never had any contacts with workplaces like that and I encourage you to either check if your behaviour might indeed be inappropriate or switch workplaces. Sure, you have to make sure everybody feels safe as a company. But if you're not a creep, relationships develop automatically.

> I encourage you to either check if your behaviour might indeed be inappropriate or switch workplaces.

Inappropriate according to what standard? See, that's the problem with your social interactions at a workplace: you assume everone is following and is in agreement with the modern western ideas about "proper" social interactions at office. One step beyond the invisible line of your assumptions due to our potential cultural differences, and I find myself having a talk with HR. What for? I'd rather stay at home and work in exchange for money and make it purely transactional, and then socialise with the people who won't punish me reputationally and financially for our cultural differences.

Try making friends outside of work when you get older. It's hard. Really hard. It takes on average 200 hours of interaction for people to become "good friends". As an introverted, very private person, I would say that's an order of magnitude too low. They closed our office and our entire department is WFH. Some people have left for conventional office jobs, but some of us have thrived in the zoom/teams culture. I'd rather quit than go back to the office, personally. Though I understand it's not for everyone.

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