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Comment by mooreds | Hacker News Reader

Wholeheartedly agree with both the nominal and underlying advice here.

Doing the right thing all the time is painful, tedious and can cost you. But doing the wrong thing will cost you too. Both compound.

The literal advice about going to the funeral is about showing up for people who meant something to you. There are only a few special times in your life when you get to see a large chunk of other people's important people:

* graduations

* coming of age ceremonies

* weddings

* funerals

Being there gives you a special chance to know the person better. Just do it.

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> Just do it.

I've tried, man. I'm deeply uncomfortable in social situations, and events with lots of wacky, nonsense traditions and rules that I don't understand makes things exponentially worse. Going to events like weddings and graduations makes me utterly miserable. I feel like shit for days before & afterwards, and I always regret going for months & years afterwards. I guess there's a chance someone there is glad I'm off being miserable in a corner, but I doubt it. So I've mostly stopped going to these things.

I'd love too but a crowd -even mostly loved ones- is for some the hardest way to engage with others. Last weddings I tried to attempt were disasters. Funerals are obviously easier as no/weirdly-interacting is accepted so at least there's less self esteem to loose. I feel the more confortable in one or one to one, three is already to much possible micro-ostracisms to deal with.

To end with a lighter note loosely related, a funny citation of the marshal Foch:

> "An assembly must have an odd number of members in order to make a decision, but three is already too many."

"other people's important people" is a very astute phrase - one has to see the value in that concept in order to understand the deceased's survivors that you think you already know. I've been to a few events where some folks were flabbergasted to discover different fresh aspects of the deceased - "what the...? He/she was tight with that crowd?!"

I wonder how many people have lived a secret side of their life and finally get outed at their funeral, to the shock of the people who only knew one side.

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