Hacker News Reader

Comment by einrealist | Hacker News Reader

For you, life cannot wait. Please go out and make contacts. Be welcoming to people. Fall in love.

I wonder how my life would have turned out differently. I am a nerd. I am an introvert. I am single. Mostly, I am enjoying it. Sometimes - and increasingly more often - I am questioning it. I have baggage. Was visiting my (younger) sister's grave today. She had baggage with a sad outcome. I am thinking more about my existence.

I wish this world would be a more kind place. And I am praising anyone who is contributing to that. Try to be a contributor.

View on HN

Did we read the same article? This was about microbes and space exploration.

Maybe OP didn’t read the article, but often the title of the article is more interesting to HN than the article itself, which may be the case in this instance given it’s (currently) the top-voted comment.

(As a side note, I wish titles were more fitting to the article, vs. trying to bait clicks with catchy titles that often suggest a different topic.)

What would a better title have been, on a substack that is exclusively about space exploration?

"Hey lonely HN nerds, wipe the tear from your eye and come read about microbe survival times in salt, permafrost, and open space"? Something else? I'm open to suggestions.

Perhaps a good solution in this case would be to add something to the HN title, say (to borrow a suggestion from the author): "How long can life wait? (microbe survival times in salt, permafrost, and open space)".

I'm not thrilled with this kind of clickbait-y title, but when you're subscribed to the blog, you know what it's likely to be about and ignore that, and the problem only appears here when this context is lost.

I wish there were a handbook for single introverts in their 30s who feel like that ship sailed a long time ago.

I believe there are millions of them?

But not sure how helpful they are.

My advice is, go dancing. Learn to enjoy your body and how to move it freely for fun, then you will find a likeminded body to enjoy together. But depending where you life, finding a good place to dance with nice people and not just drunk idiots can be a bit harder unfortunately.

I recommend being entombed in salt

LOL, this obsession people have with dancing. This is horrible advice. Find a club or social scene doing something you like, don't pick up a random hobby you don't like just to "meet people".

I just share how I successfully meet and connect with women.

Dancing is the language of the body. I don't like small talk and am probably a introvert, but by dancing - connection comes easy and natural to me (at the right place).

Besides, the village dance was the traditional way for couples to hook up. And before that, there was the tribal drum.

That's great, I met my partner at the gym, doing something I like and consequently became good at.

Sounds like you like dancing. Congratulations and I'm happy you met someone doing something you like. That's a good strategy.

As far as village dance blah blah, people absolutely meet at parties, lots of people also dance at parties, correlation is not causation.

"As far as village dance blah blah, people absolutely meet at parties, lots of people also dance at parties, correlation is not causation."

Maybe do some more casual science on social history?

But you surely can meet partners however you like and not everyone needs to love dancing, but the "obsession" people have with it simply goes back a looong way.

And aside, I actually do claim anyone who is not physically handycapped, very likely enjoys dancing if introduced to it in a easy way (look at how most children behave if you give them a rhytm), most grownups nowdays just associate it with awkward social situations, which I think is sad. I know some fellow nerds of mine, forever single, forever avoiding all situations where they would meed potential partners.

Lifting weights is a way to show physical dominance. Physically dominant men provide security and safety to women meaning they will be seen as the best mates. Throughout history the most physically dominant men had the most sexual success. Therefore I recommend you don't dance and lift weights instead.

See how fucking annoying and dumb this bro science is. Dancing is nothing special, just happens to be a social activity YOU like and I agree a lot of women like it. But the advice to "learn to like dancing" if you don't is bad.

Not sure how open you are challenging your perspective. Because in some ways, yes lifting weights does work for a certain subset of women.

But if you take the dominance angle, dancing works better here. Because it shows dexterty, moving along with other people .. and self confidence in a social setting. Knowing how to dance through life. Not awkwardly stand aside. And lifting weights (on its own) is just a indicator of muscle mass, not muscles in combination with brain, which is evolutionary much better. Otherwise we all would have evolved as big bulls.

Literally no one said "learn to like dancing", you're just being a gym cunt on the internet.

Perhaps they are. But personal attacks are against site rules. Don't post like that here.

You've been on HN long enough to know this.

I met my wife during climbing. Many girlfriends before due to organizing climbing sessions for various folks. Go climbing. Its just natural movement, sort of like vertical ballet on the wall, feels absolutely great, one does semi-continuously builds massive mental resilience to everything in life, since looking in the face of your death and coming out on top, multiple times an evening, many evenings, builds character like very few other endeavors. People you meet in community are often very inspiring. Its also high intensity interval training for upper body.

And then you try climbing outdoors on rocks big and small and thats it, people quit their careers and do vans/camping for rest of their lives just to do climbing (plus connected sports, there are many).

Can be many other activities, dancing ain't more special than many others. I'll stick with my climbing, you with your dance. Everybody wins.

Oh, dancing with rocks is advisable as well and I also enjoy it very much.

Dancing is good advice because you have a good mix of genders and it's something you can grow to love over time. It's also a great community that's fairly welcoming once you start going regularly. Take a class and you automatically have a social group of other beginners.

The problem with nerds finding a social scene for what they already enjoy doing already is that there's a very good chance it's going to be a male-dominated activity. Going to a tech meetup or a board game night is a decent way to make friends, but not so much a mate.

Triathlon clubs are another great place to meet people. My club has has 8 weddings this year from people who met training. Turns out chatting over an 80 mile bike ride is a great way to get to know someone.

Here's a handbook excerpt...

Time seems to go faster, the older you are. When 5, a day lasts enormously, a month forever away.

When 30, a day is still noticeable. When 50, a day flies past. When 70? A week vanishes so very quickly.

A bitter truth of age, is the older you get, the less time you have left? Well, the faster that time seems to move to you. It's as if the more you try to hold on, the faster it goes away.

There are ways to improve this. New experience is one. Doing the same thing every day, with no challenge or change, just makes life fly by.

You can be an introvert and still experience loads of new and of change. Trust me on this. And as a geeky introvert, you have a mind to learn daily, and more importantly, learn different things, not just tech.

But I guess what I'm saying is, do indeed "live more", but do it as you. Don't let these weirdo extroverts make you dance to their tune.

To use the language of relativity, each person's internal "clock" seems to slow down as they get older.

Everyday is a new day. Start today. Thank your previous self for getting you here. For making you question past decisions. Change. Take a risk.

Besides activity, another advice would be mindset.

As in, are you ready to meet your dream partner today and invite him to your home?

No? Not ready? Place is a mess and you are not really comfortable opening up in the first place right now?

Then this would be something one can work on.

Does not mean your place needs to be always perfect and a date does not have to start by inviting someone in. But are you actually ready for it?

What is it, that you really want?

While I was single for a long time, I was neither clear nor prepared for a partner, yet yearning for one. That did not work. I had some growing up to do first.

In all ernest honesty, ChatGPT's not the worst at that.

handbook for single introverts in their 30s who feel like that ship sailed a long time ago.

https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6aefa63600608191ba730f78533db177

Here's the most important thing (if I may say so myself :) ):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50408802

The ship hasn't sailed at all. You're mid-20s are gone, of course, but don't waste your 30s worrying about your 20s; fully embrace this moment and this phase of life (not that phases are so tightly tied to age), even the sad parts.

I'm something of the opposite. Very introverted, moved to a very extroverted American city (which one isn't) in my 20s for work and excitement. I pushed myself - dates, meetups, social stuff. Never cold approaches but now if you'd met me you'd think me an extrovert. I'm not, because people stress and exhaust me, but I hide it.

In my 20s and early 30s whenever I left the city sometimes on the weekends, I'd feel this FOMO like I'm missing something fun.

Something changed as I got older. I think around the pandemic. When I was in the city on a beautiful day, I felt this sad feeling like I should be in nature instead.

I eventually got a place in the country. Now that I'm not single, I couldn't give two craps about going out, meeting people, and I hate crowds and noise. There's no greater pleasure than sitting and listening to water sounds outside, reading and studying.

People are overrated, but you need them sometimes. Don't feel bad about being an introvert.

I suppose the equation is different for someone who is perpetually single. That one person makes a big difference.

If you're single and you don't want to be, you kind of have to learn extroversion cargo-cult behavior (being a bit more outgoing, interesting and interested in conversation and people, make first moves socially, etc.). Then you hopefully find a partner that's a bit introverted and you get out of there! I speak entirely subjectively as someone who lived in a city a long time and found it dreadful as an introvert.

There's a point when it feels it's over, there's no point. Some people think more about the end rather than the existence and realise there's no point – as in, there's really no point to any of this. This feeling doesn't necessarily mean the person is heading to the sad outcome. I mean that could have been a relief, at least to the person. But the saddest outcome is that there's really no recovery for some people and evolution keeps them going.

haa... you really don't need others to justify your life you know... it's annoying how that's always the default, and how often i'm pushed to conform to it.

And here we have the true answer. All the other answers are a form of "stop being an introvert" thus denying your nature. Accept yourself, be at peace with yourself, live the life that gives you inner peace and as much happiness as your nature allows.

Don't listen to the people who try to change you, only accept change if it comes from within although it is possible for this to happen because of how others interact with you and how that makes you feel. Don't change just because someone else says you should be more like them. Then you become their puppet, not your own person.

Also, don't be a dick.

The best comment of the day; thank you. For those comments wondering how to do it, the first step is to see, know, and love yourself. Nobody else can know you if you don't; nobody else can love you if you don't. And once you do know and love yourself, you'll find the other people are not threatening - they can't really hurt you; you'll want to know and love them.

And if you think you know yourself, this is silly, it's easy, you don't know even what you're missing. I once thought that. Now I see that nobody really knows themself completely.

Did you read the article?

You have a point, that the comment isn't actually about the article. And yet, einrealist also has a point that is worth hearing. It's OT, but it's worth hearing.

Yes, but I took advantage of the article. My sister would have been a year older today.

Please don't take up discussion space for something else like that. You can write about that in plenty of other places where it's germane to the topic at hand.

you are also taking up discussion space here, no? or do you think youre special?

This feels very “I notice you’re not tolerating the intolerant, very intolerant of you don’t you think?”

It is not the gotcha you think it is.

Your comment is far outside the culture here. If you don't like someone's comment, read something else; click the minus sign (collapse thread) if you like. HN pages are not paper; we're not running out of space, and this thread has only 64 comments.

Also, have some empathy. You're talking to a human being.

I think their comment is the most beautiful thing I've seen today; I'm so glad they left it here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com