Loneliness Is Hard on the Brain
mindmatters.today
mindmatters.today
While it's possible that I might get married and have kids, I'd say this is much less likely to happen for me. Furthermore, as I grow older I find it increasingly difficult to 'keep up' with the lifestyle changes and increasing 'demands' that my 'neurotypical' friends go through. I've noticed this in particular in the transition to my thirties. With my gay friends this somehow feels like less of an 'issue'.
Another overlap, I suppose, is a feeling of not quite fitting in. This extends beyond just my gay friends though, and includes expats, TCK's/'army brats'/global nomads, and people with various disorders. But there does often seem to be a sense of 'not quite fitting in, together' that can be incredibly valuable.
First, friendships for men and women are different. The women (over 30) I know are a kind of social glue who are the center of their networks, and they are the ones organizing parties, dinners, events etc. However, as a man, if you depend on others for your social network, you are going to lose it if you don't have activity friends.
If you don't have activities, you are going to be a leaf node someone elses network. For men, the most social activities I can recommend in order of sociability are, volunteering and political parties/activity, fraternal organizations e.g. (https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80240816) , team sports (hockey, soccer, etc) then things like group activities like sailing, crossfit, golf(!), group cycling, outdoorsmanship like hunting, camping, etc.
If you live in a city, it's extra hard. Treat your social network like maintaining fitness or keeping up a skill, it requires exercise.
The performative aspect of social media makes sincere connection difficult because it makes people overly conscious about how it reflects their presented, aspirational image, and that repels intimacy. It's a panopticon where everyone lives in fear of imaginary judgement. It is a laughably narrow and perverse status signalling game, with the civic merit of a slot machine in every pocket.
When you compare time spent on social media to that spent on the things I mentioned above, it would be hard to say it produces good people, let alone ones worth knowing.
The male fraternities that used to form the nexus of men’s social lives were seen as exclusionary and withered or were integrated in the 20th century. For example political parties and companies were once fraternal organizations Historically there were abundant social fraternities as well such as gentlemen’s clubs, Order of Masons and veterans fraternities.
Societal sexualization of male relationships also contributed to the recent shift. Men in the 1800s would express affection to their male friends in language that would make straight men today blush. Niobe Way has done a lot of research on how this has impacted adolescent male relationships which creates the “leaf node” effect.
2. Try to rent some room and live with some students :) Super easy to make some friends that way.
3. Find people who have similar hobbies. If you don't have any hobby (programming doesn't count in real life) - then find some. Super easy to get some female friends if you gonna get into tailoring etc.
Note: I don't do this. I have basically just one friend, and only because he does the above. I blow him off constantly, and yet every month or so I get at least one text inviting me over to a barbecue or golf or a movie. I don't think I'm particularly special to him, he just makes a habit of being social.
Personally, I can't stand the idea of putting myself out there like that. If I invite someone to do something once, and they say no, I'll never try again - and maybe I'll avoid them completely from that point on because I'm like that. My fragile little ego apparently can't deal with rejection. Yes, I hate being alone, but since I know what I need to do to change things but refuse to do what's required, I just have to accept loneliness as part of life.
So, you have two choices: Change what you're doing and put yourself out there, or accept your lot in life. (Option 3, I guess, is to find a spouse who's super social and will get you off your ass. I suspect that's how a majority of men my age get by.)
This just saved you thousands of dollars in therapist visits. You're welcome.
IF someone asks (that I know in meat-space) I can articulate things I'm interested in (In more detail than: food, social viewing of media / culture exchange, maybe light board games; in that order of priority).
If I offer something a couple of times and No is always the answer, the message I receive is: I am not important to them.
If I'm also not offered things that I would reasonably enjoy doing or trying occasionally, the message I receive is: I am not important to them.
The message I've found most of my adult life: I am not important. (To anyone, except work, and they'd like me on their terms not mine.)
I don't know many people in the city I moved to this year. Everyone I meet who is mildly interesting, I get their email and start inviting them to events and parties. Not many people respond and fewer reciprocate, but I'm planning to live here a while. If it takes me 10 years to make 10 good friends, all that effort will be worthwhile.
- Check out Facebook events.
- Some areas have couchsurfing events (hosting people on CF is also fun, but usually people move on after a few days at the most, although there are exceptions; I've hosted people looking to move in to my city).
- Volunteer somewhere (for example I volunteered at the local beerfest this week).
- Work in a coworking space or coffeeshop every once in a while if your job allows it.
- Dating apps are frustrating and annoying for a host of reasons, but they do work to meet people. I met a few (platonic) friends like that.
Basically, go where people are. A lot of the other people are also there to just meet people, so it all matches up.
I moved to New Zealand last month; and I lived in the UK for two years before that. In both cases; I didn't really know anyone there. This worked fairly well for me (I'm 33). British people aren't exactly known for being open, so a lot of my friends were/are expats like me.
Also don't be afraid to talk to people, or ask people if they want to do something if you're interested. I naturally tend (or rather, tended) to be somewhat socially anxious, but a lot of that has been better since I have been "forced" to go out and meet folk. Turns out, most of the time those kind of things are received positively.
> Mice yanked out of their community and held in solitary isolation show signs of brain damage.
Don't we do this to prisoners? Seems like we could study this within the boundaries of current cultural practices. Personally, I'm not a fan of this treatment, but this would give weight (or not) to the argument that we shouldn't be doing it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/10/mental-healt...
sensory deprivation != subjective loneliness
There are no startups in this except for meetups.
Why dont some non-profit organize meetings to find loneliness?
Why there is no volunteering opportunities that focus on making friends first and only second helping the cause?
We are kinda-sorta meetup based, to the extent that we want people to get out of their houses and be active in their local communities, be it hiking, going to local venues, or hanging out at local parks.
I'm writing this comment in-between writing the code to help this very problem.
Anyone in the Seattle area who is interested in helping (early stage startup, boot strapped, app and back-end nearing completion) shoot me a message.
... Where you meet the same boring people each week, for years.
What do you think friends are? My uncle has been having dinner Friday nights with the same guys for the last 60 years. Every time he's about to go, he sighs and says, "I hate these guys."
That's a really wonderful and underrated idea, actually. It may very well be the solution to a whole array of problems.
This always warms my heart, and I know they made at least individual lives better, even if they didn't (yet) manage to change the situation single-handedly:
> "We are a social online movement that connects people over the middle east"
The other possibility is to make dues-free fraternal organizations. Churches are payment-optional so why not payment-optional frats? Say dues payment halves bar prices (and no-dues prices are somewhat uncomfortably high).
It's non-religious rather than atheistic.
There are a lot of organisations and volunteering options that deal with loneliness though, at least where I'm from, but they aren't really working. I mean, they are better than the alternative, which is often no social contact, but they aren't curing loneliness because the people involved in the programs are often painfully aware of the fact that they are being helped.
I think what is needed is more environment for adults to hang out. The basic recipe for friendship is basically spending time together outside of work. Spend enough time together and you grow on each other.
That's easy when you're young, but once you finish your education, it stops completely, and if you don't have a friend circle or some hobby activity where you'll get stuck with the same people on a regular basis, then you'll probably end up being lonely.
Can tech fix that? I doubt it. But board game cafes are doing an excellent job all over Europe.
I'd also agree Tech has enabled things that expose how broken society has always* (probably?) been; and enables it to be even worse (probably...) today.
Yet Tech is a tool; it might enable a solution that helps us be better.
You are sort of answering your own question, why are you not doing anything about this? Everyone seems to wait for 'someone' to do something about this.
For many people with a casino in town, its the only affordable place that adults/elderly can hang out for hours with other adults. Relatively cheap at first if they play penny slots. Mind you, its a trap, since many of these people will get addicted fairly quickly. But pretty much everything costs money now. Going outside in Winter for an elderly person is not really suitable. The weather might be too harsh for many days in a row. But even in the summer, a trip to a national park could be $100+ with fuel and camping. So pretty pricey, for someone on a pension.
And hanging out in a bar is not a great alternative either. Its not cheap, and carries serious downsides like drinking and driving charges, alcohol addiction and so on.
I love capitalism. But pretty much everything that could cost money, does.
My town, recently bulldozed rider made, mountain biking paths in two parks. Only to announce its own trail project half a year later. I have strong suspicion that it will cost money at some point in the future to ride these trails.
I remember back in 2008 I used to play Crysis and a side-effect of the game’s insane hardware requirements (for the time) meant it weeded out a lot of bad actors. On any server you’d join the chat was always polite with real conversations instead of swearing & complaining which is all that I seem to notice now on modern games.
This feeling comes from my own experiences that I am at my happiest, best self when I'm alone. And I don't understand how starkly this contrasts from what I hear from others and from studies such as this one.
This isn't a "I'm an introvert" or "people suck" anecdote. This is something that I repeatedly try to objectively access and measure, and almost every time my body responds better to being alone. The less people I have in my life, the better I feel. The more time I spend by myself, the better I feel. The less I speak to anyone, the better I feel.
It might be a bit ironic to ask this, but am I alone in this feeling?
There are people who spend years in a cave or closed room practicing meditation. If done properly, there don't seem to be any negative side-effects. I'm sure the fact that it's a voluntary activity is very important - as opposed to involuntary confinement to the solitary cell.
Those are very different experiences.
If solitude makes you happy it takes very little effort to isolate yourself.
Not if you are in relationship.
I also hate travel, because for me it's just suffering through bodily inconveniences and achieving nothing else than slight change of background, that's as I said is not a big part of my world.
For me, solitary sounds like the best, safest and least troubling place to be in prison.
It seems that even though most social activity is to me less enjoyable than being alone, there is some minimal baseline level of interaction and acceptance which needs to be maintained.
As a child, authentic friendship often occurs with relative ease as kids go to school they are i) within close proximity ii) seen regularly and iii) can play games on the playground/share low-barrier activities together.
Or looked at from another perspective, studies have shown that couples live longer, as do people with dogs (and cats?). But those relationships also exposure you to the bacteria of others. That's a positive. Flip it around, and less exposure will undermine the diversity of your gut and eventually your overall health.