Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericol | Hacker News Reader

More or less for my entire life I've had the idea that my social needs were not on par with the rest of the people, and this quarantine seems to have proven just that.

Bear in mind I do enjoy social life; when I was living in Spain in my 30s (and single) I had a very active social life, and had a moderate (~30) amount of friends split in 2 groups with which I continuously interacted.

When I left Spain for my place of origin I had only a handful of friends, and then I moved to where I live now and have only one friend, whom I see sporadically.

Nowadays I mostly interact with my partner and daughter, and the people I work with (I've been working remotely for 13 years) and to be honest, I have no cravings for social life (Except that I miss going for a stroll every once in a while at nights).

View on HN

Can you really call living with your family isolation? There are people out there who live with no one, aren't near family, and can't see friends because of the lockdowns.

Yep, this me. I haven't been able to see friends or family since March 15th. So I haven't even touched another human in that long. It's been really bad for my mental health. I have a hard time empathising with people who say they've been super lonely but still live with family.

Feeling it too. Last few weeks I decided that I was going to negotiate some limited contact (occasional masked walks and hugs) with a few select people.

This is arguably a little irresponsible of me; I have a housemate who is a social worker and not isolating, which makes me a potential link in a transmission chain. But on the other hand, we're spending nearly zero time together in shared spaces (we literally go weeks w/o seeing each other) and I'm very conscientious about what I touch and when in shared spaces. And delivery or random passers-by on walks are my only other form of exposure, so it seems like a managed risk if not absolutely minimized.

I think some who live alone are going to find this kind of quaran-team approach important as we break past the first few miles of the marathon. The trick may be in really doing it thoughtfully in a planned-out conscientious manner rather than waiting until arriving at some breaking point and throwing caution to the wind.

I think it should be fine if you form a very small group and only ever meet these same people (optimally outside with a bit of distance of course). It shouldn't be that much different from people living in a medium-size household and much better for mental health.

> This is arguably a little irresponsible of me

I'd say it isn't irresponsible at all. You've got to do what you need to do to look after your own mental health. One thing I am utterly sick of is the shaming of anyone that breaks "the rules" that seems to have become normalised. Especially when it comes from people who have families and partners at home.

We seem to be obsessed with the idea that you could be somehow responsible for someone's death if they get infected via you, even after several degrees of separation. I guess this idea has some logic to it, but it's such a departure from how we think about things normally.

By the same logic, many of us have probably helped to "kill" a few elderly/vulnerable people in the past by passing on the influenza virus.

I'm not saying we shouldn't all take sensible precautions, like isolating when you have symptoms and hand washing etc. But this shaming needs to stop.

Yeah, similar boat. I was content with the arrangement for about two months. I finally relaxed my shelter in place a little before memorial day. The point of living in a desirable area and within a city was to randomly meet people that also had their life together, while working on the career and financial circumstances that allow you to do this.

With SIP, everything closed, and ongoing social distancing none of that is possible and you're also cut off from other social circles if you hadn't locked in a core friend group or significant other.

I could really the see value of these areas plummeting much harder than before. Even when thinking of the protests as having some allure for being social, many of the people are from surrounding suburbs coming in for the action, whereas the wealthy transplants have already left indefinitely.

I don't get the impression that those with family are overwhelmingly content. But some have routine at this point and aren't considering the social starving that people in different arrangements may be going through.

> Even when thinking of the protests as having some allure for being social

I have wondered if there’s an aspect of that in the huge turnouts. People are unemployed and isolated, and joining the protests gives them a chance to feel like part of something.

All my friends are doing this to get out and protest. I've also started doing it from the weekend.

I'm sorry to hear that. The reality is that there's no substitute for human touch.

Obviously it's an incredible complex decision, but have you thought about getting a pet? (If that's within your possibilities)

I feel you, me too. I also had a relationship fall apart late last year and did quite a lot of my own social isolating at the time combined with my natural inclination to hibernate around the winter solstice because of lack of light.

My closest friends also moved away in part motivated by the situation.

I really don't remember the last time I interacted with another human who wasn't selling me food or through a computer or phone (which helps of course but is no substitute).

There are probably a lot of us out there. If it weren't for a couple of cat monsters I probably would have lost all of my marbles by now.

>There are probably a lot of us out there. If it weren't for a couple of cat monsters I probably would have lost all of my marbles by now.

I think you might be underestimating yourself as a human being. I spend about 8 months with little human contact. I spoke twice with my parents for about 10 minutes each, once for 2 minutes to ask some questions, and maybe 10 seconds each time to the cashier when buying food (however it never deviated from this script; "Would you like bags?" "Yes." "How are you paying?" "Cash." "Have a nice day."). That was it. Nothing else.

I won't say that it was an easy or enjoyable thing to do, but I think given enough time and focus, almost anyone can probably acclimate to a complete lack of human contact without loosing all their marbles.

Long periods of isolation like this are really hard the first time you go through it. Having gone through this many times I can honestly say you learn to adjust like it were a change in seasons.

The hardest part of isolation, though, is the complete inability for somebody who has never experienced it to relate or appreciate the changes it imposes upon people.

Dude. Seems you didn't have it easy.

Also, I'm curious as to why you have been through this several times?

Military deployments and military schools. My first one of these that I count was my first deployment in 2004 because my first kiddo was 4 months old.

I've been going to protests. Can you try that maybe? I felt lots of camaraderie. I've been wearing facemasks and a face shield which makes it a little hard to interact with people in crowd though.

Do most people consider going 2.5 months without touch a long time??????

> I have a hard time empathising with people who say they've been super lonely but still live with family.

This. They have no idea.

Point in case, my friends group starting organising weekly group video calls, to see each other and play scribl.io. After a few weeks it quickly became apparent who was really isolated and who had a partner or even just flat mates. The isolated people were really looking forward to the video chat (also you could tell they were more grumpy / on edge than usual). People who don't live alone, started missing the video chat evenings because video chat is such a poor substitute for actual social contact, it really wasn't bringing them anything.

I'm glad to hear (elsewhere ITT) that isolation is worst the first time you go through it. Because I'm fully expecting a second wave when autumn hits or something. And I fully expect people who do not live alone to continue being oblivious to the mental state of the isolated ones.

No reason to stay so isolated now that covid testing is widely available. Get tested, have your friends get tested, hang out, be human.

Well, guess you are correct here, I can't call my current situation isolation.

But there have been times where I've been there (My partner tends to go on extended vacations with her mother) and, even without quarantine, I've been locked up all by myself only going out a couple of times a week only for grocery shopping.

I enjoy reading an investigating things (And for programming related discoveries, time gets consumed too fast) probably a bit too much, and there are times when even family comes in the way.

This fits me, and I have 0 problems with it. Do I want to see my friends again? Yes. But as I don´t live in my home country anymore, I´m accustomed to only seeing friends and families a couple of times a year.

Takes a bit of effort and empathy to remember that I'm an outlier and people truly did suffer during lockdown.

I really wonder, how many people are there like me? What's the distribution? You naturally hear mostly from social people and extroverts. Hope there are some studies going on right now.

Exactly, family is its own community.

there are even more severe forms of isolation, but yes only spending time around the nuclear family is a form of isolation. Friends, peers, church (or secular equivalents), the wider community and so on all provide forms of social interaction that don't exist within the immediate family and that humans generally are accustomed too and need.

In fact, the detrimental effects of long term isolation only surrounded by the nuclear family is a common theme in American fiction in particular (American Beauty), or even in horror as in The Shining.

Okay sure, but try not seeing any friends AND having no partner/children.

There are literally consecutive days in a row where I spend 0 minutes in a day talking aloud to a living person. Less so now that the restrictions have been lifted, but the last few months were significantly harder for me as a person living on their own who wasn't able to see friends than for my friends who at least could share their experience with someone else.

Not saying people who had families shouldn't feel like they are isolated, but I'd easily take the isolation with the partner experience over isolation with literally zero people experience.

Yes, this has certainly solidified my understanding of myself as an introvert... I am stuck home with my wife and two young kids, and I mostly want more alone time... I don't miss seeing other people.

Same here. Though, I do wonder if it'd be a case of _be careful what you wish for_ if, for some reason, all of the sudden I was completely isolated.

Same here, including your worry.

Being around your partner and daughter is social.

Well, yes. But it's not the same, and I'm in this boat as well:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23460927

The article is about severe social isolation, meaning you don't interact with another person in any way.

> the researchers had 40 socially-connected healthy human adults spend 10 hours (9am to 7pm) alone, with no social interaction and no other social stimulation (e.g., twitter, email, reading fiction).

I'm not even sure what I could do during the day to avoid social interactions to this extent.

I do wonder what the participants were allowed to do. It’s possible they just measured the effects of terminal boredom.

Yes, I understand that. But also from the article:

> Participants with higher levels of chronic loneliness at baseline reported less craving for social contact after 10 hours of isolation

Based on what the article states I guess this is similar to people that react differently to fasting; those that are used to loneliness for whatever reason (In my particular case I understand it to be my "natural" state) are better prepared to go through this.

I guess the idea was to be able to _really_ measure the effect of being alone in the least harmful way so they went all in (Not even allowing the participants to read) trying to make the time of the experiment as short as possible.

I've been almost completely alone for about 3 months now, at least physically. And honestly... I couldn't feel much happier in that regard. It's been great. Maybe I'm broken or something.

Not broken just a different type of person. See this episode from Mythbusters about Cabin Fever: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2m7k1y

You're more like Jamie.

That explains fair amount of us, I think. I'm on the same camp. It makes it a bit challenging as my wife is extremely social, so finding balance is a bit tough for both of us :)

I have the same issue. My wife is going absolutely stir-crazy and dreaming of all the adventures, while I'm absolutely happy to be productive at home with relatively few distractions.

Well, my partner has the same issue.

Even thought we are living in this city because it was the best for her career (She's a professional flamenco "bailaora" and where we lived before her career was dead in the water) she doesn't have a large amount of friends, but boy does she crave for going out.

She is really having a bad time going through this, while I'm surfing the wave without issues.

Same here. The missus is almost crawling on the walls due to the lack of social contact, while I'm having the time of my life; the lack of social interactions gives me so much extra spare time.

If you live with a partner and a daughter, you're not socially isolated.

I really get a strong feeling that a lot of people who do not live alone, have no idea what others who live alone actually went through (during lockdown / quarantine). It's hard to explain, it's like being lost at sea, maybe. My mind just started blanking all the time

Sounds like a normal introvert.

extroverts get recharged by being with more people.

introverts get recharged by being with fewer people.

Regarding that matter, I found this comment also in this thread interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23462232

I think social needs are not static, it depends on what you are become used to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com