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Comment by spaetzleesser | Hacker News Reader

This is the typical advice by extroverts: “just go out and have fun . If I can do it why can’t you do it?”. Most lonely people know already what to do in theory but for whatever reason they can’t pull it off. That’s certainly the story of my life. I know what I should do but I can’t execute it correctly. I mess up small talk all the time and for some reason never get better. It seems some of my social circuits haven’t been wired correctly and are introducing errors.

Advice giving is a dangerous thing if you haven’t experienced the problem. I don’t have eating problems so for me it’s really easy not to eat that donut or the bucket of ice cream but I have learned and accepted that for some overweight people it’s an almost insurmountable problem. I can’t really relate but I have learned enough over the years to stay away from giving ignorant or condescending advice.

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This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy? One underrated benefit of therapy is that it can help you analyze social situations and build the necessary skills to be more social. Therapists are professionals at talking to people and building a rapport after all.

>This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy?

Your advice (as well-meant as it may be) is exactly as helpful as the extrovert, mentioned by the parent, who gives the advice to "just have more fun". It's not a lack of knowing what to do. It's a profound lack of "activation energy".

Completely the opposite. It's the difference between a non-medical doctor diagnosing someones medical condition and telling them to go see a real doctor. Sometimes people don't know when to go see a doctor and need some help knowing when they should go. Their advice was completely appropriate given the situation.

The advice “see a therapist “ is often valid but by itself pretty clueless. If you ever have dealt with therapists you know that a lot of them aren’t very good. And finding one you click with can be very exhausting and expensive expensive. I have done this for a few years and it was one of the most depressing things I have done in my life.

Therapists are in extremely short supply right now. I recently got a wait-list for four months where I live.

The intervening period of time reminds me that I'm supposed to be in therapy, that I might need therapy, but am instead unable to see anyone. That makes my day-to-day life feel wrong, moreso than if I had never considered it as an option.

I suffer from severe depression in general and social anxiety around more than a handful of people, and have talked to therapists regarding this. One huge benefit of therapy is that I was quite quickly able to answer the question of __why__ I feel the way I do, especially around new people I meet. But it is a whole another thing to actually being able to "fix" it. The way I think about it is that I know what the problem is _in theory_, but have no idea how to come up with a _practical_ fix for it.

When I was less depressed, I was able to join a local D&D group, go for bar trivia nights, etc. but as I became more depressed/anxious/stressed (coz of personal and professional situations), it became harder to push myself to become sociable and not get anxious around crowds.

So I think the main point that the parent comment is trying to say is that people need to recognize that problems that may seem to have simple and straightforward "solutions" (like "have you considered therapy") are significantly harder for some individuals purely due to other mental health issues.

I am not trying to fault you, but it is a thing I see in a lot of my friends/peers/relatives is that it gets harder to understand how different mental health issues affect different people in incredibly different ways.

I have done therapy and also CBT. Part of it was in a group setting. It was pretty successful for some in the group but for others like me it did nothing. I have come more and more to the conclusion that some people are naturally not good at math and others aren’t good in social situations. I am sure there are therapists who could help me do better but finding therapists and working with them is by itself a very energy draining and exhausting process. If I had infinite money and time it may be easier but repeatedly investing a lot of trust, time, energy and money into a therapist that doesn’t work out is exhausting and depressing.

Over the years I have found a way to live my life in an OK manner. There are some things in life that aren’t accessible to me but there are plenty of other things I can experience that are rewarding too. I am lucky that my social anxiety and autistic traits aren’t extreme and I have enough intelligence to understand things. Other people have it way worse.

If 1-on-1 and group therapy isn't your thing, you might look into T-Groups [0][1]. The ones I've attended were mostly social interactions with strangers where there was an expectation everyone would give blunt, straight-forward feedback as to how people's communication was landing. The facilitators also had a few structured learning/exercises to keep things moving, but most of it was group directed. T-Groups are popular in MBA programs as a way to help future leaders better understand their communication styles, be more authentic and more receptive to noticing the reactions of the people they're leading. They're somewhat of a middle ground between group therapy and communications training exercises that you see in some corporate settings. But they can be pretty powerful in surfacing feedback that people are normally too polite to give you directly as well as giving you structured practice in building authentic relationships.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-groups

[1] https://www.edbatista.com/2018/06/a-brief-history-of-t-group...

I don’t think you read the post very well or you’re picking on things just to say “No, I’m an introvert and so I can’t and that’s the end of that”.

It doesn’t say just go out and do things. It says “whenever you do these things, just do this instead”. And it shows some clear suggestions to try. Put down phone and say yes to any opportunity are what stick out for me. None of them are very risky. Maybe you won’t talk to your neighbors, but you’ll have to want it to change it, it won’t come to you. And so it gives some suggestions of things that are potentially available to you.

My life changed quite a bit after I watched Yes Man and decided to give it a try. It made me realize how much I would said no to things for reasons that were 100% made of negative assumptions. It was all in my head. I didn’t go as far as Jim Carey but I started saying yes or asking if I could join to things I would normally decline and just get FOMO at home.

It’s a very introvert lonely person thing to say “I tried and I suck therefore I can’t” and now I answer to that “Can’t never could”. And I feel like I can say that because I was one of them.

Yes I sucked too, I still think I’m not good at small talk, so what? I stay away from my phone in social gatherings and just observe, at some point just by being engaged you’ll have something to say. Some people might even like you because you’re not “the annoying one who wants to hear themselves talk”.

All it takes is not “go out and do things” it takes saying yes and not sheltering yourself, it takes not running away from the opportunity. It all cascades after. It’s like compound interest if socialization. Once you open yourself to one thing and keep investing in that, lots of gatherings open.

Right now I feel like I need to decline some because I get a bit socially exhausted at times, but 6 years ago i would get depressed on the weekends because I wanted to go do something and had no one to do it with.

You've pointed out the irony: it's not that easy and yet it is. I'd be skinnier if I skipped dessert more often, and while it isn't that simple, skipping dessert is the only sure way to get skinnier. There is no simpler or more effective measure I could take.

Very true. Simple things can be extremely hard or impossible.

Have you considered the possibility of autism spectrum disorder?

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