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Comment by CaptainNemo17 | Hacker News Reader

I found this quite interesting. So lonely people do indeed see and experience the world in an idiosyncratic way. I wonder how these individuals do in our modern world of life, are they successful (in the ways our society's usually deem with career and money etc) or are they not able to operate in it? Is there a certain type of job they fall into? For example are they entrepreneurs who try to change the world to a view that they see as possible, that would make the most sense to me. Trying to create a place of belonging

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I'm a lonely person who spends almost all of his time alone. I work remotely and don't have any friends or family in my city. All of my "socialization" just happens at work, online.

I'm doing well as a software engineer, but I have no ambition or long term goals.

Just my anecdote. I feel like there's not going to be a consistent pattern, and you can probably find people like me in any line of work, and with a wide range of personalities.

You don't need to alter your beliefs to conform to a social group. I often say stuff even on hn that is apparently wildly controversial but I arrived at that belief on my own yet people accuse me of being part of wildly different political groups.

There are two main types people in this category as well. Those at peace with their situation and those that aren't. Controlling for this in a study like this one is crucial in my opinion.

But on your comment about consistent pattern, I agree.

For whatever reason, I would prefer to not have friends and even be hated than accept something I know to be wrong. But that also means when i myself am wrong you would need to reason and change my mind which is too much for most people. I find most people want to conform to some larger group, but if I don't belong to any group anyways then why not take advantage of that and find truth, even if i am wildly wrong at times maybe I can be authentic.

What I learned is that the world and other people owe me nothing but the opposite works too. But if I seek truth and take time to reason and understand how things work and what the root causes of different issues are then at least I can help change my situation and if I help others then my help would be based in truth and will eradicate problems at their core not at the surface level.

No plans to get married and have children?

That is often the default plan, but not necessarily a goal for everyone.

Nope

This is fascinating to me - my own situation is similar, but I do not consider myself lonely. I also have the pleasure of working remotely and don't have friends or family close by. I don't miss the awkward chaos of interpersonal social interaction in the flesh, nor do I engage in the use of social media.

I'm also employed as a software dev and assume that I must be filling my social well with banal Zoom meetings. I, too, have no specific ambitions or long-term goals beyond living as comfortably and well as possible until my meaningless little stretch of life reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Everybody needs somebody to love. It could be anybody. You just need someone to love.

Seriously, are you ok? Life doesn’t have to be meaningless, but that’s up to you. You get out what you put in.

It's nice to have somebody to love, and to be loved by somebody.

But you don't really need it. And being alone is better than be in company of toxic people. A surprisingly amount of people are toxic to have around. Being alone and feeling lonely are entirely different things anyway.

And life being meaningless is not really a bad thing, maybe it depends on how a person faces its meaninglessness. I happen to cherish it. I enjoy my meaningless moments.

This is really interesting!

I think my life would be much less complicated if i had the same feeling.

I always thought that most people that are most of the time alone, would be lonely. Especially because you hear a lot of old people trying to talk a lot to the people who help (cook/clean/shopping) because they tend to be lonely.

So suppose one day I would loose my close friends and family, there's a chance i could be happy on my own?

> Everybody needs somebody to love. It could be anybody. You just need someone to love.

Why?

Song lyrics tell us so it must be true.

Maybe just some thing to love is fulfilling. For example a hobby?

Similar here. Mostly alone, but not lonely (thanks in part to HN?). I usually manage to hang out with someone once a week or so (mostly, they come visit me to surf with me). That feels just about right. I do worry, though, about what happens if I get sick or injured.

In our country, the government helps people who are sick or injured, financially and materially. I hope it is the case in your country as well.

Hah, that would be nice! Unfortunately, I live in the USA. Where are you?

Belgium aka the country that was referred to as a 'hellhole' by a former US 'president'.

The title implies a causation that might be flipped.

It could mean "I'm lonely, so I think unlike everyone else." This doesn't make a lot of sense. Would people do it out of spite?

More likely "nobody thinks like me, so I am lonely."

The way it's phrased, I would guess they're after funding to spot idiosyncratic thinking to detect loneliness. Imagine if, based on the videos you like to watch articles you read, etc., they could detect that you were lonely, then target ads . . .

> It could mean "I'm lonely, so I think unlike everyone else." This doesn't make a lot of sense. Would people do it out of spite?

Makes sense to me actually: I wouldn't say it's even necessarily conscious, but the less you interact with others, the more you can become set in your own ways and create pathways to seeing your beliefs as truths.

I am (and esp have been) pretty lonely, and this is it, there's no sanity tests for thoughts. In good situations, other people provide a grounding, stabilizing influence. Without them, the mind has to do this by itself, leading to some pretty extreme overcompensating and "just so" stories.

Are you lonely by choice or by circumstance? And if you could change anything would you?

It can be good or bad.

I read one analysis of those who saved/hidden Jewish people during WWII. They tended to be socially isolated people, a bit outside of society. That is what allowed them to not fall to group think and to overcome fear. (The analysis was done by some Jewish institute).

Terry Pratchett put it well, I think: “Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are...well...human beings.”

I so miss his mind and view points! What a legend ! Brought me hours of smiles :)

When I was lonely and isolated, I did started to think differently. Not out of spite, it just happened automatically. We adjust to each other all the time. We change behavior to match others. When we talk with people, our opinions become more alike. But when you are lonely, you change in own way and become out of sync.

That is why it is difficult to reenter socialization after long loneliness. There is gap between you and others, you feel lonely even if people are there. It took years to fully get back and for a while I thought I never will.

The study acknowledges that:

> Although it is unclear whether the observed idiosyncratic processing in lonely individuals is a cause or a result of loneliness, the associated lack of shared understanding may lead to challenges in achieving social connections.

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