Comment by tastysandwich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tastysandwich | Hacker News Reader

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I'm talkative, outgoing and pretty funny in real life. I think I can say that people generally enjoy my company.

But I only have about three friends, and I see them maybe four times a year.

I really get along with my coworkers and enjoy their company at work. My wife thinks I should make more friends.

But the truth is (and I suspect this is pretty common with HN'ers), I don't want more friends!

Because in addition to those three friends, there's siblings, siblings-in-law, husbands of siblings-in-law, parents, parents-in-law, cousins, my wife's friends, my wife's friends' husbands, etc etc. And they all wanna see you!

That, plus of course spending time with my lovely wife/daughter (which I love to do), leaves not much alone-time to explore all the awesome stuff you can do in this world. Play guitar. Read a great piece of literature. Learn to draw. Learn Blender. Build some furniture. Grow a fruit tree. Grow five fruit trees. Keep a hot compost pile (more amazing to see than you'd think). Write a shitty piece of music. Learn to weld. Lift weights. Run.

There's just so much great stuff to do. I like people, they're great. But I guard my alone-time like a precious gemstone.

Same sentiment exactly. Not to sound rude, but I don't -want- more friends, and it feels bad rejecting people who reach out. I already feel like there aren't enough hours in a day, and selfishly want to hoard my time to myself.

My wife and I are polar opposites in that regard. She can never seem to have enough friends, and they talk often. I think one big difference is how people are with nothingness. Because no matter how busy our day is, there's always periods of downtime...on a bus, on a walk, before bed, etc.

For example, I could sit in a chair and stare at nothing for a long time and not get bored. Mind always wondering, planning, thinking. She on the other hand gets bored and stir crazy in short order. And having people to reach out to chat with is a good cure for that.

I'm not suggesting one is better than the other, of course, just another difference in people.

All of that is to say, people like us who at least -say- we don't want more friends make it harder for people seeking, by removing ourselves from the pool so to speak. And I'd imagine between marriages, kids, work, etc... there's a lot of us like that.

We introverts have an easy life with ourselves, completely at peace with oneself, never bored. Extroverts dread this, they need external stimulus to feel alive, alone they get bored and depressed quickly. Hand in hand with that go things like imagination, alone you simply have much more time to train it.

As I grew up, I realized how stupid and immature it is to try to blend with the rest of the crowd, where extroverts naturally stick out and introverts feel like they are doing something wrong and should emulate more visible ones. Embrace yourself as you are, focus on aspects you don't like yourself but enjoy the rest, it can be a real strength if you use it well.

Friends and family are one aspect of it, but also how you approach hobbies, traveling etc. Ie my extroverty boss can't simply go to gym, he has to go with some friend. So he goes rarely and he sucks in it. Bunch of friends simply can't travel alone, while I repeatedly explained to them that ie backpacking around the world alone is extremely positive and character-building experience that can't be achieved in any other way. So eventually one of them went, but for 2 weeks only to effin' Singapore and not a step further, to hang out with former colleague for 2 weeks. While having amazing places to keep discovering all around him, or ie jumping on a plane to Bali/Lombok/Gili islands for a week.

I remember at some point (as an introvert) my mental model of extroverts flipped and I suddenly began to see them not as super humans but almost like disabled people. Unable to function independently because of a severe deficit in their mental makeup that makes them unable to sustain happiness without supplementary support from presence of other individuals. I still envy them in certain ways but now I have a much more balanced view of it than when I was younger and I really felt like something was wrong with me.

Unless you mean that you eventually grew out of the view that extroverts “suffer from severe deficit in their mental makeup”, I wouldn’t call your position “balanced” at all. You’ve just swung from one extreme to another.

I don’t know you, but I have a feeling that you’ll eventually come to understand “extroverts” better than this.

> Ie my extroverty boss can't simply go to gym, he has to go with some friend

I would venture to suggest even that your boss can't simply go to the gym because he doesn't actually want to go to the gym. He wants to socialise inside a gym.

One thing I learned from reading Jung and not just the MBTI stuff based on his work is his core distinction between introversion and extroversion:

Introverts have an inner model of the world. Extroverts rely directly on the world.

It doesn’t mean that extroverts like people more or that introverts necessarily prefer being alone. It’s just that for extroverts, when nothing external is happening it’s like a little death. And for introverts, we need down time to reconcile our inner model with all of the day’s external stimulation.

But certainly extroverts must have an inner model world, otherwise how can they have a System 2 or do any kind of analytical thinking? Or is it that they do have one but only engage it when actively trying to solve a problem?

This definition of introvert seems closer to the term "need for cognition".

Recommend a book? I never knew where to start with jung. Also, was his work research based or was it mostly speculative?

Not OP but I really enjoyed Jung's: Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. I haven't read any of the rest of his work so I really can't say if this is the best place to start with him but being totally new to Jung, I took a lot away from this book. The book touches on many of his theories and gives you an idea of the arc of his life which is nice but also provides great insight into Jung's inner world which is what I found most fascinating about the book. I've never read anything else quite like it.

I believe the book introducing his theory of introversion/extraversion was Psychological Types based on his own clinical research. It's a theory, not a law.. :-)

You could put the people who reach out into contact with one another, since obviously they have excellent taste.

There's a lot of people I like quite a lot, and significant obligatory-connections about. But gee man, I'd trade in a ton of these connections of solid friends/relations for people whose values I can more clearly recognize & that reflect my own obsessive geek interests than I could comfortably admit in real life. The really good people are not in high supply.

I find again and again a real & immediate need to work hard to connect the very good folk, to get those with deep interests talking. Many just bow out to the mundane. So be it for them, but it's a loss to see very high intellectual potential just inundate itself among the norm.

I sort of agree. I don't want a larger number of friends, but I do crave having deep relationships with people that (currently) I don't really have.

Those infrequent hangs where it's primarily a catch-up and then go about your daily routine are OK, but unsatisfying. Like you, I have a handful of those friends that I catch up with and I care about them, but they're not really part of my day-to-day life.

What I want (and miss) are deeper relationships where I see / communicate with someone often and have strong shared interests. There were a few periods where I had those level of friendships and it was really great. For instance, about 10 years ago I was part of an art group that met at least once and usually twice a week in the evenings. I was close to a few of those people, and it felt great. Like family.

Since then the group broke up, a few people took up new interests, and one of my closer friends in the group passed. (Fuck cancer.) I moved, got married and while I love my family I have no tight, close relationships that hit that same level. Finding the same kind of friends and dynamic is very, very hard. Sucks.

This is where I am at as well.

I have met a few guys who wanted to strike up a friendship. I only have room in my outer orbit, unfortunately. This is even after some friends moved further out. I would like more room in my life for Me, not other people.

The reason that I've lost so many friendships in the past decade is exactly what you're saying: friendships are not a priority for the average person who is gainfully employed, married with kids, maybe has pets, and also has social obligations to their relatives.

For someone in your position, maintaining friendships is always going to be the lowest priority item, on a neverending list of responsibilities and social expectations.

That's one thing that frustrates me about American society. People who are married with kids are insanely busy, with a robust and built-in social network, whether it's through interactions with relatives, or even making friends with other parents through sporting events, etc.

It's tough for the rest of us. Obviously there is no quick fix to this problem, but for now I'm able to fill some social needs through meetups and other social events. I'll probably also get a pet eventually.

> People who are married with kids are insanely busy, with a robust and built-in social network, whether it's through interactions with relatives, or even making friends with other parents through sporting events, etc.

Grass is always greener on the other side, and busy does not mean someone has friends.

    That's one thing that frustrates me about American society.

I see nothing particularly American about that - all you've described happens in all 3 countries I lived in (Israel, Austria & Germany) and I'm sure this is pretty usual world-wide.

> I'll probably also get a pet eventually.

If you get a dog and walk it or take it to the dog park you will meet people there. There's also group training classes like basic obedience and agility.

Be warned though, dogs, in general, require a lot of attention and some even need jobs.

Funny enough, I've lost friends over time due them taking on pets.

Yeah, I think part of the difficulty in making friends as an adult is simply because your time is way more scarce and valuable.

The older I get the less I find I need friends.

My old friends and I share a common history that goes way back. We were dumb teens in the 70's and 80's and so have a shared experience of those decades and that stupid shit we did.

We act as foils for one another — how one friend turned out differently than another while coming from the same background.

And also, and more importantly as we age, old friends remind us that we have more in common despite those ways in which we turned out differently. Money and status fall by the wayside when you get past 50.

> Money and status fall by the wayside when you get past 50.

When one has these things.

I think this is the answer for me. You kind of want friends, but at the same time you don't want to have to put any obligations or effort in and definitely don't want to feel forced to hang out with them.

I think we want the kind of friends who would be fine with a quarterly meetup for a fun activity, and little contact or obligation outside of that time.

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