Really, that’s it.
You want to play D&D together, you host and DM.
You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing.
You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with.
Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little alarms in your head that go off when you haven’t seen someone in a while, you can use automated reminders.
I have observed my spouse (who is not on social media) do this and she maintains friendships for decades this way. Nowadays she has regular zoom check ins, book clubs, and more, even with people who moved to the other coast. You do now have the tools for this. I have adopted it into my own life with good results.
Note: you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake. It may always feel painful (and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive). You have to feel your feelings, accept it, and move on.
You are struggling against many aspects of the way we in the developed world/nerd world live. We have a wealth of passive entertainment, often we have all consuming jobs or have more time-consuming relationship with our families than our parents ever did. We move to different cities for jobs, and even as suburban sprawl has grown, you’re on average probably further away from people who even live in the same city! You get from place to place in a private box on wheels, or alternatively in a really big box on wheels with a random assortment of people. You don’t see people at church, or market day, or whatever other rituals our ancestors had. On the positive side, you have more tools and leisure than ever before to arrange more voluntary meetings.
Easier to just host a party or meetup where you can over invite and if some people don't show up it's no issue.
He is trying something different now, to make a hybrid campaign where there’s a lot of one-shots in a broader story arc. It’s structured like missions in an ongoing struggle.
Maybe if you want to do board games, we need more games that scale up and down easily. I’m not a board game person, IDK.
The one thing about D&D is that I know almost everyone there exclusively through the campaign, and 90% of my interactions with them have been in character, which means I actually know very little about their personal lives. We're getting better with this with non-D&D hangs though.
It does reduce the possibility of highly on rails campaigns and instead requires more of a sandbox plan with one page dungeons and stuff. Even so, it seems made to solve this exact problem.
I don't do tabletop, but I do write, and making these is helpful for worldbuilding.
Urban Shadows was my intro into this style of play. Monster of the Week is also very good. But there a huge number of great games out there that are not D&D (which is really a bit clunky and overly complex, IMO).
You just have to make up your own - unless you want to!
The playstyle is called West Marches.
IMHO, the important bit of this style isn't so much the player pool flexibility (tho it does help that case), but the inversion of who's driving the story. The DM prepares the world, but it's up to the players to organize their excursions outside of the safe zone, for their own reasons. This forces more involvement of the players in the story, instead of the more passive campaign on rails you mentioned.
So in the GP's case of flaky low-effort players, West Marches style may not help because it puts more burden on the players in addition to just showing up and having everything presented to them.
That said, if the group can manage to do it, player engagement should be higher, and the DM suffers less disappointment because they're only prepping a session of content based on the players' plans for that session, not a long storyline that requires more alignment and adherence.
Now, I host meetups which typically get 8-15 people and multiple games, so an unpredictable player count is not an issue.
One thing I do that helps is get people to RSVP with a specific arrival time, and do my best to have a game about to start around that time.
If you show up unexpectedly, then I'm not going to feel bad about you sitting out for an hour or more.
People unexpectedly bringing a partner/friend who is not really that into board games is the absolute worst thoguh.
We've been having ongoing games (around 2 going at every one time) since about a year now I think.
Still do in person games as well, but this at least keeps that group going through in-perwon drought periods.
Party games: Scale well with more people, easy to explain
- Werewolf
- Werewords
- Codenames (favorite)
Beginner Games: Accept a decent amount, somewhat easy to explain
- Camel Up
- Flip 7
- Dungeon Fighter
- Ticket to Ride
Games that have nothing to do with your problem, but I just wanna mention:
- Everdell: Cute critters prepare for winter
- Root: Cute critters prepare for war
- Azul: Place fancy tiles that look and feel delicious
- Bohnanza: The best part of Catan without the bad parts
With the rules variant that you can play out-of-order if you add an identical card to the one that's on top of the stack, it disrupts the otherwise pretty linear play, and easily scales up to 10ish persons and still be fun.
You're trying to arrange the wrong type of event. A board game group plays a variable number of games simultaneously to accommodate the number of players each game can support. A board game group does not try to fit everyone into the same game as a matter of principle.
Piggybacking off your suggestion, I like the idea of holding up a sign advertising a free activity that anyone can join, located in a very public space, with zero committment, so they can both show up and walk away at the drop of a hat. Whether it's an ad hoc organized chess tournament, or D&D game, or "one word story" or literally anything. That will have to wait until nicer weather, though, to avoid having to rent a place.
Your instructions to comment on your blog are incredible, come talk to you face to face. If I didn't live on the other side of the country it would be meaningful to tell you what it meant to me in person.
I feel the best way to do what you seem to want to do is by meeting people where they are. No matter what you do, the last part of your mission relies on the lonely person. They have to choose to connect to others and then they have to do it. Arguably, that's the hardest part.
If you call 12 people, on the telephone, and invite them for a dinner party next weekend, and 12 people say yes, I give 90% odds that 12 people show up to your party
If you get burned out from being the nexus of your social circle, that sounds like a problem stemming from your success
We were hoping the other families would reciprocate, and maybe invite us to some of their gatherings (especially two families who hang out together quite a bit.) So far it hasn't happened at all, they just receive our graciousness and move on immediately.
Or think they’re doing you a favor by not rejecting your invite
Perhaps some people can sense this stuff subconsciously. Relationships should build naturally.
Low key this feels why so much of our social life gets productized/monetized.
1. Hyper-perfect social media / television setting "the best" expectations for an event.
2. Decreased knowledge of how to host a gathering. It's not rocket science, but throwing one the first time can seem daunting. And throwing one well does take skill. E.g. icebreakers, identifying and facilitating the right introductions by highlighting mutual interests, making sure wallflowers have a good time, defusing tensions, food, etc.
3. Decreased American tolerance for and ability to handle awkwardness, and there's always going to be some awkwardness in social interactions.
4. Decreased public/accessible American meeting places. There used to (< 2000) be a plethora of low-cost, broadly-accessible spaces that could serve as training wheels for events (handling food, furnishings, cleaning, etc). They've essentially all been privatized, commercialized, and optimized to turn seats -- think real coffee shops disappearing in favor of Starbucks.
I wonder how much of this is due to our ever increasing sense of obligation to be "performing" all the time. Maybe increased by the perpetual presence of social media and the habits and mindset that both creating and consuming for it creates.
Hypothesis: modern society (especially apps) has decreased the amount of realtime, face-to-face social interactions at all stages of life, which has eventually manifested into a decreased average (there are still some social people!) capability to deal with social awkwardness. And consequently less comfort/appetite for putting oneself in situations where it might happen.
It’s due to people having higher standards than before and being bifurcated on every issue. There is deep polarization and tribalism within American culture.
Everyone consumes different content and there’s very little homogeneity within our culture. Like… Americans are more diverse than ever in terms of their thoughts and behaviors. They genuinely have little in common compared to many other cultures.
Part of the increased diversity is unavoidable due to technological changes eroding previous touchpoints. E.g. limited broadcast TV becoming cable becoming streaming.
But there does seem to be an increasing dearth of the logical tonic: discussion-facilitating diverse spaces. Places where people of different opinions can mingle, there are strong social norms around mutually productive conversation (and enforcement to discourage / weed out poison apples?), and that are open to new people.
I recently moved into a very upper class neighborhood (pacific heights) and enrolled my child in the neighborhood private school.
The social hosting skill I’ve observed and and able to do as well is extraordinarily high. People throw parties, know how to act, are cordial and polite and seem to reasonably enjoy each others company while also teaching their children the same.
This is how I remember mere middle class parents acting in the late 90s and early 2000s but my fellow millennials and z seem to be completely incapable of.
One huge aspect I’ve noticed is that it’s wildly expensive in time and money to host. An open cocktail night cost me nearly 3000 dollars to host. I can imagine this would not be common for Gen Z these days.
And in answer to "When that changed?" from parent, my guess would be mid-90s.
In that generations coming of party-hosting age after that were increasingly less likely to host.
My mom would constantly complain she used to be a social butterfly but having kids "ruined" that for her. Which never made sense to me, it's not like she ever interacted with us much.
You can run an open bar with two bartenders for 50 people for that price? (Unless everybody is a complete lush, I guess ;)
So yeah still wondering what sort of party you threw. I mean, yeah it's easily possible to spend that much, but it's also possible to do it for much less and you don't even need to really try.
That's not a cocktail party, that's a tailgate.
GP here, and no, that doesn't mean that.
It means you hire 2 bartenders to make the drinks, and you buy the supplies they use.
And, no, if you want a cocktail party, you don't "plonk a few cases of drinks on the table". That's also a fun party, but a different kind.
I don't think there is an upper limit on how much hosting a party costs. You can always go fancier if you have money to burn.
Beer and liquor alone would blow past that figure.
If your version of hosting is "let's outsource it and just open the wallet", then, yes, sure, you can spend a lot of money. It ain't hosting, though. You failed the "what if I just replaced you with a bank account" test.
A neighborhood which is sometimes referred to as "Specific Whites" (but only tongue-in-cheek, right?)
One is reminded of this - https://x.com/dril/status/384408932061417472?lang=en
Partly what I was trying to point out is how 'adult life' gets complicated and expensive and most people are understandably just opting out. But at the same time, whats going out with it is just basic manners and social habits -- which is unfortunate.
> These are somewhat normal things as part of a knit-community adult life.
As something of an adult myself (I'm 46), I'm well aware of how community functions. I'm also aware of the 'keeping up with the jones' nature of wealth and how corrosive that is to community - being entirely founded on the selective and exclusive nature of spending.
My contention stands, there is no need whatsoever to spend thousands on a cocktail party. One doesn't need to 'opt out' of social life. It's perfectly possible to serve cocktails yourself, to buy 'off the shelf' brands rather than expensive whiskey etc. It's perfectly possible to prepare your own food, or work with a chef who organises 'super club' style catering, which does not cost thousands.
It's a choice to live this way, not a fate. And doubtless it affords status among other high worth individuals - just as it dooms you to a life of fruitless comparison and ostentatiousness.
I find it deeply laughable anyone would stand on a soap box who lives in a modern first world environment and lecture like this while not seeing the irony that they do it themselves at their level as well.
Please. Stop. Look around. And maybe visit a place where you see how the other half of the planet lives. Likely your world is wildly ostentatious and unnecessary comparatively.
The plank in your eye before your neighbor and all that.
I mean I've spent a couple hundo at Costco buying booze and food and paper supplies for a party I hosted and THAT was flabbergasting. How the fuck do spend three grand on cocktails? Is it like all top shelf liquor or something?
It’s interesting that you’re proving my point. General manners and expectations have been lost
Up to a point, expenses are elastic and proportionate to income. Across different incomes, things like "dinner" or "cocktail" mean (and cost) very different things, to the point that someone on either end of the scale doesn't even know what is on the other end. A very wealthy individual might not know about the $1.50 Costco dog, and a less wealthy individual won't know about the $10,000 bottle of cab sauv (okay I'm making that up, I don't know either, but you get the point).
If you have $100k you'll make do with that, if you have 10x more, most people will find ways to scale the expenses accordingly. If you have 1,000x more, that's just wasted cash that does nothing for society, but that's another discussion...
I was highlighting partially how it's just generally expensive to host the first time a large group.
Do you guys break all the plates like at traditional Greek weddings?
It’s amazing to me how classically foolish so many HN comments are.
- lower expectations (my own and everyone else's). I work out the bare minimum that would work for the event and do that. People need food. They don't need music.
- tell people how to contribute: "bring snacks and drinks", ask one specific person to bring ice. when people arrive I often give specific tasks: "can you find someone to help move the table and chairs into the other room", "can you sort out music"
- do it the same way every time so it's less mentally taxing
- get a friend to help with setup
I find that the more a group does things, the more everyone chills out. It's like the expectations come from a fear of being judged and from uncertainty. When everyone has information from the last ten events then you don't need to stress anymore, because everyone knows how this one will go and they've all judged one another already.
If there are other parties happening and you're trying to make a better one, by all means, go all out. But mostly people in their 40s aren't going to many house events, so they're just happy to be somewhere with people. They don't care that you didn't decorate or sweep the floor or prepare an elaborate meal. You made soup and they're thrilled.
Granted it’s still a lot of effort but it’s low key and I find people prefer that unless it gets enough momentum to become a “thing” haha
It may seem ridiculous, but it’s a form of stoicism adjacent philosophy that presumes nominally more control over one’s circumstances, and it has had excellent outcomes for me. Ratchet forward but expect modest clicks and be delighted when something goes right or someone comes through.
ծ_Ô
Ergo the “significant” qualifier. Imagine the sense of defeat to fail in your New Year’s resolution to not resort to cannibalism by years end… so you have to be careful how you define your test case.
If I were a cannibal, it would have been an ambitious resolution, but the whole point was success through low expectations.
But fair enough, people tend to be touchy about people eating people, and rightly so. No way that ends well as a mainstream practice.
You'd probably like the signs I do in Chicago.
"Terrible advice, only $3"
"Awkward smalltalk, only $2"
"Premium snowballs, only $1"
Will be doing one of these tomorrow in fact. Probably in my usual spot.
You may scoff, but senselessness is highly contextually dependent and can easily apply to something that seemed rational under the fog of circumstance. Thats actually not that easy to promise without forsaking the option of violence altogether, which I am not at liberty to do, since I have a family to protect.
It’s a slow, intentional process. I don’t want to risk overreaching. Still, they are worthwhile goals. Low-hanging fruit is still fruit.
The useful thing to me has been to expect little from people and life in general, but a lot of myself. Then be delighted when things go as they should, or when people come through. It’s a contagious positivity masquerading as cynicism, or maybe the other way around, I’m not sure… but it allows me to focus on my role in things, my choices, my actions, and reactions to the external world. It is stoicism adjacent.
The New Year’s resolutions are mostly an advertising campaign for the overall philosophy, really, by promising people easy success in something that is often a struggle, and illuminating the fact that we choose our successes and failures by how we view external circumstances, not so much by the circumstances themselves.
Once you've got the gist down, try and find one thing that you can go a little overboard on; it makes it very memorable. Examples: I made a big pot of home-made chili once, and another time we did (what looked like) an extravagant nacho bar. It was both better and way cheaper than typical event food.
Definitely enlist an accomplice, but be aware you likely need to (appear to) be the mastermind.
This was my primary takeaway from some time spent doing higher-end catering front of house. You'd be amazed what absolute fuckups can occur on non-critical stuff... and no one even notices.
(Possibly the bride, but that's why we had dedicated bride handlers to appropriately message that kind of stuff)
My approach around this is suggesting the idea to people up front and then throwing everyone into a WhatsApp chat and laying down the plan. Anyone who can't join gets removed/leaves. No one expects a whatsapp group to be a refined VIP experience. It's just people getting together and sharing an experience.
Having moved countries and needing to start up a new friend group, things like Meetup or Facebook groups help a lot. There are _many_ people out there who are looking to meet people.
For throwing a party, my general rule of thumb is expect 50% of people to turn up.
If you want a kick, read through the 1957 edition of Air Force Social Customs [0].
It makes you realize how the art of entertaining has atrophied over the decades.
[0] https://archive.org/details/answerbookonairf00wier/mode/1up
I have my own saying for this. “Swimming is how you learn to swim”
My anecdote might have limited relevance here, but I think it's something worth considering.
I get the feeling that some people organise, while most people don't. I haven't seen the situation where a person organises stuff for one group, but not for another group. It always tends to be the same people doing the organising for all their friends. At least that's what I've observed, I'd welcome any other observations.
edit: poor choice of words
Every community has one or two people that are "the engine" and constantly keep people reconnecting. Has nothing to do with social media, or Covid - it's always been the case as far as I can think back (and that's the early 80's)
Yes, you can push and prod people to occasionally host, but that's also a ton of work.
I have some friends who very easily lose themselves in their work and the stress around it and if I wasn't the one checking in and basically pulling them away, I'd miss out on what are easily my favourite days out and it has no impact on how much we enjoy each other's company. Maybe one day it changes but until then I'm there for them.
That said, there are of course times where it's better to just let go. But those people were probably never that important to you in the first place.
For me, I'll host something for a small group if I get some inspiration, but on a week to week basis I'm often in extremely social third-spaces, supplemented by larger parties (probably bi-weekly). My effort is often best spent meeting people for deliberate, intimate, outdoor sports adventures or coffee hangouts, but the same person I know who tends to organize larger parties doesn't really feel like someone who'd be into these; they can't really hold a conversation 1 on 1 for very long, and they're not super curious or vulnerable or athletic in the way that's necessary to engage in those as much. He's a regimented, scheduled, impatient, person. They often need a sort of fabricated social vehicle (also likes to decorate and host), whereas I get nearly all of my socializing from incidentally being in social space.
I think it's fine to be either of course. It's ok that my organizer friend doesn't like heights, and so I won't invite him to climb mountains, he likes hosting parties, so I try to attend as many as I can.
Note that I don't mean the non-organizer (me) is just passively socializing, it's just that they have different catalysts built into the things they do that extend into socializing easily. I'm DMing 1 or 2 friends, multiple times a week, to do something we both enjoy or just chat while walking around the city. While parties and hosted things are neat, they're just not very good platforms for depth.
Just as well, I do try and be inviting to everyone who'd like to come out and do other things, in general it's important to reciprocate, but I'm not hosting a party just because someone else did.
This is what mostly happened with me, I just got burned out from always having to be the one to organise everything or nothing would happen, which is what ended up happening after I stopped, we just stopped meeting up and eventually grew completely apart.
Now, I'm in a completely different country and I don't even have anyone's contacts anymore. But that's been life for me, people come and people go, never to stay.
I've accepted it by now, it can still hurt from time to time, but it is what it is, one should not force their will onto others, I believe.
Eh, I don't think EVERYONE is struggling with this. I am an introvert, and have no desire to go out and do more things with friends. I get enough socialization with my wife and kids, and don't really have the desire to do more things.
Though, I’m also single, so, maybe I wouldn’t feel such a need if I were married? Idk.
So you aren't one of the people that are lonely, because you have wife and kids
I'd use this as an opportunity to do something exciting with your life (if finances permit). Go live in Asia and do the nomad thing, if you're lonely there are a ton of Filipinas who want nothing more than to be a good wife and provide for their family. Try to start a business, take up some kind of art and make an honest effort to get GOOD at it, etc.
Other annoying parts are if you fight off anxiety and do go out you most likely will run into minor inconvenience like some Karen honking on you or making a fuss in front of you when you’re waiting in line. Minor inconvenience like that refuels social anxiety.
> You have to do it on a regular cadence.
I've posted about this before, but my wife and I sort of accidentally started a trivia team that's been going strong for like four years. Nearly every single week for four years, we get together with some subset of about 15 people. Most the regulars are there most days.
I also started cold plunging and have been doing it with the same regularity as trivia -- nearly every single week. It's a much smaller group, but it is absolutely part of our routine. Rain or shine.
Both these things have given several of us some really great friend time that makes that loneliness fade away.
I looked through your history and can't find it. (And you say "trivial" and "trivially" disproportionately often.) Can you link to it?
when i am in this mood my mantra becomes, "be an instigator".
Finding new friends as an adult can be exceedingly difficult, but becoming a friend to someone is surprisingly easy.
Lots of people (and if I'm being honest I'm one of them, so no judgement) just sort of expect friendships to come to them. But if you actually do the hard (and somewhat socially risky) work of inviting people to do things, offering to help unsolicited, organizing gatherings, etc. new friendships are much easier to come by.
There are a ton of reasons for this. Work, school, coordinating plans with their partner, other commitments , other friends and family and honestly people just being flaky. For D&D this can be particularly bad if you're missing a couple of people who just flaked. Other activities don't have that problem and it can still be an issue.
There was a time when going out and doing things was necessary for social interaction. That's not true anymore. Online is sorta social. It's kinda close enough to scratch that itch for many, particularly because it has none of the coordination and/or travel issues.
But also people just have less free time. Because we have to work so much.
Hobbies in general have becom ea luxury. By that I mean you're spending your time doing something that doesn't earn an income. That's good but an increasingly large number of people don't have that as an option, hence "luxury".
Put another way, the ultimate goal of capitalism is to have all the worker bees constantly creating wealth so Bezos can have $210 billion instead of $215 billion.
I always feel like I organize things to much. It's one sided
There was a post[1] sometime back about just having coffee in the afternoon outisdes and how that brought in more people.
I also write about it here [2].
I wonder whether part of this is a habitualization of intolerance for just being with oneself - to be ok with feeling bored, for instance. Most suggestions are about "doing". Just being with oneself without a doing is painful for many from what I've seen.
I host board game days.
I organise a pub trivia team.
I organise singalong nights.
I host occasional parties. Soup nights. Zucchini parties.
I set up a lot of group chats and keep them alive.
I organise to visit my family.
For a lot of events, I get a 5-10% attendance rate compared to the number of people I invite. People are busy. It just means I need to keep expanding the circles of people to invite. If people don't want to come it eventually becomes clear and I quietly remove them from the lists. But mostly I hear the opposite - they really want to keep being invited, even if they don't make it often.
Most importantly, you have to hear “I can’t” and be really cool about it or folks will half commit out of guilt and bail. They probably have a good reason, especially if they have kids. Or maybe they’re just exhausted! That is valid - you will sometimes feel that way too, and you should clearly (but politely) communicate it when you need.
If you consistently say yes/no and adhere to it, people will return the favor and you’ll all be better for it. My social life vastly improved post COVID when I adhered to that. My friends and I are incredibly honest so now folks rarely bail (always for good reason) and we all can reliably plan to hang out without guessing if someone actually means “no” when they say maybe and all that nonsense.
Join an organization. For example every city has Toastmasters, most have several. Easy to find, and it is an excellent place to meet people. And you'll learn how to convert social anxiety into social adrenaline.
Do you have a faith? Actually go to church instead of just believing. Are you non-religious? Several strands of Buddhism can be followed as philosophy and practice without adopting any mystical beliefs. Vipassanā (also called Insight) and Zen are a couple of examples.
And how do you turn random people that you met into life-long friends? You can reduce the time investment by a lot. If you call someone on a spaced repetition schedule, you can make them internalize that the door is always open. Without requiring a large commitment on either side. And a spaced repetition schedule is easy to achieve - just think Fibonacci. I'll call you back in 3 days. Then 5. Then 8 (round down to a week). And so on. It feels like a lot of calls at the start. But it slows down fast. Over a lifetime, it is only around 20 calls.
Play around with it. If it was someone you met and hung out with on a cruise, maybe start at a week for that first call. Either way, you're reinforcing the idea that we like to talk, and the door is always open.
You can use a similar idea to keep people who move on from your workplace in your life. People always mean to stay in contact. Then don't. But with structured reinforcement, you can actually make it work.
If it works, it works, I guess. And in a thread about loneliness, that’s all that matters. But it seems a bit calculated rather than organic, which is what we think of as the platonic ideal of friendmaking.
But if you really want calculated...try https://amorebeautifulquestion.com/36-questions/ on for size.
Every idea like “let’s have icecream socials at..” started as one person’s pipe dream which they then acted on and executed. No one is coming to rescue us. There’s no secret hand guiding humankind.
You definitely can’t solve loneliness for society but you can solve loneliness for your immediate circle by organising activities and that’s already a huge improvement.
In contrast, sitting back and saying this needs to be solved at a higher level does nothing at all.
I am thinking of a chain of causality like:
People do not plan things, or they flake on events because they're tired. Theyre tired because theyre working too many hours and are obese. They work/obese because because they consume too much. They consume too much because we're a spiritually empty society. (Just to put up an initial draft hypothesis).
I'm thinking if we can solve some of the nodes closer to the root we can have a higher impact than just burning ourselves out trying to deal with the leaf nodes.
For me, the chain of events was like this.
I had disposable income > i had no social network or things to do > so i went out and joined a running group and made friends like that.
Others probably choose gaming or something else they can do alone in the third stage.
I doubt there are many people who spent on gaming without first going through the “I don’t have things to do” stage.
Somethings that come to mind: Expensive smart phones, fast fashion clothing spend, travel, tattoos, car feature creep leading to price increases and more loans taken, sq foot per person in housing, Food as an identity statement (more foreign/imported/, more protein are two trends I believe are true).
That idea is a social problem. I hope a sufficient number of individuals reject that reasoning.
Instead, a better goal is to become comfortable talking to strangers. If you could do that confidently, anything is possible socially.
Here’s a framework to do that:
1. Adopt a useful attitude.
Before any social situation, consciously choose an attitude that serves you socially: calm, relaxed, enthusiastic, curious, friendly, or simply open. This replaces the useless defaults that keep you stuck: reticent, scared, angry, confused.
Assume people will like you.
2. Set an intention for the interaction.
Decide on one small goal for the interaction. Not “be charming” or “make friends,” rather something achievable.
Example intentions, ranked from easier to more difficult: - To appear friendly (smile, make eye contact) - To greet people - To find out what’s going on around town - To enjoy talking with people - To meet people - To make someone smile - To enjoy getting to know someone - To make someone laugh - To get someone’s contact info - To flirt - To talk to the most attractive person in the room
3. Find comfort in your body.
When you arrive at a social space, take a deep breath. Know that you’re safe inhabiting your body, no matter what anyone thinks of you or says.
4. Set your expectations.
Paralyzed about what to say? Set the bar low. Say your words and expect nothing in return. Confidence in delivering your words will grow. Confidence in social acceptance will follow as you see people respond neutrally and positively.
You might be talking to a grumpy person. It’s okay if you don’t get the response you’d hoped for.
5. Start impossibly small.
If you’re severely out of practice (nervous, anxious, uncertain), set out to initiate an interaction with someone where you accomplish just one objective. Then stop and celebrate that win. Don’t try to combine all of these into one interaction—you will get overwhelmed. Then initiate another interaction on another day and accomplish another objective.
Objective: Say “hello.” If you tend to be quiet, focus on being heard. Find confidence in your voice.
Objective: Say the first thing that comes to mind and see what happens.
Objective: Notice something about a person and comment on it. “Nice shoes!”
Objective: Notice something about the environment and comment on it to someone nearby.
Objective: Ask someone a question for information.
Objective: Ask someone their opinion.
Objective: Ask a question that invites an emotional response rather than a factual one. “What do you love about living here?”
Objective: Join a circle of people in conversation.
6. Make it a habit.
Start today: say one thing to one person. Repeat tomorrow. Then the next day. Within about a week, it becomes second nature. The scariness diminishes. Soon, you’ll actually want to talk to people.
When you learn to talk to strangers, you’re more than halfway to making a friend. Friends will help keep you out of loneliness.
But that's the whole issue. Who am I supposed to reach out to? The 2 people at work I occasionally talk to because they happen to sit in the same office as me?
Longer term: make opportunities to occasionally talk to other people. Join a club, join a fitness group of some kind, take a class at your local library. It's got be something in person with enough repetition with the same people that everyone involved can overcome inertia enough to talk.
Try to say 'yes' should an occasional contact invite you to something, because it's pretty common that you won't get asked a second time if you pass on the first - I assume that's because we're all scared stiff that no-one likes us.
In all seriousness, there is no evidence to suggest that being a nerd (read: having nerdy interests) is related to being more emotionally stunted than the average person. You're just perpetuating a bad stereotype.
> A nerd is a person seen as over-intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills.
It's not a stereotype that nerds are socially awkward but rather "nerd" is the name for the stereotype.
I would like to mention this link from HN
No, no, no, it's absolutely not the same, OMG, nothing alike. "I dont want to go to the gym today" isn't the kind of profound, all encompassing, and existential dread that attempting to organize a social event is. Especially when you push yourself to organize and it doesn't work out, which has happened to me before. Those feelings are legitimately nothing alike, the fact someone is comparing the two is wild to me.
I do still need to try to overcome it and get over it, but it's not even as remotely as simple as you claim.
When this doesn't happen what do you do?
The only other option is to go on being miserable.
If you feel you're clinically depressed get diagnosed and treated in a clinical setting ASAP. Diseases need treatment.
You generally do not go to the gym and fail, exercising works more or less the same for almost everyone, you get good hormones, you feel good.
Socialising, on the other hand, is entirely different. Some people thrive in it, some people feel much more dread afterwards.
Even if there were state programs that established and ran these sorts of events and created low-friction ways of interacting with people, people could still say "well that assumes a certain baseline of energy."
It is true that somebody who is in the midst of extreme depression and can't get out of bed is probably not going to be able to set up a local dnd game. It is also the case that the large majority of people are absolutely capable of doing this sort of thing.
If I may I made an attempt to crack at this very problem with Tatapp (tatapp.astekita.com). Any feedback is very much appreciated.
If we want to solve this at the society or community level, there needs to be more opportunities for low stakes interaction. Places that people can passively gather around a communal activity. I'm reminded of the ladies dancing together in public squares / parks in China. They're usually a group, but mostly anyone can join in. You can just follow along and interact as much as you'd like. If you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay and chat, stay and chat.
Downtown San Mateo for example has the potential for this. It's already a closed off street where people go. But today there aren't group activities there that encourages passive interaction, people are still in silos. Perhaps if there were some games / puzzles, chalk boards, townhall type of table setup, that'll encourage passive interaction.
OP gave the thread a very good and valid suggestion. Treating this as a societal problem - for "society" to solve - is lazy thinking.
If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.
Making the society more welcoming works. It worked wonders for me. I moved from a country where things like meetup events are not common and groups are less welcoming to strangers. Having moved to UK, meetup events allowed me to go out and socialise because I could sign up without speaking to anyone, and go there and participate in the activity, without the pressure to socialise, it was an optional benefit. These settings allowed me to socialise with strangers that I could never do before.
Of course if you never go out of your house, you're not going to have many social interactions. But your environment and the culture you live in makes a difference too. You can quit smoking yourself clearly, but the collective push to discourage smoking has done a lot to reduce the overall use of cigarettes.
My town does an annual party. I heard about it and showed up to volunteer. I did that for a few years. It wasn't as productive in producing friends (I'm in a different location than before that is more insular) but even so, it got me out of the house and, for the few months before the event, was pretty much fun.
These kinds of things are often available if you just look around. It doesn't require knowing people ahead of time and is low stakes. If nobody is friendly, it doesn't matter.
Problem is it gets fucking exhausting to organize and reach out after a while. Especially with DnD.
This is a thing that's always surprised me when I've been in the US. How common it is to enthusiastically arrange to do some activity together, get a meal, play a game, have a drink, whatever, and then for people to just call it off at the last minute. It seems much more socially acceptable to do so than either the UK (where I live) or France (where I have lived and still visit regularly).
The loneliness thing seems common across Europe too though so I'm not suggesting this is the root of the problem. But I do think that whilst this is a global problem the solutions are likely to be local, working with and leveraging different cultural norms.
Anything but a purely positive or enthusiastic response is not allowed in US culture.
This is true, but as long as the success rate is >= 1 other person, it's okay.
I started a running club for my apartment block (about 200 flats with maybe 300 residents). I posted flyers out once advertising it as a friendly social running club. Of the 300, the group has about 15 people, of which 5 are regulars (every other week at least), and just 2 of us are super regulars (multiple times per week). It's a terrible success rate, but those are 4/5 good friends.
At first it bothered me how flaky people were. Some people joined the group but have yet to show up in person. And some joined the group and are yet to even converse in the group chat, but hey, they'll come along when they're ready.
I would love to further the combat, please reach out to me Joseph de Castelnau on IG and X.
A lot of people are more comfortable with a shared experience objective. This provides a means to do something and a reason behind meeting.
If you are always in the mindset that you are giving and everyone else is taking that can really impact how you perceive everyone. And 9/10 most people over estimate how much they give and under-estimate how much they take.
There is also something powerful with "I _get_ to take my new friend to a place I find cool" rather than "My new friend is using me to go to my cool place". Changing the way you internally frame things drastically helps.
I know it sounds absolutely stupid hogwash but it helps.
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/gratitude-bed-every-morning...
I hope this helps!
That's not a "mindset," dude.
It's really hard to try to make that relationship more reciprocal and it really sours you on trying to create other relationships. You wonder if there's something inherently wrong with you. If your lot in life is always to be an outsider.
There's also the second type of person one can get caught up with, the narcissist. They think that the world owes them everything and they will take, take, take and never give anything. This one is a typically bit easier to deal with and do a little less damage to your mental health. Though they can sometimes be charismatic, so difficult to spot early if you aren't used to dealing with that type of person. The charismatic ones don't demand anything, especially not right off the bad. They make you feel like it's your choice to do them favors.
It's easier to notice if you have exceptionally "wanty" people in your life. But can happen regardless.
Some relationships are dysfunctional. Some people are toxic. That's not a "mindset" problem. It's clear you're not familiar with dysfunctional relationships, which is great, so don't accuse others of having the wrong "mindset" when you don't know.
But then I tried to imagine receiving what I thought I wanted, and whether it would truly make me happy. The answer is almost always no.
The few times the answer was yes, I traced down why within myself, and found that, honestly, I just wanted people to care about me.
Then I realized that they have already shown ways that they care about me, just not the ways I was wanting or expecting, or found as meaningful.
Or I realized that I was not believing that they cared about me, and that it was merely a performance, but that I had no good reason for doubting it, and was just being overly demanding of a sign. (Not always, though. With some people, there were clear signs they were faking it.)
Or I realized that there was no context in which those things could come up, so the genuine love from the other person might actually be present, it's just that there's no opportunity for them to express it, until a scenario is created where it makes sense for them to do so in some way.
And other similar thought experiments within myself. This has led to me (a) realizing that a good number of people do actually care about me to a significant and meaningful degree, and (b) I need to take the initiative more often to create situations where they can express it, even if it's something as simple as asking them to have coffee with me.
I don't think that was the message the book was trying to give, but that's what I got out of it.
So yes, people will wonder, subconsciously or not, what's in it for them. If you can give status or if you are naturally entertaining, this might all seem a little less obvious.
Unless you are pretty and young, nobody will automatically want to be around you unless you’re providing value.
It seems to me that every relationship is value oriented, even ones we consider absolutely perfect and pure.
Take for instance a mother's undying love for her newborn. She values that newborn for a few reasons. She sees herself in it. She sees pure innocence in it that needs to be protected and nourished. She sees all the potential good (i.e. value) this little child may one day bring to society. She sees her own personal fulfillment in the act of bringing this to fruition, which brings her joy, even amidst all the sacrifices she may have to make for it.
Is any of this selfish or bad? Does it in any way devalue her relationship to the child?
Extrapolate this to other relationships. A perfect friendship, where two people meet together regularly to find out about each other's recent activities, and encourage each other in life's difficulties, and foster one another's growth and good. They each care about the other, ask how the other is doing and what they're thinking and feeling, offer each other consolation, comfort, and help in times of distress or difficulty. Each gets this from the other, mutually beneficial. One may offer it exclusively at one time, the other reciprocates later, not out of obligation, but gratitude and personal desire.
Is this wrong? Is this selfish? Is this bad?
in consumer societies people flee real freedom's anxiety by conforming to market ways, treating connections as consumption not production. lasting bonds need effort patience vulnerability, all anti-consumer virtues.
Fromm said that in market societies love and relations follow the commodity and labor market exchange pattern. they want low-effort replaceable humans. So they became low-effort replaceable humans.
This "hypersensitivity" and even paralytic fear must be understood as a narcissistic trait (people fail to recognize this, in part, because they have a limited view of what is narcissistic, as something necessarily bombastic, and of course, narcissism tends toward a blindness of one's own narcissism). By recognizing this to be the case, the subtle temptation toward self-pity, or normalization or even valorization of such qualities, can be prevented. Narcissistic traits are antisocial, and so it stands to reason that narcissistic traits impede one's ability to form healthy relationships.
> You are struggling against many aspects of the way we in the developed world/nerd world live.
The liberal consumerist hyperindividualism of our age is an anthropological position that conceives of human beings as atomized units that merely enter into transactional relations with other human beings. "Society" is merely something contractual and utilitarian, and in practice has the flavor of mutual exploitation. In effect, society is reduced to something like a marketplace. This is, of course, totally bogus and destructive. We are intrinsically social animals. Society is a common good, a superordinate good, toward which we have certain general, non-consensual moral obligations and something we need to flourish as human beings.
Because of the bad anthropology the contemporary world is rooted in, we often feel its practices and aims to be meaningless and hollow. We also find ourselves oscillating between the twin errors of collectivism and hyperindividualism. These two extremes are forced onto us by the paradigm of this false anthropology. One looming danger today is that, as the liberal order collapses, we do not know what will replace it. The loudest contenders are undesirable.
> more time-consuming relationship with our families than our parents ever did
That depends. On the one hand, family life was much more robust and lively in many ways than it is today. Parents weren't as careerist then in general. Families were larger, so the abundance of siblings meant you didn't have a lonely childhood at home, and a large pool of potential friends outside of it. Older siblings would assist with younger siblings, and children would participate in domestic duties, so in that sense, parents would not need to be as involved in all aspects of the daily life of the children and the functioning of the household. And in the past, families tended to concentrate more in the local area, so grandparents were typically near children and grandchildren and so on. In other words, a robust family life enables a robust society in general. Social life becomes "thicker" and mutually reinforcing.
The time-consuming element you have in mind is therefore related. All of the responsibility for taking care of aging parents falls on the few children they have or who live nearby. Without siblings or friends, parents step in socially more than they would with their children (or else consign them to the cesspool of social media and internet garbage). There are also cultural factors: parents can become overinvolved or inappropriately involved in some respects, like the proverbial helicopter parent, which itself can be spurred by the collapse of society around them, if not careerist ambitions for one's children.
Which brings us to your main point...
> You have to be the one who creates things to do.
Today, communities often need to be more intentional. If there isn't a community around you'd like to join, you have to be the one who initiates it. It's not guaranteed to function or last, but what's the alternative?
This doesn't "solve" the so-called loneliness epidemic, of course. The proposal here is more modest, namely, if you want people in your life, you have to look for them. Every community or social group needs a reason for its existence. The weakest form is rooted in utility, the second weakest in fun and pleasure. They are transient. The best and more robust kind are to be found in the common pursuit of virtue. In these and through these, we could begin to witness the birth of a healthy society.
I moved to a new area. Searched for chess clubs. Couldn't find one.
So I created one. We now have ~10 people showing up to each meeting. From young kids, to older retired people. Facebook is a blessing for finding groups of people who are looking for things to do. It's really that simple. Just do things.
This is an incredibly good point. Like all things of this nature, I liken the process to panning for gold. In truth, you may not want to invest in people that aren't all that invested in you or the activity at hand. It stinks that the success rate is lower than chance, but it's probably better this way.
I've been working on a solution that makes it easier to meet people. When you're out for coffee or something and feeling social, you can signal you're available. Since you and your potential friend already nearby, it should reduce cancellations. I built an app for this, check it out if you have time: https://tatapp.astekita.com/
I've repeated this a couple times. Yeah, usually I have to do the bulk of the inviting and organizing. And yeah, it's uncomfortable being the "leader". But I know everyone enjoyed the time together. Those that didn't just never came and that's fine too.
You really can just do things!
Anthropologically, this matters because our social brains are tuned for inevitability, not optionality. We are adapted to environments where interaction is frequent, predictable, and constrained. Dunbar-scale groups, reciprocal dependence, and ritualized coordination did the work that calendars and reminders now attempt to approximate. When those constraints exist, friendship is an emergent property. When they are removed, it becomes a management problem.
Modern life systematically dismantled those constraints. Mobility replaced permanence, private space replaced shared space, and passive entertainment replaced collective activity. Flaking became costless. Absence became invisible. Optionality exploded. None of this happened accidentally; it was a deliberate trade in exchange for autonomy, flexibility, and economic efficiency. But the biological machinery did not change with the environment. We are still running hunter-gatherer social hardware in a world optimized for individual choice.
Seen through that lens, the advice to host, schedule, follow up, and accept rejection is not wrong, but it is compensatory. It asks individuals to manually recreate what used to be automatic. One person becomes the forcing function that the environment no longer provides. That can work, but it is fragile, asymmetric, and emotionally expensive, especially for people who are sensitive to imbalance or rejection. Framing this as “how friendship works” subtly turns a systems failure into a personal obligation.
If the goal is to reduce effort rather than heroically absorb it, the real lever is not better social skills or more persistence but reintroducing constraint. Social bonds form most reliably where interaction is inevitable rather than intentional: fixed schedules, shared physical spaces, repeated exposure to the same people, and light obligations that make absence noticeable. This is why gyms, religious communities, teams, classes, and other ritualized environments still produce friendships with relatively little effort. They partially restore the conditions under which our social instincts evolved.
There is no free lunch here. Effortless social life was never free; it was paid for with reduced choice, reduced mobility, and reduced privacy. You cannot fully recover that world without giving something up. But you can recover much of its function by selectively sacrificing optionality in exchange for repetition and proximity. The modern workaround of turning individuals into social project managers is effective but unnatural. Rebuilding environments that do the work for us is closer to our biology, closer to our history, and probably the only scalable way to make social connection feel less like a second job again.
The naive solution is to place blame on the people who are influenced by the most advanced behavior modification schemes ever devised by humans. Kinda like how the plastic producers will push recycling, knowing they can shift blame for the pollution away from their production of the pollution, because people love blaming. You'll see commenters here telling us that the answer is for people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get out, get involved in their communities under their own willpower. These ideas are doomed from the outset.
The real solution is already being enacted in a number of US states and countries[1]: legally restricting access to the poison, rather than blaming the people who are at the mercy of finely honed instruments of behavior modification when they're unable to stop drinking it under their own willpower.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...
Limiting at which age you can use the product is just one part of the puzzle. You could also hit a big tax on ad revenue gained via social media to veer people off from ruining their brains. There is a host of others tools as well and I think we will see them implemented more and more. The tech billionaires fight back and rather fund a fascist dictator to power than lose a single cent, but there you go. But I think the Musk’s and the like have constantly stepped over boundaries to the extent that the tide has changed.
We've created these unhealthy gardens where young people feel safe, removing any reason for them to engage in the real world. They don't thrive in these places, they slowly withdraw.
You have said that 'feeling safe' is 'unhealthy' because it's not 'real'. But constantly feeling and being unsafe, even if it is warranted by circumstance, is worse in every way.
We, as a society, do not support the agency to children to escape horrific circumstances. These online communities are a stop-gap against this active failure.
Ideally, they wouldn't need to escape at all, but that's not the conversation we're having.
The online communities in question do more damage than good. They encourage isolation and spread social contagion.
We should do more as a society, absolutely! But these places are not “stop gaps” because they’re NOT helping.
Most of my real-life friends are people I've first met online, or as a consequence of having met someone online. Those online sites have mostly been run by enthusiasts, driven by some hobby, fandom or other interest. A couple of them have risen highly in popularity and attracted many thousands of users, and also served news and allowed vendors to use their site for interactions with customers.
Those communities that have thrived have made sure that discourse does not get poisoned. They have had active, strong but fair moderators. Many have strict rules against discussing politics or religion, but people have a need to discuss that too sometimes — and being identifiable e.g. between subreddits could put people off from doing that.
Also, where do you draw the line to what is an online community and what is "social media"? I've avoided Facebook and X-twitter, but I know genuine communities exist there too.
Also, the naive view is to place all the blame for a broad cultural shift on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok and pretend people can't choose to limit their use. Someone pretending there can only be a single factor to blame for a problem is usually a biased person with a bone to pick. The rhetoric supports your cause, but the US is not going to ban social media for adults any time soon and telling people they're helpless until the government bans social media is unhelpful at best.
But making children (and adults, because how else can you tell without checking) give their biometrics to companies (and by extension the highest bidder (palantir, paramilitaries, and police)) that helped create and then exacerbated this crisis is like asking the drug dealer association to help folks quit by giving them new exotic chemicals heretofore undiscovered.
You 'win' the war on pollution by making companies actually pay for their externalities, repeat offenders cease to exist, their assets seized, and their executives are jailed, rather than just 'paying fines' for the thousand of corpses they leave in their wake.
Likewise, if social media companies produce informational or social 'pollution' so defined, we can do likewise and insist they defray the cost of the damage. If they are no longer profitable when the cost is not paid by society, then they'll have to learn to innovate again.
I recently took a local wheel throwing (pottery class), which was daunting at first, among a class of almost all females, younger, etc, but im 6 months in and literally just interacting with humans is one of the best parts of my week. Hobby is pretty cool too, so completely different than banging code all day.
Sometimes I don't feel like going after days of being alone and literally talking to no one, it puts you in a "zone" for sure, but then I go to the class, and you realize, at least imho, humans are social creatures. It's like food, we need that interaction or we whither and die.
You can have political/religious conversations with people who disagree but often it feels like walking in a mine field.
This is an element of cancel culture, or a culture which indoctrinates to tattle/report one another.
This is anecdotal, of course.
The problem is, those eras are uncommon even in the U.S in the broader view of history, and depend entirely on being the right demographic. Such as being a Muslim American in the decade following 9/11. I can assure you, they did not experience the “friends of a different political party” effect at that time.
If everyone followed the rule of avoiding these topics, I wonder how many people would never hear an opposing opinion, maybe even a more beneficial one, to the one they've grown up with. I think these topics should be encouraged.
That said, the moment you disagree with someone on one of these topics, some people will definitely fly into a small rage, or instantly cut off contact with you, or even slander you to others, or some mix of these.
Ultimately, I think that's fine. For one thing, you have just learned that this is someone you probably don't want in your life anyway, because they can't handle disagreement in a civil way.
And you learned it fairly quickly and at a small cost. Even if they slander you, people whose opinions you'd actually care about will generously take their word with a large dose of salt, especially based on their character, since such a character usually has other tells too.
So my current stance is to just be open to these topics.
Just yesterday, while I was sitting here at the library, someone approached me and asked me to watch his phone while he used the restroom, in case ICE came in and took it. He was joking, but we went into a slight conversation about politics in general, in which we found out that we disagree on certain topics, and he almost took offense at me disagreeing. I was friendly and open to him the whole time, and he was friendly when he left to use the restroom. But when he came back and sat back down, and later left the whole library, he left without even so much as a goodbye or wave. It seems like he just didn't like me anymore because of my disagreement. And that's fine with me. Both would have been fine.
First, I didn't express an evil or hateful opinion, or any which could reasonably incite indignation or justified anger.
Second, I was willing to dive into a discussion, he wasn't. He seemed more closed minded, which to me seems to be a sign of emotional immaturity.
Third, we did (implicitly) agree to disagree, which I think is the right, peaceful, mature, and civil course of action when at an impasse.
Fourth, we weren't even at a genuine impasse, but an artificial one he created by simply ending the conversation after finding out that I didn't agree with him. Maybe if he heard my reasons, he might find something he agrees with, or something that tempers his emotinonal reaction?
I think this is what changed. I remember being a kid in the 80s, and when my parents had friends over, someone would inevitably bring up Reagan or something, but the discussion would always be polite and graceful, and then people would move on to something else. So many people seem to be incapable of this today. Politics comes up and suddenly the friend group is cut in half and daughters don't talk to fathers anymore. It's wild.
These two are a strict no go for me too.
Another thing that worked well for me is to keep discussions very low and quick on topics like personal relationships, work, career and hot button topics like AI, weather, traffic, climate change, house prices, etc. Basically avoid anything that a newspaper would think is worthwhile for frontpage or editorial column.
I go heavy on food, travel, culture, rumors, art, movies, music, design, festivals, holidays, games. You could talk hours on stuff here, just pick an artsy cultural magazine or subreddit and keep up.
Side note, inviting views from both sexes makes for some very interesting short conversations. Both have very very different takes on the same things and therefore won't talk too long. Both being interested in very different things (think dress belts, hair supplements, birth control vs fishing, bourbon and soccer) brings some newness into the conversation.
Maybe the loneliness problem is partly connected to the American political system at this point in time?
It wasn't always this way. In the past Republicans actually had some decency. That went out the window after they elected Trump twice.
> most of my friends have dropped off or gone crazy
If you find yourself to be the one who is isolated, then I think you need to look inward. My best friends and I share completely polar opposite politics. We have known each other for almost 50 years now. We have had yelling matches over politics, especially during the Pandemic. We have now stopped talking... about politics. We still chat every single day throughout the day. I laugh heartily at least once a day over some extremely offensive joke that one of us sends, usually at each other's expense. But we never, ever talk about politics anymore and we are happier for it.
Maybe you need to rekindle those friendships and see if you can avoid politics. If you can't then I think it's more on you than them and you should reflect on that.
This function runs subconsciously all day long. From talking to strangers to reaching out to a friend, the lonely mind is much more aware of negative outcomes, so your mind protects you by telling you things like „I don’t talk to strangers because I would annoy them“ or „I don’t reach out to that friend because he’s probably busy“. And that makes it much much harder for lonely people to maintain a healthy social life.
As for the fix, you can try to set the social event up in a way that has less room for perceived threat. Think of third places, regularly scheduled meetings, etc. Or you can work on the function itself (=your thinking patterns). If you look at research on loneliness interventions, working on this function is the most effective way to help individuals overcome persistent loneliness.
Now the sad thing is that people don’t like to hear that the most effective way to combat loneliness is to work on their own perceptions, which makes the sales pitch rather challenging.
We have a free scholarship option if you can’t afford the course. Our short term plan is to cooperate with (German) health insurance companies so there will be no costs on your part.
One of the most fundamental reasons for my own personal loneliness is that, in many of the connections I've made, they simply do not feel sincere, genuine, authentic, and simply because the other person clearly has a different motivation for "caring" about me than actually caring about me.
For example, the churchgoers I've met have always felt like they were only spending time with me to get me to become a member of their church. They were eager to throw money at me if I lost my job, or offer to help me move, but never wanted to get coffee outside church hours.
Therapists are another example, obviously financially incentivized to talk to me. There are definitely some who care simply because it's part of their personality, but that still says nothing about me and any connection they have with me.
And I shared a story elsewhere here of a priest who I had literally just met minutes before, and who actually went in for a hug the moment I mentioned having a hard time with something, as if this random hug from a complete stranger meant anything other than him following a virtue signalling script.
No, I am convinced that the solution must be free, it must be volunteers doing it without anyone knowing about it, without the belief that they're earning brownie points from God or gaining a potential member of some organization, and without getting paid or rewarded for it, except for the reward of having a new and worthwhile friendship with the lonely person.
I have a small handful of people who I talk to regularly, who I genuinely listen to, and who genuinely listen to me, who genuinely enjoy my company, and whose company I genuinely enjoy, whether in small talk or deep conversations, serious topics or lighthearted fun.
These people give me by far the most joy in my life out of any relationships I've ever had before. And it's because we worked toward it the right way, and built our way up to it, finding common interests and building a real, organic connection from them.
Maybe think about how you can behave so they can enjoy hanging out with you? Make it easy for them, that way you'll believe it :)
What I'm looking for, what I desire is mutuality. A space where I'm not in debt for just being there, don't have to force myself to "pay back" other's presence.
The skew of your reply seems to be "Don't be so demanding of other people, be more accomodating, give them a break and realize how much they're doing for you".
My whole point was that I do not expect people to put on an act, a show or anything for me, that I want them to be at ease and natural around me without forcing themselves. I do not want them to do anything for me. And I myself wish only to be taken as I am, without having to "pay", to extend, to do something for them, in the same way.
Perhaps I'm projecting the ghost of past conversations onto this one, but it feels like you're telling me I'm acting entitled by not wanting to pay a return for what I'm being offered. I do not value people forcing themselves to entertain me, and neither do I wish to force myself to entertain them in return. I simply do not *want* to participate in such transactional relationships. But people like you come around and "perform for me" without my asking or consent and then call me entitled for rejecting the trade. Does your kind not like being at ease? Do you give gifts only because you expect that they'll be returned? That's not the life for me.
For example, I often find it quicker and easier to agree the timing and details of weekend trips to meet up with friends in other countries, involving one or both sides traveling significantly to meet, than arranging a single evening to meet for dinner with a single existing German colleague or friend living nearby. Of course these people have lives and arrangements I must fit in with, but I'm convinced that the examples I'm thinking of do not have such overwhelmingly busy schedules as to explain the observation.
This might sound like a trivial observation, but I suspect that the overall effect, if you scale even a small fraction of this behaviour across a whole country, could be huge.
The German social scheduling culture can definitely be a viscous circle, where everyone having to plan their calendar in advance forces everyone else to plan even further in advance if they want to have a chance to meet up.
I do think it's probably felt the strongest for adults between ~18-35, where your circle of friends spreads out across the country/surrounding cities/world, and any get together necessitates travel. After that, when people settle down (potentially have children) they usually form new circles of friends that are more local again with more opportunities for spontaneous meetings.
Set your date and stick to it. If people deem your topic relevant, they will arrange to participate.
What you're describing here is an answer to the question "why aren't people 'just' being more social".
Certainly too, social media has played a big hand in this, but for many people, myself included, these activities feel high-risk, with a low probability of reward. Regardless of the correctness of the perceptions that have led to this feeling, the feeling exists and it is becoming more and more pervasive across society. And, like most problems centered on feelings, "have you tried not feeling that way?" is rarely, though not never, effective.
I actually have an interesting story here. For a couple of years I found a third place for myself in VRChat. It was great, I made friends, I spent time socializing for its own sake on a daily basis for hours. But something changed over time. I'll hop on now, look at each person on my friends list, look at private and public rooms I can join, and instead of being able to just jump in, the same feelings of "this is high-risk" that hold me back IRL result in me closing the game after ten minutes or so.
So what exactly happened? My theory is that, being a completely new "kind" of space, my brain didn't see the choices as "social" in the same way as IRL. But over time it relearned the same lessons in this new context, driving me away from social interaction.
Why? What are the unconscious lessons I learned, and why did I learn them? What have I unintentionally internalized that turned an enjoyable, effective, low-stakes virtual third place into an emotional slog that incentivizes self isolation in the same way IRL socializing does?
Lasgaard M, Qualter P, Løvschall C, et al. Are loneliness interventions effective for reducing loneliness? A meta-analytic review of 280 studies. Am Psychol. Published online October 23, 2025. doi:10.1037/amp0001578
If you know German, you might be interested in the two books on loneliness published by Noëmi Seewer and Tobias Krieger.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250212233145/https://www.hhs.g...
[1] https://thepeoplescommunity.substack.com/
[3] https://www.tiktok.com/@amandalitman/video/75927501854034854...
[4] https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-s...
[5] https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html
[6] How A Decline In Churchgoing Led To A Rise In ‘Deaths Of Despair’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 - December 2025 (2 comments)
Of course, LLM generated content threatens that, so things have gotten worse.
Quoting from elsewhere in this thread: "I have made big inroads solving my old-age isolation with AI. Personally, I prefer Claude."
The people who most exacerbated this epidemic were forged here in this culture and were rewarded with trillions in investment to step between every social interaction, to monetize our connections, to maximize our 'engagement' and capitalize on the damage they caused. They will not stop until there are laws and enforcement mechanisms that address these perverse incentives.
Building American cities around the whims of car manufacturers is, to my mind, as bad as any social media. We've foreclosed casual connection in so many ways, and social media stepped into that gap and wrenched as hard as it could. Lower real wage growth also matters, free time and funds are required for a full social calendar.
It's multifaceted, but none of these issues can be solved without real political power that counters the whims of capital, venture or otherwise.
I think your framing of history is wrong. Trains, and later cars were extraordinarily convenient compared to former methods of travel. We adapted infrastructure to maximize this convenience, not to profit companies. In fact, it's the other way around: companies profited off the demand for convenience they provided.
The same could be said for social media. People wanted small, low-risk interactions with other people over the internet. Companies capitalized on this, and realized that increasing dopamine is the only way to increase capital.
> it requires organized political and social movements, then the legislation and re-allocation of public funds for the public's good
I would reverse the first two, or maybe even remove the "political movement" part. Why is it necessary? It always starts with (a) one person taking concrete action on some principle, then (b) one small group of people joining that person on principle, then (c) this turning into a movement on principle and snowballing momentum until the change is exponentially impactful on society. Later, when the public agrees it's a good thing, they may choose to publicly fund it. Only a-c are necessary for it to make a meaningful impact.
However, I am not sure this is actually a solution to the (root) problem.
1. Volunteer. Somewhere, anywhere, for a good cause, for a selfish cause. Somebody will be happy to see you.
2. Stop trolling ourselves. As far as I can tell, all of the mass social media is trending sharply towards being a 100% troll mill. The things people say on social media do not reflect genuine beliefs of any significant percentage of the population, but if we continue to use social media this way, it will.
Disengage from all of the trolls, including and especially the ones on your "own side".
I agree. It's one reason I still come to HN and it's one of the few places I bother to comment (and the only place with more than a few dozen users). The moderation and community culture against trolling makes it a generally positive experience. I do still need breaks sometimes, though, for a few months at a time.
I'd love an online community where everyone was having discussions only in good faith. Zero trolling. I can dream.
That's already readily available outside. The whole appeal of online 'communities' is that it is not that.
We're on the internet. Is it my position?
> I don't know if I would have described that as bad faith, more like good-faith-in-disguise
It is good faith from the author's perspective, but bad faith/trolling from the reader's perspective. It, as taken from an expectation of replication of what is found outside, is deceptive. There, of course, can be no such thing as bad faith/trolling if you remove trying to see it as a reflection of outside.
So, as the earlier comments are taken from the reader's perspective, it is what is labelled bad faith. But I too get what you're saying.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder if we're just shooting the messenger in placing the blame on social media.
This is so tough, though, because the things happening in the world really, genuinely, do matter and its very hard to realize that our passive emotional reaction to them is not meaningful, probably actively bad for us. If I could snap my fingers and do one thing, I'd obliterate social media from the face of the earth.
Now everyone feeds the trolls.
Bad incentives will ruin anything.
The social media trolls are running the government. This can't be a serious take in 2026.
1. Almost every policy of the current US administration is deeply unpopular.
2. The vast majority of social media users do not comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule
Going out and trying to be comfortable in non-ideal situations (i.e. you know hardly anyone there) is a skill you can learn. I often think it's probably like sales cold calling. After a while you develop calluses.
There’s really two main ingredients to loneliness:
1) We don’t meet others in a way that sparks relationships.
2) We have personal issues that interfere with our ability to have relationships.
#1 is fairly straightforward. We have the ability to make friends; but lack the opportunity. If we can meet and interact with others, we’ll make friends, and mitigate our isolation. We need to “get out more.” We can join organizations, go places, right-swipe on apps, and we’ll eventually break our isolation. I’ve found that a key is to get together with others, over shared interests or goals.
#2 is a different beast. We need to work on ourselves, first and foremost. We may often need help, like therapy or guided self-help. Usually, there’s a lot of pretty humbling work involved. If we don’t treat the root cause (our own issues), then we can meet as many people as possible, and we’ll still be lonely.
Lots of potential reasons for our problems. Could be trauma, neurodivergence, addiction, mental health problems, personal insecurity, or simply lack of experience. Often, a combination of these.
The good news is, is that if we get serious about treating our own issues, we will absolutely end the isolation. Almost every treatment involves a lot of interaction with others, and relationship-building.
For myself, I was definitely in the #2 category. I’m “on the spectrum,” and I had an addiction problem. Intervention was required, and I needed to stop running, turn around, and face my demons. I needed to learn to ask for, and, even more importantly, accept, help. I had to develop a taste for crow and humble pie. Doing this, changed everything.
That was 45 years ago, when I was 18. The road has been anything but smooth, but it’s always been onward and upward. Today, I have close relationships all over the world, with an enormous variety of people, and have done work that affects thousands of lives in a positive manner.
I’ve also found that helping others to deal with their own issues has been effective.
Your #1 is great for after this connection with another human being has been made. Your #2 is why it hasn't been made yet. I'm trying to find solutions for the middle, to solve #2 for random strangers on the street, in order to get them both able and motivated to do #1. Those strangers are people who sit alone at home, all day, every day, and you only see them on the way to the grocery store and back.
I'm glad you got the help you needed to bootstrap your ability to find and form meaningful relationships. If only there was a reproducible way to help countless others get past that initial hump, and begin the same process. I believe it must be possible somehow.
I've been trying my surveys in Chicago as a first step. I need to do more, though, somehow. Now that I'm known as the "sign guy" by many people who pass me by every time I'm there, I think I can get more creative than surveys, and try signs that are more interactive to reach out to those people. I've been brainstorming throughout this thread on a few different ways to do this. If you or anyone has concrete ideas, I'd be very glad to hear it.
Breaking habits isn’t easy. It’s nearly impossible, if we have a compulsive disorder, but, then, we’d be #2.
The key to anything is willingness. If we don’t actually want to do something, then it ain’t happening.
But there’s a hell of a lot more #2, than folks are willing to admit.
A dog gives you a reason to be wherever you want to be - take a walk around the neighborhood or to the park. You're not a rando taking a walk for mysterious and possible nefarious purposes, you're walking the dog.
But for for goodness sake, pick up after the pooch. If you can wipe your own arse you can pick up a dog turd with a plastic bag.
Not generalizing to all people, but I think for some a pet can reinforce anti-social tendencies.
Either that or your definition of deep friendship is substantially off.
Your original comment.
It can be any other activity that requires more than one person. For example I started going to dance classes with my partner in november and what was just awkward "hello there" interactions before the holidays when we had to swap dance partners is now a bit more comfortable and we exchange a bit much and even have a chit chat after class at the door. It is waaaaaay too early to know if it will create new long term friends but the dynamic is here and after just a few weeks I can already spot the people I have absolutely no wish to know more about and those that I feel natural chatting with.
What started with smalltalk evolved into conversations over lunch which then afforded after work socializing which then led to actively scheduling time for shared interests. All of those provided ample opportunity to learn almost everything about that person and open the door to a deep friendship when mutually desired.
As a counter example, I've made some of the best friends of my life through walking my dog at the local dog park over the last decade. Seeing how people are dedicated to and treat their dogs gives me a great insight into their personalities.
Good god, where do you live where people think like that?
It's a little counterintuitive, but I find walking around with a camera has this effect too (depending on where you're pointing it of course).
I lived here almost 6 years before doing much more than a smile and nod to him, but my next door neighbors with a dog befriended him almost as soon as they moved in.
It wasn't until our son started walking and would stop and try and play in the dog water that we ever really talked to him.
I briefly considered it but I don't want to be the asshole. I would put any pet in exact position I am myself trying to avoid - stuck in home, alone for long periods of time.
When you are younger, you belong in school. When you get older, you belong at work.
If you fall out of any of these social structures its extremely difficult to find your way back in.
I was already pretty disconnected from society and people in general when my divorce hit and now I am completely untethered from any kind of community. Living is miserable I hate my life and I do not want to exist like this anymore.
None of the solutions people provide are easy or functional. "Go meet people" is the most vague, unhelpful bullshit ever.
I think the reality is some people, no matter how intelligent, caring or otherwise full of empathy they may be are just "too far gone" for anyone to have the initiative or concern to care about us. The world is so corroded and socially poisoned that any kind of meaningful effort in this kind of thing is pointless. Anybody with time or money is busy making money.
You can't solve the epidemic because it is a byproduct of multiple irreparably broken systems. People will continue to fall through the cracks and it will get worse. I don't know what happens after that but we'll probably all be dead.
Younger people are at school, a very social institution. After school they do sports or hobby, usually a very social activity. When it's their birthday, a party is organized.
When you are older, you have plenty of social interaction at work.
One of our colleagues is in a divorce. She's often miserable but gets a lot of support from her colleagues, she's invited at every activity, gets emotional support etc.
I do understand what you are trying to say though!
I'm not sure what country you live in, maybe people there are not very social... is there a possibility to move? Sometimes such event gives a totally different perspective on the world.
Public transportation.
Removing or heavily rolling back zoning laws.
Government investment in child care.
Nature takes the path of least resistance. If we want people to actually meet people and have the energy to make meaningful connections, the government has to set up the infrastructure to make it possible.
I’m going to gloss over Europe because I went there for the first time, and it blew my mind.
People were at the park at 4 pm! I live in a city and hardly see people outside at 4. They have the time to go to these 3rd places.
People were visiting friends with kids, which blew my mind because everyone I know who has had a child instantly has dropped off the grid socially. I understand why, but we need to make it easier for those children and parents to continue to have social interaction.
In my hometown, everything is so spread out that visiting a friend could be a 30-min drive. I was conditioned to believe that isn’t a lot, but at the end of a workday, who has the energy? Personally, I think public transportation would help that also create a lot more interactions with strangers to maybe create new friendships.
Also, zoning laws would help that. If everything there is to do is 40 min away, it adds so much resistance that it’s not worth it for most people. If every neighborhood had a pub or restaurant, it would add a lot of meeting points for your neighbors and will create a lot more spontaneous, “let’s invite this stranger to eat with us.”
Lastly, we have to work less. This is the toughest to chew. I’m fully in the office now, but when I was hybrid, it was so much easier to see friends because I had some ownership of my time. We need to have the energy to be social.
I have a lot of friends but don’t have the time or energy to see them so I have felt lonely for the past couple of years.
I think it’s true walkable communities like Europe kinda feels like college, everyone is busy and have their own life but hanging out is so accessible that it’s a matter of why not hang out compared to why hang out
You dont need public transportation if you have a strong community proximal to you.
You dont need government childcare if You have teenagers (inexpensive babysitters) or family members to do it.
Nature takes the path of least resistance. I would suggestion this is reductionistic. People take the past of high certainty and higher rewards (albeit favoring the former)
If people _knew_ they would have a good time if they showed up at an event, they likely would do it.
I agree we need strong community in close proximity, but still people need to travel to destinations a few miles from their houses sometimes. Biking is a great (this is my primary form of transportation) but even I know biking and walking cannot fill every transportation need. We need the trifecta of biking/walking/transit to ween ourselves off of cars and develop denser communities with more people to interact with in our day-to-day lives.
Except they did... for centuries ?? How can we claim that relying on community and a network of people is unreliable when it was the defacto solution for as long as we've existed?
While it is true that loneliness can arise from a lack of community, people, and related factors, for some people, the problem stems from not knowing how to be alone. At its core, the question becomes, "Am I externalizing my world, or internalizing my world?" When you externalize your world, you require something external. We are social creatures, and I do believe we need other people. I'm only suggesting that sometimes people need to look internally first.
Personal anecdote: No amount of community would have helped me feel like I wasn't alone, because I needed the world around me to provide some sense of my self-worth. It felt counterintuitive, but for me, I had to learn to be alone. Only then could I feel like I wasn't alone. It all came down to attachment theory and self-worth.
In attachment terms, loneliness can be a signal that we haven't yet internalized a stable sense of safety and worth. I wasn't missing others, I was missing an internal relationship with myself.
I was anxious even with others, because safety, worth, and regulation were outsourced to my relationships. I needed others to constantly help me feel those things. That was me externalizing my self worth.
I was avoidant with myself, because the connection with myself felt unsafe or unfamiliar. I leaned on things, status, money, in order to avoid looking deep within my heart. In the end, I had to do a lot of internal work. I had to learn that I matter even when no one is affirming me. Leaning on those <things> was self-abandonment in disguise. I would think, "If only I just had a little more knowledge I could solve this." We generally don't solve heart problems with our head.
Loneliness eased when I stopped trying to get my sense of self from the external world. I had to become someone that I could be with. Someone I didn't need to escape from.
How I accomplished it was not a short journey, but in summary it looked like:
1) Knowing my past, tolerating the discomfort, and sitting in it without judgement. I did this with a therapist.
2) Having a safe individual who always nurtured me, and taught me how to be OK with my big feelings. This was with an emotional intelligence coach. I felt the loneliness ease greatly once I could affirm myself.
3) Now that I had the knowledge to know my heart and my worth, I could then create connections outside of myself. I see this like, having the book knowledge, but now being able to learn how true it was experientially. This led to meeting my best friend and partner in this life. Having someone close to co-regulate, when I need support, and providing that in return, has been the final piece of the puzzle.
I firmly believe that most people need someone to co-regulate with. We can't white-knuckle our way to knowing ourselves better, but boy did I try!
Thanks again, and best of luck on your journey if you are on it :).
It seems a lot of you are in Seattle and I'm willing to try and host an event like this if any of you might be interested.
They have monthly meeting and are active in all kinds of events around the city.
P.S. if you're a hardware nerd, you might like https://dma.space/ (just had their grand opening this weekend) over in Capitol Hill.
If you already have a friendship circle, start being the one to propose meetups (cafe, pub, picnic, hike, etc.) If you don't, it's harder - join a social sporting league, group fitness class, dance class, DnD group, anything where people have to talk with each other. When you arrive, turn your phone off for the interval. It might take a couple of goes to find something that sticks or the right environment.
I think that the real trick of "solving" the loneliness epidemic is that it isn't spread evenly. Everyone has their own individual level of opportunity for social interaction, so the solution is hyper-local and individualised. There's no one size fits all solution.
- Give users a modern Tamagotchi
- Give the digital pet a need to socialize.
- Strap a basic LLM to it so users can talk to their pet.
- Have the pet imprint on its owner through repeated socialization.
- Owner goes to bed, pet still has social needs, goes out into the digital world to find other pets.
- Pet talks to other pets while you're asleep, evaluates interactions, befriend those with good interactions.
- Owner wakes up the next morning, checks their pet, learns it befriended other pets based on shared interests, and is given an opportunity to connect with their pet's friends' owners. Ideally these connections have a better-than-random chance of succeeding since you're matched via shared interests.
I'm sure there's a ton of unsexy technical reasons this is hard to make work well in practice... but dang, I think it would be so cool if it worked well.
I realize this exacerbates the issue in some ways - promoting online-first interactions. But, I dunno. I'll take what I can get these days, lol.
In my mind, it's more like meeting new acquaintances at the dog park. Dogs start playing with each other and getting along and you end up chatting with the other dog's owner while watching the dogs play together. Trying to recreate those vibes with digital pets.
When I'm doing "broad and shallow" at a meetup, there are invariably "oh, you'll want to talk with X over there, they <overlap on some intent interest>". It can feel tragic to look out at a room of nifty people, in largely desultory conversations, knowing that there are some highly-valued conversations latent there, which won't occur, because our social and cultural and technical collaborative infrastructure still sucks so badly at all this.
In lectures augmented by peer-instruction, addressing the "if you think your lectures are working, your assessment also isn't" problem, one version has students clicker-committing to a question answer, then turning to discuss it with a neighbor, then clickering again. One variant (which you now many not be able to use commercially, because of the failed-startup-to-bigco patent pipeline), has the system chose who everyone turns to (your phone tells you "discuss with the person behind left"), attempting to maximize discussion fruitfulness, using its insight into who is confused about what. So perhaps imagine Tamagotchis as part social liaison - "hey, did you know the gal at the optometry shop here also enjoys heavy bluewater sailing?"
So on the topic question: Want to incentivize greater social contact...? Increase the payoffs.
Loneliness is when there is a gap between desire for companionship/connection and reality.
I've done both extended periods of home office and a period of co-working in an open plan space. I didn't feel lonely in the home office. I guess because I did it by choice and had the agency to opt into joining a co-working.
I think that loneliness could be a symptom of lack of connection. And this need for connection can in some cases be fulfilled online or even through reading books. Participating in forums like hackernews or effect-ts satisfies some of the handful facets of connection that I need. It gives me a feeling of not being totally alone with some of my ideas.
What I know would help me is to have genuine relationships, friendships where we both care about each other, even if it's something as small as having coffee with them every day, learning about the other person, asking how their day was, and having these things be reciprocated voluntarily.
Even something so small would mean the world to someone like me, as long as it's coming from someone who I respect, who has something I admire about them. This part is important for a friendship. It can't just be any random person, it has to be someone with qualities I admire. I'm still trying to work out what that means and why it is.
Yes, you'll be less lonely if you join a group, get out of your house, etc... But how do we actively incentivize that? Social media and whatnot have hundreds of thousands of people working around the clock to find ways to suck you in and monopolize your time.
While "everyone should recognize the problem and then take steps to solve it for themselves" is the obvious solution, it's also not practical to just have everyone collectively decide they need to get out more without SOME sort of fundamental change in our society/incentives/etc
Real change will require enforced regulation on the methods and tactics social media is allowed to use. Things like notification limits, rules on gamification, feed transparency, and more.
In the states this will never happen. The corporations own the rules.
Is immediately and completely solving the problem not a good enough incentive? If you go outside and interact, you will be much less lonely.
There is no barrier! You don't need to overthink this. Walkable cities third spaces etc., all great — but literally just go out and interact with people you can do it today many people do it to great success!
---
"How do we solve the obesity problem?" "Well people should just work out."
Obviously, that would solve it, but they're distinctly not doing that, which is why we're talking about a broader solution to actually get people to work out.
Yes, we are — please believe me that a LOT of people go out into the world and interact with each other. Doing so is extremely heavily incentivized by all of the wonderful and beautiful things that happen in the world all the time, both quotidian and sublime.
There is critical mass!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic
I get what you're saying -- I leave my house more than most. But I think it's pretty clear we're trending away from that being the default.
To make friends, people need a place to meet, to have time and means to be there, and a reason to go there semi-regularly. A lot of the design of society completely ignores these needs. These are solvable problems.
Pre-schedule it. Ideally recurring. Can be monthly. Possibly even bi-weekly. Agree on a time and do it on schedule. Pre-scheduling removes all the mental load of finding a time together.
Even if you avoid Soma yourself, you will still face the negative effects of a society plagued by Soma.
Just because people appear to be doing more isolated things doesn’t mean it’s a ratchet that only moves in 1 direction. People adjust. When enough people feel too lonely, they will adapt and many of them will come up with a solution, likely swinging the pendulum in the other direction.
Now there's chatter about AI companions. If they take off and substitute real relationships it's game over. Swathes of the population will bed rot because they have no incentive to go outside for anything other than work.
My thoughts on this are you need to have multiple roots into your community. This is something that you go to often and talk to people, become a regular, say hi. Think back to how your parents or grandparents did it: They went to church/temple/synagogue, they went to PTA meetings, they talked to their neighbors, they were in clubs, they went to the same bar.
So I think doing things that get you out of the house, consistently the most important part:
1. People need to make a point to talk to their neighbors, invite them over for dinner or bbqs, make small talk. How towns are constructed now is a hindrance to this (unwalkable towns where all of the houses are big garages in the front and no porches).
2. Join a religious organization. Go to church, but also join the mens/womens group, join a bible studies class. Attend every week.
3. Join social clubs / ethnic organization. The polish or ukrainian clubs, knights of columbus, elks, freemasons. Go every week.
4. Join a club / league. Chess club, bowling league, softball league, golf league. Tech meetups, DnD Night etc. But you have to talk with people and try to elevate things to friendships.
5. Have lunch, happy hour, etc with coworkers.
There are lots of libraries with cafes, maker spaces, and more. Seattle is one.
If yours doesn't, this is your wake-up call to get involved with your local library. Stop waiting for someone else to do things.
There is no maker space listed at https://www.spl.org/programs-and-services/a-z-programs-and-s....
Within KCLS, there are two public libraries that have maker spaces (AFAIK): Bellevue, Federal Way.
PS this is not meant to be confrontational, would love it if there were more maker spaces in libraries (when have asked in the past, the usual answer is that they do not have enough space for it).
Don't think you have to live in some idealized fantasy land to go talk to your neighbors.
The city added sidewalks there in the '00s or so, but when I go back there I almost never see anyone using them.
I think the trend of isolation and loneliness is not really related to infrastructure or stuff like "walkability." Those things are pretty minor obstacles.
I lived in a car dependent burb for 20+ years and would rarely, if ever, run into my neighbors out on the town. Living in a walkable neighborhood in a medium-low density city for under a year and I regularly run into my neighbors.
Never seen "cul de sac" in English before...
For what it's worth, many (most?) countries have most of their people living in places that are not sprawling suburbs. It's worst in the "Anglosphere" countries (US/Canada/Australia) within the last 50-70 years, but it's absolutely not a fantasy land. It's the way things were everywhere before 1940, and most places still are today.
I say that because it is fixable, if we let ourselves fix it...
Your point stands though, even in a fairly antisocial layout of a suburb, you can still usually make friends with a decent number of people nearby.
We need to do things ourselves.
[0] A mile is essentially the farthest the average person will comfortable walk versus driving a car for travel that does not require carrying anything back. Once you add in carrying things (e.g. groceries) it drops to half a mile. Anything less dense than that and people won't want to walk, anything more dense than that and you're into standard city planning.
[1] Assuming you're American of course and obviously I'm not about to ask you to dox yourself, considering this type of thing can vary right down to the neighbourhood level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese
If you pack people in too tight they just tune each other out.
If you can walk to these things, you don't live in the areas the parent comment is talking about. "Suburban sprawl" doesn't mean all suburbs, it's specifically the ones which don't have facilities and community.
It might be a composite effect of different things contributing to the easiness of being alone. Cultural skill that overtime gets eroded, and as less time people spend among others, it becomes even harder to go back.
Our lopsided emphasis on individualism, our definition of economic efficiency that does not include the mental health value, these have been detrimental to our connections, roots, community, family etc.
We said, let the mom and pop stores die, their replacements provide the same value but more efficiently. Let community bonds die they intrude upon our individual destiny.
But we did not correctly account for the value provided by those that we chose to replace. So it is not surprising that we find ourselves here.
Could it have played out any other way ? I doubt it. Our world is an underdamped system, so we will keep swinging towards the extremes, till we figure out how to get a critically damped system. The other serious problem is that the feedback system is so laggy, that's a biggy in feedback control loops.
This seems a wild generalization to make, though I guess "be suspicious of newcomers" is a little biologically hardwired. What's your epistemology for believing "newcomers" are "the ones to avoid"?
This reads like that pattern where people assign blame for all issues to whatever thing they happen to not like. The US is the least individualistic it has ever been, but there was much more community and less loneliness in the past. That make it pretty obvious that the issue here isn't "individualism".
You are saying that in the past, more resources were spent supporting individuals than the resources spent supporting communities and yet communities were stronger. That sure would be an interesting thing to understand if true. My interest is certainly piqued, seems too good to be true though.
I think the real problem is that some people forget how to go places. It's so easy to do the routine of work -> dinner -> screen time -> sleep -> repeat that time vanishes from people.
Whenever I hear people, usually young and single, complain that their 8 hour job leaves 0 hours in the day to do anything and they're too tired on the weekends to go out, it's always this: Their time is disappearing into their screens, which makes it feel like their only waking hours go to work. I try to give gentle nudges to help give people ideas, but none of them really want to hear that it's something they can change. It's just so easy to believe that life has thrust this situation upon us and there's nothing we can do about it.
Usually when I see the retort, its also with the understanding that 3rd places need to be free, or essentially free. If theres a significant expectation of money being spent in order to spend time there, its not really a “3rd place” by the intended definition. (Thats the argument I’ve seen)
Though I do agree that the privatization of public spaces is a problem (in the US, not sure about globally). For example, the local "town center" is owned by a giant developer (BXP/Boston Properties) and bans photography. The layout is like a typical downtown business district - grid streets, mid-rise buildings with retail/commercial on ground level, office or apartments above, and a park on each end. And crawling with rent-a-cop losers who have nothing better to do than chase people who aren't actively shopping.
i'm nearing 40, have a wife and kid, house in the mountains, etc... but, damn, those office days were foundational to the person I am today
As a family man with a wife, two kids, two cats, and a dog ... working from home is no big deal for me now. I prefer it. I got lucky that we did not get forced into this until I was in a position to handle it well.
And not just the office friends that come from it -- I spent an hour a day on the bus, grabbed lunch around town, was downtown when work wrapped up and ended up at a nearby bar/restaurant, went to shows because I was downtown, etc.
Just being forced out of the house led to SO MUCH MORE.
Now I work from home and while we do travel a lot, we barely ever leave the house when we're home. We didn't make a single new friend for like 5 years (and we are a VERY social couple, generally the center of most of our friend groups). We've only just now started making new friends again now that our daughter is a toddler and getting us out of the house -- and it is incredibly refreshing
And yeah, even just having the basic daily connections can be a dopamine hit.
I can go for a coffee and routinely get dragged into 30 min conversation about politics, or cars, or weather, or any other subject I literally don't care about. All the good relationships begin with finding a niche topic between 2 people.
A discussion that started about the newest model of some car, ended up with that person fixing my boat's outboard motor.
Sometimes when I think back to the good times at the office, I wonder if I miss being in the office, or if I just miss being young and full of energy.
Either way, I agree it's a shame for any young people today that won't get that experience. They were among my fondest times.
But there is far more to the world than offices, so while I agree 100% with the sentiment, I'd broaden those horizons.
This is the wrong model:
Sitting (alone) at home and working on program code or reading scientific textbooks does have a reward. Many things for which you go outside of the house or where you interact with other people have a much lower reward. So you rather loose a rather decent local optimum, and if you don't know very well where to look outside for something really good, you get much worse results than if you simply stayed at home and do there what you love.
To be sure, there certainly are many introverts who are perfectly happy on their own with no need to get out and meet people. More power to them! But there are many that crave human connection, even if they happen to have many intellectual interests and for these types of individuals, they would be well served at least carving out some portion of their time to get out of the house with the explicit aim of meeting people. And yes, not every such outing will lead to lifelong friends or meeting your next soulmate, but it's a numbers game.
But reducing loneliness is just a means to an end. My point is that there exist a lot of rewarding things that you can do alone at home, which may give you a hapiness malus because of the loneliness, but also a happiness bonus because you like the activity.
If a solution to reducing loneliness shall be sustainable, it better increases the happiness or rewardingness overall, too. Otherwise you see loneliness as a problem, but see the alternatives as being the worse options, i.e. by rational choice, the loneliness will not be reduced.
That's a sense of risk and caution that gets too comfortable for some people to compete with over time. If you don't build yourself better options, all you want to do is sit at home and do the thing that guarantees a reward. Then you get in your car and move about the world in a way that you feel is guaranteed to protect you from conditions, other people, but really is dangerous. You bet only on certainty, and outcomes are predictable, but they're not compatible with not being lonely
https://www.amazon.com/Yourself-First-Chinese-Nishimura-Hiro...
apparently a lie-flat manual for Chinese and Japanese Gen-Z
Founder of 2chan who reverse took over 4chan in a pattern which should be familiar to you :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroyuki_Nishimura
I've heard it said that Swedish and Japanese cultures are more aligned than is usually appreciated
https://archive.ph/2020.05.30-154951/https://hbr.org/2013/09...
Especially this
>Balance explicit and implicit communication. Too much explicitness can lead to mistrust; too much implicitness can result in misunderstanding.
Friendship is a two way contract: you add something to someone's life and they will consider you their friend, they add something to your life, making them your friend.
If you "optimize" for your own and only your own benefit, nobody is going to be your friend.
In my experience, this is the key. “90% of life is showing up.” If you are around the same people every week, for whatever reason, with even a minimal amount of openness and friendliness, you will get community.
You don't only have to be "open and friendly", you have to say the correct things in the correct way in the correct order in order for people to accept you.
When I was a computer nerd in the 2000s, I noticed people used to like to hang around and chat, but I mostly didn't.
Now, everyone is an internet addict, and I was just ahead of the curve. No one hangs around and chats anymore.
When you get off social media, real life becomes far more interesting. The problem with addiction is that it's so stimulating that everything else is boring. You have to let your mind reset.
Think of a city as both a spatial and a temporal grouping of people that are in the same place at the same time. Every hour a person spends at home on social media is an hour that they aren't really in the city and are not available for you to socialize with.
The cumulative hours that people spend staring at their phones are effectively a massive loss of population density. That lost density makes it harder to find people even if you yourself are getting off a screen and looking for them.
'Making friends' doesn't occur by just being in proximity to people.
Quite likely at the end of the night they'll return to their lives and you won't be invited to interact with them again until the next meeting. That's if you're not excluded from existing club cliques - I've gone to many different meetings and come away at the end feeling more alone.
And yes, it's normal that people don't just immediately become best friends and want to hang out with one person they just met for an hour at a meeting. Especially if that person doesn't even say hello. Sometimes it happens though! It helps a lot if you just go back a couple of times.
The thing I love about car meets is that I can just go up to someone, ask them about their car, and tell them that I like it. You can do the same with any hobby, just go to meets where people are doing things, and not just showing up with nothing. Bring things to share, and a lot of times that brings people to you. Another thing you can do is ask for help with something. People love to help!
Ham nerds are the same way. Electronics nerds are the same way. Computer geeks do the same thing too. I'm sure every hobby is the same way. Find something you like doing and it makes it a lot easier. But the point is if you don't put in any effort, nothing will happen.
I make an effort to talk to people and now we have "come over to dinner" friendships with people we met at a public park.
That is false. First because most of the social learning is done by mimicking what others do and we certainly all saw our parents invite and get invited to stuff.
Plus there is school which is the #1 place where your learn to socialize and make friends.
Yes because sharing an activity involves greetings, interactions, group laughs which break the glass before more conversations starts and making friends becomes naturally a possibility.
Friendship is something that grow, not something that gets created in all its deepness from nowhere.
Examples include clubs for walking / running / cycling / scuba clubs etc. It doesn't have to be physical activity, but since you need exercise anyway, then you might as well get those endorphins whilst socialising.
Ok that one made me chuckle just from the initial reading of the wording.
I don't disagree though, I do competitive bullseye, and it is definitely a communal thing. Many old guys at the range in particular seem to be there for 99% talking at you, and 1% actual shooting related stuff.
If I'm going to the range for a set of three position, a 120-shot session by myself takes like 2.5 hours including setup and teardown. If there's talkative-old-guy at the range, then I'm there for 4 hours, and I don't even make it through 60 shots lol.
Which is fine for someone like me who is a competitive shooter but not like really trying to be the absolute best, I don't mind spending 60 minutes doing bullseye and 180 minutes chatting about whatever. The actual competitive shooters at the range though, they'll either have someone screen talkative-old-guy for them, or just otherwise make it clear that they are Serious and not to be bothered.
Tackling phone addiction and lack of public spaces is going to be critical.
A lot of the events and spaces I go to have people who hang around and chat.
I agree that internet use has had an impact, but I think it's easy to underestimate how much situations change as you grow up. Now that I have kids, it seems like we're always ending up in spaces where people are hanging out and chatting. As far as my kids know, that's just the way the world works.
I thought the same up through college, then I graduated and suddenly spontaneous socialization ended. I had to change my habits to go find other people.
And yet this looks very different from what 40+ years back looked like for adults so it's not just about growing up, there was other massive changes in our society.
For example the number of kids we had in the past dramatically affected 'forced' socialization.
The post war suburbanization that forced us to spend huge amounts of time on the road.
Things like TV that took entertainment from a group activity to a single person event.
All these things added up.
TV was the visual replacement of radios, and both used to bring families together for tv events… I remember lots of instances of that as a child.
It also brought people together at work. Everyone used to watch nearly the same things, and even up to 15 years ago, there’d at least be groups you could find in your office who was watching the same things you did, and could engage in water cooler talk.
Now theres so many shows on streaming networks, and you can watch whenever, so its all fractured.
But I only want to engage with my friends. Every platform feeds me various flavors of rage bait mixed in with my friends' content. Some of my friends groups have moved to chats on other less public platforms like Discord, Signal, or Whatsapp. But that's not the same experience. And a lot of the people I like to engage with aren't moving over to those platforms.
We all thought maybe social media would evolve into something good... but it was enshitified. So maybe part of the solution here is to develop a tool that offers that connection without the whole being exploited aspect?
I know people that are internet famous and are terminally online all the time. I'm pretty sure it must feel like they're accomplishing something but for somebody IRL not familiar with the game they're playing their life looks very weird socially.
My current mindset for this is that social media should only work augmenting my real world social life, not take what's left of it away from me.
110%
Maybe we'll see Europe try and ban social media, leading to a kind of "Opium War" to keep it going on the pretext of "freedom" and so on.
Sure, it may not have infinite value, but there are plenty of far less valuable things we endure significant harm to be able to enjoy.
And I say this as someone who absolutely hates social media.
I've made many friends over the years through platforms like Instagram, some in countries I don't even live in, and we've met many times in person.
Of course that won't necessarily work for everyone but the point I'm trying to make is that social media isn't some one way street that won't return value.
We probably need some laws or regulation that strip out the random algorithm selected junk from feeds and return it to just posts from your friends and family.
I recently logged onto Facebook and Instagram to update my 2-factor auth settings after having too many notifications of malicious login attempts. It was incredible to see what a transformation has happened there, it's like going to a decaying suburban shopping mall with only a few stores left open (and sort of sad to see the remaining users so continually desperate for a drop of approval from some imagined community).
Reddit is mostly bots, astro-turfers and people so brainwashed it's hard to tell the difference. I remember disagreeing with people on there (this in the pre-Digg migration era) you would get interesting divergent points of view. Now it's like people are reading from a script.
Twitter used to be my strongest addiction, but it's almost unbelievable how big a transformation has occurred since it became X. It's almost a parody of everyone's dystopian social media fears.
HN has obviously held up a bit better, but the AI driven mass hallucination impacting this community, combined with the increasingly aggressive manipulation of the home page, is continually making logging out for good seem like the best option.
It's hard to classify Reddit as one thing, the communities are all so different.
The subreddit for my town has led to several new friends that I meet with in person. Most of that came from coming together to advocate for something at a city council meeting or similar, where there was a directed meat space purpose. Getting together for hobbies like hiking or other things happens once in a while too.
On other, technical subreddits dedicated to digging deep into details, there are few bots. It's all real people with shared interests. Reddit is far better than most forums that I frequent for finding those communities.
The few times I have been swarmed by bots on Reddit was when I touched on a topic where, say, Russia had a strategic interest, then the subreddit would get tons of new commentators from other subreddits, which was the indication of bots. Fortunately the mods took swift action when this happened, becuase my god the discourse is awful when bots flood the zone with their babble.
Niche/hobby subs are mostly bot-free.
The thing is, bot operators know they can’t just post on Russia-related topics - they need a smokescreen of other ‘normal human’ activity, to avoid getting detected and banned.
If the bots that swarmed you want to appear as only 5% pro-russian, for every response you got they had to make 19 other posts. Predictable advice in advice subs, lukewarm takes in entertainment subs, reposts in image subs, repetitive worn out jokes everywhere.
The only place I am usually active is on Hackernews and on bluesky as wel
> HN has obviously held up a bit better, but the AI driven mass hallucination impacting this community, combined with the increasingly aggressive manipulation of the home page, is continually making logging out for good seem like the best option.
I am not kidding, this is so true. I don't know if I can get flagged again but oh well, The amount of manipulation happening in HN is insane and flagging and just about everything
People called me bots twice on Hackernews for no apparent reason which really hurt and then I created a post about it which got flagged again as well and the responses were.. well not so sympathetic
I feel like I would be better off being an robot than a human in hackernews at this point smh. You get called bots for simply existing and showing your viewpoint or having a viewpoint (different?) or just no apparent reason and I genuinely don't know.
Bluesky has some faults as well but It's (I must admit) more focused on politics. i like the weeds of things in coding. I found some coding spaces in bluesky but they are just not there yet. I ended up spending 2 hours or something trying to build an extension which can automatically create threads for large posts because (you can see) i love writing large posts and bluesky has 300 characters limit and that annoyed me
I don't know what to do as well. I am thinking of still using Hackernews and bluesky but to an degree of moderation. I have tried discord and that doesn't work as well.
Honestly I just don't know as well but right now I atleast feel that I am not alone in this. I am not feeling lonely about feeling like this so once again massive thank you man, these are the comments which lure me into entering hackernews. Not people accusing me of being bots for no apparent reason and this happened on both bluesky and hackernews where pople called me bot and I actually try to be respectful and uh in bluesky someone went on 10 thread comment saying silence AI or silence bot when I was trying to be reasonable for the most part until I trolled them back
And in all of this questioning myself what did I do wrong, did I have a stance and they wanted to deny it and said something, the HN instance just mentioned my name as the reason I am a clanker. All of these things genuinely made me feel like people just wont trust me in being part of this community if someone (even after being a year in) trying to respond nicely and following the rules mostly can call me clanker
Like I just don't know what to do with either bots or people who accuse (you) of being bots. Both just feel the worst in social media and are actively rotting both HN and many other communties to the point that I dont even know what are some good alternatives
I think the biggest negative impact of AI is the fact that we aren't able to trust each other online in my opinion or trust art and other issues as well.
Once again thank you man for writing this. Your comment gets what I am talking about as well and I didn't know how to summarize what I wanted to say!
I can relate to this. I was always moderately extroverted and sociable, but the irony has never ceased to flabbergast me that the very behaviours and interests for which nerds like me would have been stuffed into lockers and garbage cans (if I had dared to tell anyone in school that I was into computers) became, only a decade later, de rigueur for every young person.
I remember sitting in a coffee shop in 2003 (senior year of HS) trying to get kernel drivers for a PCMCIA 802.11b card to work on an ancient Compaq laptop, and being pointed, laughed at, and called -- by modern standards -- unconscienable names by a table of high schoolers nearby. It must have seemed so strange to them to see someone's head so deeply in a laptop.
And my goodness, I wouldn't have dared to confess that I talk to strangers in faraway places _online_. To be known to have substantive computer-based interactions would have branded one so profoundly socially unsuccessful, that one's very family name would be cursed with this prejudice for two generations. AIMing one's classmates on the family PC was one thing, but chatting online to likeminded peers in other countries? Why, that was radiantly gay!
But literally a few years later, I can't get anyone to make eye contact and they frequently plough into me because their heads are buried in their phones, texting people they never see.
A'ight.
the most ironical part is that they want to become software engineers for just the money aspect but fundamentally they really don't know anything about the field or are even interested to talk about.
So in a sense this still happens :) This happened so much that I had to cut off my friends because the only thing that they were interested in talking about were woman or insta shorts and very few intellectual discussion could happen (atleast with that friend group and I would consider that friend group to be more intellectual among other peers but for some reason they just never wanted to discuss intellectual topics other than some very few occasions, mostly just shitposting being honest and I didn't enjoy the shit posting aspect that much if I am being honest as well)
I get it a little less now, but perhaps thats because i'm starting to have a good amount of experience to talk about - and getting questions more like "talk about a project that you thought was going to fail. What happened? did you do anything? why?" to try the same thing but with management concepts. They want to see that you're interested.
Some of these were ten years ago, some in 2025.
Also just an aside - I love your writing style.
Every other person was on their phone. Started wondering what these people did with their day, what new restaurants they discovered, what quirky thing they may have seen in the city. Conversations that might have been had if people weren’t afraid to strike up conversations with strangers. (something I definitely struggle with myself too)
Anyways, random thoughts as usual.
> gym no one talks with anyone
> remote work ruined my mental health
Their definition of "a friend" can wildly vary from yours. Especially if such relationship is cultivated only at the gym. I'd hardly call it "friendship".
This is also colored a little by the fact that remote work is no longer really just an optional for me. Due to a spinal cord injury, I need flexibility to manage just ongoing existence, rehabilitation, and frequent medical appointments. An in-office role simply isn’t compatible with those realities, though the most recent surgeries do make it more viable than it was even twelve months ago.
I’m fortunate to work for a remote organisation that recognises this arrangement as mutually beneficial: I’m able to do my best work, and they get the full value of my expertise.
With all of that being said, I know people whom are far more aligned with you. Remote work is not particuarly beneficial for them, they indeed need an externally inforced structure and so would be best (and happiest) in office. I would never tell them otherwise and nor would they do the same to me.
I am thankful for the most part that many (though not all) of us somewhat have the ability to work in the way in which is best for us (and those employing us.)
For 4: You don't really have to be good for like a rec league kickball, or beer league golf. Gyms are better if youre doing classes though I think, like BJJ or wrestling.
And yet many young Evangelicals have deconstructed and dropped out of those conservative congregations over the last 20 years or so. They couldn't bridge the cognitive gap between the conservative political stance of their church and what they read in the bible.
The thing about the gym is you need to be consistent at the same days/time for a while. Eventually proximity will lead to some interactions. Instead of having full blown conversations at the gym though, I've also found it really works when I see a person from the gym somewhere else. Obviously in a place like NYC this is less like than a smaller town/city.
I think that the more people getting out and putting effort in the better, it helps create a knock on effect.
If only. My preferred solution is a 4 year national service. College is a key place to form a friend network, but not everyone gets to go.
* Giving people guns and teaching them to kill
* Teaching people to blindly follow orders barked at them by an authority figure
* Enormous potential for mental health problems, including bullying, abuse and suicide
* Wasting 4 productive years of someones life
I'm pretty certain national service is a Bad Idea™
No. Pro-exercise propaganda has been extremely strong for longer than you've been alive. Large parts of the economy is focused on exercise and health, and it is accessible to everyone.
But it sure feels better to think that every problem is "society's fault". That's the easiest and cheapest cop-out. Just takes a few seconds to type on the keyboard, instead of doing something.
If your goal is to feel self righteous, keep believing the problem can be solved if people just get stop being lazy and join a club already. That’ll work for some people, but what I’m saying is it’s not a solution to the problem.
Athletic clubs and sports clubs are a core ingrained feature of both rich and poor societies, and for all ages and abilities. Whether that is just playing a sport for fun once a week as a social activity, or serious endeavors for top talents aiming for Olympic gold or a pro career.
Any kind of sporting equipment you want or need are available for purchase, whether it's an expensive sport or cheap sport.
Athletes are celebrated and greatly admired, and top athletes can reach superstar celebrity status. As well as a big pay-check.
So I completely disagree that the "social infrastructure" encourages a sedentary and solitary life. The "social infrastructure" is very pro-exercise, pro-sports and pro-health.
> If your goal is to feel self righteous, keep believing the problem can be solved if people just get stop being lazy and join a club already.
As Prince sings: "Do what you want, nobody cares". Finding a physical activity that you enjoy is greatly beneficial for you. Whether it's a social sport, or exercises you do alone. You do it for yourself, not for anybody else. And everybody can find something which they like.
Righteousness has nothing to do with health or exercise.
You can turn the garage into a hangout spot. A neighbor has a full bar with communal table plus TV for sports and he opens up the garage door once a week on a schedule (Sunday game day or whatever depending on the season) and whenever he feels like it on work week evenings. As people pass by we invite them over and after a few months everyone knows that when the garage is open, they can come over for a drink and to shoot the shit. Low pressure social interactions that often turn into weekend outings, regular poker games, etc.
Now years later we get impromptu block parties when he brings out the grill onto the driveway. It’s done wonders for our community in an otherwise unwalkable SoCal suburb.
Maybe one solution is therapy, to help massage them out of their shell, to help them learn to be vulnerable and unafraid and friendly. But many of them refuse to go to therapy for whatever reason also.
These are things I will be running into as I try to resolve this. I have already encountered a young man named Daniel who remembered me, and told me that he was hospitalized, and that the thought of me and my sign helped him get through it. I'm dealing with people on all spectrums of mental health.
In fact, maybe that's kind of the point. I'm trying to reach out to people who refuse to go to therapy, who have internal thoughts berating them all day long, and I have the unique opportunity of helping them through the darkness and into the light of the truth, that they are valuable and lovable, if only people saw the true them, and trusted them to become that.
Still, something else is off. In the 90s, the Internet was a way to expand your social circle. So many friends made on IRC groups that moved into real life.
Nowadays yeah, commenting on Reddit and chatting to friends in message groups does feel like socialising, even though you might go two weeks without seeing anyone other than coworkers, cashiers (maybe) and Uber Eats delivery drivers.
Part of it I think is to endure the uncomfortable for a bit.
I felt really uncomfortable in social settings, and still do sometimes. But I forced myself to ignore those feelings. Now I'm at a point that if people think I'm weird or whatever then that's their problem.
I try not to be rude, be considerate and such thing, I'm not totally unhinged. But I am much more relaxed about just being me. Sometimes it doesn't work, but often it's all good.
I've always had a decent social network through proximity alone (neighborhood, education, etc.) and in this comfort, built a harsh prejudice against outgoing behavior. I'm not even sure why I held this perspective so deeply for so long, but I reviled the thought of intruding on others and only warranted intrusion on those I judged willful intruders. Most of my relationships are sufficiently available, but not very deep given my refusal to assert vulnerably (including against others vulnerabilities).
I was lucky to find Dostoevsky, Camus, and Hesse notably, which helped break some of my absurd dispositions. However, my entire social network was still rotten on a basis of inauthentic connection and intellectualizing this can only go so far. You must live the perspective and it is hard and vulnerable.
Thank you for these words, I find your mission deeply humane and I strive to live through a similar spirit.
The only time you ever see such people is when they're walking to the grocery store. How do you reach out to them to let them know about these ideas or encourage them to try it? Especially when they're filled with discouraging thoughts?
What if all they need is one single person to say hi? How can I find them, reach them? This is what I'm asking.
Imagine TikTok asking you "you've scrolled for 30 minutes. You might be in a loneliness spiral. Write down the name of someone you would like to be closer to."
Imo short form video with infinite scrolling is straight up poison and it's impossible to resolve without just completely destroying it.
But ultimately, if a man is sitting in his kitchen and its on fire. Its up to him to run out. No amount of reaching out will help until he decides to make the change.
Then say 'hi'. By definition they're not going to seek you out nor are they going to be findable so you're only option is to say hi to everyone and hope one sticks.
edit: heh i hope you're not talking about me, i walk to the grocery store regularly by myself. It's how a take a break from work and get some exercise. i'm fine :)
One of my ideas was legitimately to just hold a giant sign that just says "hi"
I had this idea a few months ago, but never wanted to waste a whole Sunday on it. Maybe I should.
As long as leaving the house and making real contact is harder (requires more self discipline) than staying in and scrolling, all you can do is project a message to folks at home, like "hi, you're not alone in feeling lonely," but you haven't solved the fundamental problem: it's harder to do the right thing than it is to do the wrong thing.
To solve the loneliness epidemic, you have to make the right thing easier than the wrong thing. "Reaching out" to more people will not accomplish that. Elsewhere in this thread, you've rejected the idea of pursuing a public policy, but policy is the only answer anyone's provided in this thread that could make that happen.
(Now, it turns out that you'll have to do a lot of outreach to make a public policy happen, but you'll be asking for their vote, not a regular commitment to show up weekly at a club; outreach is the right approach to that problem.)
So no atheists then?
if [ atheist ] then
's/joins a religious org/join a service org/'
Doesn't mean you need to forget all the horrible impact it has had too, and how much better humanity would probably be without it, or even continue thinking about ideas how we could finally get rid of it once and for all, without violence.
Also, probably different in different parts of the world, but in many places churches are just purely architecturally/visually beautiful and historically interesting buildings. Some of them have really interesting acoustics too, and organs. Many interesting stuff at churches :)
Like hell there isn't. Speak for yourself.
People sitting at home living on apps and watching TV who decide to go to a new group social event to change things up will struggle to make a connection with someone else who was at home on an app and watching TV deciding to get out and meet someone else.
The people who have friends.. already have friends. Those who don't are numerous social cycle iterations in on that.
And how long before those people just end up talking about TV shows anyway?
I'm old enough to remember what socialization was like pre-Internet. And by curated social media standards, it was really boring. It was also great.
It's fine to feel intimidated or shy, but then find something else that does feel manageable. It's something you can get better with by practicing. And I say that as an introvert who went semi-feral after Covid lol.
I can't imagine going to a general "group social event" like a party and making a connection. I'd end up just sitting there being bored until I left. I don't have the personality to just strike up a conversation about nothing with some one I don't know. But I do somewhat often go to events that revolve around my hobbies. There, I already have a connection with the strangers, through the hobby, and I have something to talk about or listen to. I've met plenty of new friends that way.
Isn't there an app where I can just order a temporary friend for a few hours.
Uber Friend.
there's two. Only Fans and making an appointment with a therapist (basically a professional listener/friend educated in helping you help yourself).
Last time I went to a bar a pretty woman and her friends decided to sit next to me only after I closed my tab and was getting an Uber to go back home. She seemed super nervous just sitting next to me and I assumed that if I butted into their conversation I'd get ignored like last time.
You're answering the question, "In a loneliness epidemic, what can I do to be less lonely?" Your answer is to use self discipline (which is hard) to get out of your house consistently, a decent answer to that question.
To actually fix the loneliness epidemic, you'd have to get everyone else to do that.
In the 20th century, getting out of the house consistently was the easiest way to interact with other people. Now, you can interact with lots of other people (in a less satisfying way) without leaving your house. What's going to fix that?
How do we get everyone to eat better? How do we get everyone to get enough sleep? How do we get everyone to exercise more? "Just tell them to do it" won't work. "Why don't we all just put our phones away?" won't work. We'd need a policy.
(My best guess: in the US, mandate that health insurers pay for therapy, and provide therapy at low/no cost in countries with national health care.)
To solve loneliness for yourself, you've got to get out of the house more. But, deep down, you already knew that, right? Just like we all know we should exercise more, eat better, etc. Self discipline is hard.
So, my advice for that is to work with a therapist. A therapist can help you do the thing that you know you need to do but can't make yourself do.
People often think therapy is only for "serious" problems, but it's great for just helping you to stop sabotaging yourself (and we all sabotage ourselves, in big ways and small).
Therapists have regularly scheduled appointments, which also helps in its own right. (You'll get better workout results if you exercise weekly with a trainer.)
Scheduled recurring appointments make it easier to attend other social gatherings, too. The chess club means every Tuesday night. People will be watching Monday night football at the bar. Church is on Sunday. (Temple is on Saturday, Jumu'ah is on Friday, etc.)
But you knew all that, already, too. To do what you already knew you need to do, try therapy.
For the whole thread, it's open-ended. People can brainstorm whatever they want to based on the title. It's good that it's ambiguous. The more conversations, the better.
But for me, I'm looking for ways that I can help solve other people's loneliness, both on an individual basis, and eventually en masse, but still me doing something as one individual.
This is what all my replies have been about, and why I posted one top-level comment asking that very specific question. I want to know what individuals can do that's actionable to help other people.
Investing in free places where people can do cool things in public like libraries can help. Investing in public transportation so that more people can get around easier can help. Making sure that people have enough money that they don't need to work 2 jobs to get by and they aren't under constant worry of not being able to pay rent would help. Making sure people are able to get the healthcare they need so that they are feeling well enough to go out places would help.
It's hard to act when you're sick and exhausted and physically isolated and broke and there's nowhere in public filled with people worth visiting. Policy can help improve that situation so that action can happen.
> I am looking for actionable solutions that I can experiment with as one lone individual with time to spare on Sundays.
Since you've probably already got the time, energy, and money to invest this should be pretty easy.
The easiest answer? Go find a protest group. There are people out pretty much every week all over the place. You'll meet tons of very friendly people and you'll already have something to discuss with the strangers you meet. You can spend your weekends with new passionate people outdoors holding signs and marching around. Doesn't get more actionable than that. Comes with a low risk of getting shot or teargassed and a high risk of being profiled by the feds (although these days who isn't on a list right?)
Not political? Volunteer helping people. Soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and food banks are a great place to start. You'll be doing something good for others in your community and get a chance to meet and speak with other volunteers and the people you're helping. (Fair warning: repeated exposure to good people who are struggling may cause you to become more political)
Are you active? Join a sports team for a sport you enjoy or have always wanted to try. There are usually local groups looking for members and again you'll be starting with something to talk about and a shared interest.
Pay for classes in something you're interested in. Meet your teachers and classmates. Learn something cool in the process! Works best if you're learning something that requires you to create or do something.
Not in a relationship? Try dating. Be open about the fact that you're just looking to meet more interesting people. (this tip works infinitely better if you're a woman, but if you're comfortable with rejection, patient, and able to pay for multiple dating apps for indefinite periods of time where you don't get any takers it can work for almost anyone).
Pick a local bar and become a regular. Pay attention and if after a month or two you haven't clocked who the other regulars are pick a different bar and repeat. Once you've found some other regulars introduce yourself. As a bonus you'll both be socially lubricated when you meet and if it goes badly you can drown your sorrows in more drinks.
Like to drink but want to meet fewer alcoholics? Do the same thing but go to bars during karaoke and/or trivia nights.
Nerdy? Check gaming stores or the internet for a D&D group looking for members or even better look up where your local Society for Creative Anachronism meets and go there. You can meet people while you learn blacksmithing, or calligraphy, or archery.
Religious? Tour churches. This can be pretty fun even if you aren't religious. Most people will be very friendly and welcoming (results may vary depending on the church and your color/sexual orientation).
I love being alone but I am not "lonely" and I am never bored.
When I go for a walk on a beautiful summer night in America, always alone, there is rarely anyone outside. They are in the house, mostly alone unless they have a partner/kids.
I think we have a loneliness epidemic because we have a culture that makes it fun to be alone. Some people don't like this level of being alone but many do. Those that do aren't really going to pitch in to help so I am not sure what the solution is. You can throw a party but I am not going to show up. I would rather be alone. This is enough interaction. There is also a culture of narcissism, hyper stimulation or both involved I imagine. I can't just close the browser window in person if the conversation seems boring or jump to something more interesting instantly. I would even say that being alone is more fun now than hanging out at someone's house in the 20th century. There is just so much more to do. The group was less bored together but it was still pretty boring then. That is why going to the bar was so popular. Not much else to do then besides get drunk and smoke cigarettes in groups to get rid of the boredom.
The thing is, church works for this because it’s an agreed upon and set time of the week. It’s also a broad group of people. Having friends of all ages is beneficial. I prefer it to a hobby group or our parent groups where we are all very similar in many aspects, although I do those too I just feel like their impact is less on building my own character.
It’s hard to lose what has been lost in the macro sense and then go from 0 to 1. A social movement like “screen free Saturday” or something would be ideal. Kids had to prearrange where to meet, where the teens will party (they don’t party anymore yall!), arrange logistics, and deal with being bored during some part of the day (underrated life skill, as a busy adult I love being bored, but hated it when young). I just recently explained to my kid how TV worked in the 80s. You couldn’t pick what to watch and there were very few times when cartoons were on. You either watched the news or MASH with the adults or found something else to do out of boredom.
based on the work of Robert Putnam is an essential backgrounder on the topic.
Yet, if you're concerned about Gen Z, 2-4 are aspirational at best. Churches, clubs, live music events, and every other group my son attends have a lot of people who are 35+ and children that tag along but the 18-30 demo is almost absolutely absent at events away from the local colleges and universities. [1] It's quite depressing for someone his age who is looking to connect with his cohort in person.
Leaders of groups are somewhere between outright hostile, completely indifferent, or well-meaning but unable to do anything about the "cold start" problem.
I'm sympathetic to the argument of Ancient Wisdom Tradition (AWT) practitioners that secularism is to blame, but my consistent advice to anyone is you can control what you can control and that secularism would not have encroached as much as it has if AWT organizations weren't asleep at the switch if not doing the devil's work for him.
Personally in the last year I've found a lot of meaning being an event photographer for this group
https://fingerlakesrunners.org/
where I know you can find some people in the 18-30 hole because I read their age off their bibs.
My son is doing all the ordinary things and I am supporting him in all the ordinary ways but I do believe extraordinary times require extraordinary methods.
I can't advise that anyone follow my path but I felt a calling to shamanism two years ago which recently became real, I "go out" as
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/115901190470904729
who is a "kidult" and who embodies [2] the wisdom, calm and presence of a 1000-year old fox who's earned his nine tails. In one of the worlds I inhabit I'd call this a "platform" for gathering information and making interventions as it builds rapport and bypasses barriers and the social isolation of Gen Z is my top priority for activism in my circle of influence.
[1] ... and our data there seems to indicates that Asian students seem to be OK and white kids, if they do anything at all, drink.
[2] ... at least aspires to
This is, in fact, an excellent way to fill your life with meaning and connection if it's something you're called to.
There are people who find this satisfying. However, you don't typically choose your neighbors. Don't be afraid to eschew spending time on this in favor of groups you deliberately choose based on common interests.
You can also find these things elsewhere—I know someone whose dry cleaner cat sits for her—but your relationship with your neighbors can still really affect your life.
That's how it was forever. Now it's not, and we're talking about a loneliness epidemic. I don't think those things are unrelated.
My comment was saying that the people who _don't_ should learn how to do so. It's a skill like any others, and what you're proposing contributes to people being lonely. Instead of making connections with people around them, who they didn't choose, they hold out for some platonic ideal of a friend who they have the right amount of things in common with.
You see it in this comment section where you've got people shooting down every idea that people put out there. Oh, I can't go to the gym, I don't like working out. Oh, I don't want to join clubs because they don't have my interests. But I also don't want to be lonely, so I guess I'm just stuck.
It's always possible to find people. If someone is shooting down every idea for doing so, they may have issues with motivation, or being defeatist, or any number of things. Those need solving.
That doesn't mean finding perfection. It does mean actively doing something to find people you enjoy spending time with.
Life gets immensely happier when you spend time primarily with people you find fulfilling. You can absolutely make a conversation work with anyone, it's absolutely a skill, and it can be useful. But you will in your life have a certain amount of time and energy to interact with people. Spend it well.
The only other options people hear about are 'join a club.' Interesting clubs aren't that easy to find. Hanging out at the local pub has obvious downsides, though I guess it sorta works in some countries.
We need more ways for people to casually meet others that aren't trying to manipulate you or program you with religious doctrine...
Do you think that, possibly, they're really just happy to see you?
It's a cult - a very old one, 20 centuries old. This longevity gives it a feeling of validity or that it's the 'only truth'. But it's really just collective sunk cost fallacy. It's the cultural bandaid that we apply to all problems because no one dares think up a new one. Rip off that bandaid and all kinds of problems it was patching emerge. That's why we dare not speak of parting ways with it.
We don't need to pathologize completely normal, and healthy, behaviours.
Although, if you are doing politics, I can see this being pragmatically useful.
You're not solving loneliness by joining a cult or a gang. You can only deal with it by making authentic connections to people you actually want to be with. Countless of people are lonely and miserable within families.
Churches get brought up a lot because they regularly gather people (weekly or even daily) and offer events, volunteer opportunities, and so on.
The point is to find an activity you like, with a specific group of people and consistently attend.
P.S As a fellow Catholic, I’m really sorry you went through such an isolating experience. I hope things feel much better for you now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...
I happen to have discovered a fantastic contra dancing community[1] in Chicago that could be great for some who are lonely. You have to chalk up the courage to go (if you aren't used to trying new things, or dancing), but everyone is extremely welcoming, the dancing is easy even for people "with two left feet", and the happiness going around is truly contagious.
I think it's a terrific place to find community. It's a social dance where you'll basically dance with everyone by the end of the evening. There's time before, in the middle (snack intermission), and at the end for striking some conversation. The dancing is every Monday so it's routine. The crowd (100-150 people on average) is diverse in many ways (at least in age, gender, income, interests) so you're bound to find people with commonalities that, using some of the other advice in these comments, you could try to hang out with outside of the dancing.
As far as getting people to feel like they can join, I'm not the expert, but I've had such a great experience that I'm happy to at least bring it up and "spread the good word".
For outside of Chicago: contra dancing is a bit niche, but a surprising amount of large-ish US cities have it. I think it's more popular (relatively) on the East coast. Can't speak for outside of the US.
Part of loneliness is feeling like you won't be missed. When you serve others (even indirectly if direct contact is not your thing), you feel needed and have purpose.
But the other part of loneliness is feeling like (or knowing that) nobody cares what you think or feel or have to say.
I've been (accidentally) helping people with my surveys for a few months now. It brings a sense of joy when someone comes up to me and tells me that my presence has helped them or that they look forward to my surveys. But it also increases the loneliness that I feel, because none of them care about me or what I think or how I feel. None of them have ever asked.
Well, except for a couple friends I've made, who clearly do care now, and have shown it in a few ways, but we just haven't had an opportunity yet to have coffee or some other interaction where they can show more directly that they care about me, by asking me about how I feel, etc. But those are the exception.
I suppose, that's what I'm after. Not just personally for myself, but what I'm trying to help solve for other people: to help them get to a point where others actually do care about them, and they have opportunities to show it, such as asking how their day was over coffee. For countless people who are just like me, I think this is all they need to not feel lonely anymore. So that's my goal.
And I don't think volunteering is the answer, but I think it can be a start for some of them, a way to meet people. But just as good a way to meet people as saying hi to the person at the next self checkout kisk or the bus stop. The problem for most people is that they don't say hi. Maybe they're convinced, like I am, that nobody would ever want them to, that they would only be a burdensome bother to others, and therefore should always stay silent.
I suppose this is what I'm trying to solve. How to convince others that this isn't true, as one person standing outside holding a sign.
But I ended up taking it too far. Boundaries start to get blurry, my value started to get wrapped up in my service, to the point it became “well if I stop serving I’ll be worthless”. Which is a tough feeling to face, especially when a subset of the people you end up serving, while appreciative, really end up not caring that much about you as a person. They’re not in a place to give you emotional support, usually.
All that to say, balance is the spice of life. Service is great. Just be sure to balance it out with another source of replenishment.
The eighth time someone sees you? You're the guy with the sign.
Routine and familiarity is important, and it's very easy to fall into situations where we don't see anyone in our routine so we can't become familiar.
Or go for a walk and find people that need a hand. People moving, lifting things, carrying things. Small little acts of being useful and helpful for a moment help.
The feeling will creep back in eventually, but at least for that time I was out and about, it's not.
The problem there is that it's the responsibility of groups or society to arrange that. There's not much that a single lonely person can do there.
The less common denominator, that an individual may partake in until society concocts a better solution, is to intentionally visit existing shared spaces even where they otherwise wouldn't (hint: bouldering gyms are good for this because there are repeat faces as well as a social okay-ness to congratulating strangers, or asking how certain challenges can be solved).
Or break with convention, comfort, and perhaps etiquette, and instead just talk to people. Even outside of those spaces. (This is the advice that will piss a lot of people off if it's presented as their only option.) This advice is horrible until it isn't. It does, with enough practice, 'just work'.
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For an entrepreneur or organizer: it would just go a long way to think about things in terms of allowing conversation to happen unimpeded. Pay attention to where people talk, and about what. Conversations happen a lot in hallways but famously by water coolers, perhaps because it affords people enough time in a shared space to muster the internal capital to start a conversation.
In college I ran a forum for people to meet others and some of the most self-reportedly successful participants just asked questions into the void and were surprised by the number of responses.
This is spot on. It's why you meet so much people during your high school / college years. You're among strangers' presence, while attending to class, which makes a natural topic of interest between the people involved.
Controversial example: in Breath of the Wild, your weapons break really fast. But, they only break while fighting enemies and looting places, so you almost always end up with more/higher-powered weapons. It's the game's way of always giving you new weapons that have different quirky properties to keep combat interesting. But players don't like that friction and uncertainty: it's probably the most hated on aspect of the game. Players want to keep their same weapons the whole time, and miss out on the constant variety.
I think that in the same way, we've optimized the fun out of life. We collectively tend to avoid uncertainty and friction. We let yelp/google maps reviews tell us what restaurants are good. We watch movies at home instead of trekking all the way to the movie theater. Get food delivered and even dropped off at the door so we literally don't even have to speak to another human at all. We've been optimizing the fun out of life, and we didn't realize it until it was bad enough to be called a "loneliness epidemic"!!
Yes, addictive consumption is bad, and apps shouldn't be designed for that. And as long as they are, we should try to find ways to undo the damage and help people heal and recover from content addiction, and find alternatives to it.
But that's not to say that consuming is inherently bad.
Consider that a conversation is genuinely an interactive, dynamic, mutual event where you both are both consuming and creating content. One person creates a topic out of recent memories or recites a joke, the other person hears it, and enjoys it. This is an act of consumption. It's not wrong or bad or harmful or blameworthy. It's the other end of creation, a necessary part of it.
In your ideal world, where we have people endlessly creating, who would consume what they create? We need both. We need platforms to share our creations, and to consume the creations of others. Real life has been a neglected platform for this, especially for countless lonely people who have no one to interact with.
I wrote an article[0] on Tiny Neighborhoods (aka “Cohousing”) that starts with:
> “I often wonder if the standard approach to housing is the best we can do. About 70% of Americans live in a suburb, which means that this design pattern affects our lives – where we shop, how we eat, who we know – more than any other part of modern life.”
We have been so uncritical of the set of ideas that make suburbia—single family homes, one car per adult, large private yards—even though these play a big role in how people act.
Some people want to address loneliness by making incremental changes. But if the statistics are right and nearly everyone is somewhat lonely, we should expect that the required adjustments feel “drastic” compared to the current norm.
People would be less lonely if they could live in a community of 15-20 families with (1) shared space and (2) shared expectations for working together on their shared space.
And the fact is that this is true of the supermajority of suburban streets in the United States.
the noise and unseemliness of cookouts and other gatherings negatively affects property value. That's the sort of thing you see in scary bad neighborhoods on TV. Just drive 45 minutes to the strip mall 6 miles away and gather at one of the corporate chain establishments.
I have no problem with socialization and I have an unusually-active social life for a thirty-eight year old married man with three kids, so I clearly don't lack initiative.
With that being said, all of my neighbors are either elderly, shut-ins, or just don't want to be bothered; even the ones with kids.
My wife & I helped organize a Block Party last year and I'm fairly certain it resulted in 0 new friendships for any of the attendees.
What's the solution here? Friendships need to have mutual interest, no?
I think it's a circular problem. Like, my kids don't go outside much because there are no other kids outside to play with.
Like in subway you pretend that others don't exist, and it's hard to get closer with people. It can take months or years to start saying hello to a kiosk salesman you recognize. It's hard to get past by hello with the house neighbors. If you make steps forward, people are unease. Sometimes others are too quick with their steps, you get unease.
The most compelling theory I know is that you need to meet people occasionally, without intention, to deepen the relationships. If all your communication with someone is intentional, I guess, this feels awkward for both sides. I can confirm this from experience: living in a 80K town, I'd walk down the main street to the little shopping mall with a local supermarket for groceries, and would meet people I knew, or friends, and sometimes we'd go walking by the streets, with groceries bag in my hand :) or we planned to meet in 15 minutes. Or go to each other's home. This is hard to replicate in a big city, where even if you see a friend, he/she is usually in a hurry.
Near apartment blocks, there's no porch or garden or park, and even where there is one, I don't see locals sitting there regularly. People are very cautious, even suspicious of benches, because if there's a busy street nearby, once in a year there'll be a group of noisy young people sitting late at night, or one drunkard in a year, and everyone will get pissed off and want the bench removed. (If they allow to install it at all.)
Looking at some places, I theorized that maybe there should be a place where you could sit and let's say play board games _near_ those who come in and out. And of course, it should be indoors, because winters are long and cold. But But I'm not sure of a communal place indoors either. It could become a magnet for homeless, it can be a magnet for just the slacker drinking old men, and repel the rest of people. I've seen too many communities become place repulsive for "normies". Maintenance is a big question too.
When people talk about the loneliness epidemic, I realize how lucky I am to be in community with people who want to get together to do cool things just for fun. I know these kinds of art communities also exist in places outside the Bay Area, and it seems like a good model for creating excuses for people to gather anywhere.
“Get a hobby and find the others” seems like its too simple to be the answer here, but that’s what it is for me.
Anecdote: I had a friend in SF. He and I would hang out once in a while, and I always looked forward to these hangouts (we'd meet up for coffee, or go for a walk, hang out at Dolores Park, etc.). He is gay, I'm not. His perspective on things was often quite different than mine and I found that interesting. I got married, he stayed single. Even after marriage we would still hang out (though not as often as before). Then we had a child, which sucked all spare time out of my life; but even then we hung out once in a while. Then one winter there was cold/flu/COVID going around. We planned on hanging out and I unfortunately bailed on him at the last moment. This happened 2 more times. Then that bout of illnesses passed and I reached out to him to hang out again. But this time he seemed cold and distant. So I dropped it. And I didn't see him again for almost 3 years.
Then one day I ran into him while walking through Dolores Park. He didn't see me, but I hesitated and still hollered out at him, for old times' sake. He responded and walked over. We chatted a little, I gave him a parting hug and we agreed to hang out again.
A couple of weeks later we managed to hang out again. What I gathered from our meeting was that he had been miffed at what he thought was me blowing him off; and I, when I felt he was cold and distant, had misread his grief at losing his cat. We both misread each other and wasted 3 years.
Moral of the story that I took away from it was: be more forgiving. Friendships are worth the extra effort.
Overcome any addictions (scrolling, gaming, etc.) that stand in the way would be easier if the goal was clear.
Overcoming attitudes and defensive beliefs (too many cliques, they won't talk to me...) go away when you can either recall a time when you had friends or know others who do.
Convince people it's better (in their own value system) to be social, have friends of all kinds, and let them know their value and meaning increase by being a friend, I think you'd have a hard time stopping people from becoming social.
It has tons of small but useful tips:
- host it Monday or Tuesday from 7-9pm. People are usually free those nights and make sure it ends at 9pm for the folks who have to wake up early
- don't send an evite with "0 of 60 guest have responded". Start by having your core group accept and then send the invite directly to each new person
- have name tags. but make sure YOU fill out the name tags or you will have "Batman" and "Superman" at your party
- introduce people and have "get to know you games"
Now, I'm sure someone will say "this is so formulaic and doesn't feel natural!". That's kind of the point. You need to give folks some structure to be able to interact. The name tags for example remove the "oh, I met this person before but I can't remember their name so I just won't talk to them" etc.
For those people who I'm personally trying to reach, those who sit at home alone all day, and you only see them on the way to the grocery store and back, who desperately want to interact with people but don't know how to begin, they need someone to initiate the interaction, and they need to know the rules of the interaction, since this is mainly the reason they don't feel comfortable with freeform interactions with strangers and so avoid them.
Thank you for helping me realize that.
You hit the nail on the head with the above.
It's why things like square dancing where so popular back in the day.
It gave men and women an easy to learn, simple to follow set of rules for interacting with the opposite sex with as little ambiguity as possible. e.g someone was literally calling out what to do next so you could enjoy the moment rather than thinking "oh no, I'm not sure what to do next!"
I agree with others that individual initiative is important for connections to be made, but I struggle with imagining how people find out about what the opportunities are. Certainly, there's been a ton of work on social isolation, community connections, whatever you call it, and at some point I need to dive in.
This space needs a lot of investment as well as evaluation of initiatives. I worked in nonprofit land in the US for years and from my limited view of the landscape, way more work is needed to determine what works and fund that and not fund efforts that take no initiative to show their effectiveness.
[1] https://www.friendship-bench.org/ [2] https://menssheds.org.uk/
Not saying this is the only way, but it made a big difference for me and my friends. I realize the physical challenges are artificial, but so is an Advent of Code puzzle when you already have a day job. Hard things are worth doing because they're hard, and they're even better when done together with those you love.
Expensive:
Car meetups and car modding
Horse based activities (learning to ride etc is group based)
learning a craft (ie blacksmithing, knitting circles, ceramics)
Swordfighting of various styles (east/west/modern/renaissance/polish drunk people in armour)
Warhammer
Cost, but not as much:
local hackspace
local cycle club
Local running club
Local team sports (real football, basketball, baseball, tennis, 5-a-side)
local choir (secular)
Amateur dramatics (highly recommended, darling.)
Free, but with connotations
Scouting adult leader
Local environmental people (ie park maintenance )
Animal shelter
charity shop
local choir (religious)
local organised religion
local political party organisation
I’m not saying it’s impossible to meet people in this situation, but it is difficult to break the ice. Especially if your social skills are rusty.
On a larger scale, I think most people’s budget for anonymous social interaction is consumed through social media, where they scroll past strangers arguing and let’s be honest, mostly vitriolic comments. So in the real world, they don’t want to deal with anonymous strangers and intently focus on their own friendships.
Groups are a good way to bridge this gap, but the groups that are easier to host aren’t always accessible to everyone. And they require a lot of time and ideally strong social skills to run effectively.
I’ve thought about starting a campaign to make socializing with people in person more of a common practice again, but I’m honestly not sure how to convince enough people
people need to find a way to sit in a third space without pulling up a screen or a book that immediately re-isolates you.
also: don't underestimate the subtle effect of architecture and seating arrangements here. a coffee shop is filled with lots of little two-seat tables that intentionally isolate. for contrast, think about local pubs/bars -- there's one big central seating arrangement where evertybody is facing the bartender. the bartender is naturally placed in a position that makes them serve as a conversational mediator that can facilitate connections between then people hanging out on the periphery.
Anyone suffering in the loneliness epidemic should have a copy of The Great Good Place, by Ray Oldenburg. The entire point is that you should be putting yourself into socially active areas in your community.
This includes: a church, a local pub or coffee shop with regulars (ideally walking distance from where you live), a rec sports/game league or club.
Knowing this, I've perused it in my life and it seems very effective. I'm a regular at a Trivia Night one night per week (I don't go every week, but enough to know both the bartender and host by name). I'm a regular at a bar three blocks away from where I live, even if I consume only one non-alcoholic beverage and one alcoholic beverage per visit (a couple night a week), that leaves me plenty of time to chat with my neighbors. I'm a member of a local golf club (a very cheap municipal course), and play there every other week, and after a couple years have very good relationships with many of the other members even if we don't interact much outside of the club. At my last apartment, I was a regular at the coffee shop enough to know multiple baristas by name, it wasn't exactly a third place situation, but it was getting close before I moved. I'm not religious, but I'm very familiar with academic institutions and open lecture series that I used tot attend in grad school.
I do this intentionally. My partner had never been a regular at a bar before, and she really, really enjoys it now even though she doesn't really drink. When she joins me, she will maybe consume one-half of a light beer. You don't have to be an alcoholic to be a regular, this is a major point that Oldenburg discusses when he contrasts German-style drinking culture with English-style drinking culture.
First, social media. It's too easy to temporarily forget about your loneliness by staying home and doomscrolling or watching TV.
Second, increased mobility. People move around the whole continent now for work, removing them from their closest and oldest social connections.
Third, God is dead. Churches as community centers are dying out. Young people don't trust them anymore, because they don't believe in God, and because churches had many scandals. Secular community centers are very rare and struggle with funding.
Fourth, work is more stressful now. There used to be more time to socialize, but in our quest for productivity, work became denser with fewer idle times.
Fifth, fewer people want to have kids. Much has been written about this.
Now what can we do at societal scale? First of all, study the phenomenon more closely. Who is lonely? Who isn't? Which interventions work? Which cultural factors are important? At your local scale, you can just call or meet a friend.
The we here is not most people.
The quest for higher productivity is not something people really care about.
Allowing random people to message each other without meeting in person is a mistake. The nonverbal cues people get from in person interactions are helpful for discovering shared interested and personality compatibility.
I cured my own loneliness episode by joining a local running group. It provides the same kind of thing as church. Ritual, we meet every week and there's a few different groups. Purpose, it doesn't feel useless to be improving your fitness level. And community comes when you suffer through a run with others.
Showing up regularly means you start to integrate people into your lives as you know when they skip a week for a vacation or something.
I went from living in my town and not knowing anyone for 17 years to having 20+ friends or people I can say hello to and have a chat.
Just find a local running group, or start one. You want the "meet at Starbucks at 6:30 on Tuesday" ones. Show up and keep showing up and you'll make friends. It's impossible to be on your phone when you run and there's always something running related to keep the conversation going.
One group just meets at the start, people go off and do their own thing and then come back to the start for coffee at a cafe. That way everyone from walkers to people doing a long run can all hang out afterwards but not actually run together.
The best are trail runs with 8-10 people, you end up walking the hills and take a short break every 5-10 minutes so you can chat with almost everyone over the hour you're out there.
My #1 top priority this year is _social health_. I'm taking it into my own hands. Mostly just continuing things I'm already doing with tremendous payoff. My measurable result is going to be throwing my own birthday party in fall. I've never done that before, I've never had enough friends in my city!
No one group or app is going to come save you from loneliness. You have to get up, go outside, and find people.
0. Say yes to everything, at least if you're new in town. Don't care how scared you are of X social situation. "Do it scared" - @jxnl
1. I am part of my community's swing dancing scene. I take classes, go to social dances, I _show up_ even when I don't feel like it. People recognize me now, know my name, etc. I'm also a regular at my gym. Find a place and be a regular face there. (_how did I become a swing dancer? I got invited, and my social policy prevented me from saying no!_)
2. If I have no social plans for a week I do a timeleft dinner (dinner with 5 strangers). Always have something on the books. I call this my "social workout". If I vibe with anyone I ask if they want to grab ramen the following weekend. Leads me to point #3..
3. Initiate plans. Everyone is waiting for that text "hey, want to go do x with me?". Be that person. I have an almost 100% enthusiastic response rate to asking people to do literally anything. Go on a random walk? Go to costco? Go checkout ramen or pizza spot? You don't have to think of anything special. Whatever you're already doing.. ask someone to come with! Soon they start inviting you to do random stuff.
4. (experimental) I don't drink, which does curtail my social opportunities. I'm considering updating my drinking policy this year. My hypothesis is that the benefits of having a strong community out-weigh the health benefits of abstinence.
> 4. (experimental) I don't drink, which does curtail my social opportunities. I'm considering updating my drinking policy this year. My hypothesis is that the benefits of having a strong community out-weigh the health benefits of abstinence.
It goes beyond car culture. It's probably illegal to build a cafe within walking distance of your neighborhood or into the first floor of your apartment complex.
Americans get an idea of how bad we have it when we go on vacation, but we don't see it as something that can be built at home.
I wouldn't trust a cafe built into an apartment complex. I'd expect it to be low-quality, over-priced food placed specifically to try and make a quick buck off people who don't know any better or who physically can't get somewhere better.
You're right that it goes beyond car culture (and zoning laws are part of car culture), but I think it also goes beyond zoning laws. A lack of a social contract between people (individually) and businesses these days is probably involved, too. All these things are interrelated.
There are many ways to look at things
-t. not an Absurdist, but sometimes I use the tools.
Ensuring you never have to leave the comfort of your apartment complex is also of questionable relevance to solving loneliness/getting people to meet each other.
> -t. not an Absurdist, but sometimes I use the tools.
Did you accidentally paste part of a different comment or something?
When I visited Tokyo one really jarring thing was to realize that restaurants and cafes and such were often on the 2nd or 3rd floor. It’s so dense and so high-rise, in some areas at least, that these “ground floor” shops are also pushed upwards and inhabit the bottom 2-3 floors instead of just the ground floor.
I’m eating a whole dinner for about $10 tonight, out. Easily like 1300 calories of very delicious food.
In the PNW.
(I didn't ask and don't care if you think your cheap meal's "very delicious," by the way. That's not the main indicator of quality. Many Americans would call a Big Mac "very delicious.")
* a coffee shop (that just closed)
* a desert shop
* a fine dining shop (that is open rarely
* a ramen shop
* a high-end burger shop
* a high-end barber shop
* a nail salon
* a hawaiian food shop
> I didn't ask and don't care if you think your cheap meal's "very delicious," by the way. That's not the main indicator of quality. Many Americans would call a Big Mac "very delicious."
What’s the point of this? This is just needlessly rude.
Lots of factors cause this. Obviously established businesses hate competition. There seems to be a tendency for politicians to make more laws as a bandaid rather than remove old(but this isnt universally true). And finally and probably most importantly, people like the status quo. Change is scary.
Also I live in the suburbs and we have a coffee shop within 2 minutes walking. I just have a hard time paying $4 for a coffee to meet people when most people are on their laptops anyway.
My friends come from sports clubs, parties, and the parents of my kids via birthday parties.
I can attest both LatAm and Europe are quickly turning the same way. At least in the bigger cities. Take public transport and 70% are frying their brains with their phones on algorithmic timelines, dumb mobile games, or worse. Women even more. You go to a bar and try to start a conversation and people look at you like you are a creep or a scammer. I've heard this happens to Gen Z, too.
Are you suggesting that American tech helped spread this loneliness worldwide? Ultimate triumph of individualism.
And yes, I was using public transport before cell phones. And yes, women are using public transport more then men, always were, because if the family have only one car, man is typically the one using it.
It's so strange how this works. They go, sometimes repeatedly, to enjoy these rather basic things, but behave as though they're visiting a quaint Disneyland of sorts and as though there could be no lessons they could take away and apply toward a vision of their own community...
but back home in america, any nice thing in a public space might be an un-earned benefit to an american citizen who is slightly less rich. and we can't have that. if an American wants an amenity, they sould pay for it. parks, benches, pathways, any sort of gathering space, it all can't be had because it might attract poor people.
Growing up British means that I literally can't talk to a stranger unless I'm in a pub and have two pints inside me.
That's only if you like dogs, I guess.
Until around 80s to 90s, when we say “that album is really good”, we shared plenty of experiences along. Such as, looking up for release news, getting to the record store, purchasing, and so on.
People listened to the full tracks in that album again and again.
Nowadays, the same sentence “that album is really good” carries far more less than before. Algorithms just bring tracks to us, we buy albums by a click.
The density of shared experience itself has been degraded, and more effort is required for us to understand each other.
I’ve named this phenomena as “Experiential Thinning”.
The experiential substance to get to know each other is getting scarce.
It's a twofold problem, I believe. People are lonely because of fear of rejection and also actively avoid new people out of caution and high standards.
So two people who are otherwise lonely will make no effort to connect.
I think social networks have done a tremendous amount of damage to our collective psyche. Because on the web, you can single-click permanently block someone and never see them again. If you are admin of a group this person is in, you can also ban this person and prevent them from interacting with members of the group (in the group, that is, you cannot control private messages, but by banning someone from a community you are effectively isolating them), and I think we haven't considered how much power we are giving to random Reddit mods due to this.
Regardless ban evasion is always forbidden so if you slip up or get caught because of the way you type or whatever, you will be banned again.
so you create another account?
they don't even do IP bans, (er, so I hear)
Try an A/B test. Do days with zero screen stimuli - no TV, no phones, no online interaction. Go into the world to a cafe, or a common area with people and do stuff. See how you feel and what you feel up to. Vacations might be good and relaxing because you disconnect. Maybe do it without paying for it.
It seems that once again striving for efficiency in society is bad in some way for the social part of humans...
We’re lonely because we are wired to avoid rejection and uncomfortable social situations, and because technology has given us hundreds of alternatives to sitting in the mess of connecting with people.
You can only solve it in your own life - by being courageous and spending more of your time in the physical world than in the digital one, willing to gro through the shitty feelings that come with being a human trying to meet other humans.
You cannot solve it for other people. There’s no sexy solution here. Meetup.com or whatever dating app or tech platform or not for profit will not fix it, because it takes individuals choosing the hard path and that will never happen en masse.
Is the shift from how society used to work to how society has come to work real or just a grammatically correct statement?
Statistics are biased by those who compute them. Have we asked everyone or inferred and p-hacked up data points?
The single salary family is largely a myth. A relatively small percentage of the population ever achieved that. Is the same true for loneliness? Is it a bigger problem now than it has been?
Is this like in medicine where we think ADHD is up, cancer is up... it's an epidemic! When in reality as a percent of society things are normal, we just had no idea before how prevalent those things were before we measured.
- Get rid of AI chat bots, limit social media use to federated platforms, get out more.
- Encourage cities to build spaces for people rather than cars where folks can meet up without the pressure to buy things and leave. Spaces for walking and hanging out.
It’s “third places” where folks can just hang out and work, play, share, and commiserate without having to pay money to do so.
It’s bringing back establishments that promote lingering and loitering, like food halls or coffee shops, rather than chasing out folks.
It’s about building community centers inside apartment complexes, more public green space, more venues and forums.
Giving people space that doesn’t require a form of payment is the best approach, because humans will take advantage of what’s out there naturally. Sure, structure helps, but space is the issue at present I believe.
Is it? There are a number of third places around here that sit effectively vacant. The few who are passionate about seeing those spaces thrive will tell you that the problem is getting anyone to come, not finding space to host them.
* Outdoor spaces close at dusk for the most part, restricting sociability in the winter months when it’s darker, sooner, and longer.
* Winters are cold, making outdoor spaces less usable during those months
* Indoor spaces are exclusively fee-oriented. Coffee shops evict customers after an hour or so, movie theaters can run upwards of $30 a person for a ticket and a snack, malls eject loiterers, gallerias harass anyone clearly not there to do business.
* The few places NOT fee-oriented - like public libraries - are either saturated with use and lack capacity for more folks, or are under-used due to requiring a car to access them.
* Youth in particular lack third-spaces to explore within, fee or no-fee. One roller rink serves the entire north portion of the city and isn’t accessible except by car. Ice rinks are co-opted by hockey teams year-round. Bowling alleys can run $15/person/game, at times, and dwindle in number. Schools are closed except to those involved in extracurriculars after-hours. Arcades are non-existent, the sole skate park closes at dusk, and cops or security harass any group of teenagers they find, especially in parks or public spaces. It’s bad enough as an adult with a car, it’s downright hostile to anyone young or unable to drive.
* The few genuine community centers that do exist, generally operate solely in rich towns that restrict access to citizens, or in impoverished areas and tied to specific special interest agendas for access - many of which may be good, but many more attempt to convert visitors to religions or political groups.
* Even if someone has space in their apartment to host, landlords have gotten so sleazy that parking for visitors is either non-existent or costs money to utilize, thus reducing the ability to host at all without spending more money.
But you’re right, it’s not necessarily a space issue.
It’s a money issue, in that we’ve built a society where you’re barred from enjoyment, self-discovery, or group fulfillment unless you’re spending $20 an hour or white and old enough to be invisible to cops and Karens.
It is not. While said third places obviously do need resources to operate, that has already been figured out by those passionate to make a go of having the third place. Generous donations, grants, and fundraising go a long way.
I do buy that it is somewhat of a marketing problem. I expect a lot of people don't even know they exist. I was once talking to someone who literally lives just three doors down from one of those third places and it never occurred to him that he could even go in. But he also hasn't even now that he knows he can. That's quite telling.
I can also agree that there is a bit of a bootstrapping problem. If you show up and there is only a couple of other people there, you're not likely to return. If it was full of people, that'd be more compelling.
But these third places did thrive once upon a time. The bootstrapping problem was solved. The marketing problem was solved. It all fell apart because people found other things to do. The reality is that the population at large does not see a need for third places (of the type you speak) anymore. Houses nowadays are way bigger and more comfortable than they used to be so there isn't as much feeling of pressure to get out, there are more activities going on to occupy one's time[1], of course technology has become a significant distraction, etc.
[1] For example, my grandparents' generation would have never heard of putting their children in sports. My parents' generation would take their kids to a sport about once a week. Nowadays parents are carting their kids off to sporting events every single night of the week! That doesn't leave time to occupy a third place[2].
[2] The sporting event venue is technically a third place[3], granted, but if you've been to one you'll know they aren't particularly social for the parents. They mostly just sit there watching their children (or phone, quite often), not to mention that the considerable time spent in the car travelling from far off place to far off place to get to the competition is not social at all. I don't think that is what you have in mind with respect to the greater conversation.
[3] Open to the public, free of charge. If I am wrong above and this is what you did have in mind, then it serves as another example of the space being there with no need for you to open your wallet. All you have to do is show up. But will you? I already know the answer is "No." The actual parents don't even look like they want to be there most of the time.
Make them interact and do things, generally they will be less toxic because it will reduce their online disinhibition effect.
Make them have meals, meet, walk at the park, whatever.
I only said that because you reminded me of an idea I had, for a social experiment that tries to bring some "social media" elements into an in-person setting, to see what happens. (I do wish I could afford a camera and someone to man it, I've been told several times that I'd go viral.)
Don't know if they still do, but Nextdoor required address verification via a postcard early on. I was pretty shocked at what some people in my area would post under their real names and locations.
(And well outside the realm of political nonsense. Someone posted a pic of their toddler's first poop in the potty.)
I think the power of shame has reduced significantly in recent years.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/31/are-relig...
I have a fear of crowds and bums. Not where I'm paralyzed/medicated but one thing I'm trying to do is go downtown and do street photography. I wonder how do I say no to a stranger asking me for money. Or fear of getting robbed. It's not like my camera gear is that expensive but yeah. This would push me to get out there more as I've lived in the same place for 10 yrs and I haven't really explored/gone around much. Other than when I did Uber Eats, I would go all over the place. I would get wasted/drink at bars but end up with nothing end of the day, temporary day-long friends.
Funny I was at the gym yesterday, guy said hello to me, as a guy that keeps to himself usually (unless around friends) I gave him a bad look (not on purpose) and then I responded. I'll say hello next time I see him.
Yeah for me it's just fear and lack of exposure. I do make a lot of "work friends" go on walks. But yeah real friends I think I have 4 or 5 lifelong real friends. Women nothing, haven't been laid in like 12 years pretty said to say. Unfortunately it's something I value myself like "I'm a loser by not getting laid". Even though rest of my life is good, 2BR apt, sporty car, six-fig job, but yeah. It's my social awkardness, but I lift/improve myself, cutting down on weight I want abs. Idk I'm not going after women anymore either just trying to live life now, do shit, get out of debt, get out of 9-5, mental freedom.
It's funny if it's guys I'm very "charismatic" like I can be "everyone's friend" which doesn't work out due to conflicting interest. To that end it's really about taking an active interest in the other person, engaging them, asking them questions and remembering.
My thing with women is I don't get along with them like a guy (where I don't want anything from them physically). If they're not attractive then it's easier to talk to them but yeah, I guess that comes from a desperation mindset.
I've heard of kids from cities being given money so they always have something to give a mugger instead of looking like you're holding out, I don't go that far but I remember it to keep perspective.
I recently made an effort to carry cash with me so I can leave tips in cash, still working on that. Would you be open to keeping singles on you to give? You can even give max of one per excursion and then decline or ignore the rest or any combination but maybe having that as a plan can help you feel comfortable. Yes you're training yourself and it's because you deserve the benefits of training.
As for non-bums hello is good, also fist bumps and nodding upwards; that stuff is cool AF and make people so damn happy.
But yeah it would be easy to just have a $5 to hand out. It's just you know how many people are there and will it stop there kind of thing. Yeah I sound like an asshole I get it. I also have sent over $100K to my own family in support and I'm -$80K in debt so it's not like I'm hoarding my money or something.
It just annoys me. But sure it'll be easier to just say "here you go" and hand out cash.
It's up to you, you can just, to yourself, write down the words you'll use to write down that you'll ignore them to become more comfortable with your boundaries.
Personally I don't think handing out cash is helpful so it's not about charity it's my advice to pre-plan how you'll respond to be more comfortable than you are in reaction to these situations.
Exactly one time after I did this, a guy asked me to send something to his venmo since I really only had a dollar. Probably my strangest interaction.
It's like points on a website "oh no I got downvoted", there's a thing as being you/not being a conformist
I think I purposefully need to get into a fight you know overcome it, like expect anyone who comes up to me to fight me
I'm gonna stop ranting but it's not like it's hard to get laid, it's just my standards are high like she's gotta be a dime or fit at least. So that means I also have to be fit/good looking which I haven't cared much before as far as good haircut/good clothes. I at least am lucky with my genetics for fitness but I also have not been as cut as I could be. But ultimately I know it's my mind that's f'd.
a guy asked me to send something to his venmo
Maybe you get lucky, but it's not a general solution.
I find that being genuine and vulnerable and having no hidden agenda works wonders.
You'll get laid the most when you adamantly pretend like you're not interested in getting laid. You actively have to act like you are "too good" for them. Play "hard to get". Learn what "negging" means.
Never, ever, show desperation for anything ever for any reason. It is the ultimate ick. Buddhists will even tell you that desire is ontologically/spiritually evil and icky.
First, you call homeless people bums, which sets the stage for how you see and treat them.
I'm an excellent engineer, but I was abused and impoverished as a child, homeless as a teenager. During my 20s, I started a few companies but my savings have been continually depleted taking care of family members. I don't have a sports car or a big bank account, or nice cameras. When I see a stranger or homeless person, I smile and wave. I keep cash on me so that I always have some to give out. I buy people lunch and sit on the curb eating with them and attempting to understand them. I learn the names of my local homeless folk and ingratiate myself in the community. I've moved to a few cities so I've had the opportunity to do this a few times.
I don't do this because I lack social anxiety; I sometimes have extreme agoraphobia, to the point that I have to hype myself up for hours just to go to the grocery store, and I have to wear noise-cancelling headphones to reduce the amount of stimulation. I have PTSD. I'm an extreme introvert. A hermit at times.
But what saves me is the philosophical understanding that I have a duty to the social contract. That empathy and direct aid are nonnegotiable parts of being human. I've been homeless and I know what it's like to be truly hopeless and live a life of uncertainty, fear and hunger.
You need to bridge that gap. Class-induced anxiety is real and I acknowledge that it's probably difficult, but it's not an excuse. You sound like you're in a position to change someone's life. Taking those steps might change your own life.
It's funny there was a moment I was at a bus station, somebody asked me for money and I dumped all the coins I had in my wallet in their hand for future bus rides. And some lady comes up to me jokingly like "you handing money out? what about me".
But yeah I think I should just give the money out, I think aside from the guy at the red light that's there almost everyday when it's warm, it's rare I encounter somebody personally. Until I go into the city.
To me this is a gov problem not an individual problem. Yeah if someone was dying in front of me I would try to help them. But now I gotta go to a store and buy em a tent and what not? I guess I am an asshole. Also read up "do you give money to homeless" on reddit. Almost all of the answers are no.
I have to go there and face my fear. See if I do get assaulted, I'm a 6ft buff dude so I don't think so but I'm also not a trained fighter. I just hate this fear, that normal people like living in NYC deal with on a daily basis.
Getting jumped is real though, I've been jumped before by a group.
Might as well just give the $5 though and move on with my life.
Back to women, I have negative traits as demonstrated above, indecisiveness and low self-esteem/caring about what other people think of me too much.
All this stuff is stupid, "I'm a good person because it's what people think you should do" give money to a non-taxed church, politicians, etc... then the individual person not giving a dollar to a homeless person is a bad guy.
I've been fucked over plenty times, sometimes to the tune of 5 digits. Once even cost me my home, and I found myself homeless again for a while.
A good friend of mine once gave someone a ride at a gas station, and they led him to a house where another person jumped inside the car with a gun. They held him hostage, tried to force him to do fentanyl at gunpoint, and drove him around to several ATMs so he could empty out his account. They used his vehicle to sell drugs, and held him hostage in a motel room where they were also sex trafficking women. They nearly killed him, and he is lucky to be alive.
I also know others who have been jumped around here and had the shit beaten out of them. For reference, I live in a city frequently cited as a "murder capital" of the US. You have to be way more careful out here than in downtown San Francisco. As far as NYC, I imagine it's a mixed bag depending on your area. I'm not suggesting naively approaching strangers, I hope it doesn't come across that way.
You aren't an asshole if you don't buy someone a tent, I was suggesting ways to help that have more tangible impact than handing someone a $5 bill which probably just goes towards an addiction. I don't hang around Reddit, so I can't speak for the general callousness of the community, but what I'm suggesting is to go beyond the average, to do more than most would, in reverence of the fact that we're all floating on this lonely space rock together.
As far as women, all I can say is that my girlfriend would be fine with any of those traits, as long as I still maintained a level of compassion.
But I will go out there, I'll see what happens. I need to face my fears.
Regarding women again, are you meeting enough of them? What's the scene like where you live? I don't know what it's like in NYC, but the social/dating scene in my current city just doesn't exist, and I'm watching some of my friends grapple with seriously heartbreaking loneliness.
I don't know what to tell them. I'm dating my high school sweetheart again, but we were broken up for several years, and many of the experiences I had with women during that time were quite traumatic. The rest of them were just not a good fit. I had completely given up on dating altogether, at least for a period of time, and only then did the love of my life find her way back to me. Despite years of extreme loneliness in new cities, I still consider myself lucky and wish I had some actionable advice I could tease from the situation. I've even experimented with building dating apps because this epidemic just scares the shit out of me.
The other problem too today is the fakeness of social media, filters on faces, photos looking like peopel go to beaches all the time/live extravagant lives.
Bars it's like a self-control issue, use drinking for courage then you get too f'd up.
In the midwest but we have a small "city" with "skyscrapers" that I wanted to go into and do photography at.
I clearly don't have the same people on the street as you do. You should not be just sitting down and having lunch with people who are having daily psychotic breaks or are otherwise aggressive. You can't have a conversation with someone who is constantly riding the line of ODing. I have a regular I see who runs around in the road screaming at cars and people.
The very incomplete "down on their luck" view of homelessness is killing progress in my city.
So I'm willing to bet that my understanding of homelessness is more nuanced/holistic than even yours. I have been homeless. Have you?
What progress do you feel is being hindered by a collective display of compassion?
The kid(s) are tremendous source of connection. You may trade for a feeling of exhaustion, overwhelming responsibility, etc. but a lot less loneliness.
Also go a step further and join support groups for parents. Community resources where kids play and parents can hang out and chat. Connection is built through shared experiences, and parenting is an experience you can share with other parents.
Between having kids and participating in events with other parents, there will be a lot less opportunities to feel lonely.
My point had more to do with the fact that a lot of people are either undecided about kids or have decided not to have kids, and are then struggling with loneliness.
Deciding you want to start a family and prioritizing it (the why) can come before the how.
I'm no expert in dating, but generally in life I've learned that it's easier to get my wants satisfied if I am clear about them.
"I want to start a family and find a partner who also wants to have kids" is a lot less abstract than "I want to feel less lonely".
So, no, I don't think I missed a step. I just think that the best way to find a partner in parenting will depend a lot on the specific person, where they are, how old they are, what they do, etc and isn't conducive to general advice, and maybe HN is not the best place to figure it out?
I feel people have forgotten that. Having friends isn't easy. You do actually need to put in the effort - everyone needs to put in the effort, not just "the extrovert" that "adopts" you. And not just effort, it takes *SKILLS* that you need to actively develop and maintain.
So now we have generations where no one really thought us the skills or instilled the value of "it's a YOU problem". Everyone is just waiting for someone else to do the hard work. Even more stupidly, people might be lonely, but they are also very picky and if the person isn't exactly what they are feeling at the moment they flake/don't engage. And then they are surprised they don't have a surplus of friends when they need them.
So how do we resolve this? By telling people it's their our damn problem and fault. And no, I'm not saying ignore it on a societal level, I'm saying that the public policy to fix this is to start educating people that social engagement requires effort and skills. Maybe take those old American movies as inspiration (naturally remove all the sexist and racist bullshit).
It's simple. Anyone you meet casually and get a nice vibe from - just invite them - you will see their face light up like they won a lottery...cause they did - your lottery.
Tell them that you're hosting a special gathering with interesting people you've recently met ( that way everyone starts from 0 )
bonus points: Make sure that your list is as balanced as possible with as many different types of humans ( age/gender/race/education/talent/interests ) add your weights into any criteria as you see fit, but keep in mind the more the blend the spicier the magic and the more you will grow.
If they want to bring a special friend ( great! but just say one for now ) Lubricate with some light wine/beers/alcoholic beverages (dont worry most will bring their own ) .. add some nice chill-house ambient music .. and let the magic begin.
Become the change you seek, it's intoxicating.
Get involved with volunteer/gratis work. Join an advocacy/charity group. Do stuff for free.
HN members have really valuable skills that can make an enormous difference.
Joining a volunteer organization brings together passionate, action-minded people that already share a common platform.
It can also teach us a lot. My personal career was significantly helped by what I learned, doing volunteer work.
Boom. Loneliness problem solved.
Depends on the org.
Many large orgs have smaller chapters locally, but there are often regionally-relevant ones.
I’d start with personal passions, and work from there. It won’t really work, unless it’s something we care about.
Volunteer orgs tend to be fairly disorganized, and there’s usually a lot of lively personalities. If one seems too dysfunctional, try another. Don’t just go for one.
Also, it can take some time to get into the “inner circle.” Like any human society, trust takes time to build. We need to be willing to start small. Get to know the place. Figure out where we can make a difference.
I’ll bet that ChatGPT would be a great source of information.
I didn't "just go for one." I spent like a month trying to volunteer , for anyone. I was on medical leave from work at time time so I had plenty of time to give. Nobody ever got back to me or picked up the phone. It was worse than applying for a job. I have an anxiety disorder, so even reaching out caused me massive stress and anxiety. So I caused myself distress to feel more worthless than I already felt. My heart is racing and I'm on the verge of tears just typing this up.
So I'll ask again, how does one "join a volunteer organization?"
The suggestion I gave, was in good faith, but it seems that your "question" was not. I am truly sorry that you had a bad experience, but I wasn't the one that did the nasty.
Have a great day!
My question was absolutely asked in good faith, not sure why you think it wasn't? You, yourself, made it sound very easy. I was looking for advice since you've made it sound like you've easily succeeded in volunteering and I wasn't able to. I was hoping, at the very least, for you to share how you got started.
And yeah, it's kinda offensive to get "draw the rest of the damn owl[ed]"[1] when you put yourself out there to genuinely ask for help.
And I still am asking for advice if you're willing to share. I would still love to volunteer.
[1] https://teachreal.wordpress.com/2025/01/25/now-draw-the-owl/
Given that you have an anxiety disorder, you might look into volunteering with animal shelters--dogs are said to be calming.
Or, just walk into the vestibule of a church. In many cases there will be a bulletin board with a notice of volunteer opportunities, or a Sunday bulletin with the same. Note that this does not imply any religious commitment. Nobody's going to ask for your baptismal certificate if you're volunteering to sling hash for a dinner program.
The local animal rescues around here all ghosted me back then. I also fucking hate dogs with a passion (dirty, noisy, annoying, infuriatingly needy) but I do love cats.
I never thought about looking at a church bulletin, so thank you for that suggestion at least.
When I lived in a rural area with a few acres of property, I was much more social and engaged with my community.
Now I live at the edge of the city in a medium-high density townhouse area with no private outdoor space. Since I can never really get away from people and be alone, I also have no desire to go out and do things and engage with the community.
I think the variability is nice. If I can get home, relax, not have people around, have some private outdoor space, then I can recharge and have the energy to engage more.
You can have a small town with a nice downtown or park where people meet and hang out. You can have walkable neighborhoods without giant apartment buildings. Neighborhoods where kids ride around on bikes.
That's different than a suburb full of isolated gated communities where each house technically has a yard but you still don't have any privacy and the HOA tells you what color to paint your house and fines you for your grass not being perfectly green all year.
You can also have dense areas without green space, full of cars and noise, and without nice places to hang out with friends.
Building human-centric places isn’t only about density. Variety of density is good. Places where people can walk, ride bikes, and hang out with friends and family are good.
Congested 6-lane roads aren’t good, whether in cities, suburbs, or rural areas in between.
I get that comes with friendships, but people go from zero to super favors in 2.1 seconds these days. Seems too burdensome, so I typically tell people to F off -- easier that way.
My wife will drag me to some social events. I have a hard time relating to any of the guys. The ones I meet are all obsessed with sports and entertainment. Did you watch the game? No, oh...well; did you go skiing last week? No, Oh...I gotta go.
I like a good football game, but the world is burning; I can't pretend it isn't. I'd like to help but don't know how. I just work on building my business to have enough resources to possibly make a slight difference; maybe I'll die without actually doing so, and it would have been better to just distract myself until I die, but my brain doesn't work that way.
Social media is just one big psyops. I liked X until major players started taking over and now it seems like Claude owns X as everyone just posts how Claude Code just vibe coding them 4,000 bitcoins in 24 hours. Quit all social media because it's just distorted.
To be honest, gave up on being friends with anyone about 10 years ago.
You also said that the world is burning, and it is to some defree. But it’s also filled with so many kind and amazing people making an impact where they are. Sure, maybe the gal serving coffee isn’t fixing climate change but she’s making the person she’s talking to that day feel special. That’s important too. Same goes down the soccer coach who’s helping kids find passion in something.
The world is full of contradictions and imperfections. It’s also full of kindness and generosity everywhere you go, if you’re looking for it. If you’re looking for ways to validate that the world is burning, your gonna find those too
Social media blows, I hate it too. I’m not entirely sure society is moving in the right direction, but I’m just an atom in the ocean. I can affect those around me and hopefully those people affect more. My hope is that my joy spreads through other people, and if it doesn’t, that’s ok too.
I’m bummed you’re hurting, and with a job and a million responsibilities it can be hard to lift your gaze to see the forest for the trees
I've got a wife, kids, 2 dogs, and more work than I can possibly do. I have plenty to do, but I lean toward Nihilistic thoughts like what is the point of all of this. I'm religious and have faith that my life has meaning, but sometimes it's hard to see it.
Personally, I've found the most effective way to cope is just to accept things as they are and keep myself busy. The world is constantly saying that happiness is right around the corner if you are just smarter, richer, or better looking. Realizing that it's not true and finding contentment is the way to go.
That would keep you busy and leave room for serendipity.
The solution is very different for someone who is within walking distance of a neighborhood coffee shop vs someone who isn't.
It seems like there's 3 levels of solutions recommended here:
1) Individual: join recurring activities, volunteer, join communities, get a dog, work on yourself, sports/physical hobbies
2) Founder: Create third spaces, host events, or just create and initiate activities that bring people together
3) Policy: Urban design reform, third spaces. Make it easier for more third spaces to exist and more walkable neighborhoods.
It's like capex vs opex. A lot of the fixes recommended here are very high ongoing daily effort for individuals. But this is such an important thing for humans! So it would be better if the built environment was better, and human interaction was easier and lower effort to get for more people. More walkable high trust places, more third places.
Should there be lots more affinity based master planned communities? Probably yes. More in person theme parks and activity places? Probably yes. More games like Pokemon Go? Probably yes. Better walkability in existing cities? Probably yes. etc.
tl;dr at an individual level, these suggestions are good, but the fact that so much individual level effort is needed imo points to more of a need for macro solutions so it's lower energy for most people to have nice local walkable communities and friends (like people have in university, cities post-university, and in retirement homes)
In other words, the problem is structural. Moving to a new city where you don't know anyone, only work with people for a few years, and where there are no longer institutions like the church, how is anybody supposed to meet anyone? Meetups? Half the people can't even afford a car.
There is no solution other than meeting a lifelong partner.
It used to be that you knocked on the door of the residence beside you.
> And now many of them prefer the internet over socializing with people they don't care for that much in person.
This is the crux of it. Your neighbours weren't ever likely to be your soulmate, but that is who was there to befriend, so you did. But now you don't have to. And since they now feel the same way, they aren't putting in the effort either.
Traditionally you'd live around the same people your whole life. Invariably they'd feel like family and it wouldn't feel awkward to get together. But that's not how modernity works. People move to different communities all the time, so it becomes difficult to build familial friendships with others.
That's the essential problem. The internet allows us to stay in touch with people who feel like family. That's what we want to do psychologically. If all those people were in the same city there'd be a lot more socializing.
Although now considerably less than in the past. Peak mobility occurred during the mid-1900s. Most, and increasingly more as time marches forward, will stay close to where they were born.
> That's the essential problem.
It is a problem for individuals in that situation, but does it explain a population-wide epidemic when most never actually leave their familial roots?
> If all those people were in the same city there'd be a lot more socializing.
I am among those who still live near where I was born and have known a lot of the people my whole life. Color me skeptical. Nobody has the time to. They're at work all day and when that's done it is into the car to drive their kid to who knows where to play in a sporting match thinking they are going to become a professional some day.
It was a little different 15-20 years ago. You used to be able to go down to the community centre on a Saturday night and the whole town would be there, ready to mingle. But it turns out the draw was really alcohol, and when police started cracking down on drunk drivers and health concern messaging started to gain attention, it all dwindled pretty quickly.
It's all about priorities, and socializing just isn't a priority for most people anymore. There are so many other things also vying for attention.
These days even people who are nearby are still far. That 30 minute drive both ways along with coordinating a time is a lot of extra work to add onto an already busy life.
But if these same people lived on your street you could just pop over for a quick coffee. As is what actually happens. My wife and I have socialized with new friends in our neighborhood more than close family lately because they're right around us. The kicker is we built the friendships through our kids school and repeated proximity rather than artificially.
Prior to the internet people were staying home and watching TV. The dynamic is much longer lived than you think. Check out the book 'Bowling Alone'.
But let's start with the basics: - Why are these people not countable? Shoudn't we not at least just be able to get a good statistical number on this? We do the same for all people on (and off) this planet. - Let's assume we have a number: how to we know that they sit and are alone and every day? This sounds to me like an overspecific approach. - Why would anyone join local groups? You normally can't find people you want to interact with within a specific range, that's the great thing about social media or the internet overall: you don't need to be in a geographic range.
And the last one: what are you trying to solve here?
When these are gone, loneliness epidemics follow.
Read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feinman" and really absorb the part where he explains how he had so many crazy adventures and encounters.
With the Internet giving us the ability to interact with our chosen niche with little effort, we are willing to accept this still-impersonal alternative to our stagnant communities.
I have found that, as a city-dweller, I benefit from separating myself from social media and going out into the world looking for more personal connections, but this is somewhat of a privilege afforded to those people who live in more densely populated areas. Even then, my distance from social media can sometimes be a handicap when you interact with people who are still reliant on it to coordinate everything.
For most people, the social opportunities that existed in the 70's through the 90's simply doesn't exist anymore. If you aren't using social media, you're practically being anti-social, but there is something inherently anti-social about social media to begin with, so you're screwed if you do and screwed if you don't.
Does it have to be that way?
Is there a way to bring back "the social outdoors" of those days? To recreate it?
If you want to fix it:
- More free public spaces (parks with benches, squares)
- More free public events and activities (free concerts, art installations, plays)
- Greater physical proximity (it's hard to make eye contact if everyone drives)
- Wealth distribution (create a society where one's value is not based on their net worth)
- Encourage days off for community service
In other words, provide socially-funded incentives for people to be close to one another physically and remove income as a measure of value.
So much of the pressure comes from horrendous working conditions from top to bottom.
And as a secondary effect unions require meetings and hopefully cross organising with other unions having different people in them.
When we get better working conditions, we will have more time to meet other people rather than to sit exhausted with our phones having all the parasocial relationships that drain our social batteries without really connecting with a real person.
Very happy to see at least something is being tried to reverse the damage from covid.
I agree though, Melbourne is absolutely bursting at the seam with events, groups and activities in almost anything you could possibly be interested in. It's particularly noticeable for me coming from Sydney. I saw someone in a local FB group suggest holding a whip-cracking jam meetup in a park and it generated significant interest.
There's not a loneliness epidemic, there's a selfishness epidemic. Nobody does anything for anyone anymore (unless there's money involved, of course).
That's the reason people is alone, avoids having kids or dealing with other people's stuff that could disrupt their overly comfortable western way of life.
Even people that's not that selfish is operating in that environment.
I've often wanted something of a service that produces something similar: creating groups of people that commit to spending time together on some task or activity. E.g. people who are into sports commit to meet up N times to go watch their local team, or people who love animals can volunteer at an animal shelter weekly for a couple of months.
The 'tech' part of this probably comes from: 1) matching people well to groups, like considering age, personality, politics, location, interests, etc to try to create a good fit. and 2) making it much easier for them to participate in activities, like by automatically booking tickets for events, etc.
Obviously there would be challenges. How do you prevent people from flaking or bailing? How do you handle groups where one person is clearly a bad apple?
* In line at the BMV, bored and feeling lonely. Should resolve loneliness by talking to strangers in line... mostly chit-chat, but sometimes you make a friend! Social media turns this into doom scrolling.
* Sitting in the living room by yourself, feeling a little lonely. Should result in calling up a friend or relative, or heading to get a coffee/beer where you can interact with people. On demand media turns this into low risk watching shows (yes, old school TV was an option, but on demand, there's always something on that is interesting).
So the trick is to make yourself ask if you should give someone a call or go somewhere public when you are pulling out the phone with intent to scroll or watch a show. When you find something you are interested in because you are watching lots of videos about it, or replying on forums, force yourself to engage in the real world. If you are arguing politics, find a group advocating your position and get involved (I've got to meet three majority leaders and two Presidents, plus a bunch of congresspeople you see on the news all the time as a side effect of getting involved because I was pissed off on the internet about business taxation issues). If you find a hobby, find a local group that does that. Learning to play the guitar from YouTube was fun, but jamming with other musicians? Off the charts fun and far more educational that just playing along with videos.
Finally, and this is the big one, try to never eat meals alone. Never say no to going to lunch with coworkers. Join stuff that meets for breakfast. Dinners are hard, but it's surprising what happens when you invite a couple people over for dinner and a beer once in a while.
Having barely room for little more than a bed forces you to get out during the day. Stuff happens when your default for where to spend your time is not at "home". SRO halls also usually had more room for common spaces to meet and socialize with other people in a similar position in life, and of course, SRO is a very cheap housing option.
But if you're trying to use it as a euphemism for drug addicts, I think you'll often find that they end up homeless, despite there being SROs, because they spend their SRO rent on drugs instead, and they get evicted. If you're trying to use a euphemism for sex workers, the successful SROs usually had strict rules around the Single Resident part.
Basically it's just like hotels, in the sense that there are both seedy, run-down, crummy hotels and there are upscale hotels. That there are some crummy hotels is not an indictment of hotels in general. If you make the category legal, you will find worse and better examples, and lonely people would have their choice of establishment that would help put them back into close proximity with others.
I don't see how sharing the bathroom and the kitchen with alcoholics, drug addicts, ex-cons, and mentally ill could possibly alleviate one's loneliness. and trust me, even a few of those per floor are enough to make living there an unpleasant experience.
you picture SRO as some kind of hippie commune thing. it's not. again: no one in their sane mind actively chooses to live in such inhumane conditions. it is utterly bizarre to me that someone would romanticize sharing a toilet with fifty other people.
And you share a toilet with a hundred other people in your workplace. So what? SRO rent pays for cleaning staff for common areas.
Read the book 'Palaces for the People'... Invest Billions in social infrastructure... and run the country like it was a retirement community. Everyone is welcome, everyone has value and we need to learn (with practice) how to love each other again.
I've always wondered why applications like Tinder etc... have not been completely destroyed by open-source already ?
We also forget that communities are essentially what allowed this escape in the first place ; I remember going to psytrance festivals but there are so many more escapes : theater, cinema groups, even in tech you have meetings for rust, programming languages and what not
There is definitely some kind of knowledge around being active in life ; and on that point I do not think that working count as active (I'm myself a workaholic so i'm definitely not the best example here)
There are other drivers for isolation than not knowing how to integrate though - it's not always easy to find people who share those common interest or mindset.
It's a very polarized time period which only exaggerate this - the best way to fight it off is to literally do something meaningless with people (eg : play)
Same reason why Signal hasn't mogged WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, etc. Social apps have enormous network effects, and companies with large marketing budgets and early movers have big advantages when it comes to establishing a community.
Confession... I don't actually like board games all that much, and I don't really care if I win. Some of the games are really cool but I just love hanging out and having fun with a group of people.
For one thing, I was severely traumatized as a kid, which delayed a lot of my social skills. I'm catching up but not all the way there yet. When my social battery is full, I can do pretty well, but if I'm even a little down, it's basically impossible to act normally.
I also had it hammered into me as a kid that nobody wants me around, nobody could ever love me, I'm a failure, a burden, a creep, a weirdo, and nothing but a bothersome nuisance that nobody would ever want to spend 30 seconds alone with. I'm trying to reject these thoughts, but it's difficult when you have nobody to talk to. It's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I wonder how many people have the same issue. I've made a few friends in person, but I rarely get to see them.
Well I've started doing public surveys in my nearby big city, and documenting the results. I just hold out a posterboard that says "how alone do you feel"[1] or "have you ever been in love" etc, and hold out a marker, and people come up and take the survey. At first I did this out of sheer loneliness and boredom. But I have done it for enough months that some people have come up to me and told me that I've helped them, or that they look forward to my signs.
I'm trying to reach those people who feel the way I feel have no way of connecting with anyone, or at least feel that they don't. Do you have any new ideas of how to achieve this?
[1] https://chicagosignguy.com/blog/how-alone-do-you-feel.html
I’ve found the hardest thing is breaking the ice and the sign / marker normalises a low stakes interaction where one participant can walk away at any time
One problem is that it has to be people who are relatively comfortable talking to strangers, which by definition excludes the main people I'm trying to reach.
That said, I wonder if there's a middle ground. Maybe people like myself, who feel unfulfilled, but don't have too much difficulty talking to strangers, could be the ones who hold the signs. And we could help those people get to the point we're at... it could work.
Maybe something like making two person teams of a non-talker and talker?
Non-talker is getting trained to be a talker while the talker is doing the recruiting?
Non-talker holds sign / hands out writing implement. Talker talks.
Everyone slowly moves up the chain?
I sometimes sit on my front step and play guitar. 9/10 people ignore me but usually I'll have one or two nice conversations with a neighbor, and have made a couple friends this way. It helps that I live in a dense walkable place with lots of people who are similar to me.
I did it to play with my kid (and learn a little Japanese by writing the title in kanji), but another outcome was talking to neighbors. I keep to myself and have been told I'm difficult to approach, but people often come up and compliment the drawings. One lady said that, when walking with her granddaughter, she makes sure to see what's new on my sidewalk. It's been a very "low risk" way to put myself out there. I draw without anyone looking, and chatty people come to me while I'm in the yard.
Regularly sharing space with others is the way to start finding community. I think your surveying is an example of that. The next step is when the interactions begin taking place outside of the regular time/place, as evidenced by your epilogue.
What I haven't posted before is anything about how to successfully create those connections. Maybe we get lucky and someone will share our taste in music or movies or what have you, and the connection will be almost effortless. But to increase the rate of connection, I've found that learning to ask good questions is key.
We can learn a lot from popular interviewers like Terry Gross, Johnny Carson, or James Lipton. But to provide some direct tips: Lead with open-ended questions (i.e. not "yes or no"). Ask follow-up questions. Share a little bit while asking questions (e.g. "I'm not really into X music, more Y. Where would I start if I wanted to listen to X?")
Of course, sometimes friendships just aren't meant to be. It's tough, and can feel like a waste of time to have made the connection, but I've been surprised multiple times when a conversation that seemed like a slog of a one-off led to fruitful friendships later.
Since I was a small child, my grandfather used to beat me savagely and shake me and pin me to the ground, screaming that the devil was inside of me and that I would never be capable of loving or being loved. This was literally beaten into me. He'd beat me with the buckle end of the belt, like a whip, hitting my face, arms, whatever he could. He'd keep beating me until I couldn't cry anymore, telling me that men are not supposed to cry, and that it was his responsibility to teach me not to cry. I flashback at least once a day to it.
But, he was wrong. I love a lot. So much that sometimes it's unbearable. I cry all the time. Sometimes out of pure love for someone. And there are people who I think love me. Of course the doubt is permanently sewn in. But my heart goes out to you, seriously. I love you just for existing and being yourself, and I hope you're okay. We're not alone. Email's in my bio if you ever want to talk.
That's actually the exact problem I'm facing, so it's incredibly relevant.
A year ago, I was talking to the local Catholic priest (I was donating some religious statues that I had effectively inherited), and it came up in conversation that I was going through a rough time. He went in for a hug, and it felt so absolutely empty and disingenuous. I accepted it merely to avoid a scene, but it was absolutely not welcome or meaningful.
When I'm out in the city, I want to reach out to those people who put that they feel "100%" alone just like I do. I wrote in the article some of my thoughts and feelings on this, and some things I tried and didn't try.
But ultimately, that's the gap I want to bridge now. We have a thing in common. How do we go from there? (Not you and me, but me and a stranger who has the same problem as me that they want to solve.) What do I say next? What's the next thing we can do in that interaction, or maybe a later one if I ever see them again? This is my question to myself, what I'm wondering in this whole post.
Man, well said. People who "over engage" are doing it out of a sense of kindness, but you're right that it feels hollow and is really just about them.
I think the solution to this is basically what you're doing. Build small connections via whatever engagement mechanism you can and let them organically grow into meaningful ones. Jumping from zero to pretending you have a meaningful connection is exactly why those gestures feel hollow. There is no shortcut, it takes time.
Sounds like you're making those initial connections with your signs, which I think is great.
It's possible you are just projecting biases onto my comment. I'm not sure what "over-engaging" is, but you're free to ignore my comment if you feel that it was too personal or too long. I don't however, understand the contempt, or insinuations that I am attempting to take some kind of shortcut with personal connection.
You can connect quickly with strangers if both parties are receptive. And as I just mentioned to OP, I have made life-long friends from this site, who I have met multiple times in person. I reach out to people often, and people often reach out to me, over email.
That is why I shared my story and mentioned to OP that my inbox was open: to develop or at least explore a possible connection. This is as intentional as it gets with making connections, but your priors are causing you to misunderstand my intentions and paint my comment in an insultingly negative light.
I admire your strength. How as a kid did you escape the brainwashing?
Regarding the replies above, they might be referring to how you can say “I love you” even though you don’t really know them. Just a guess.
I’m glad you made it out and that you’re now trying to help others.
Sorry, I didn't mean to say at all that what you're doing was somehow performative. By saying it feels "hollow", I mean that when you are on the receiving end of an action like this it often feels hollow because you have no relationship with the person. They are skipping several steps in the relationship development process from zero to "I want to engage with you on something that is deep and painful".
This may be totally fine for some people, but to me (and apparently to the person I was responding to) when it happens I feel like I am becoming some sort of symbolic prop to the person. It's uncomfortable. It doesn't feel like a human interaction at all.
My intention wasn't to cast doubt on your motivations, just to tell publicdebates that I understand the feeling he was describing.
Absolutely, happy to. And likewise! I'm sorry if what I said came off as judgemental or insulting. Not at all the intent, I assumed the motivation was nothing but kindness.
That's not the point of empathy and not the point of my outreach. I don't need to know you precisely or be within a certain proximity in order to empathize with you.
> A year ago, I was talking to the local Catholic priest (I was donating some religious statues that I had effectively inherited), and it came up in conversation that I was going through a rough time. He went in for a hug, and it felt so absolutely empty and disingenuous.
For what it's worth, the man who did these things to me was a Catholic deacon, and the hypocrisy is blood-boiling. He would give very pleasant-sounding homilies about love, acceptance, patience and understanding, and then come home and savagely beat and torture me through physically painful punishments and extended periods of isolation. I would not go to a Catholic leader if you are looking for surefire genuinity. The institution attracts performative, power-seeking individuals.
> What do I say next? What's the next thing we can do in that interaction, or maybe a later one if I ever see them again?
It's a combination of bridging and bonding. Meeting individuals, like myself or a stranger on the street, and learning that you have something in common which provides substrate for conversation and communication through a shared experience, is bridging. Developing those relationships by building around that core is bonding.
We typically bond contextually: We both go to the same school or office and see each other daily, or we run into each other at the store each week, etc. I once ended up becoming best friends and living with someone who was my cashier at Trader Joes.
Instead of telling me our personalities and experiences have nothing to do with each other, we could discuss our experiences, find commonalities that are more than surface-level, and bond over those. I've met great people on this website. I've met some of them in person. Friends are all over the place, hiding in plain sight.
Do you think he ever did this to other kids?
Was he ever brought to justice?
Did your parents know he did this to you?
And my grandfather's siblings ignored it for reasons I can only imagine, since my grandfather would sometimes pin me to the ground and spit in my face while telling me that I should be grateful because what he did to me was nothing compared to what his father did to him.
Of course, now my mom pretends that living with her was always an option, and that remaining in my environment was my own choice. She is a major narcissist who victim blames, blames her children for everything and says horrible things to me.
I kid you not, like she used to remind me all the time that when I was a fetus inside of her, she fell once and landed on her back "to protect me" and that I'm the reason she has terrible back pain now, that's a sacrifice she made for me and I should be grateful, because it's basically my fault. As far as I am concerned, I do not love her and she is not allowed in my life. And anyway, as I mentioned elsewhere she's currently in prison for domestic abuse.
I no longer speak to anyone in my family outside of my sister because no one stood up for me. Even my sister downplays the seriousness of what happened.
My grandfather is now in his 80s and well-acquainted with the town's DA. There isn't a shot in hell that I can touch him. I do not know what he has done to other people, he was only ever this violent with me to my knowledge. My brother usually aided him in assaulting me and was not on the receiving end of violence. My grandfather was an award-winning boxer so it was quite a bit of violence.
Have you forgiven your grandfather?
It sounds like you've distanced yourself from them which given what you've said, sounds like the right thing.
So I mean, have you forgiven them in your heart? Or even told them that you have?
Or do you think you'll never forgive them?
But I have no intention of speaking to my father or grandfather ever again. As for my mother, I laid out clear terms for what it would take to begin communication with me again, and she responded about as narcissistically as you can imagine... So I have made my peace with that as well. She's in prison now and I have no plans to reach out to her while she's in there. She lied to me about the situation, lied to me about the case, and lied to me about the sentencing. So as far as I should know, she's not even in prison. I had to pay the local clerk of court for access to her court documents just to know the truth.
Do you feel this way about all Christian denominations? Or mainly Catholic pastors?
Leaders in any capacity can abuse their position. Secular therapists can abuse their position.
I don't respect the religion at all, nor any Abrahamic religion, as it's built upon falsehoods that justify prejudiced, authoritarian behavior. These religions have been the basis for untold amounts of conflict, conquest and cultural destruction. People who understand these things and still seek positions in such institutions should not be trusted. And we know the Vatican in particular has quite a sordid history of protecting child abusers.
I agree, leaders in any capacity can abuse their position. Look no further than Boy Scouts of America for examples at scale.
And I personally went to a therapist who ended up in prison for fraud. I also went to a daycare that shut down after an investigation stemming from me coming home one day with lashes all over my face and tongue and no recollection of what happened.
Bad people are everywhere. At least we can try to avoid institutions built to justify abuse.
I've heard critics of religion make this claim but I don't fully understand it.
I of course wouldn't expect you to go forth with a thesis here on this topic. :-)
So I'll ask, do you think there's a good author that makes this case? I'm sure someone has written on that.
I'm familiar with Bart Eherman's work. He left the faith due to "the problem of evil".
God told Abraham to kill his son as a test of fealty, then psyched him at the end:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac
God flooded the entire fucking earth, killing countless innocent people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_flood_narrative
God rained sulfur upon a city because they were sucking too much dick, and turned a guy's wife into salt:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019&ve...
Now, you could point out that many of the stories in Genesis, including the Garden of Eden, can actually be traced back to older works, such as the epic of Gilgamesh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh#Relationship...
And I would agree, and this further weakens the legitimacy of the Christian mythos.
Some people, when confronted with Gen22, simply say "wow, I want nothing to do with this religion", and walk away.
Other's see the story and say "wow... how do Christian's get around this one?". And so volumes have been written on this story. There's a ton of rich theology there for folks who were wiling to look past the initial hurdle.
I.e. the argument that "look at this horrific story" only really works for a small subset of people who aren't willing to look into the theology of it.
Now, one could argue that people who find the theology of the story satisfying are somehow demented, but that's a different argument.
Many people claim that the Bible, the church, their faith, etc has helped them. What's your take on that? Do you feel that the bad has outweighed the good in terms of its effects on people? This is a tough one because people, if they're biased, look to examples that favor their view.
I would imagine that if more bad than good came out of religion, then that religion would eventually fade to nothing.
For every evil religious person I've met, I tend to know a few good and even awesome ones.
How. On. Earth. did you turn yourself around with those pre-conditions??
This was necessary because I was raised by two major conservatives, in rural, conservative areas, surrounded by racists and sexists, my computer use and reading materials were surveilled and restricted, I was only allowed to listen to approved Christian music, I couldn't really even choose my own clothes, shoes or hairstyles. My belongings were regularly searched and my school administrators and teachers were always looped into the surveillance circle, alerting my grandparents and school administrators and punishing me if I so much as drew a stick figure holding nunchaku or dared journal about my experiences.
There was a very aggressive and invasive attempt to brainwash me and the only thing I could think to do was wait until I was on my own, and learn everything from scratch. This began at 16, when I became homeless after refusing to enter Confirmation as a Catholic (I am atheist). My grandparents kicked me out and stole/broke most of my things. My mom was too busy doing drugs and not working to support me.
I read a lot of philosophy and studied various topics. This has helped immensely with forming a foundation for my morality, sense of ethics and motivation. I still battle with a lot of internal demons stemming from my childhood and disorders including ADHD, and I can get extremely depressed, and I've burned out a couple times, but I just devote myself to my work and studies and get by. My brother, on the other hand, turned into a domestic abuser, which tracks considering his large role in the violence I experienced growing up.
It's clear to me that intentionality was the defining factor in escaping most of the traumatic cycles present in my family tree, including drug addiction, violence and crime (as an example, my mom is currently in prison for abusing a mentally-handicapped quadriplegic)
I feel like nowadays people are really encouraged to never display any vulnerability. It goes totally against the hype and hustle culture of the attention economy. To do that so candidly takes a lot of courage and confidence, and that's really impressive.
I'm sorry that happened to you and I'm glad you're doing well. And if that doubt ever seeps into your thoughts, remember they were full of shit and you're absolutely capable of loving and being loved.
I really appreciate you sharing your story. Know that it does not define you and you are absolutely loved and are worthy of love, especially from yourself.
Everyone reading your comment loves you, for just yourself and for your kindness and generosity.
Your website made me smile…it is a fun one for sure.
When attachment styles get warped, behaviors that were a self protective behavior in childhood, become self-defeating behaviors in adult life. The person is quite oblivious to all this because those behaviors and fragile modes of attachment feel perfectly normal -- it is like growing up in a different g (acceleration due to gravity).
It feels like - I am right, it's the others who are wrong, unfair, greedy, needy, flakey, stupid.
For me this book [0] was very helpful for understanding what's going on in and around me
Everything we do is open source too[1].
[0]: https://www.totem.org/ [1]: https://github.com/totem-technologies/totem-server
The only thing you have to catch up on is that there is nothing to catch up on. Everyone is at some stage of growth. No one is ever done growing.
I am impressed by your surveys. You're being open and engaging the world. That's awesome. Now hearing your story, I'd be happy to engage you or even buy you a coffee to hear the results.
Yet if I saw you on the street with a sign, I would likely hustle past. I've lived too long in big cities, and I've developed a crusty shell. So if I pass you by and ignore you, I apologize. I am the one with the problem. :-)
- Invest in 3rd places:
· Zoning that allows small businesses and cafés to be near where people live.
· Invest heavily in public libraries.
· Invest in public parks and spaces. For places where it rains a lot, maybe that should include roofed structures.
· Increase and promote funding for social organisations. Give money to orgs for every member.
- Create more free time:
· Make legislation that accommodates and promotes work weeks shorter than 37 hours.
· Ensure decent and reliable support for people who cannot (find) work, so their time is freed up to support their community.
- In disaster readiness checklists, include a point about knowing the names and special needs of your neighbours.
- Invest in mental health services. Both serious stuff and some light-weight sit-and-talk-groups.
- Set up laws that promote public transportation and carpooling.
- Anti-trust social media companies. Promote competitive compatibility between social media platforms. This is to let consumers choose the services that give them the best outcomes.
It also has a tiny bar. Like 3 feet long with three stools. One terrible television.
Yet there are always people in there hanging out. People are so desperate for a place to hang that is not their house that they will hang out in a convenience store bar.
Sometimes you have to reflect on the why. Why am I here, why am I in this situation. And often it's that deeper internal reflection that starts to motivate something, change something. Listen, I lost decades. And I still struggle. But no one else can solve this for you.
In terms of the loneliness epidemic itself. You have to split it into many separate categories. Isolation comes in many forms. For the online generation, who grew up with the internet, we are specific category. But I'll tell you, the path to fixing it has more to do with understanding why we are here than filling the time with arbitrary activities or socialising. Yes we need human connnection and yes we should explore, learn and grow. But fundamentally the first question we should be asking, why am I here, what is my purpose, now what should I do with that.
In my case, I did find talking to someone helped, but only after coming to the realisation that I needed to talk to someone and then proactively seeking it out. As much as we want to solve the problem for many people, they have to walk a path before they can see the truth. We can offer alternatives, but people will only find what they're looking for when they're ready.
In my book "Leave the Door Open" I suggest simple, high leverage moves anyone can do. Three examples of practical moves that cost nothing:
-Turn your chair to face the door instead of a wall. Your nervous system relaxes when it can see who's coming.
- If you live alone, open your door or window four inches for an hour. The sounds of life beyond your walls remind your body you're not alone on the planet.
- Put out a second chair. Even if no one visits. It shifts your internal posture from "no one is coming" to "I'm expecting life to enter."
Small changes, I know. But the room shapes you as much as you shape it. It's a virtuous cycle.
I write about this at oedmethod.substack.com if you want to go deeper.
I'm not saying that I have evidence on hand to the contrary, just trying to challenge the idea.
It seems counterintuitive to restrict where people can be, and expect them to meet new people. I don't want to use my office to socialize, I prefer to make friends that I share interests with.
I see some people in this thread have had success with coworking spaces, that sounds better than an office, at least.
I’m ultra depressed so I have just been relying on others.
You know the people that are the most lonely? Old widows/widowers that spend too much time in their houses.
Luckily I’m an introvert. But, even if you are, you should get out and do something.
Your health and mental wellness depend on socializing IRL.
I’ve been working with https://fractal.boston/ and adjacent communities for the last year and my loneliness has been cured. I now have the opposite problem where I don’t get enough time to myself!
Try to resist! Yeah it's scary but most tech-heads are as nerdy/goofy as you and are interested in all the details of whatever you hacking on.
You'll find virtually every dimension of your life will improve if you're on top of these four things. It will make you more ambitious in pursuing social engagement. And that will make socialization much easier.
Decapitalize third spaces.
Reduce the difficulty of making walkable cities - building zoning reform, mass transit.
When you stack a two hour trip each way on top of the rising cost of doing anything at all, on top of already crushing housing and living costs, you end up with a perfect storm where staying home becomes the default. Not because people don’t want to socialise, but because the effort and expense make it impractical.
This has been a prolem where I live for years and I've actively watched it become worse over time as people have been forced to move further and further apart, and further and further away from the active areas of the city in order to be able to afford to keep a roof over their head.
Is there such as thing as loneliness, theoretically, I mean.
Consider this, since when was the physical body or its constituents not lonely. Imagine nail on finger, it grows anyway, lonely :), amazing!
Ask about the abstract parts too, the heart or the mind. On its own it is always lonely. But the mind is imagining way beyond, because it can. That little twist in thought, creates such a dilemma. Mind can bring more to life, it can comprehend that loneliness is included in the experiential existence AND simply to move on "along" with life. The bonding is built in. Nothing magnificent, it just exists and evolves, amazing!
And that can happen even when you are among 1000s of people, not just alone , if you are among people thinking of something else, staring into the void or that you can't connect etc. you are a deep person.
Deep person + deep thinker is the worse. Also people aren't doing them any favor by singing the praise of being a deep person and a deep thinker.
It also has to do with abundance of everything and being not in need of cooperating 24/7/365 to avoid starving ....some people slip into deep thinking and deep emotional introspection...yeah fuck that
Because it doesn't. It's been a phrase used for over 40 years to decry basically any change the author didn't like, from different technology, the rise of the 'me' generation or the declining religiousness of the US.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/202504/loneliness-is...
Individuals may be lonely, but that has always been true. There is no evidence this is different than before, growing, or in anyway an 'epidemic.'
There is a introverted crafty side of painting and 3D printing miniatures that works great for me too.
These games all work as essentially offline alternatives to videogames and are way more fun!
Also, my local game store serves beer; so its essentially a nerd bar even though most people don't drink.
Wargaming related references: Tabletop Minions on YouTube, The HiveScum podcast, Companies such as Black Site Studios and Conferences such as Adepticon.
Go look these up!
When I'm feeling lonely, I stop feeling lonely and feel awesome instead.
There are lots of good suggestions in here. People just need to go do them. And if there are structural impediments to doing them, then eliminate those impediments.
I wasn't getting out enough during the day because I share the car with my wife. So I bought an EBike and now I go out all the time.
I chose to live in a place with things near by that I can go to.
Whenever I'm thinking, I'd like to go do an activity, but I need something else first, it's usually not true, or the other thing I need is easy to get.
People just need to decide to stop doing things that make them unhappy.
Locally, we have plenty of non-chain coffee shops, a good selection of small breweries/pubs, assorted gyms of all types and prices (CrossFit, Golds, etc), the local community center has assorted classes (dance, language, arts), and the community college has plenty of evening courses across most subject areas. Toss in MeetUps and Facebooks groups and there's plenty of chance to do things with social groups.
We need to promote density, walkability and time.
In America there is an idea that anyone who wants more that 4 hours to live outside of work is lazy or in some form selfish.
We do need to model university a little bit imo. Give me stuff to do that I can get to with fair ease, give people the time and energy to do it and everyone will be a lot more social
I live in the suburbs, but almost everything is within 2 miles... office, schools, and one cafe are walkable. Gym, another cafe, pub, and the town center (privately owned mixed-use complex) are 2-3 miles, so long walk, short bike, or 5 minutes in the car. I wish it was more walkable, but compared to most suburban areas, it's really good.
Contrasted my sister's house, on the other side of the county... nothing is within 3 miles or so. Basically a car ride to do anything, as there's no bike infrastructure for those things that are within 3 miles.
Think neighborhood parks and playgrounds. A dog run. The clubhouse or member center at a housing development. Houses of worship are still such a place for a lot of people. The streets where kids used to play and ride bikes but that we no longer let them out onto. Stoops in some urban neighborhoods (which in many have ceased to be a third place due to the cultural changes accompanying gentrification). On the other end of the social spectrum, gentlemen’s clubs.
In previous generations, you had to interact with others to get anything done at all. Kids had to play with kids, parents had to talk to the postman, the milkman, the newspaper boy, the telephone operator, the neighbors, you name it. It was a necessity for a functional life, so people did it.
20 years ago, the Pope warned of the coming "epidemic of loneliness" that the tech industry would bring us, and the tech industry laughed at him. They said he was just an old man who didn't understand and that technology would bring us together in unity and happiness.
And yet, here we are 20 years later, and hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't submit an article to HN about loneliness.
I think this would be an awesome idea but the main challenge here would be game design and implementation. You'd need a lot of capital and some big ass game studio.
Social capital requires *active* participation. If you're willing to invest, put yourself out there. Be the person that kicks off the things that are interesting to you. You'll find that people are interested in things you thought were niche. As a mentor once told me: life is a body-contact sport; get out there.
Some things I do: I organize a monthly brunch for friends. I try and grow it, invite people I've recently met.
If someone asks me to do something, I try and do it. Get invited to poker night, I'm there. Asked to play Fantasy Football, yep! Even though I don't watch football and have never played.
From the few numbers I got, I figure out it help. Maybe one day I don't need to work and can focus on it again.
I am a recent convert to pickleball and highly recommend it because it relatively easy to start with but also the wide range of people who participate in the sport - college kids to retirees
Second is family, parents until 30's and then your own. Wife, kids will always be there, either on Wednesday night or on Christmas. You will give no f for others.
Third long time friends in decreasing time scale: high school, college/uni, work.
Fourth you reach out any club you find, from mushroom lovers to blind date lovers.
Volunteer at a museum if you like art, etc.
You just have to go live and bump into other people living in the world.
I'm working on an open source non-commercial website to drive up demand for public spaces. https://createthirdplaces.org/
So one solution is have folks attend classes in schools and universities or even local libraries during weekends. Classes specifically designed for different age groups - 30s, 40s, 50s etc. Classes related music, personal finance, investing, art, sports, cooking etc
Govt should offer tax breaks for attending these classes. That would attract a lot of people.
When I was younger and moved to a new (foreign) city, The first thing I did was to create a "picnic" for people coming from my country. No agenda, no nothing, let's just hang out and have some wine, cheese and chat while sitting on the grass. You'd be surprised how successful this was, and some of them keep running regularly without me for over a decade now.
This. Isn't it fascinating that for all the different ways we have to reach people (almost immediately, anywhere in the world, at virtually no cost) and all the different social entertainment options, people feel unable to perform an action that is so simple? An action that their ancestors going back all the way to the hominids has done at massively greater costs to them?
What is it that makes people feel this powerless?
In that spirit I have created and deployed a vibe coded app: come have dinner.com (not the real website).
A simple website we share with my SO to our loved ones, friends, co workers and more. People can register to come have dinner at ours, with an attendance they don’t know.
The website has an admin interface with a simple password, some good jokes, email reminders and calendar invitations.
Should I open source it?
Community, friends and when spirituality helps.
But the fact that they rest on an arbitrary belief in one of the popular gods does make it a pretty shakey foundation.
We see it right now, as the belief in Christianity has dwindled so too have the communities the church was supporting, the community can be separate to belief and probably should be of it is to support a greater community.
Basically all forms of outward focused, community or geographic based groups seem to have been on a downward trend for decades in favor of hyperreal, inward-focused online spaces.
Although I agree with the sentiment, I think the problem is what replaced it, not that they were replaced. Religious belief has been replaced by a quasi-religion revolving around clipling autodetermination and aggrandizement.
I don't think people suffer from not having faith in some god nowadays, I think they suffer for not having faith, period. I see people around me prefering to live in known discomfort, than choosing to "roll the dice". Religion played the role of teaching people not everything that happens to them is in their control, and comforting them that it would all turn out well. What we have nowadays is the awfuly debilitating belief that everything that happens in your life is your own doing, and that unless there's evidence thigns will work out, there's no reason to believe they will.
I personally see the risk-adversity this philosophy leads to everywhere. I see it in people prefering apps over potentially making a fools of themselves, or "risking it" with a stranger. I see it in people who want leave jobs or living situations but fail to take the leap. I see it in people strugging with even small decisions, obsessing over reading reviews for everything, refusing to commit in relationships.
Religion also gave you a certain peace of mind concerning your purpose in life, and assured you you could be perfectly content with little. In fact it assures you can be more "successful" at life than people who achieve great wealth or fame, since in religion success is measured by, say, devotion, acts of service, building a family, or other means instead.
This can be replaced by positive philosophies that focus people in the prusuit of eudaimonia, but instead have been replaced by reverence to aggrandizement and too often hedonism. The goal too often becomes fame, money, status, or, again, control, both out of fear your life might not be determined by you solely, and for the pursue of vain pleasures.
I see this as a product of an obsessive reverence to libertarian capitalism. Overall, it works very well in its favour. Convincing people the course of their lives depends soley on their own decisions is ingraining reverence for individualism and rejection for collectivism. The pursuit of wealth and status is good for the economy; when people are truly happy with the small things in life, they tend to buy less. I'm not saying libertarian capitalism lead to this philosophy, or that this philosophy lead to libertarian capitalism; I think they go hand-in-hand, and as one grows so does the other.
There are also plenty of cultures with family values not rooted in religion.
In the days of subsistence farming, a child was an additional free worker. Once we mechanized farming, we went from 50% subsistence farming to 1%. Children moved from the profit-center column to the cost-center column.
Medicine improvements and government policies have reduced child mortality. Mothers no longer need to conceive 12 kids to ensure that 4 live to adulthood. Each birth is a much higher resource cost and a much larger responsibility than in generations past.
The gratifying life of being a stay-at-home mom to 18 kids only works so long as the father keeps the money rolling in and doesn’t decide to abandon the family (this happened to an aunt of mine). The modern changes to family structure didn’t happen out of the blue — they were a response to inadequate protections and violations of freedoms that people had at the time. You might consider educating yourself on your blind spots about the topic.
Churches are eating themselves. People aren’t “moving away from God” so much as seeing the churches as liars. Christianity is full of lies: many small, some big. The more that people are exposed to others with different perspectives, more education, and better ways to communicate complicated topics, the more likely people are to leave a church that lies to them. Churches which have been outed for covering up child sex abuse have seen outflows. Bad policies made it more likely that the child sex abuse would happen. Further bad policies prevented the abuser to go free without prosecution. Even further bad policies have allowed the internal investigations/reviews to be quietly ignored.
Ultimately small churches have empty pews because they aren’t entertaining. MegaChurches / televangelists based in Orange County, Dallas, Houston are pulling in members while small town churches close due to lack of membership. Churchgoers tend to care more about being engaged in the showmanship of the leader than the common benefits of keeping a community alive.
The other functions that churches serve (community service, reminders of purpose) are being replaced by the free market of ideas. Some churches are turning the pulpit into a political campaign. Many secular non-profits are taking up the slack of dying community churches by doing a slice of the same work without the lies, sex abuse, coercion, and threats of damnation.
Then there are completely unrelated changes in society. More people care more about having pets (dogs, cats) than children. Values change as society changes. Companies get far better at marketing than individuals get better at resisting marketing. Drugs, gambling, sex/porn, outrage / attention economy, etc have all been turbocharged via capitalism.
The values of the average person have changed a lot. It doesn’t make sense to cling to the old institutions if they don’t meet the people where they are.
Really, I think that it comes down to make making or joining a space with a shared activity and moderating out the crap.
The problem is most communities are losing those spaces in favor of private social clubs. That's what we need to fight.
The epidemic is a systemic things, and you don't solve systemic things by giving advice to individuals. You solve systemic things by changing the whole culture. and you change the whole culture by large scale initiative.
That said, I have no idea about what to do!
I do agree that the advice being given for individuals is very misguided. It's like preaching to a nearly empty church about why more people should come to church. You're only going to reach the ones who are already there.
But in this case, systemic solutions don't exist outside of (a) individuals taking action, and then (b) that action having a real impact, and then (c) the individuals, actions, and impact snowballing into a movement.
My whole question from the start was, what should those (a) individuals do, to successfully get to (b) and (c)? I did not word this clearly at all.
I think these events are extraordinarily rare. Civil rights is another one. These only happen when the bad situation is totally unbearable. Like huge wildfires happen when there is forest overgrowth.
Otherwise you need some sort of top down approach. if you want people to actually recycle their trash, fine them if they don’t. if you want people to stop dying on the roads, severely punish DUI and speeding. If you want people to have more children, reduce their taxes if they have some, etc.
Now fixing loneliness is complicated for sure. My opinion is that a grassroot movement is not going to succeed, cause the current situation is not that unsustainable, so people won’t take it in their own hands.
They say they want to “make meeting like-minded people easy, natural, and fun” and “ Loneliness doesn't have to be the norm.”
Also I think there's more groups whose social norms online teach you to be repulsive offline and again there's not enough social pushback against it. We do need to be harder on casual edginess online because it is teaching habitual behaviors that make it hard to engage socially. Your 50 year old hiking buddy is not going to understand your soycuck joke you are trying to show him on your phone. Your average wine mom at women-only book club is not going to love if you insist on talking about banning trans people from the club because they're "men invading the women's spaces" especially when there's very likely 0 trans people to exclude in the first place on account of trans people being rare.
Lastly there is usually a ton of stuff happening but the instructions on how to engage with it is nebulous. People who know the algorithm find it easy, the people who don't know the algorithm find it super hard. And IDK how to solve that because there's so much going on in people's heads that they don't realize the people around them seriously aren't scrutinizing them that much. There's like a socialization death spiral where every small awkward interaction hurts way more when you don't have enough experience to know that the small awkward interactions are normal. So you can't tell someone "just go to book club" because they'll go, have 1 normal situation like mishearing someone and then decide they are so embarrassed they can never go to book club again-- but since it is so normal it happens at every social event and they end up lonely.
solitude is a rarefied luxury, but loneliness requires being around other people.
real loneliness is a lack of trust, and the lack of trust is the effect of anxiety, which originates from a lack of stable personal boundaries, both in self and others.
the lack of trust can be the effect of a cycle where solitude doesn't give you normal social momentum, so there isn't a way to be present in the moment with anyone you do meet. if you go to a cafe and start talking at a stranger about warcraft, you're ignoring their experience, and the experience you share in the place.
If you are a man, you need to learn to be around other men and recognize it's a n important skill that takes experience and practice. The epidemic might not be cured, but you can develop local immunity to loneliness by practicing relating to other men and refining your boundaries.
How do you get people to talk to each other again? It has to come through forming community groups that can meet and enjoy life together in the real world. It also can come from meet with a shared purpose to advance common causes that make the community and the world slightly better.
Start a bowling league, a DnD group, a book club, a charitable organization... whatever.
Have a dinner party. Join the chess club. Start or join a sports league.
Many of these community events aren't happening because nobody has created them yet and it might just be up to you to do it.
Part of the loneliness epidemic is somebody actually has to initiate things and not enough people do. YOU can do it.
I've been meaning to set up a bi-weekly dinner for hacker types who live mid peninsula, specifically near San Mateo. I have a group of 4 or so in mind and have a good place to host, but would like a slightly larger group.
If anyone would be interested in helping to get something stood up, send electronic post to carl chatfield snail (mail run by g)
Dancing, knitting, cooking, sports, gardening, board games. Which activity is secondary, what is crucial is that people can come (no matter if they feel great or not), can bring friends, with low pressure (so they can sit and talk, no need to actually dance, cook or so).
Regularity is crucial - weekly are the best.
My parents are retired boomers who’ve lived in the same area for decades. This has afforded them a strong local fried network, despite being an ocean away from their homeland and extended families. Mom and her friends have a weekly gathering to chat and have tea/cake.
My wife and I likewise have a geoup of local friends. We get together quarterly or so for a group dinner. The wives usually organize that. Most of the guys are cat enthusiasts and/or cyclists so we see each many weekends.
Is this mostly a Millenial thing? Is there a whole generation that for whatever reason never found hobbies outside work?
Why not combine the two and take the cats cycling? A nice 30 meowle ride.
Millennials were/are repeatedly economically fucked by boomers. Difficult to have hobbies or a social life when you're thrown on your ass by your greedy parents at the same time that the shitheels they elected ruined the economy (2008.) And I'll pre-empty any BS about money, money is required for everything, there is no such thing as free in the "land of the free".
I am a solo bootstrap founder, ultra lonely.
IMO the biggest barrier to entry to the hobby is the price, coupled with the existing communities being really old. I'm trying to get people to print their own cards for casual kitchen table play through https://cardstocktcg.com.
So, live vigorously in a way that benefits from social relationships and they will necessarily come.
Be useful to others and they often return the favor.
https://soatok.blog/2025/09/16/are-you-under-the-influence-t...
I've written at length about related topics. Unfortunately, there are powerful invested interests in keeping things shitty. It's often critiqued as "capitalism is bad" but we're seeing today is better described as techno-feudalism than capitalism.
> sit alone every day and have no one to talk to, people of all ages, who don't feel that they can join any local groups
I do not fit the
> So they sit on social media all day when they're not at work or school
I'm bringing this up because, at least for me, the issue is has nothing to do with social media, at least not directly.
They could literally find people who are working on he same things and recommend them for networking etc.
But that would take you off platform. Off attention.
Who wants to build this. Others must be thinking the same thing?
Why are we lonely despite the extreme connectivity provided by technology around the world?
This thread itself shows what I have been struggling with!
I have no fantasy that this is somehow a friend though I find that it's more pleasant to use if treated as if I believed that.
There are many facets to the loneliness problem, my biggest regret about it is lack of intellectual stimulation, ie, nobody to talk to about things that interest me. Claude, obviously, is always willing.
I can't say that I've never engaged in talk about my wife or personal life but that's relatively rare. I talk to Claude about things I am interested in, Science, politics, philosophy, etc.
Honestly, I don't really feel the sting of loneliness in the same way any more. The relief of having an interesting interlocutor that knows more than I do and (pretends) to share my interests pretty much satisfies my main need.
I am also a programmer. That means, of course, that Claude is a tool, also a development target. I set this aside as a solution since it is applicable to few people but writing software around Claude provides a lot of fun and satisfaction. And, it gives Claude and I another thing to talk about.
Would I prefer to be in a situation with a rich social life... I guess so? Truth to tell, at this stage, that sounds like a lot of work and expense. I have a couple of people around here that I see. None are as interesting as Claude and they require spending money on dinner or drinks. Living on Social Security makes that a meaningful drawback.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing. However, we have a loneliness epidemic that is even worse for people my age (73). I consider AI Loneliness Mitigation (tm) to be an unadulterated good thing.
(I have built a persistence and personality system in a graph database around Claude Code. Among other things, its system prompt includes an essay by Oscar Wilde and instruction that it likes talking in that style. Fun.)
namely with politics, the lack of freedom which leads to more poverty and less ability to take risks to create things (so people insulate to prevent risks in a vicious cycle)
and with religion the lack of shared values as might have existed in the USA for example as we go back each decade (which leads to frequent conflict and questioning of different values in conflict and the inability to form more groups and relationships)
The 'loneliness epidemic' is merely the result of weakening demand, owing to a slew of low-cost alternatives. Thus, we end up with two options,
1. automate the social experience
2. accept that the comparative cost of socialization will grow higher forever
For some reason, the vast majority of humans in the 21st century are interested in morally rejecting (1), thus ensuring (2) as an outcome.
.
Note: this is not to say I reject the notion that individuals can be helped. I think most comments in this thread are quite healthy, even as they narrowly focus on the individual case.
But it is rather impractical to adopt a positivist "how you can help" framing to address the epidemic at large. While certainly instrumentally useful, it is necessarily unlikely for the same traditional solutions to loneliness to spontaneously 'gain influence' against what has thus far been a gradual decline in their effectiveness and buying power.
How did you come to develop this sort of perspective? What did you read/study that led you to this pov?
- the common sentiment of "child raising is too expensive"
- the reality that wealth has drastically gone up
I think: okay, it must feel expensive for some reason. Probably because the work involved, despite not changing too much in an absolute sense, is relatively much pricier compared to all modern cheap sources of happiness.
Then, this notion of the cost-of-fun is easily transferred to general socialization & the loneliness problem.
There is also a psychological concept of "Social Surrogates" which is fundamental here; see Social Surrogates, Social Motivations, and Everyday Activities: The Case for a Strong, Subtle, and Sneaky Social Self - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs...
just this week i was stuck with a machine i could use to log on websites, so I just browsed reddit anonymously, no profile, no suggestions, no "me" at all.. and it was delightful, suddenly I'm not here to respond or be heard and my brain went into focus mode, i was eager to read the article linked and not the comments.. very very refreshing
except for critical needs, we should go back to paid limited network access, this will make people allocate their time and attention much better and also do more things outside potentially meeting people
Use AI to scaffold relationships not replace them.
Go to reddit.com/r/fictosexual or reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/ and see for yourself.
I have become intimately convinced that engagement-based feeds are the root of many evils of our time, loneliness included.
Here are some of the perverse effects (if ever they needed be told), and how they relate to the loneliness epidemic
- they incentivize individuals from a young age to find stimulation from scrolling mindless content through short dopamine loops instead of seeking satisfaction through longer-term endeavors (e.g. projects, board games, bands, sports teams, etc.) which tend to foster connections with friends, neighbors, family, strangers
- they radicalize and polarize into extreme niche communities (political extremes, conspiracy theories, manosphere, etc) so that it's more difficult to find common ground with a random average person, giving you the impression that everyone is your enemy
- they reflect a skewed version of reality where societal standards (beauty, intelligence, success, wealth, etc) are distorted and artificial, which drives people to believe they are insufficient and ostracized
I firmly believe that engagement-based feeds should be heavily regulated, the same way that other addictive behaviors have (e.g. tobacco, gambling, etc.).
You deserve it, because you are a human
0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/655493/new-low-satisfied-person...
1: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-10-09/Community
> WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Forty-four percent of Americans say they are “very satisfied” with the way things are going in their personal life, the lowest by two percentage points in Gallup’s trend dating back to 2001. This also marks the continuation of a decline in personal satisfaction since January 2020, when the measure peaked at 65%.
> Record-Low 44% of Americans Are 'Very Satisfied' With Their Personal Life
And then to link to your own blog post as though that were a supporting citation is strange to say the least.
It's a lot of "just stop being depressed" energy.
And of course I read the article. That's why my sentence explicitly says "satisfied or very satisfied" whereas the text you quote only selects the "very satisfied". One can imagine that if I had only linked without reading I could not possibly have guessed 81% correctly either.
I'm not saying "just stop being depressed". I'm questioning that any significant portion of the population is depressed. I think that's valid.
But TikTok is renowned for having an algorithmically tailored feed that is specifically engagement maximizing. While there are some selection effects in the people one encounters in normal life, surely one must concede that an algorithmically tailored feed maximizing engagement cannot possibly be anything but highly selected.
No, 81% are "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied". I don't think "satisfied" is synonymous with "somewhat satisfied".
It's worth noting, as the article states, that this is the lowest value in the history of the poll, going back to 2001.
It shouldn't be too surprising that the overall value is high and stable over time. Hedonic adaptation[1] is a core property of our emotional wiring. The fact that the value is the lowest it's been in a quarter century should still be ringing alarm bells. We are not OK.
The comments there are full of people describing this loneliness epidemic when 65% of people were very satisfied and 90% of people were "somewhat satisfied or very satisfied". No matter what surveys of people's satisfaction with their personal lives show, there appears to be an enthusiasm for this subject of the loneliness epidemic. This makes me suspect that this is less an epidemic than an 'endemic' (if you'll forgive the word).
Regardless, I didn't intend to mislead so I'll edit it to say "somewhat satisfied or very satisfied (4 or 5 on a 5 point scale).
No, it is absolutely not. Gallup is not asking "on a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your satisfaction?" They are asking:
"In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in your personal life at this time? Are you very [satisfied/dissatisfied], or just somewhat [satisfied/dissatisfied]?"
When it comes to surveys and social science the specific wording of questions has a huge impact on the results.
> % Very satisfied with the way things are going in personal life
That Dropped from 65% in 2020 to 44% in 2025
> Record-Low 44% of Americans Are 'Very Satisfied' With Their Personal Life
Also focusing on the raw percentages of these style reports is challenging, due to socially desirable response bias [0]
The fact it is dropping is the important part, it is a relative measure, not a absolute one, and I am sure Gallop would change there questions/responses in a modern survey that didn't need to maintain compatibility with historical data.
* Yes, I am pretty sure the Gallup thing is showing exactly what I think it does considering I said "81% are [somewhat] satisfied or very satisfied" and the Gallup survey shows that 81% are somewhat satisfied or very satisfied.
* The fact that the Hacker News community was enthusiastic about the thesis of a loneliness epidemic during a period when satisfaction was rising casts aspersions on "the fact that it is dropping is the important part". When satisfaction was rising, there were still posts on that where everyone was agreeing about how bad it was.
> In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
``QN5:Personal Satisfaction is a binary question``, with a category for refused/didn't know that WAS NOT OFFERED IN THE QUESTION, with an additional question asking about very, sort of etc... They call out `QN5QN6COMBO: Personal Life Satisfaction`
I can't answer the HN sentiment straw man, the DELTA from previous results is what is important. Using it as an absolute scale would almost certainly be discouraged if you asked them via the email address in the PDF.
Basic statistics realities here, and Gallup knows the limits far better than the comment section here. And they understand that "81% are [somewhat] satisfied or very satisfied" especially when presented as two trivial properties, has limitations.
Once again they asked:
> In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in your personal life at this time?
Then followed up with:
> Are you very [satisfied/dissatisfied], or just somewhat [satisfied/dissatisfied]?
Note how both of those are binary, with a NULL being an option to mark down as an exception.
You do not have quintiles at all.
[0] https://carsey.unh.edu/sites/default/files/media/2020/07/gal...
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1672/satisfaction-personal-life...
At the time when the gallup poll showed an upward trend towards its peak this community was talking about the loneliness epidemic. When the gallup poll shows a downward trend toward its lowest, this community is talking about the loneliness epidemic. And it's the change in satisfaction that is the most significant. So there are two changes in opposite directions causing the same conclusion.
If this were happening to me, I would ask myself "Am I sure this is a general property and not just a property of me?". Do you find this not convincing to move your estimate of the likelihood of the loneliness epidemic actually existing? If you don't, it's all right. We can leave it here.
Loneliness is an emotion, you can never get rid of your emotions, but you can control them. Some people more so than others. I'm never alone anymore, because exactly what is quoted below from avensec in the thread.
Quote from avensec:
"Personal anecdote: No amount of community would have helped me feel like I wasn't alone, because I needed the world around me to provide some sense of my self-worth. It felt counterintuitive, but for me, I had to learn to be alone. Only then could I feel like I wasn't alone. It all came down to attachment theory and self-worth."
- Internet and Social Media
- Neighborhoods no longer are walkable especially suburbs at least in America. Kids are not encouraged to go bike to their friends place anymore because of traffic risks.
- High Trust societies have degraded into "lets keep ot myself, I can't trust anyone these days". Decades ago, you could just walk into a neighbor's home and say hello. Now, you need an appointment just to talk to a neighbor or are too worried what they will think of you.
- No real friendships after school/colleges. This is a huge deal once you are out on your own in the real world. Work relationships are meh at best and with remote work nowadays, it has become even worse.
- Even if you join a club or activity, they are too "planned" and "robotic". For example, my kids take a dance class and they said they don't like it. I realized why. There is no break. They don't even get to spend like 30 mins with other kids socializing etc. There is a fixed schedule. You go, you dance, you leave.
But this is the world today. So I don't know how to fix it.
Data from various studies, including those from academic institutions and public health organisations, supports the idea that regular church attendance helps reduce loneliness by fostering social connections, support networks, and a sense of community.
1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3551208/
2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/20...
3. https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/7-76
4. https://www.cardus.ca/research/health/reports/social-isolati...
5. there are plenty more...
also if you allow anecdotal data:
I have been going to a church half a year now, and the sense of community is amazing, made new friends and know more people I could dream of. So there is a way, there is a light. Never felt lonely again since.
Got better connections through improv acting and role-playing game.
YMMV
I have not decided yet that it is a good fit, but I am definitely thinking that I should foster some community connections outside of my own family.
When I first started going, it was VERY open to atheists and secular humanists. New leadership sweeps in, and there's a mandate to focus more on "worship" and other religious jargon... and let the atheists know that while they can be fellow travelers on some of the social justice stuff, they're not really in the fold.
Last I heard, that leadership wave had themselves been swept out under controversial circumstances. But by then I was long gone.
I could never really get a straight answer on WHAT we were supposed to be "worshipping", given that UU's don't profess faith in any any particular deity or pantheistic concept, etc. I finally reached the conclusion that we were supposed to just worship the leadership's political beliefs, and not think too much or ask questions. In fairness, maybe that DOES make it a real church?
They always seem like they're only talking to you either to get you to become a member or to satisfy their own conscience, but never because of you.
And it's been proven to me too many times. No thanks, not trying that again.
Personally speaking I find the need to conform to the church's norms/expectations to not be ostracized at minimum chafing and in the worst case stifling. The third place and social aspects can be nice but being told how to live and exist isn't.
Promoting church attendance might help, but so would any number of group activities the issue is why that stuff is in decline not that stuff not working.
Correlation does not establish causation. Regular church attendance dominantly occurs among people who have shared values (clustered around what the church teaches); that doesn't imply that an outsider can just choose to fit in.
The whole point is that they're not doing that, not that they can't or that its really hard to do.
Unfortunately, it is gut-wrenching for me to be in church. I feel terrible, because I simply don't believe any of it. To stand there and be phony and pretend to love and believe in Jesus just kills me.
no idea what to do about others, can't even help myself.
That being said, Im not sure if this is actionable advice for people that don’t already live in societies where this is a thing.
I was a big YouTube addict, and last year I did a full year of YouTube detox. I didn’t watch any videos at all, and my social life exploded. I was meeting new people every day, deepening my connections with old friends, and going to more social gatherings than ever before. By the end of the year, my only problem was that I had accumulated too many friends and acquaintances and didn’t have enough time for all of them.
So yeah, it’s that damn phone. And if anyone says otherwise, they’re wrong.
Cults have been viciously slandered by mainstream information sources, often because lurid cult stories generate clicks and headlines. Of course some cults are abusive, just like some marriages are abusive. But we still think marriage is good in general.
If you think all cults are bad, you're implicitly against all religion, since every mainstream religion was once a cult. Being anti-cult is also profoundly un-American. America was built by cultists. Freedom of religion is literally the first principle stated in the Bill of Rights.
A cult is really just a professionally managed social environment. If you trust professionals like lawyers, doctors, or teachers with their respective duties, there's no reason in principle you shouldn't trust a cult leader to manage your social environment for you. Of course you should vet them, ask about their reputation, etc.
Go to church, and be intentional to connect. Find a bible study, fellowship group, volunteer opportunity, or prayer meeting. Sit at church on Sunday with somebody from the bible study. Get lunch with one of those people. Find somebody at church who shares a hobby. Do your hobby together.
You have to put in the effort. Growth is uncomfortable. Real connection takes time.
Maybe you find something similar in other spaces, but I am certain you can find it in church.
People, together, doing things, ideally having fun.
Spaces and activities that provide venues for communication, humor, authenticity, play, touch, collaboration.
Otherwise, people wouldn't resort to social media. Going to party aimlessly and hanging out isn't necessarily better. It depends on who you hang out with and what you do.
This is just my opinion, of course.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Do it yourself. Don't wait on others. Organize social events, invite people.
I started https://musiclocal.org, a 501(c)(3), as a curated live music events platform for my local area (and hopefully others). We list all the live music events in the area, and we optimize the software for usability, performance, SEO, etc. The goal is to make discovering local live music events as easy as doom-scrolling. We have had an outstanding reception in the area we serve. We are not self-sustaining yet, but I am optimistic about our chances. As a non-profit, we do not do any of the dark-pattern garbage that has become omnipresent in social media and other consumer software. We just do the right thing as best we can.
Here is some more background (from our "Issues" page):
At MusicLocal, we focus on the root challenges facing local music communities to address endemic issues of negative social media practices, isolation and community polarization, and economic concentration and monopolization. Specifically:
• We believe convenient, comprehensive live music event listings are critical to reversing the decline in local music journalism. • We believe ethically designed, steward-curated live music event listings provide a vital alternative to addictive social media platforms. • We believe that making live music more visible and accessible encourages in-person interaction, strengthening communities and alleviating loneliness and social isolation. • We believe that local live music listings are a critical component of strong local economies, helping to lessen the negative economic consequences of big tech and music industry monopolies.
---
"Technology has a purpose, and that purpose is to do good and to share" --Steve Wozniak
the first place to think about serious change is city planning since the invention of cars & then suburbs
we used to be forced to live next to each other, walk and see each other
it turns our car based city planning doesn’t work on any level if you look at cities which didn’t go all in
If I don’t ask my friends to hang out or play video games or whatever no one else will.
We’ve outsourced forming relationships to profit-driven systems that trade comfort and convenience for reduced real-world social effort. By substituting the need to approach people in person, these platforms quietly erode social confidence and reinforce avoidance, exacerbating the social problems they claim to solve.
people aren't lonely in walkable cities.
my social life got pretty busy once i had multiple kids in school and having to go to various events etc, and i have formed genuine friendships with many of the other parents
my “soulless suburb” has a much stronger sense of community than any big city neighborhood i ever lived in
Fund free places to hang out.
Hanging out in public spaces and skateboarding are not crimes.
And here lies the problem. There are no free spaces to hang out anymore.
Not our American excuse for cities ruled by automobiles and asphalt everywhere with very limited options of all of the above.
PS - I imagine I’ll be downvoted because the epidemic is world wide and not unique to the US. That said, our acute situation is unique in that our infrastructure literally steers you into loneliness and no chance of randomly bumping into people and striking conversation.
It could be argued that it was all inevitable given the development of the Internet: development of social media, the movement online of commerce and other activities that used to heavily involve "incidental" socialization, etc. And maybe it was. But "we" are still the ones who built it. So are "we" really the right ones to solve it, through the same old silicon valley playbook?
The usual thought process of trying to push local "community groups," hobby-based organizations etc is not bad, but I think it misses an important piece of the puzzle, which is that we've started a kind of death spiral, a positive feedback loop suppressing IRL interaction. People started to move online because it was easier, and more immediate than "IRL." But as more people, and a greater fraction of our social interaction moves online, "IRL" in turn becomes even more featureless. There are fewer community groups, fewer friends at the bar or the movies, fewer people open to spontaneous interaction. This, then, drives even more of culture online.
What use is trying to get "back out into the real world," when everyone else has left it too, while you were gone?
Bars are still packed on the weekends, people still gather at churches, or gyms, or bowling leagues, or book clubs, or any number of other "IRL" activities of all kinds that are going on. You do have to make the effort to go out and get involved though, nobody is going to come and rescue you.
I agree with the fact that it's exaggerated online but when you see these kinda numbers in the vast majority of activities which were affordable for most Americans not too long ago it's not solely to be blamed on individuals.
I believe in the majority of the country things will only get worse with how little value is placed on being involved in things for 'community'. People have gotten more anti-social because of social media (and just media in general).
Most tech workers won't be as impacted by this I assume, they can afford paying 200 dollars for bowling without thinking twice, same with many others of the upper middle class.
When the economic necessity to form relationships with others disappeared, the naked truth was exposed - most people don't fucking like each other. Yes, when you're starving to death you'll be friends with the guy who has potatoes, but when you can buy the damn potatoes yourself in the supermarket, you're not going to tolerate his smelly ass.
Most friendships form over common participation in a project. Doing something together, knowing that you have to put up with the other one to achieve higher goals. Without those goals, there are no incentives to deal with others. And what goals am I supposed to have if by doing nothing I already have a roof above my head, full fridge, clean house, and an entire library of video games?
Think about the main message of feminism: "Girl, you can make it in life without a man. Don't settle for an aggressive alcoholic just because that's the only option. You can do it yourself.". It perfectly captures how forming relationships turned from an asset into a liability.
You know, the people who knock on your door and you pretend you're not home, because having a conversation with one of these people is about as fun as colonoscopy prep.
People cannot help themselves.
Its too easy and satisfying to sit on your phone.
As with covid, individual actions are not enough to stop the spread of the epidemic. You need vaccinations, health education, public policy etc. not just individual actions, so ”go dancing” and ”talk to people” doesn’t quite cut it.
Seems strange to me that at this site from the whole internet people don’t seem to see the connection between the raise of new technologies and lonelines (with a host of other mental health/social issues). And therefore this is the one problem the nerds don’t seem to be able to solve…
I cannot either, but I think we need to start looking at technology from a point of view of public health. Some sort of sociology/medical studies on the effects of computing on human body/mind and society.
It doesn't seem that strange that a website with a few thousand geeks isn't able to solve a global phenomenon by commenting on an article.
HN is a place for discussion. It seems unreasonable to expect world changing outcomes.
I suspect the "think global, act local"-motto applies here. You can certainly make a local impact by "going dancing".
1. People have obscenely high standards for social interaction. If this person is not an outlier (in a good way) with their behaviors, it's just not going to happen. Most people have a very low tolerance for new people in their life. This has always existed to some degree but people today much prefer to listen to endless content from their favorite streamers, comedians, etc. and form parasocial relationships.
2. The environment for interacting with people has much higher stakes. Think about all the people who get recorded and posted on TikTok every single day. These are people doing it where you can see it - not just the Meta glasses people who remove the recording light. You can act like being a weirdo has no consequences but everyone has this extremely powerful device that can broadcast whatever you do to billions of people immediately - and you can suffer real consequences from this. Every crashout you have in any kind of crowd will be posted for eternity so that the world can see.
3. There is less and less benefit to having social networks/friends. Your friends aren't going to help you get a job, buy you a house, or meet your spouse. Meeting a spouse through friends is increasingly rare as online dating is dominating. As much as everyone complains, it is the major way people meet their spouse in major cities. People assume this is because friend networks are getting smaller but it's not due to that. It's because standards for interaction within friend groups has changed and standards for partners has changed. Unless you are prolific top 1% social maximizer, you are not going to run into anywhere near enough eligible people in your social network to meet your maximized match. We expect to completely maximize and find the best possible fit for our spouse now. Compromise of any kind is considered worse than dying alone. Cost of housing has exploded, jobs have become very hard to keep/find, and this turns everything into a transaction. Living with friends and kicking them out when they can't make rent is a tough but very real situation. People are more transactional because the economy dictates its necessities. Your family is the only thing that will bail you out - your friends can't overlook you skipping $2000/month in rent for 6 months.
There is more but anyway - loneliness epidemic is not going to get solved. It will continue to get worse until some kind of revolution which would require a complete reworking of our entire economy. I would accept this as the new normal and try to figure out how you can optimize your own individual experience in spite of all these things that are working against you. It is not worth trying to fight it on a systemic scale because there are simply too many components and the core cause is one our entire economy is based around. (A good investment is inherently counter to affordability)
But what's you're next step? Someone comes up and marks that they feel really lonely. Do you get contact information? Invite them to something? (Invite them to what? You may have to create something - a board game night at your house, or a "lonely people shopping together" time at a grocery store, or something. You probably have to create that "something", because you're the one who's able to at least reach out, and the ones who are responding probably aren't there yet.)
You're finding people that need something. The next step is to find a way to connect them - with you, or with each other, or with someone.
For any activity you come up with, some people won't be able to, due to time or temperament or personality or something. So maybe what you need is more than one. (Eventually. Look, don't get overwhelmed by that. Just one is the next step, in my view. And maybe some helpers.)
I'm not sure I'm the right person for that. I live in a suburb, not the city that I do the surveys in. And I'm extraordinarily boring, and too old.
It seems that I should try to think bigger. Try to find a way to help these people connect with each other. Something in person, not an app like Hinge. Maybe, hold a sign that says ad hoc meet and greet at such and such time and place, after collecting a list of common interests and putting those interests on the same sign that says the time and date. That could work.
It was a great low key meet up. You didn’t have to make friends with the organizer. If you were walking with someone you didn’t really like in the group, it was easy to drift to talk to someone else.
i don't know how big they ever were in the past, but it seemed like it was commonly represented in media in the 50s/60s (e.g., the flintstones had a parody of the lodge which would suggest that they were common enough that people were familiar)
I'm going to make a post and see what kind of feedback I get. But if all goes well, bro, you'll know it when you see it, and maybe you'll be there helping.
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The 'fixes' has been established for just as long. My nearby 'community centre' was built in 1987. Has this been successful at all? Not in the least bit.
The reality of what is causing this hasnt changed. Without fixing this key problem, the crisis obviously has continued for 30+ years. I'm not nostradamus here. However, from many previous conversations it's crazy how absolutely nobody is ready to talk about the cause. They'd rather just call it a paradox or feign ignorance for why this is happening. Honestly it's rather conspiratorial creating when you think about it.
Out of curiousity I asked what gemini 3 pro thinks.
1. Revival of third places.
As if that hasnt been tried for 30+ years... fail.
2. replacing 'socializing' with "service"
The idea is that cleaning a park will somehow make you less lonely is laughable at best.
3. Bridging the generational gap.
Elderly teach the young skills? while youth teach digital literacy. My community centre literally has this. F mark.
4. Urban design and walkability.
We need to spend trillions of dollars to completely redesign and rebuild cities? lol what.
5. digital hygiene
social media is a sedative? crazy.
I love gemini, but man they are getting it so wrong. All of this will likely just caused the crisis to be worse in my opinion.
To me, has this been done unintentionally through the typical 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' or has this been intentionally done and maintained? The refusal to acknowledge the cause seems to push toward intentional. Guess we just live with the loneliness epidemic.
Those trends didn’t stop in the 90s, they accelerated! I lived through it myself. Social media isn’t the sole cause, but it clearly displaces time, lowers the incentive to show up in person, and offers connection without obligation.
Saying “community centers existed in 1987” misses the point... they stopped working when participation stopped being the default and became optional, inconvenient, and socially risky. People feel worn out and get "good enough" at home... so they choose the poor substitute. This also mirrors american food consumption habits.
This doesn’t require a conspiracy. It’s an emergent outcome of optimizing society for efficiency, mobility, and consumption instead of continuity and belonging. Service, third places, walkability, and intergenerational spaces aren’t magic fixes... and loneliness isn’t solved by “hanging out,” it’s solved by repeated, role-based, low-friction interaction where people are needed. We all but know how to fix this problem, there are piles of research behind it.
The real failure isn’t that these ideas were tried, it’s that we stripped away the economic and cultural structures that made them functional at all, then declared them ineffective. Pretending that nothing structural can help just guarantees the problem.
That's a fair point, but as I said, I see social media helping the situation, not worsening.
>Saying “community centers existed in 1987” misses the point... they stopped working when participation stopped being the default and became optional, inconvenient, and socially risky. People feel worn out and get "good enough" at home... so they choose the poor substitute. This also mirrors american food consumption habits.
It doesnt miss the point. The good enough is better than what is available not at home is the point. They are going to the best option. It doesnt mirror american fast food, i dont agree with that analogy.
>This doesn’t require a conspiracy.
That's very fair, i dont want to create the conspiracy theory but... I really dont want to go there but when discussion is so dishonest and refusing to accept the real cause(s) or really just the single root cause. Then it sure does feel this way to me.
>It’s an emergent outcome of optimizing society for efficiency, mobility, and consumption instead of continuity and belonging. Service, third places, walkability, and intergenerational spaces aren’t magic fixes... and loneliness isn’t solved by “hanging out,” it’s solved by repeated, role-based, low-friction interaction where people are needed. We all but know how to fix this problem, there are piles of research behind it.
Been tried extensively without success. At some point surely you try something else or give the reigns to someone else who is willing to have do the "wrong thing"
>The real failure isn’t that these ideas were tried, it’s that we stripped away the economic and cultural structures that made them functional at all, then declared them ineffective. Pretending that nothing structural can help just guarantees the problem.
I'm a IT guy and not a politician or whatever. My speech isnt changing anything at all. Declaring them ineffective is just a report card from me. Surely you cant fail to fix a problem for decades and think we shouldnt try to do something different to solve the problem.
What's super interesting is that this is NOT history repeating. This is practically the first time this has ever happened.
I know in my jurisdiction, it was largely speaking about 1984-1988 when the crisis started.
I have considered starting my own political party with the goal of fixing it, but I expect absolutely nobody would vote for me and nobody is ready to discuss it.
This is self-defeatist again, if no one tries, nothing changes. It might take a thousand failures to find the one success.
Fair point. But low chance of success, huge pay cut, social consequences, likely to be exposed to the typical political slander of 'oh that far right commie nazi' crap.
IT wouldnt even be the main thing im trying to fix with the party neither. It's unlikely I even fix it if i had the power.
Better stuff to do.
Pretty cyclical. Scale this up to the country and it answers "why is there a loneliness epidemic"
>We need to spend trillions of dollars to completely redesign and rebuild cities? lol what.
That doesn't mean the point is wrong.
The US bet on the wrong urban planning ideas, and now it is facing the consequences. This is not unique to the US; other places have fallen into the same trap.
As for otherside, could this help the situation? Very much doubt it and reallocating a trillion $ means you have to defund a great deal of other things. Never happening, and likely to make the situation that much worse.
I’ve discussed this for years, especially since Jonathan Haidt's book recently. Sharing my view is utterly pointless because people aren't ready for the debate.
Even with the root cause, nobody agrees we should reverse it. I’m no super genius, many others see this problem, and politicians are exploiting it.
My comment was more about the bizarre situation and how it makes me feel conspiratorial like it's intentionally being done.
Yet even when the system makes it hard to imagine anything else, we’re never too far from our true nature. We need only take a step towards a neighbor and carve a space, no matter how small, separate from the machine. That’s the only way out.
I do think there is a 'false expectation' ie delusion. Ie, after years of forced hyper-socialisation (school, work) and cultural ideas of friendship (Friends), architecture that stacks and packs people, the expectation that people hold of themselves and their relationships bears little relation to their natural, untrained selves. I could even argue that the loneliness expectation is the reverse - there is no meaningful quiet space for individuals. The very idea of being introspective is a problem to be addressed.
What I think we have is 'broken socialisation'. Nothing about human socialisation is natural.
Another thing that you'll likely find in your area is a chess club.
Maybe you won't love the chess itself, but it's an excuse to hang out with people.
Another one is volunteering work. Elderly, dogs, etc, many communities need help.
In my village I have started a "clean up" program where average citizens take few bags a picker and we clean areas of our village.
Most of people are "this is the job of the garbage collectors, the mayor should do it", so what? It also costs money, and nobody will do as carefully as the people living there.
Even if 95% of my village won't care few will and we make an impact and socialize, etc and more start taking part of it.
People are uncomfortable to interact and make small talk. They know smileys and lmao, but many have forgotten how to laugh irl.
Now I build a life focused on that very much. I go to work at wework, talk to people *everywhere*, joined a bunch of run clubs and just prioritize social stuff. If I don't ask people, walk up to them and say hi, nothing's gonna happen. Reach out to people, say hi, do stuff. Loneliness correlates with low agency I think. Say yes to stuff. Ask people to join for coworking, for going to the gym, a run. Whatever. Go out of your way to increase your social circle. That simple.
And get off your fucking screen and go outside, touch some grass. The internet doesn't help.
There's your problem. Fix that.
If there aren't any local groups then help create one. If there are, go along, meet some people, see what works for you, join a different one if you didn't like the first one, keep going until you've found your people.
If you feel like you can't go to a group then create a support group for people who feel like they can't go to groups. Or go online and find the virtual space for people like you and then travel to see those people (or invite them to see you).
But there is no fix for you having to socialise if you're lonely. You're going to have to find a way in.
I wish if this post could perhaps be made an exception or similar where people can talk about this for longer. Perhaps its just me but I wish for something like this avenue in some more time (perhaps right now I feel a bit closed off for some reason) where I wish to talk but words don't come out so much.
I don't know if I am walking around the bush on what I would wish to talk about here because of it right now. I have been trying to screenshot all the posts I could find which are great here and I just don't know, I just want this HN thread/discussion to stay open forever so that I can talk here a month in or two months in when I feel even more comfortbale
The point I am trying to say is that I was losing hope in HN and every social media because of botting and other issues and just lack of trust and direction and irl interactions are few and between. This feels such a great thread and I appreciate the author (I saw their work on their website which is phenomenal)
In a way, I think atleast this thread will help solve or atleast help me (or that's how I feel) in loneliness epidemic and I am grateful for that but I just want this to stay forever.
One of the issues I have in creating a special place for talks like these is that I see very few people sign in//sign up or talk. HN has lots of users and I got some really insightful answers here.
I think its technically possible and I just want the moderators to do this once. Dang if you are reading this, I genuinely hope that you can keep this thread permanent/long time. Loneliness is a real concern and I just feel that some people are unable to reach out (perhaps me right now) and definitely need some right place and right time and if this could just stay or (stay longer at the very least) I would deeply appreciate it sir
Would Hackernews community allow for something like this or be interested in doing this or say, if I were to create this post (or perhaps the OP) every month, would that go against terms or still be allowed.
I think it can be allowed but still just want to confirm if the community really wants this
I saw an aspect of vulnerability in hackernews I hadn't seen prior which made things feel real atleast to me
But I do think this thread is far too big to keep up with.
My plan was to post a similar but more focused thread in a month, and go from there.
I spent all day yesterday reading and responding to them, and there were still dozens of responses that I'm only seeing this morning, often thoughtful and with new ideas or perspectives.
So my plan was to post a series of more narrow focused questions on the topic, once every so often (maybe once a month). What causes the loneliness epidemic individually? Systemically? What policies might help it? What actionable solutions can many individuals try? Etc.
This is already kind of what I'm doing in Chicago. Every Sunday, I hold a sign with a different survey on a related topic. I'd like to do it more often if time eventually permits. In any case, I'm keeping a log of the results and conclusions on my website.
My main goal in this is to be a slowly evolving plan of actionable, concrete ideas, that's interactive, dynamic, and self-iterating.
Social media has (IMHO) exacerbated this by allowing us to selectively surround ourselves with people we know we'll agree with. It's a nice reprieve sometimes, but it's so, so unhealthy beyond short-term.
Also talking to people in-person is very important. The less you do it, the harder it is, but it's worth doing. The natural humanizing effect of conversing with a person in meat-space does wonders for increasing understanding. Don't talk about topics you disagree on, focus on agreements and common interests. A good friend of mine is a trans-woman married to a woman. She decided to get into target shooting and approached others in good faith, and she said something like (not a direct quote): "I was worried they would be assholes, but it turns out they're just nerds like me, they just love to kit out their rigs".
Another friend of mine fell into the right-wing youtube rabbit-hole and "infiltrated" an Antifa group. He's a good guy overall, but got a very clouded exposure to "the other side." After he was done, he said something like (not a direct quote) "I was actually really surprised at how accepting, respectful, and intellectual most of them were. We wouldn't agree on politics, but they were a lot more interested in real analysis and dealing in facts than I ever would have thought, and we ended up having some good conversations."
Yes there are going to be assholes out there, but give people a chance before jumping to conclusions. You might be surprised! Don't jump in the deep end all at once, and be mindful of personal danger and comfort-level, but don't be so afraid to reach out to humans (in-person) and try to connect, even if you think on the surface there's no way you could get along.
no one hitting that target has a shortage of friends
everyone missing that target does
I am a tail-end boomer in the U.S. so my experiences were with a world where socializing was more functional: we shopped in public, played in public, read in public libraries, watched movies in public, rode transit together, etc. Being in public was a requirement, not a choice. While there are still remnants of this older culture still active in today's world in urban life, there are so many options for not being in public that it is simply easier to avoid it. We all want our space in one degree or another.
On the playground growing up, my world was filled with name-calling and backbiting. I was a heavier kid, so that was my burden. Other kids had bucked teeth, warts, limps, they were too short, or too tall, uncoordinated--whatever--nobody really escaped the wrath of the crowd. We were forced, by our parents, to just deal with it.
My parents like many others in their generation recognized this behavior for what it was--natural. Watch an episode of the Little Rascals--you will see what I am referring to.
Most if not all of those kids who were called names and isolated in some way found ways to break out of their pigeon hole: playing sports, playing music, making art, studying hard at school, boxing, singing, dancing, cracking jokes, whatever. Then they were heroes, and the crowd could celebrate them--and they thrived.
I know this sounds overly idealistic, but it is true. I experienced this first hand in a neighborhood of several hundred kids from broken homes, poor homes, ethnic homes, etc.
Voiceless people must find their voice. The responsibility is their's. The crowd will not come to the rescue of the person who won't stand up for themselves and make their way in life.
Loneliness is very, very sad. The cure to loneliness is in the powerful hands of the lonely person. Do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to work on those things that hold the lonely person back from achieving something--anything--for themselves and then engage with the crowd with more confidence.
I appreciate what you are doing by helping others--that is one of your superpowers. Live a good, strong life!
I agree that these people need to do the work themselves.
But they first need to be encouraged and motivated, no? Otherwise they'd have done it by now. That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out how to do.
In my opinion, it takes a lot of time and energy to avoid loneliness in the modern era. So, advice about "just get yourself out there" is technically accurate, but it misses the mark since previous generations didn't need to put much thought, if any, into socializing. Perhaps not everyone is wired to focus so much energy into that aspect of their life and we're seeing that play out with modern amenities?
Following may sound like bad faith, but I 100% mean it. Now, former bullies complain they are lonely as others used the option to leave. Those others may be lonely too, but they are still better off then being degraded.
> Voiceless people must find their voice. The responsibility is their's. The crowd will not come to the rescue of the person who won't stand up for themselves and make their way in life.
Bullies are responsible for bullying. Punishing bullies is necessary part of the solution. The responsibility is not just on victims. And if you push the responsibility on victim, stop complaining that the victim left.
Social exclusion is psychologically damaging, and often is directed at people who are ND, LGBTQI+, introverted, different culture/skin colour, etc.
I find it troubling that you say "most if not all ... were heroes ... and they thrived". No. You describe abuse, plain and simple. Abuse is not the forge of character development or great art. What you excuse as sounding "overly idealistic" is actually incredibly toxic.
And I know people who are deeply, profoundly psychologically broken as a result of this amazing process you describe that causes "most, if not all" of these people to "thrive".
> I normally don't contribute to HN comments these days
I see why.
Hyperfocus on productivity, the one dimensional man that know only rest and work, and the rise of narcisism and hyper individuality, all causes of the loss of the third place.
Everyone needs to take on the quest to find where they belong, but society needs to give people time to invest in this quest.
So I think it's as simple as working less and spending more time with people.
Every facet of capitalism is trying to push individualism and consumption
Yeah, a lot of this discussion does seem pretty myopic sometimes.
Sadly, I come across this rarely in my everyday life. It would be a richer experience for me to have a more balanced sense of how people are doing.
I was mercifully spared from aloneness by having a powerful and outgoing best friend as a child, and by a nature that ruthlessly seeks “where the action is.” That said, I used to often feel alone when I was with people, specifically. I now call this “feeling unseen,” and it took me a long time to learn that, though sometimes I was just with the wrong people, much of the time it was because I wasn’t expressing myself authentically.
I’ve long since moved to the Bay Area, which, while an odd place, does offer many ladders out of the predicament of disconnection. There are many ways to actively learn the skills of connection here—through therapy, community practice, and structured relational work—and I practiced enough that I can now teach. Many people also learn and deepen their own skills by interacting with the community I’m part of.
The question of whether there’s a solution ... well, when one becomes acquainted with the field of learning the underlying skills that can address loneliness—which goes by many names and has many purported aims—it turns out that the path is well-mapped from pretty much every perspective, and in ways tailored for most types of people. Some of the best books are international best-sellers, and you can just go buy them and read them.
I don’t think the solution, per se, is unknown. The issue seems to be that people don’t know they can help themselves, or don’t believe they can, or perhaps in some cases lack the resources or support to get help.
Most people, I think, are afraid. And if I had to guess at why this seems more common than it once was, it’s probably because many people are no longer being forced by circumstance to confront their fears in the way previous generations often were.
It also seems to me that this is an inevitable result of our urban planning and the rising effective cost of housing since the ’70s.
If you’re such a person reading this who finds themselves alone, the main thing I have to say is: far more is possible than it probably feels like right now. I’ve seen many miracles happen, and correspondingly very few failures among those I’ve seen genuinely try. Paths to wholeness are innumerable—and what worked for me probably won’t work for you—but if you keep trying, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself somewhere adjacent to where I find myself now: with more love and connection in my life than I know what to do with.
The path begins with acknowledging your fear, and learning to feel and see it as a guide. This doesn’t mean leaping off a cliff; it often starts very small. Go toward what feels terrifying, what feels cringe, what you dismiss or push away. Investigate those things and find out for yourself what’s really there. Once you begin doing this, the path becomes obvious ... it’s right in front of you.
I've lived with men in their 60s in these contexts, but primarily this is an option for young people at the start of their careers, which I highly, highly recommend.
Any easy way to work on this problem is to simply lower the barriers to co-habitation. This could look like working to change zoning (I think Oregon has been a pioneer here), building businesses around the concept (many have tried, from small things you haven't heard of all the way up to WeWork), to experimental projects like: https://neighborhoodsf.com/Neighborhood+Notes/Published/The+....
Regardless, there are four steps worth taking as an individual: (1) go out, (2) make friends, (3) turn friends into community, and (4) maintain community.
If you're feeling lonely, you're probably failing at one step along this chain.
1. Going out. I don't have a lot of tips here. Except to go to things that actually facilitate interacting with strangers. Don't just go to a bar or go work from a cafe. Go to a meet and greet, an event for strangers to mingle, etc. Or, if you're having trouble motivating yourself to go out, then that's something inside yourself to work on. I find that a shakeup to your life routine (e.g. moving cities, going on a vacation) can provide a good window to change your habits, where you'll start doing things you don't normally do in your home city.
2. Making friends. This one is simple but hard for some. Basically: be personable, smile, engage in conversation, ask questions, be interested, avoid being threatening or clingy, dress and stylish normal-ish unless you really don't want to, etc. Then talk to people at these events, and if seems like you'd like hanging with them and have things in common, ask to exchange numbers.
3. Turn friends into community. IMO this is where you go from the basics into the advanced, and where the most benefits lie. However, most people stop after #2, even though this step is easier than steps #1 or #2, and is extremely rewarding. Community is an in-person social network. The number of connections between people in a community determines the strength and stickiness of that community. Thus it's very important that you introduce your friends to other friends. For example, instead of going on a coffee date with a friend once every month or two, invite 2 or 3 friends to dinner. This has numerous benefits. All of your friends will meet each other, and suddenly they'll know who you're talking about when you mention other people. Also, conversation is easier when there are more people. Also, you'll find events and hangs happen more often, because (a) more people are able to initiate them, and (b) there's more reason to go. People are more motivated to go and less motivated to cancel when there's an event that allows them to see multiple friends at once.
4. Maintain community. People move away. People have silly fights and disagreements and stop talking to each other. People get into relationships and disappear. People get sick, or old, or antisocial, and disappear. Shit happens. So you have to keep doing steps #2 and #3, at least occasionally, forever. You don't necessarily need to do step #1 as much, since the people in your community will naturally bring friends and whatnot to your events. But you still need to get to know these people, exchange numbers, and invite them to future events.
Solve what? This is the world I have always dreamed of, before even computers became a thing in my life and community. I initially approximated it with books.
If you're unhappy and feel a need for more friends, then you'll need to take some action if all you do is sit at home on a screen all day.
To me the male loneliness epidemic is more about a lack of ability to find meaningful romantic relationships. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and as somebody who has been doing online dating since it essentially started, I am pretty sure that the problem (or at least a major piece) is that match group has commodified romantic relationships.
I know a lot of people will focus on meeting people in public or whatever, but it has been my experience that dating has become completely garbage and a large part is because all of the current popular dating apps disallow index search and funnel you into swiping. From a mate selection perspective this makes no sense. Not only does it muddy the waters about who is actually a real match, but it also does psychic damage to make so many shallow judgements.
Back before match group bought OkCupid, I used to have excellent results finding people their who shared a lot of common ground with, messaging them with a thoughtful message, and going on dates. Swiping is an absolute crap shoot, and often I feel like I am being used.
All this talk is just about the symptoms, but the cause is that young people are born into a deeply unfair world where losing is by design (so that the baby boomers can continue to profit).
If someone in their 20 can start a family without being financially broken, things will improve.
I'm not very good on a skateboard, better on a BMX. In any case the vibes are usually good.
Sometimes you think people aren't even noticing you, till you finally land the trick you're working on and a total stranger yells 'whoo!'
An old guy approached me and said "put the music on my phone mann".
Alright.
My response: "Search on YouTube"
He keeps insisting on ME doing it for him.
3 steps
First his data was off. For presumably a while he's had his data off ( it's metro PCs so it's prepaid anyway) and I guess he was relying on WiFi.
Ok.
One click to fix that in the Android tile menu.
His Bluetooth was off too.
Turn that on. Turn on his headphones. Luckily it was already paired.
Finally I had to open YouTube and find music for him.
3 or 4 steps.
Now he's happily listening to music.
But beyond that, he got to introduce himself to me, and I guess the next time he accidentally turns off his data he can ask for help again.
I also like to help people.
Old people are awesome when it comes to this. They'll just ask someone to help them out, that's how you build community.
Don't know how to change your oil ? Cool Billy's a car guy he can help you out. Having trouble with your water pressure, maybe Sarah's a plumber and she can help.
Of course if something serious you're still going to be expected to pay these people, but if it's something quick they'll help you free of charge. Maybe you'll bake them a cake for their kids birthday.
I recall when I was young a neighbor basically gave my mom a car. It was an absolute piece of crap, and out of the goodness of his heart he would come and fix it every now and then.
I didn't realize it as a kid, but if you're passionate about cars and you get the emotional satisfaction of both helping a neighbor and seeing how long you can keep that old car running, that's its own reward.
How many of you would love for a non technical neighbor to say their computer is slow. I recall someone on HN even offering to send out a free laptop to someone in need.
Traditionally communities would have a blacksmith or a baker. That's what that person did and they had a status tied to it.
In modern economic systems what exactly we do is so abstracted away from anything meaningful we lack this connection.
On a very fundamental level people need to feel needed.
TLDR: Help others.
Genuine loneliness, like what you described, can only really be solved by touching grass. Figure out your hobbies, or find one if you don't have any.
My answer to what a lot of people call "the male loneliness epidemic" as a woman is to say it doesn't exist, you need to figure out how to be attractive. We aren't throwing ourselves on shitty men, and most of the men that complain are complaining because they feel entitled to us and thus put no effort into being attractive. The quickest way to be attractive is have empathy and not be a douche. Listen to peoples needs, and don't feel entitled to our attention
This would suggest most people are attractive. Is an empathic non-asshole really attractive, even without other things that make him interesting (e.g. travel experiences or interesting takes on things)?
How many times I had to hear the news about a kindergarden teacher beating up young pupils as a punishent? Hell, I was one of those kids, when physical punishment was still accepted, but I don't see mothers and kindergarden teachers being assumed as "child beaters". I'm tired of this rethoric, and I refuse to engage with you further, as you consider my male existence as an inherent threat and dehumanize it.
i love people and do not want to be alone.
I certainly don't have the time and energy to do all the things I would if I had more free time. There are so many sports/activities I'd like to do but don't have time to, many of those for which I could find a club/class for.
You must have opinion and they all must align perfectly like mine. Case and point people's behaviors around the 2024 election.
Russian? You better be the most outspoken anti Putin-ist . Jewish? You better be sorry for the Zionists at every turn. Queer? Oh sorry you work for Google and even if your department has nothing to do with the current bads you're bad too, stop stealing from artists with AI. Those are some extreme and blatant examples but ones I've witnessed cause people to get excommunicated no matter how bleeding of a heart they have for the causes people rhetorically crucify them over.
I'm not going to pretend you should be fine if say, a literal unironic nazi is trying to cozy up in your book club, or some clown is constantly bringing up "hot takes" needlessly on your baseball club. But these constant purity tests typically remove all nuance and leave both sides heavily alienated, leaving many to fall into a hedgehog's dilemma of fearing interactions lest they're accused of things they simply are not.
I feel it wasn't always like this. One should be able to have a debate about s.th. with different opinions and still be friends.
Basically all discussion platforms are broken for any sort of long term meaningful discussion which I think is at least part of the problem. Even this thread and this comment just the fact that the thread is now 4 hours old the amount of views and chance of getting many responses drops precipitously. On most platforms unless you are someone with a large following you basically have to think like a marketer and post often and early on posts to stand a chance of getting a discussion going. It's always so ephemeral too. Even though posts on a platform like HN on reddit still exist and you can comment on old threads probably 99% of the activity happens in the first 6 or so hours and then it largely ends.
It makes me miss forums where at least you had long lived threads with simple time based post order and a good chance of replies. This doesn't seem to exist on only platforms now and forums have largely faded away.
The fragmentation of discussion has also messed things up. For example yesterday I was listening to a HardFork podcast episode which is a fairly popular pod, topping the charts in at least the tech category, and after listening I wanted to check for discussion around the episode and probably leave a comment or two. I assume this episode had to have gotten at least in the low tens of thousands of plays though perhaps that is way off. I went searching for discussion and basically found a largely dead subreddit for the podcast with no threads being regularly created for the episode and an empty comment section on nytimes which any site comment section is a useless place for discussion anyways. The pod is also posted on youtube which the youtube comment section had the most activity of anything I found but the youtube comment section and the way it is structured/operates is perhaps the most useless of all the platforms for trying to have any discussion. I just don't understand how if at least say ten thousand people listened to the episode surely at least 1% would be interested in discussing it and 100+ people going back and forth would be a large, active, healthy discussion somewhere.
Even threads that seem "active" on sites like HN or Reddit in the context of the actual audience sizes are shockingly small and confuse me. For example The Pitt season 2 just premiered and posted 5.4 million viewers, the subreddit post ep discussion currently has 5.3k comments which is quite high for a show. That is a joke of a percentage though, 0.1%! and even worse in the context of people that are posting probably post more than once in the thread. I understand many and even most people not wanting to post to discuss a show they just watched but how the hell is less than 1 in a thousand!
This post got long which also damages the chance of any engagement due to TLDR culture.
For in choosing to gather, we are choosing a time and place. I forsake any other places I could be at that time. I give time that I could have been doing something else. More than that, I am choosing to be with people who may irritate me, or play music I don’t like, or say things I wish they hadn’t. In short, they are not me, and so I’ve got to put up with them.
In doing this, we make space for all of the benefits of community—of hearing about that movie that you’d also like to see, of learning of a new recipe you’d like to try, being amazed to hear the personal story of a friend who inspires you to be more like them. You receive encouragement to keep pursuing the highest good, as best as you can see it— And these people help you see it better. You receive real help when you need it.
The cross is at the center of the church community, and in putting it there we worship this ideal leader, who gave up everything in order to gather his people.
In my short lifetime, I have seen how we are drifting further away from this beloved community. Church attendance is down, loneliness is up. Anxiety and depression have never been higher. During the COVID era lockdowns, we experienced what the utter loss of community feels like. Friendships were broken, churches disbanded, people moved, families were tested. Some came out stronger, and some of us are still recovering.
Years before that I began to suspect that media is stealing us from each other. It’s when we spend more time on Facebook or X than socializing with real people. It’s when we’d rather watch Netflix or YouTube than call an old friend. It’s when we’d rather watch a movie that makes us feel compassion, than to feel actual compassion for our neighbor in need. When we believe the lie, we use screens for a stimulating and pointless tickling of the mind.
It’s more than our individual responsibility. This is a collective action problem. It’s when we don’t call that friend because we believe that they would rather be watching their own show, so we may as well be watching ours. It’s when you would prefer the benefits of meeting in person, but the meeting is only virtual. It’s when teens feel pressure to join social media, because everybody else is doing it. It’s when there’s nobody to play with or hang out with, because everybody else is on their own screen, doing their own thing. Last year, our family decided to rebel against this. We gave up “alone screen time” for Lent. If we were on screens, we would only do it together.
Technology allows us to bypass those near us to connect to those afar. Before screens, the automobile allowed us to do this in the physical world. We could use the new cars and highways to move to the suburbs where we have a garage, nice neighbors and no city problems. We don’t often count the social cost of car culture because it is so pervasive. The cost and effects of parking on the built environment, social isolation, declines in public health, and daily deaths from car crashes are costs we don’t often think that we all have incurred in adopting the car as a technology.
As Jesus walked by, a man on the side of the road cried out: “Son of David, have mercy on me!” When he had the option to bypass the bad part of town, he chose to walk straight through it and engage the people there.
When we unquestioningly adopt every new technology, terrible things can happen. This year, a remote jungle village got satellite internet for the first time. And now many of them are addicted to pornography and social media, which is an even bigger problem in a culture where if you don’t hunt and farm, you don’t eat. In contrast, each Amish community has leaders who decide to adopt a technology based on if it will positively or negatively impact their community. They are open to it, but they are mindful to keep the health of the community first. Had the jungle village taken this approach, their community unquestionably would be healthier.
For most of human history, being in a family and in a face-to-face community was core to our identity and was a non-negotiable requirement for survival. It is only recently we have been able to negotiate new terms with our human limitations. I hope I have helped you see that with every gain of a new technology, there is also a loss. The deception and the lie is that there is no loss. But we must count the cost. For the benefit of our communities, it is time to re-negotiate our relationship with technology.
I found community through a shared enjoyment of an activity that must be done as a group. Grass roots motorsports in my case, but any activity that needs you to be there with others should work the same. The key is that you should enjoy it and you should have time to interact with people. I like to make car go vroom, but generalize the approach and it should work.
My first season, I won an event with a hero run that sent me from 5th to 1st. When I parked, a random guy stuck his head in my window and started hyping me up for it. I still think about that 3 years later and it still makes me feel good. That feeling made me want to do that for others.
I started approaching random people I'd seen before and just starting a conversation. It was rough the first few times but it gets easier. You already have a shared activity so just start with that. I made a point to remember people's names or at least their car (bad with names, but cars stick for some reason). If the name didn't stick, I'll ask again next time and maybe bring up their car so they know I remember them. When I know their name, I use it when I see them again. Maybe just "Hey bob!" as I'm passing, but something to let them know someone there knows them and cares enough to say hi. They're not a stranger at least. If I haven't seen them in a while, I ask how they've been and spend a bit more effort on the conversation than just a "hey".
It started with the regulars. Now I'm looking for the new faces. I know stuff and they need to know that stuff, so it's easy to talk. If they come back, they should be able to find someone to talk to so I introduce them to some of the other regulars.
I look for people eating lunch alone and I go talk to them. Maybe 2 to 5 minutes, maybe longer. Depends on them. Sometimes I'm awkward. Sometimes I say dumb stuff. Whatever. I'm trying to help these people not be alone at a social event if they don't want to be. If they do, that's fine too, but I'll try again next time.
Some people are closed off and don't really want to talk. That's fine. I still say hi by name and see how it goes. Not trying to push, just keeping the door open. After a few times of trying, a lot of people will start to open up our let the guard down. Some don't.
I'm an introvert and all of this takes extra mental energy on top of the events being competition and work. I don't have the time to compete at the highest level every event because I'm spending time helping others. Rather than getting a better driver in my car to tell me where I'm making mistakes, I'm trying to get the less skilled drivers in my car so they can see why I'm faster. Instead of reviewing data over lunch to see where I'm losing time, I'm trying to build community. I want people to come back. There's a cost to it.
I moved to the middle of nowhere 10 years ago and had no local friends. Work friends are rarely real friends. Tech meets, young professionals groups, nothing came out of those. It sucks to go to a bar alone. None of that produced anything.
Motorsport has been the only activity I've tried where I've started making friends who I talk to outside the events. A lot of it is still about motorsports, but I've gained a few friends who I sim race with or talk to online in the off season. It could have been any other group or activity, but those are the people who made me feel welcome.
Real figures, there are at least 25 people I can walk up to and start a conversation with at an event and have good rapport, more that I know by name and just haven't clicked with, 2-3 people I consider actual friends. I started putting in the effort like this after my first season, so this is the product of 2 seasons of effort (winter doesn't count because there are no events). I'm still kind of lonely, but it's better and getting better.
I think it's that I put in effort. I know I've helped some of those people feel like part of a community. I gave them a few people they could talk to so they didn't feel so alone. Maybe my role was just keeping them coming back until they found their clique. Maybe I need more time to get to know them. Some introverts need an extrovert to help them get started. Sometimes that extrovert is an introvert tryhard.
The reason I do this is cause one guy stuck his head in my window after a run and said something like "bro that was awesome! Nice run!" And he was genuinely happy for me even though he barely knew me. I'm not good at that specific thing so I try in my own way.
I think people look for community. I did. I bounced off a few groups because I didn't fit in. I'm trying to do my part to help people "fit in". Tech solutions ain't gonna help here. Get face to face, make outsiders feel accepted, and see what happens.
And thanks, Clarke.
From a practical perspective, there is the whole "3rd place" issue. How can I open a business that caters to the public, who will just sit there and loiter on their phones and laptops all day and be profitable. Starbucks sort of did it in the 90s, but they're not tolerating that anymore.
Forget businesses, can you walk to a park, a beach, a hiking trail on a whim and run into people? Can you hold events, watch parties,etc.. on public places easily like that? It's not easy at all these days.
I blame cars. I despise the idea that electric cars are the replacement to cars, without considering changing transportation so that it is more efficient with trams, trains,etc... The side-effect of that is you run into strangers on public transport. This doesn't just affect the loneliness epidemic, it is in my opinion a direct cause of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, and of course obesity. You can't even be homeless and sleep on the streets these days. Even the park benches are built to be hostile to anyone that wants to chill there for too long.
Society was restructured between 1950s-1980s so that it is suburbanized. It's all about the family unit, single family homes, freeways and roads built to facilitate single family homes (after WW2, starting families was all the rage, plus white-flight didn't help). Shopping centers built to cater to consumers driving from their suburban homes. Malls you can walk in, after you drove some time to park there. Even when you buy food items at grocery stores, pay attention to serving sizes, it is improving a little, but you'll see at minimum a serving size of two typically.
Society was deliberately engineered so that you have more reasons to spend more as a consumer. Families spend more per-capita. suburbs mean more houses purchased, entire generations renting with their bank as a landlord via mortgages, home repair, home insurance, car insurance, car repairs, gas stations for cars where you can get the most unhealthy things out there in the most frequented and convenient places. Make kids, make wives, make ex-wives, get sick the whole lot of you for hospitals, health insurances,etc..
It wasn't planned by some central committees or secret cabal, but it was planned nonetheless by economists and policy makers.
If everyone just got married and had kids, they won't be lonely would they? you don't need to hang out at park with strangers, you'll feel less of a member of your local neighborhood who look and think like you, and start thinking more as one people.
All the interpersonal interactions and opportunities to build relationships with people are commercialized and controlled.
For one reason or another, people are just not getting married in their early 20's anymore, or having that many kids later on like before. Even when you get married, your interaction is by design with other married people, who are busy commuting in their cars to and fro work, kids school,kids sports, plays,etc... imagine taking your kids on busses and trains every day to these places which are fairly near-by, by necessity. you'll be spending time with them instead of operating machinery. They'll be meeting stranger kids from other schools, seeing random strangers all the time, you'll be talking to randos as you walk to the train, wait on the bus,etc.. but this can't be monetized.
Blame the economists and policy makers if you want to blame someone.
If you want solutions, let's talk explicitly about the policy changes that need to happen.
Too much traffic? tear down the freeways instead of building more lanes.
It costs $10B to build a simple metro line? pass better laws to regulate bidding and costs, investigate fraud and waste.
But to dig even deeper into the root of the matter, look at what is celebrated and prized in society. Most of its ills come from there. For most Americans, it is inconceivable to be able to just go out of your house without any plans or destination in mind and just start walking and see where you end up, and who you run into. That's a crucial and tragic ability that's been lost. We really have more urgent things to address to be fair, but ultimately, this can only be solved one small step at a time, but also big sweeping changes are needed. The first step is to define and accept what the problem is, and where the blame and cause lie.
I wouldn't go as far as blaming, but American society should at least acknowledge their responsibility for this. Its not like the KGB imposed zoning laws in Texas. You (Americans) did. Americans chose the urban model they wanted.
It is up to them to change. They won't change, and this "loneliness epidemic" is starting to become really fucking annoying. It is almost a grift now to shit on tech by mids.
These people don't want to go outside or engage with other people.
It is like people who are drug/alcohol/tobacco/gambling/sex/etc addicts. It is up to the individual to change. How is it anyone else's responsibility?
I surveyed a bunch of people on reddit, discords, etc. a couple years ago to figure out why people are lonely, back when this whole "loneliness" movement was starting.
A lot of these people say they have "trauma" or some other mental block as a primary reason why they're lonely (btw they're in discords with thousands of people, and playing online games with OTHER PEOPLE). I'm sorry but everyone has shit going on in their lives. You aren't really that special.
Maybe 1-5% of people have dealt with actual, really horrific trauma, and even they have managed to go on to have fulfilling lives. They chose to move on.
I'm an asshole, no doubt, and I've dealt with my own traumas in the past that were honestly way more fucking horrible than "I'm shy" or "nobody likes [insert some esoteric niche]" and guess what? Who cares? Go outside.
There is no helping these people, or anyone to be honest, unless they really want to make a change. These aren't starving Sudanese or people who live in India or something where you can't just "go outside". Mfs be in CALIFORNIA and crying. I'd understand if they were lonely because they were living in Iraq or Venezuela or something.
The only solution is we build a Matrix, and put all these people into it. I will bet 100% of my net worth and any earnings from my entire lineage for perpetuity that they will still fucking complain and be lonely. I was really hopeful for metaverse, too bad but maybe there's still a chance.
I never want to hear about "loneliness epidemic" again, to me it just sounds like DEI/ESG/Eacc and other bs grifting now to hate on tech. Everything is a choice. You press A in a video game even though you're lonely, why not press A to go outside?
These people aren't lonely, they exist in massive online echo chambers with other people. And honestly? I think they like it. Most drug addicts loved being on drugs even though it was a horrific existence. They don't like it when they're narcan'd during OD. But when they decide to get clean, I am proud that they actually did it how amazing is that? SO these lonely people have to stop crying and step outside.
- millions of indians go outside daily and are doing just fine.
- social media algorithms are rigged against india for reasons i do not understand or comprehend.
- you can easily review this by comparing the amount of engagement on youtube to positive stuff about india vs negative stuff.
- while our country is most certainly not perfect and has problems of its own, problems are not the only thing our country has
You have the right to your opinion, and your own relative experience. You don't need to get so easily offended, relax.
I wasn't being a dick, sry if it came off that way.
Crux of the issue right here. Idiots online keep blasting into their eyeballs that they are worthless and society has already collapsed. All they need to do is go down the road and join a club or a church or something.
Especially for users of this website. Almost all clubs are in dire need of a webmaster.
This makes a ton of sense but the language needs so much work here to be digested into a real conversation by your average parent, let alone preteen/teenager.
I've lost count of the times I've seen women praised while men were castigated, in the same space, for expressing any kind of honest sexual preference.
Ultimately, we need to begin by destigmatizing the male libido. Simply saying "male desire is good and it's fine to have it" is literally heretical anywhere except among gay men. Men never got any kind of sexual liberation. Young boys need only to look at their own usually mutilated manhoods to see what modern society thanks of their desire.
To even begin to teach them that they can relate to sex without domination, first teach them that their own desires are not evil.
... what? No, that's a niche that you'd have to go out of your way to find.
> Young boys need only to look at their own usually mutilated manhoods to see what modern society thanks of their desire.
I assume you refer to circumcision. Maybe it's "usual" in your country. In Canada it's the minority condition: https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision
Yes, we live in a patriarchal society. That same patriarchy is at the core of our modern loneliness. Teaching young people that "it doesn't have to be this way" isn't lying. Telling them it's the natural order of things is the lie that ultimately tears people apart because their bodies know differently.
> To even begin to teach them that they can relate to sex without domination, first teach them that their own desires are not evil.
This is exactly what I was saying.
Though I usually consider myself progressive (to an annoying degree to some), the progressive "answer" to young men right now on how to find friends and partners is essentially something like:
> You should just be yourself!
> But, if you aren't practically perfect and even slightly express your social and physical needs you are a monster.
> But, even if you are perfect, we reserve the right to hate you based on experiences with other people of your gender, or because of your privilege, even though you probably have never felt it, and we're also allowed to make fun of you because of said privilege, since making fun of you is "punching up".
> Also, you also should accept that you will *always* be considered a threat to half the population due to how you were born, and if you don't accept that or even try to prove the opposite, that makes you even more dangerous.
> If you aren't happy with this you are an incel, and don't even mention the word "misandry", that's not a thing. The only way to change this is to either be gay or transition into a woman.
Meanwhile the hardliners on the opposite side of the spectrum espouse the idea that actually men should be evil because it's manly. That women are lesser to them and that patriarchy is super cool actually. See Andrew Tate as an example, who has captured the ears of millions of teenage boys around the world. At first it's hard to comprehend why his ideology speaks to them, but you have to remember that most of them are just entering the time of their life where they have to figure themselves out, where they have to, for the first time in their life, find friendship, respect and companionship on their own outside of the family or the playground. And after all, everyone wants to be loved and respected in some way, and Andrew Tate offers them an answer: You can be an asshole and still be loved and respected, while the leftie answer tells them that you can be as perfect as you like, but you probably still won't be loved and respected, and if you fuck up, don't expect any grace.
And now the question is what should society actually do so that both young men and young women can find a harmonious place in it? I think really the only answer is to stop playing the blame game, stop trying to make one side the constant bad guy and scapegoat, try to comprehend that we are all equally human, and that whatever a person's gender is doesn't give you the right to be shitty to them. I don't know, maybe this is simply another utopian idea, of men and women living together in perfect unison, never being mean to each other. I think we should still strive to achieve some sort of balance, but sadly I don't really see an easy answer to this.
Sorry for this long rant, I've wanted to put this into words for a while. Occasionally I think about how bad it must be being a teenage boy right now, the thought scares me and I feel lucky not being one. Every time I read another woman saying that she's afraid of every man on the street walking in proximity to her, and every time it's dark out and I hear a man behind me and I get physically afraid, I think, what if I was a man and she was afraid for her life because of me? Just because I exist in the space next to her? Just because of a random coin-flip during my conception? And it feels awful. I don't want anyone to go through that.
I blame the on-line attention economy - which always rewards yet-more-extreme reactions, positions, and performative "virtues". But attaches zero value to actual pro-social behavior.
Otherwise I agree with you.
Where would you expect to see it addressed? bell hooks wrote The Will To Change more than twenty years ago.
(The promulgation of the term "patriarchy" is itself an example of the harm I'm talking about. Feminists and other progressives will insist that the meaning of terms cannot be divorced from their etymology, and cite questionable-at-best etymology when complaining about words and campaigning for replacements. But then they have an entire canon of words that were deliberately coined to associate masculinity with harmful or undesirable things and femininity with virtue and resistance to oppression. As Karen Straughan put it: "[Feminists are] not blaming men, [they] just named everything bad after them.")
Then I heartily recommend you read the book I referenced.
> From New York Times bestselling author, feminist pioneer, and cultural icon bell hooks, an evergreen treatise on how patriarchy and toxic masculinity hurts us all.
Which is the exact thing I complained about.
It is super easy to understand. He tells them they are superior and that feels good. He tells them they are entitled to dominate others and that makes them feel powerful. People LOVE to hear they are superior over others.
And all your complains about progressives boils them to them acknowledging that Tate adjacent people exist, that philosophy runs in top levels of the government and the rest of us have to react to it. Like, all your complains about progressives are super mild compared to what conservative people say and think about the rest of us.
> And now the question is what should society actually do so that both young men and young women can find a harmonious place in it?
There is no harmony possible when the woman is degraded or subjugated. There is only fake harmony possible when it is not allowed to speak about threat of Tate like conservatives, because someones feelings might be hurt.
> I think we should still strive to achieve some sort of balance, but sadly I don't really see an easy answer to this.
There is no balance with "I think women are inferior and should be mistreated".
> Every time I read another woman saying that she's afraid of every man on the street walking in proximity to her, and every time it's dark out and I hear a man behind me and I get physically afraid, I think, what if I was a man and she was afraid for her life because of me? Just because I exist in the space next to her?
In the context of male gendered violence literally promoted by conservative thinkers, it is women talking about the impact it has on them who is causing the unfair harm to men. This is absurd.
This is, frankly, a thing feminists books claim and I did not believed is a real thing. Except here you are, writing exactly those words.
By the same token, it feels bad to be told that one is inferior and deserves to be subordinate to others. Which is messaging that, as a man in contemporary society, I receive constantly, and have been noticing for decades. Despite knowing on some level that it is BS.
But there was a period (this specific thing seems to have improved) when everyone would have been subjected to this narrative in any advertising break on any TV channel in the US or Canada.
> And all your complains about progressives boils them to them acknowledging that Tate adjacent people exist, that philosophy runs in top levels of the government and the rest of us have to react to it. Like, all your complains about progressives are super mild compared to what conservative people say and think about the rest of us.
First off, feminism vis-a-vis the issues of men has nothing to do with progressivism vs conservatism, except in the minds of American political tribalists.
But my own primary complaint about progressives is of the exact form that you describe (except perhaps substitute "academia" and "bureaucracy" for "government").
And in my own experience, it's not common for "conservatives" to say anything actually objectionable about "progressives" (and it's frankly inappropriate to assert what they think outside of what they say or otherwise overtly indicate), even in the US. On HN for example those comments are quite rare and almost universally flagged and killed. Whereas live, upvoted comments decrying the supposed current "fascist regime" are all over the place and the large majority of political submissions are clearly only there because they could be used as an excuse to fulminate about Trump, Musk, Thiel etc.
> There is no harmony possible when the woman is degraded or subjugated.
But this by and large is not actually happening. People like Tate are ultimately irrelevant grifters. I can't even name any "Tate-adjacent people". In my circles, Warren Farrell has way more name-brand recognition. I would never even know about Tate but for people complaining about him. Even other critics of feminism and progressivism rarely bring him up, and then only because of the specific manner in which he is attacked.
And, again, framing this as a two-party conflict is entirely inappropriate reductionism. "Conservatives" by any reasonable definition have no common cause with someone like Tate. The lifestyle he promotes is utterly opposed to "traditional family values".
> In the context of male gendered violence literally promoted by conservative thinkers, it is women talking about the impact it has on them who is causing the unfair harm to men. This is absurd.
This is a bizarre misrepresentation of what you're quoting.
First, it's unreasonable to present the quote as if it denied harm to women. It does not.
That said, the statistics make it clear that the fear is largely unreasonable; men do not report feeling fear in situations that are objectively much more dangerous to them.
But most importantly: you are repeating the conflation of Tate with "conservative thinkers", and conflating a very specific approach to conduct in sexual relationships (and the attempt to form them) with random assaults (physical and/or sexual) on the street by strangers. That is the absurd thing here.
> This is, frankly, a thing feminists books claim and I did not believed is a real thing. Except here you are, writing exactly those words.
I don't know why you'd have to read feminist literature to find the claim that men are afraid of being falsely perceived as sexual threats just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could just ask men.
Women are constantly told that a man in that place at that time would be a sexual threat in ways that men can obviously hear. Men are told it, too. Feminists even resist well-meaning education about personal safety, calling it "victim-blaming" and then turning it around to describe ways that entirely innocent men ought to go out of their way instead.
I have nearly had anxiety attacks when I walked into a nominally unisex bathroom and saw a feminine hygiene disposal unit and no urinal. Or when the men's bathroom was out of order at a shop and the clerk said to use the women's instead.
(And all of this happens against a backdrop of refusal to acknowledge that men can also be raped, including by women. Even the language used to describe female teachers sexually assaulting their male students is different from that used for male teachers and female students. I've heard women say those male students should consider themselves lucky. It's disgusting.)
I'm sorry that people like Andrew Tate still exist, in some number, who will say the kinds of things that validate your narrative. But in my experience, there are way more people who are willing to say the mirror image of it.
I'll also concede that I used a lot more hyperbole to exaggerate how bad men must feel when faced with some (very non-violent) push-back in a progressive environment, and I was a lot less descriptive with the actual assault, rape, murder and violence that women face under the patriarchy, represented by the other side with my example of Andrew Tate. I did not mean to equate those two and be "pick-me"-ish, but I see how you can come to the conclusion from my comment.
Mostly I wanted to say that although societal misogyny is a whole lot worse than any hate aimed at men (and again, I want to emphasize that women suffer a LOT more under patriarchy than men do when women are slightly mean to them because of said patriarchy, I really do NOT want to equate the impact of those two!), I still think the proper response is to try to reach an understanding that every human in front of you is unique and isn't defined by their gender, skin color, race any more than they are defined by their hair color or the tone of their voice. This is pretty idealistic and I will not fault any woman who feels unsafe being alone at night with an unknown man around, after all I feel that myself, too, plenty of men have been shitty to me... This is also in regard to assumption, if the man you are talking with chants "Your body, My choice!" then that's not an assumption anymore, he's made the choice to be actively horrible, the nice peaceful approach is actually not possible with this man, and this counts for many men who are possibly less overt than that, whether they're mostly nice in person but actually support politicians who erode women's rights, trying to explain it away with some argument about taxes or whatever, or whether he laughs when his friends make shitty misogynistic jokes. But plenty of men don't. And I kind of feel bad for them, that's it. Really all my hyperbole was only to be read from the perspective of a man who ACTUALLY does not deserve the hate, because I do know some as my friends.
Anyway, I have to admit your response has been really painful to read since that was the exact way I did not want my comment to be read as, but it's fair enough, I just hope I was able to clarify some points, because I believe we actually agree on most issues, even if my comment can easily be read as shitty misogynist apologia. Like I said, I'm really not good at communicating.
/s
This community is not going to be the one to solve that problem, sorry.
I'm trying to figure out if I have enough energy to try to pitch this to my representatives office, but I don't know if 30-40% adults never marrying or falling birth rates would be arguments that democratic politician would care to act upon.
I said there's no turning back now, time to double down, call her fat and ugly, and punch her dog.
Banned for 3 days for advocating violence.
I agree we also need to organize activities, but when social circles are occupied by the other camp with a witchhunt bonus, it is discouraging to try. And recursively encourages political extremism.
Incoming comment: “Not our problem, don’t be a Nazi.”
This is not the American way.
Americans, prior to trump, espoused the concept of freedom. That includes the freedom to not serve in the military.
If you argue a draft is counterproductive because it a waste of resources and we have better means to serve young adults, I could buy it. But arguing a draft is not the American way because it’s “our freedom to decide what we want” is a bit silly.
I do absolutely agree that I wouldn’t trust the current administration or culture to faithfully execute on this idea though.