I agree and on my death bed I'm going to realize I spent my life working from home, talking to a machine, and not enriching any person's life directly. It's just so gruesomely LONELY.
I've found most work communication apps not to be very condusive to it, but Discord is pretty good.
I sincerely miss working in an office, but with my current job it would've been impossible anyway (everyone is remote in different countries). I've only once met some of my coworkers irl a few years ago when we went to a conference together.
You can see if people are in there and actively talking before you join and that alone encourages spontaneous drop ins.
I sometimes wonder if the change to the culture and ways of working from the covid-era WFH days became more pervasive than I realized.
It also can be that the office space itself is too noisy so any discussion can distract a lot of people.
1. "Sorry can't come" an hour after we were supposed to meet - this alone kills 80% of my friendships
2. "I like edgy humor" and then a month later "I'm going to report you to HR" literally had this happen to me
3. Most people have very little depth and stick to superficial smalltalk, which I find very exhausting
And when on top of that you say "I wish my friend had similar values and enjoyed at least one common hobby" then it's basically over. Not to mention the fact that most people aren't open to new friendships. If they're married then they straight up say "wife doesn't allow", if they're not then it's "yeah let's grab a coffee someday".
My motto is "if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go alone" because trying to be cooperative with people has never yielded me better results than just doing the shit on my own.
#2 seems situational so I can't speak to that
#3 I think anxiety pervades people's lives, and I often wonder how many of them are "holding on by a thread" and literally don't have capacity for ANYTHING that may stir the pot, like a new friend, so they give any tired excuse to avoid rocking their boat.
Imagine that you move to a foreign country. At work you get to know Bob and Bob tells you that he likes traveling. Next week you ask Bob if he's going on holiday somewhere, and the week after you get a call from HR because asking people for their holiday plans is considered extremely rude and this is the final warning before they fire you. Okay. You try to ask around if someone is interested in sports or anything, and turns out, watching paint dry is people's favorite social activity. People gather, and just stare at the wall. They eat some snack that smells like shit and discuss how fast different types of paint dry under different conditions - apparently there is huge disagreement whether blue or pink paint dries faster to the point that they organize official paint drying tournaments. One day you meet Alice. You're doing your best to be nice and make a friend. You suggest grabbing a coffee together. She replies "yes, definitely, what about Wednesday 3AM in front of the homeless shelter?". You can't tell if she's for real or just fucking with you, so you do show up there. Strangely, so does she, but she comes at 4AM. Turns out, it was faux-pass on your side to show up on time, which is why there won't be a second date.
Whenever you try to vent how you don't fit into the culture people point out that it's your fault you're the weirdo. Also, the incident with Bob will follow you for the next five years.
> Whenever you try to vent how you don't fit into the culture people point out that it's your fault you're the weirdo.
Surely it’s pretty self evident why this is the case.
I see people who advocate for permanent wfh has plans with their social circle. Either already has a family or friends. Sucks to be the one trying to build a new life.
Btw, I don’t believe them a bit. All I see are rotten people who no longer speaks new things, or is a living instagram bot.
It doesn’t feel like seven years. 2020 feels like last year.
What can one typically accomplish in seven years? An undergrad, masters, and maybe a PHD. It is a long time.
The years have flown by