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.
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.
- 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
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.
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.
A neighborhood which is sometimes referred to as "Specific Whites" (but only tongue-in-cheek, right?)
You can run an open bar with two bartenders for 50 people for that price? (Unless everybody is a complete lush, I guess ;)
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
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.
If you get burned out from being the nexus of your social circle, that sounds like a problem stemming from your success
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.
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.
So you aren't one of the people that are lonely, because you have wife and kids
Though, I’m also single, so, maybe I wouldn’t feel such a need if I were married? Idk.
> 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?
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.
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.
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.
I don't do tabletop, but I do write, and making these is helpful for worldbuilding.
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.
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.
Now, I host meetups which typically get 8-15 people and multiple games, so an unpredictable player count is not an issue.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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
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.
when i am in this mood my mantra becomes, "be an instigator".
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.
I always feel like I organize things to much. It's one sided
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Everything we do is open source too[1].
[0]: https://www.totem.org/ [1]: https://github.com/totem-technologies/totem-server
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
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. :-)
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.
Your website made me smile…it is a fun one for sure.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are also plenty of cultures with family values not rooted in religion.
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.
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.
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
Even if you avoid Soma yourself, you will still face the negative effects of a society plagued by Soma.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
Also just an aside - I love your writing style.
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.
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%
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.
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.
Niche/hobby subs are mostly bot-free.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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)
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.
[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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese
If you pack people in too tight they just tune each other out.
We need to do things ourselves.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
But there is far more to the world than offices, so while I agree 100% with the sentiment, I'd broaden those horizons.
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.
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.
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.
Although, if you are doing politics, I can see this being pragmatically useful.
You're taking your "anti-racism" to the point where it is unnatural, absurd, and alienating. People inherently want community with their kin but you are telling them that they are wrong for pursuing it.
I have more in common with a factory worker in China than I do with the president of my own country, even if we happen to share the same skin tone. I am defined by my experiences, after all, not things like genetics, culture or history.
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
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
What the fuck, Paul? Are you doing this ironically to mess with people? Somebody check this guy's hdd.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.)
Like hell there isn't. Speak for yourself.
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.
So no atheists then?
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 :)
if [ atheist ] then
's/joins a religious org/join a service org/'
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?
[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)
In case it's not clear, original replier's comment here is absolutely correct and it doesn't necessarily have to be in a religious pretext (re: the church article), that's just a palpable example for most people. Neighbors, community centers, hobbies, etc-- these all require work on everybody's end and you must commit to these relationships to create a semblance of something to revolve your life around in lieu of drowning in loneliness.
Church does not have to be a church of faith, it can well be a church of reason.
What matters is that people with shared values get to spend time together on a regular basis without getting into status games that might eventually show up no matter what the church.
Just take the L man. You lashed out for no good reason, the person you responded had a hell of a lot more grace and tact than you showed this entire exchange, just learn from it and move on.
> 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?
Go out and find people looking for other people. Volunteer and find events and gatherings scoped to building connections between people. Third spaces are in decline [1] [2], or in some places, non existent. This will be work. It will not be easy. You will need to work on managing the feelings of rejection and shallow people not genuinely interested in you or building a friendship (boundaries are important in this regard; have them, communicate them, and enforce them). Success is not assured. But your only choices are to try or not.
From your comment:
> 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.
In regards to this you commented, I highly recommend therapy if you can access it. It will help. This is an unnecessary burden to be carrying through adult life, and a professional might help unburden you of these feelings. The healthier you are emotionally, the easier it will be to create and maintain interpersonal relationships.
Does all of this suck? Oh yes, certainly. But we play the hand we're dealt to the best of our ability. Good luck, in as genuine terms as I can communicate in text. If you feel like I can provide more value with more questions you might have, I will do my best to help.
[1] Closure of ‘Third Places’? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6934089/
[2] Vox: If you want to belong, find a third place - https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/24119312/how-to-find-a-thi... | https://archive.today/TYDCG - May 7th, 2024
(tangentially, I recommend replacing "idiot who doesn't understand anything" with something more like "I am early in my journey to understand, but I look forward to the experience"; love yourself first, we are all learning and sharing for the portion of the timeline we share, and it is okay to not know if we continue to want and try to learn)
But you will find it much harder to attract friendships if you come across as needy or wanting to unburden a lifetime of problems on your new prospective friend. Not to say a longtime friend can't eventually handle some of this, but it's not a good way to start off.
I would say avoid groups that are focused on personal success or networking. These tend to be full of people who are looking for an angle or benefit for themselves, not people genuinely trying to develop friendships and connections with a community.
I'm not the GP, but I have the same experience to them. I have been in therapy and on psychotropic medication my entire adult life, that's 2.5 decades. I'd love to know when exactly the "unburdening of these feelings" happens.
Of course, LLM generated content threatens that, so things have gotten worse.
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_...
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.
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.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder if we're just shooting the messenger in placing the blame on social media.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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).
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.
Either that or your definition of deep friendship is substantially off.
Your original comment.
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?
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
* My Little Pony is a children's cartoon that attracts creepy adults with questionable fetishes who like to wear ugly costumes in public and buy anthropomorphic sex dolls
I think if I *had* to pick one of those works of fiction to pretend to be a fan of just to get other people to talk to me, I'd rather deal with the smelly weirdos in the MLP fandom than any of the dangerous zealots in the <insert religious book here> fandom. (MLP is a joke example, but obviously there are way more options out there to find a community)
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Go to reddit.com/r/fictosexual or reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/ and see for yourself.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...
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.
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
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.
Otherwise I agree with you.
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.
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’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
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.
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.
And the fact is that this is true of the supermajority of suburban streets in the United States.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Community, friends and when spirituality helps.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Decapitalize third spaces.
Reduce the difficulty of making walkable cities - building zoning reform, mass transit.
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’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.
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.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/31/are-relig...
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/
When these are gone, loneliness epidemics follow.
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.
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.
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.
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.
* 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.
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.
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’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!
- 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.
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.
I'm not saying that I have evidence on hand to the contrary, just trying to challenge the idea.
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.
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.'
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.
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?
People cannot help themselves.
Its too easy and satisfying to sit on your phone.
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 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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
> 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 say they want to “make meeting like-minded people easy, natural, and fun” and “ Loneliness doesn't have to be the norm.”
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.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Do it yourself. Don't wait on others. Organize social events, invite people.
I'm working on an open source non-commercial website to drive up demand for public spaces. https://createthirdplaces.org/
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.
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.
Use AI to scaffold relationships not replace them.
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
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
I am a solo bootstrap founder, ultra lonely.
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.
Every facet of capitalism is trying to push individualism and consumption
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
0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/655493/new-low-satisfied-person...
1: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-10-09/Community
> % 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.
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.
> 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.
- 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.
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.
People, together, doing things, ideally having fun.
Spaces and activities that provide venues for communication, humor, authenticity, play, touch, collaboration.
Read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feinman" and really absorb the part where he explains how he had so many crazy adventures and encounters.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
People are uncomfortable to interact and make small talk. They know smileys and lmao, but many have forgotten how to laugh irl.
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
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, a lot of this discussion does seem pretty myopic sometimes.
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.
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!'
i love people and do not want to be alone.
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.
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?
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.
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)
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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
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.
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.
/s
This community is not going to be the one to solve that problem, sorry.
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'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.