[HN Gopher] Loneliness is stronger when not alone
___________________________________________________________________
Loneliness is stronger when not alone
Author : hirundo
Score : 443 points
Date : 2023-06-20 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| A lot of these studies may be culturally specific, in that the
| focus is on the fulfillment of the individual, i.e. the thinking
| is 'what's best for me' rather than 'what's best for the group'.
|
| Consider that if you're feeling depressed and lonely and
| otherwise miserable, and seek out the company of others to
| alleviate your own negative emotional state, then you're
| essentially treating other people like a drug you take to improve
| your mood. Others will tend to see you as needy, demanding, a
| downer, etc.
|
| The solution is to first figure out how to be happy on your own,
| to improve your mental and emotional state, such that other
| people find your company pleasant and agreeable - then they'll
| actually want to share your company. It's a bit like physical
| hygiene - if you smell bad, people will keep their distance.
| Mental hygiene is the same concept.
|
| Unfortunately, consumer society is based on exploiting people's
| negative emotional states to improve sales - go shopping to
| alleviate loneliness, buy a bottle of pills to improve your mood,
| etc. It's not a very healthy system, and it's not surprising many
| people are so alienated.
| nonlincoder wrote:
| Loneliness Got a mind of its own The more people around The more
| you feel alone
|
| --Bob Dylan, Marchin' to the city
| gauddasa wrote:
| It's bad idea to generalize it. Just surround yourself with
| children, old people and pets and experience loneliness vanish
| into thin air. It really depends on type of crowd around you.
| throw0101c wrote:
| The Harvard Study, which has been following individuals for their
| entire lives for decades, and has even started following some of
| their descendants, has found that connections are strongly
| correlated with happiness, health, and general life satisfaction:
|
| > _What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but
| surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our
| relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying,
| and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult
| Development reveals that the strength of our connections with
| others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains
| as we go through life._
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61272271-the-good-life
| munificent wrote:
| _> The simple but surprising answer is: relationships._
|
| The trick to understand all of this is to realize that humans
| are a tribal species. I don't mean in the in-group versus out-
| group stuff (though that is also a big piece of the human
| behavioral puzzle). What I mean is that for all of our most
| recent evolutionary history, our survival did not depend on our
| individual performance as much as it did the performance of our
| tribe.
|
| A solitary Homo sapiens on the savannah is as dead and useless
| as a worker bee without a hive. Our entire cognitive and
| emotional systems have evolved to understand that deep truth.
| To be abandoned by the tribe is an existential threat, and to
| be accepted and valued by the tribe is winning.
|
| Once you realize that, so much of human behavior makes more
| sense.
|
| I think it really says something about modern American culture
| that we find the answer "surprising". For almost all of the
| history of Western civilization, it was so obvious that it
| didn't even need questioning. We're like fish flopping around
| on land who are finally realizing what water is.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| [dead]
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Yeah, people feel less lonely when they're around people who
| they like and who like them. "People feel more lonely when
| they're around other people" is the type of stuff you could
| only find on the internet or in academia, you can logic
| yourself into it but it's so far beyond common sense it's
| insane
| guy98238710 wrote:
| It's the contrast. Like with impossible/imaginary colors.
| People are apparently comparing themselves to others.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| I'd say it's not "people who are often around other people
| are lonelier than people who are not", but rather "people who
| are lonely, feel lonelier when they're around other people."
|
| I definitely relate to the latter. I can go for a long bike
| ride by myself and feel blissfully content, but standing in
| the corner at a social event where everyone else is having a
| good time is intensely lonely and isolating.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I can relate to this and I think it's about this:
|
| // standing in the corner at a social event where everyone
| else is having a good time
|
| I used to be like that, and I would judge the people I was
| disconnected from like they are dumb for having a good
| time. Eventually I figured out, I was the standoffish jerk
| - and forced myself to learn how to go say hi and be more
| part of the group (although I am still not amazing at it, I
| realize that if I am disconnected in the corner, it's
| because of what I have chosen to do/not do)
| nativecoinc wrote:
| > Yeah, people feel less lonely when they're around people
| who they like and who like them.
|
| People who they like and who like them. And you don't think
| that that is a _massive_ caveat? The original claim was just
| "people", not "fantastic and awesome people".
|
| > "People feel more lonely when they're around other people"
| is the type of stuff you could only find on the internet or
| in academia, you can logic yourself into it but it's so far
| beyond common sense it's insane
|
| And who are you to make this statement? Only on the Internet
| and in academia? I don't know what "only on the Internet" is
| supposed to mean. That everyone lies on the Internet or that
| none of them (us) are real people? I've seen people who have
| made this claim. On the Internet at least. (How candid are
| random people about this "in real life"?) They seemed sincere
| enough about it.
|
| I don't even know what the hell you are getting at with
| "logic yourself into", as if how people feel is just a
| philosophical-analytical experiment gone wrong. Get a grip.
| jprete wrote:
| Anecdotally, I disagree. I definitely feel more lonely when
| I'm in large groups and feel disconnected. If I'm alone, I'm
| not lonely unless I'm thinking about those large groups and
| my absence of connection - and I can even feel lonely if my
| connections just aren't available at a given moment.
| gryn wrote:
| well I guess it's the kind of thing you have to experience to
| believe.
|
| from my personal experience, being with the wrong crowd can
| definitely make you more lonely than being alone doing your
| own thing.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's very basic common sense.
|
| You might even be saying the same thing and not realize it.
|
| They don't say people feel more lonely "when around people
| who they like and who like them".
|
| They say LONELY people feel more lonely "when around people",
| that is, when they are around people who don't care for them.
|
| Like a lonely person at a club full of people where everybody
| else seems to have friends or a partner.
|
| That's what they say, which is absolutely common sense.
|
| Not that people feel lonelier when with their friends - as
| you might have understood it.
| Swizec wrote:
| > "People feel more lonely when they're around other people"
|
| Oh it's entirely easy to be super lonely when surrounded by
| other people. The easiest way to achieve this that I've found
| is being a +1 at a wedding. You're surrounded with people
| you've never met who all know each other pretty well and have
| tight bonds. Makes you feel super isolated and alone in a way
| that just isn't noticeable in an empty room.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I used to feel like this and yes at weddings in particular.
|
| At some point I realized that I am not the only +1 at this
| wedding and somehow those other +1s aren't fucked up in
| their head about it.
|
| Eventually you realize your agency. Like you can for
| example spot the other +1 and strike up a conversation.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Eventually you realize your agency
|
| Oh that's not the problem at all for me. I am perfectly
| capable of feeling lonely right through that entire super
| fun engaging conversation with strangers. Because a
| conversation doesn't scratch that same itch. Like eating
| potato chips when what you really need is steak.
| xyzelement wrote:
| It's not a good metaphor because a potato chips
| conversation can end up a steak conversation
| Swizec wrote:
| Sometimes yes sometimes no. Sometimes steak just isn't
| available, but you can have a great roast instead.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Yeah, people feel less lonely when they're around people
| who they like and who like them.
|
| Not necessarily. I often visit my mum and her partner. I love
| them both and they love me. Yet, I feel more lonely when I
| live with them than when I live alone. I can even see it in
| the intensity of my online chatting and dating app use.
| Presence of nice people just makes me more hungry for
| connection.
|
| "Appetite comes with eating."
| Applejinx wrote:
| I committed heavily to open source development as I wanted my
| relationship with SOCIETY to be a certain way, and I've found
| it has this effect for me.
|
| Discovering that the 'reach' of my work has extended farther
| than I expected... for instance, someone who's asked for
| particular code turns out to be in a homeless shelter as I once
| was, many years ago, and their connection is giving them hope
| for their future, or for another instance, someone's shouting
| me and my work out by name in a BBC radio interview and seems
| to get what I'm trying to accomplish... these things hugely add
| to my identification of my life as fulfilling and meaningful.
|
| The one is very personal, and the other is easily understood as
| celebrity and promotion, but they're the same. If the purpose
| to life is making connections, a large circle of social friends
| (or a siamese-twin relationship with a romantic partner) isn't
| the ONLY option. There's all sorts of ways to connect, and
| finding meaningful work will almost certainly mean functional
| or even parasocial connections with lots of people.
|
| And parasocial relationships are still relationships in this
| sense: they're one-to-many, in which you can't give what's
| normally understood to be friendship on the one-on-one level,
| but it doesn't work if you haven't got love for the collective
| entity of your fandom. I think parasocial relationships become
| more intense when the celebrity center of the relationship is
| really hungry for it. Modern examples aren't the only examples
| I can give: consider Johnny Carson, king of the parasocial
| relationship :)
| stef25 wrote:
| Something I noticed at my current workplace (20 employees, 80%
| women and mostly between 20-30 yrs old) is that all the girls
| constantly take breaks or walks together to just to be with
| each other and get things off their chests. They frequently
| give each other hugs at random times during the day. New
| employees arrive and they immediately fall in to the fold. One
| arrived from abroad and after a few weeks said "you guys (she
| meant gals) are my new family here"
|
| Meanwhile there's us 3 developer dudes who all get along fine
| but our relationship goes about as far as "all good?", "yep
| you?". And then of course talking about IT geek stuff. Kind of
| general problem with men I think. Very difficult to open up to
| other men.
| bioemerl wrote:
| I honestly don't think it's as big a problem as you would
| expect. Guys aren't quite so built to be huggy friendly and
| we tend to be more defined by real working relationships.
|
| Or maybe it's just a me thing.
|
| Like, at work for me I would be most rewarded by other people
| who are engaged in that common work cause and interact within
| that context. Not with stories about family life or opening
| up about whatever.
|
| Hanging out with friends is kind of pointless without a
| common cause. To do play some game or sport or actually do
| something that's worth doing and is fairly collaborative.
|
| To me a friend is like "hey I'm building a fence, wanna
| help?". And the ability to be building a fence yourself and
| asking the same. Or whatever project you can imagine.
|
| The "you good" shit is mostly a consequence of lacking that
| sort of common cause, at least in my experience.
|
| Or just watching other people do stuff is good too. "Hold my
| beer" silly stuff that you can watch and joke and one up each
| other about.
|
| But if someone started that family huggy stuff (barring
| needing help or talking about their problems) I'd be
| distancing myself from that hard. In my experience those
| people are out to get you, smile on a snake.
| siftrics wrote:
| > Hanging out with friends is kind of pointless without a
| common cause.
|
| I'd've missed out on a lot of good feelings if I had
| thought this way.
| temende wrote:
| Is "good feelings" just a euphemism for sex here?
| siftrics wrote:
| Funny :) but no.
|
| "Good feelings" as in I feel supremely content and I love
| my friends and they love me.
| stubybubs wrote:
| > Guys aren't quite so built to be huggy friendly and we
| tend to be more defined by real working relationships.
|
| Do you think this is really true, or just how it is in some
| societies? There's been a lot of talk about suicide rates
| in men and lack of social connections. Maybe this is just
| wrong, and as others have said, pure social connection
| without having to "do" something is the point.
|
| A lot of old guys out there dying alone because they can no
| longer "do" and don't have an idea of just how to "be."
| pesus wrote:
| > Hanging out with friends is kind of pointless without a
| common cause.
|
| Hanging out with friends to enjoy each other's company _is_
| the common cause.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I used to have this attitude and regret losing good friends
| over it. It's too easy to be independent these days, and,
| if you're naturally introverted like me, too easy to
| neglect friendships due to self-reliance. I'm gradually
| learning to reach out to friends for no other purpose than
| spending time together, and it's broadened my horizons. I
| think modern life is by default too isolating to allow most
| relationships to build themselves like this. You don't have
| to hug people, but reaching out for non-transactional
| contact is rewarding IME.
| bioemerl wrote:
| > It's too easy to be independent these days,
|
| To be fair, I didn't say you have to have a _good_ common
| cause. Just something to do in some capacity.
|
| Like, you don't need help, it's fun to hang out and it's
| an excuse to get help.
|
| My point is to say the relationships are _different_
| rather than transactional. Focused on a common cause and
| that sharing of it rather than relationships directly.
| damascus wrote:
| Men (generally speaking) want to fit into the social dynamic
| of their tribe. If you started to slowly open up and talk
| about more vulnerable topics it's very likely they would
| follow suit. I've seen it many times, almost always where I
| was the one that started it. I was once a super 'introverted
| dev' but really I was just not well socialized and unwilling
| and unable to express my emotions with confidence and
| clarity. Once I started to feel my feelings (I started with a
| feelings journal where I'd write down any emotions I felt
| that day) then I could start to describe them appropriately
| for the setting. Opening up to a trusted member of whatever
| tribe you are in (work, friends, hobby club) at the
| appropriate pace inspires a great deal of trust. If you talk
| about how you feel openly (and again, appropriately to where
| the group is) they come to trust that you will say how you
| feel when you feel it and that inspires trust and security,
| which makes you a very valuable member of that tribe.
| stef25 wrote:
| Thanks for the advice :) Paradoxically I'd feel more
| comfortable telling my life story and recent mishaps to a
| total stranger than to someone who I spend 8 hrs in an
| office with. Something to do with if it comes across wrong
| or people get freaked out, you're still sitting next to
| them for 40hrs a week until you leave the company.
| ambicapter wrote:
| That makes sense as you have more to lose with the people
| you know than the total strangers. Doesn't stop you from
| testing the waters though. Additionally, it is useful to
| find out who you can open up to and who you can't.
| tblt wrote:
| The good news is, you absolutely can tell a total
| stranger about your recent mishaps, or worries or
| problems or whatever! Services like The Samaritans exist
| just for this and many people find them extremely
| beneficial.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _And then of course talking about IT geek stuff. Kind of
| general problem with men I think. Very difficult to open up
| to other men._
|
| I think men generally are about _doing_ things together as
| opposed to 'just' _being_ together. "Talking" isn't really
| counted as an activity for men, but is for women.
|
| Get a bunch of guys together for paintball, or hunting, or
| sports, and relationships will form.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a problem, so much as it's gender
| observations. I've seen the same things. There's a meeting I
| go to, where it can be various blends of men and women. All
| the people are close and comfortable with each other, but if
| it happens to be only men, there's silence. If it's a mix,
| particularly if certain women are present, there's this
| animated chatter that's easy to join in on.
|
| I know for me the heart of what I am isn't about 'opening
| up', it's about things like that IT geek stuff (but
| translated into what I do).
|
| It feels like an emotional Dunbar number: I do best when
| there's just a couple people with whom I keep track of how
| they're doing in a personal way, and it matters a great deal
| but I won't feel at all the same way about twenty people at
| once. It seems like women are more likely to keep track of
| how large numbers of people are doing, in a social way, which
| won't always mean trying to HELP people: they can get caught
| up in drama when there's conflict among the people, and it
| takes on great importance.
|
| I'll have a much smaller number of people like that, and will
| bind more loosely to them, and I think it's the same
| mechanism but it just doesn't scale the way it does with
| women. I don't see it as a problem, more as an observation.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| The one thing I miss from when I was a smoker was the easy,
| no-expectation, daily excuse to hang out with other dudes at
| the office. I quit smoking 10 years ago but I still have
| strong relationships with some of my smoking coworkers from
| back then, but I haven't developed any work friends at all
| since then. I find that the main component in building
| relationships is just how much relaxed time you spend
| together.
| keybored wrote:
| About five years ago I got to know a new woman colleague.
| (I'm a man.) Very soon it felt like she was confiding in me.
| No one just _confides in me_ like that, so I thougt we were
| developing a friendship -- I would never think to do
| something like that to anyone that I didn 't trust. It felt
| great that someone would go out of their way to seek my
| Platonic companionship.
|
| But I eventually realized that I was just the most convenient
| guy/person (most of her immediate coworkers were men) for her
| to complain about work _while stuck at work_. We never did
| anyhing together otside of work contexts.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Without reading the study I assume this conclusions is from
| averaging out the experiences of a bunch of people. The problem
| with group averages is that they are just that. They apply
| more, or less, or not at all, to particular individuals within
| the analysis.
| dustypotato wrote:
| Could it be that in the surveys which measure happiness , more
| social people are more likely to say they're happy? Because
| they talk to their peers about their lives and are more likely
| to present more presentable aspects of their lives.
|
| With people with less social contact, maybe they don't
| reorganize their memories with respect to social visibility and
| just by intensity or time spent in that experience.
|
| There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is
| equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities of
| life are satisfied.
| siftrics wrote:
| > There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is
| equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities
| of life are satisfied.
|
| This is not true at all, in my opinion.
|
| I used to believe everyone has approximately the same life
| satisfaction after their needs are met. I've always been
| quite happy, but I became much, much happier after I moved
| across the country and made really close friends with whom I
| spend a lot of time. Meanwhile, my old roommate still spends
| 8-5 in the office and then comes home and plays League of
| Legends. There is no way our life satisfaction is the same.
| Don't get me wrong, I was pretty happy going into the office
| and seeing my friends for an hour or two each day. But now
| that I have a life with much more time spent with deep
| friendships, I see that life satisfaction is not zero sum.
| You can be a certain amount of happy. And you can be even
| happier than that at no cost.
| [deleted]
| coldtea wrote:
| > _With people with less social contact, maybe they don 't
| reorganize their memories with respect to social visibility
| and just by intensity or time spent in that experience._
|
| That wouldn't correlate with smaller lifespan and worse
| health outcomes for people with less social contact pretty
| consistently observed (filtered for objections like "they
| have less social contact because they are sick, not the other
| way around").
|
| > _There is a theory that I 'd like to believe that everyone
| is equally happy over a period of time after basic
| necessities of life are satisfied._
|
| In other studies, above a certain level like starvation and
| homelessness, "basic necessities" are not even the biggest
| factor in happiness. Meaning, social circle, and status are.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > That wouldn't correlate with smaller lifespan and worse
| health outcomes for people with less social contact pretty
| consistently observed
|
| You didn't filter for "friend noticed there was something
| physically wrong and got them to go to a doctor". Plenty of
| people's lives have been saved, or have been made
| healthier, because of such interventions.
| efields wrote:
| > There is a theory that I'd like to believe that everyone is
| equally happy over a period of time after basic necessities
| of life are satisfied.
|
| n = 1 here, all basic needs met... still working on the
| happiness thing
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Could it be that in the surveys which measure happiness ,
| more social people are more likely to say they 're happy?_
|
| In addition to surveys, there are interviews at regular
| intervals, so observations of the participants are also used
| as data points.
|
| > _There is a theory that I 'd like to believe that everyone
| is equally happy over a period of time after basic
| necessities of life are satisfied._
|
| Empirical evidence does not support this. There are such
| things as 'set points' of happiness:
|
| * https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/meditation-for-
| moder...
|
| Some folks have lower, and some higher, 'base levels' of
| happiness. It seems that some people are / can be
| 'inherently' happier than others.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Personally I've found that joy cometh before a fall.
| Literally. My worst rollerblading accidents were when I was
| feeling joy (those hand guards _do not_ protect against
| broken fingers). As such joy is not an emotion I actively
| cultivate, and when it happens I take it as reason to be
| wary.
| samstave wrote:
| I was a part of a study with San Diego state which followed my
| through my life until I told them to stop...
|
| The study was to see how different people from differing socio-
| economic backgrounds turned out as they got older...
|
| When I was about ~16/17 I told them to kick rocks.
|
| They used to show up every year and interview me for an hour
| about how my life was progressing...
|
| I lived on a famous hippy commune in Lafayette California until
| I was 4 years old... My mom knew Jim Jones (of the koolaid
| fame) and a bunch of other famous people from San Francisco in
| the 1970s...
|
| Later, I found an article in Playboy Magazine (yes, no funny
| joke there) which was taken with the founder of the commune,
| Vik Baranco (I dont know how to spell his name) where he
| recvealed that the commune was being followed by the CIA...
|
| I think the study from UCSD was a CIA front as I spoke with
| other kids from the commune and the weird shit that happened to
| them....
|
| -
|
| EDIT: my mom was doing acid with the grateful dead, fleetwod
| mac, and a bunch of other people... who probably dont want to
| be named...
|
| anyway - the 1970s and 1980s were briliant for computers....
| BECAUSE OF ACID...
|
| Look at Cisco, they developed the core of BGP while on acid in
| a hot-tub in Sunnyvale...
|
| So much of tech is tied with psychs.
| duderific wrote:
| I happened to live in that area of Lafayette when I was a
| kid, in the late 70s - early 80s. From over the hill from my
| house, we could see all these purple buildings. I'm pretty
| sure that's the commune you're describing.
|
| As kids we didn't really know what was going on over there,
| but we knew it was something a bit...unusual.
| latchkey wrote:
| Vic Baranco
|
| http://www.lafayettemorehouse.com/index.html
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Hypercard was also dreamed up while on an acid trip, IIRC.
| samstave wrote:
| We had one of the first TV studios powered on APPLE ][e
| machines...
|
| And youre not going to like this, the TV station was called
| "CLIT"
|
| (my first job was in middle school de-soldering mem chips
| from app mainboards (un-related to the above, but still
| related in more ways than one)
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| The weird stuff was definitely the CIA, and not say, I
| dunno... the questionable life choices of someone who hung
| out with Jim Jones and hippy commune cult leaders.
| coldtea wrote:
| Obviously there would be weird stuff around Jim Jones and
| hippy communes.
|
| Parent didn't say anything about any "weird stuff" being by
| the CIA.
|
| They said the "study by UCSD" might have been a front for
| CIA.
| samstave wrote:
| Hey, I'm not going to argue with you... but it WAS fn
| weird... and a part of my life's dialogue.
|
| Can I write you a book on growing up in a family that built
| California?
|
| You know why there are so many places and streets named
| 'Folsom' <-- my great-great-uncle
|
| I know a lot of shit.
|
| My great grandfather was ticketed MANY times when they were
| first installing street lights in SF to "NO MACHINE IS
| GOING TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO"
|
| (I kinda inherited that)
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| The CIA are assholes, and they do routinely violate the
| rights of Americans (even today, though it was probably
| worse decades ago).
|
| But their interests are narrow. What about that would
| have piqued their curiosity? If you are right, does that
| mean one of the hippies was some Soviet asset? And even
| then, that's got to be the worst cover story ever. On the
| other hand, the Feebs were really bad at counterintel
| tradecraft, but it's difficult to imagine them being
| sophisticated enough to pull off an academic cover like
| that.
|
| Maybe I was harsh. Near as I can tell, almost all of
| those agencies were into some seriously stupid shit (when
| did they give up on psychic phenomena research again?),
| but it still just doesn't strike me as plausible. I've
| having trouble processing it.
|
| If you ever do write that book, plug it here so I have a
| chance of noticing it, would ya?
| coldtea wrote:
| > _which followed my through my life until I told them to
| stop._
|
| Plot twist: or, perhaps, even after that!
| brandall10 wrote:
| Interesting. The Jonestown "doctor" who devised the Flavor
| Aid solution was in my dad's social circle at the University
| of Houston in the late 60s. UCSD is my alma mater (different
| school from San Diego State fwiw).
| [deleted]
| revskill wrote:
| Loneliness is when you got downvoted on HN (it simply means noone
| agrees with you).
|
| But it's better than noone votes on you, it's real loneliness.
| pawelduda wrote:
| imagine being shadowbanned
| rjbwork wrote:
| Turning on showdead is a real trip. There's a few people who
| have been posting on this forum for _years_ , often about the
| same pet cause in nearly every post.
| s5300 wrote:
| [dead]
| scotty79 wrote:
| Recently I got slapped for some inflamatory comments. Now I
| can't post too much in any give span of time. It really bums
| me out and interferes with my use of the site. I think it's
| few months already.
|
| Does anyone know if this rate-limiting is temporary measure
| or if I need to abandon decade old account if I want to have
| the full functionality back?
| therealcamino wrote:
| Ask dang, probably.
| raydiatian wrote:
| Everybody should go hike for a month and be alone in nature. It
| shook out of me any notion that loneliness is a bad thing.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| How did you feel during/afterwards? Did it make you change any
| behaviors permanently?
| raydiatian wrote:
| Good for young people graduating college or with 1yr of work
| under their belt. Quit your job, buy gear, disappear.
|
| Go ultra light. Essentially become homeless. Own at most two
| pairs of clothing. Don't worry about showering daily (or
| weekly), but keep your face clean and your teeth brushed.
| Don't let the gear&food on your back exceed 35lbs (15kg).
| Sleep under the stars when it isn't raining.
|
| How I felt during: pretty rad. there's this surreal thing
| that happens when you spend all day in direct contact with
| the sun and the moon. You feel physically connected to the
| solar system. You sense the Sun behind the earth at night.
| You get a real emotional connection with the environment and
| that has made climate change a bit more personal for me. In
| general, I'd never felt as much joy as I felt then. There's
| this other surreal thing that happens. If you quit your job
| to go hike, you start seeing the weeks in front of you as
| bare and free, and the present becomes one long continuous
| moment.
|
| I also spent a lot of my spare time reading old classical
| Greek and American philosophy. Seneca, Plato, Socrates,
| Marcus Aurelius, Ayn Rand, Thoreau, Emerson. It plugged me
| into the "meta-game" aspect of life, of course we're all
| living but how could we live.
|
| Takeaways: society is full of strings, things you don't
| actually need to survive. time is better spent learning or
| exploring. it's okay to abandon people that you feel you've
| outgrown. People my age (mid 30s) talk about how stressed
| they are and I can honestly say my attitude was permanently
| changed by that trip. I suppose Im a happy nihilist. Nothing
| matters, but that's not a bad thing. I'm not hitting all of
| my goals, but my understanding of what reality is has been
| fundamentally altered where I know it's not all about me, so
| losing is actually not a problem. It's a lesson for me in the
| present, and my loss might become somebody else's gain.
| wenc wrote:
| Before we go in circles, one definition of loneliness is the
| difference between the amount (and depth) of social connection
| desired and the amount obtained.
|
| There are two variables, both adjustable. Loneliness is
| eliminated is when that delta is small or zero.
|
| If you're an introvert and don't desire social connection and
| have none, you're fine. But being in a situation that reminds you
| of your lack sometimes creates that desire, which creates that
| delta.
|
| Likewise, if you're an extrovert, you desire lots of social
| connection and when it falls below what you actually have you
| feel sad.
|
| We can't always control the amount of social connection we get
| due to circumstances, but we can sometimes control the amount of
| desire we have by avoiding triggers that remind us.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _If you're an introvert and don't desire social connection
| and have none, you're fine._
|
| As a blanket statement, this may not be valid, as there could
| be 'feedback loops':
|
| > _Buecker and her colleagues found that lonely people tended
| to be more introverted and neurotic and somewhat less agreeable
| and conscientious than less lonely people on average._
|
| * https://www.psypost.org/2020/01/study-finds-lonely-people-
| te...
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > Loneliness is eliminated is when that delta is small or zero.
|
| And when the delta becomes negative, loneliness turns into
| tiredness. E.g. when an introvert doesn't desire social
| connection and has too much.
| tsss wrote:
| > Loneliness is eliminated is when that delta is small or zero
|
| I find it funny that you use the words "lack" and "desire"
| exactly like Lacan, who explained why it is impossible to fill
| that lack.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| This is a great way to look at introversion/extroversion.
| nmz wrote:
| Interesting, I've always thought of myself as an introvert
| because I like being in social settings but am reserved on
| interactions. With this definition I'm possibly an extrovert.
| tayo42 wrote:
| lately ive actually been wondering if im more extroverted
| then I realized, but just have social anxiety that leads to
| me being quiet and reserved. I mean were posting on forums, i
| threw a party this weekend. lol
| zem wrote:
| the commonest distinction i've seen is that introverts get
| drained by being with people, and recharge by being alone,
| whereas extroverts get energised by being with people. it's
| distinct from whether you enjoy social interaction, some
| introverts like socialising but can only do so much of it
| before they need to go off and be by themselves.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Your definition is right - extraversion / introversion is
| about whether you get energy alone or from being with
| people.
|
| Introversion doesn't imply awkwardness, rudeness etc.
| though people use it as an excuse often.
| bawolff wrote:
| > If you're an introvert and don't desire social connection and
| have none, you're fine
|
| I'd just point out being an introvert does not mean you don't
| desire or dont have social interaction, just that it can be
| tiring instead of energizing. You could still very much crave
| social interaction as an introvert.
| 93po wrote:
| I would add another big variable here: people who are lonely
| don't always recognize they want social connection, and it's
| because a lot of people don't have the capability to form
| healthy, fulfilling relationships with other humans and
| therefore don't have much (if any) past history of feeling
| fulfilled by social interaction. If they were to build this
| capability and experience fulfilling social interactions,
| they'd find themselves wanting more of it and therefore become
| less lonely.
| hinkley wrote:
| I can tell I've taken it too far when I catch myself talking
| someone's ear off at a gathering. They didn't sign up for
| this, and here I am drinking them in like I've dunked my head
| neck deep into a pool at an oasis. Guess I was thirsty after
| all.
|
| At the same time if I am forced into a situation where I'm
| alone and without internet, I fare much better and for much
| longer than people think I will. Certainly multiples of how
| long they can manage.
|
| At the end of the day I think we confuse coping with
| contentment. Some people can cope endlessly, that doesn't
| mean they are happy about it.
| 93po wrote:
| > I can tell I've taken it too far when I catch myself
| talking someone's ear off at a gathering. They didn't sign
| up for this, and here I am drinking them in like I've
| dunked my head neck deep into a pool at an oasis. Guess I
| was thirsty after all.
|
| I would encourage you to challenge this belief. I'm not
| saying this is true of you, but I used to feel this way
| when I was insecure and overly worried about what others
| thought and felt. These days, I'm myself. I'm honest. I'm
| vulnerable (where appropriate). I'm also compassionate, and
| not being one of those "calls them hows I sees them"
| people.
|
| I imagine people like hearing you talk more than you
| realize. Sometimes they enjoy it but don't necessarily know
| how to respond, which is about them and not you. This is
| especially true if it's someone who's chosen to spend time
| around you and didn't just randomly meet you.
|
| I encourage people to be themselves (while being kind) and
| quit worrying. You'll attract the right people in life if
| you're authentic. You'll never attract the right people
| being someone else.
| hinkley wrote:
| Oh I've certainly done that when I was younger, but there
| are levels of distress that are hard to miss once you
| realize you should check in with the other person.
|
| Sometimes it's enough to say "Xs sure are cool" without
| launching into a full history.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >If they were to build this capability and experience
| fulfilling social interactions, they'd find themselves
| wanting more of it and therefore become less lonely.
|
| According to the GP, by wanting more fulfilling social
| interactions they'll become _more_ lonely, not less. Just
| because you want something doesn 't mean you'll get it. If
| someone can only afford cheap junk food but that's all they
| know, the last thing you should do is show them gourmet food
| so they know what they're missing out on.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I deeply and completely disagree with you.
|
| In objective outcome space you are either healthy
| (socially, nutritionally) or you are not.
|
| Being desirous of the good outcome is step one to having a
| CHANCE of having one. If you somehow numb yourself to the
| possibility/desire, you are guaranteed the actual bad
| outcome.
|
| Even in subjective space, I think people actually feel
| better pursuing a good outcome even if they don't succeed,
| vs numbing themselves and pretending everything is fine as
| is.
| fluoridation wrote:
| There's no such thing as "objective mental health".
| There's no test you can perform on a person to know if
| they're mentally well that doesn't involve asking them
| about it. If a person has no or little need for company,
| and has no or little company, how is that unhealthy? Who
| determines what an appropriate level of sociability is? I
| would have thought each person determines that for
| themselves, but you seem to disagree.
| 93po wrote:
| Humans are overwhelmingly social creatures by nature and
| virtually every study of happiness shows a correlation to
| healthy relationships in your life. There are exceptions
| of course, including people who have had traumatic
| experiences/abuse/PTSD/mental health issues that cause
| these relationships to be damaging until the underlying
| issue is resolved.
|
| Humans are also very, very bad at knowing what makes them
| happy. If a healthy person tells me they have one friend
| they see once a month and no other social outlets and
| they wouldn't want anything else, 99% of the time I'm
| going to assume they don't know themselves well enough to
| know that more relationships than that would make them
| happy.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| > Humans are overwhelmingly social creatures by nature
| and virtually every study of happiness shows a
| correlation to healthy relationships in your life.
|
| Do these studies actually show that there aren't people
| who, for lack of a better word, are non-responders?
| Imagine if 95% of people require relationships to be
| happy and 5% don't. I would expect most studies to show
| the correlation exists, but it doesn't mean that 5%
| doesn't exist. What kind of upper bound do these studies
| provide here?
| temende wrote:
| > virtually every study of happiness shows a correlation
| to healthy relationships in your life
|
| These studies never make sense because there's no way to
| objectively measure happiness, especially not in a way
| where you can compare two people's self-reported levels
| of "happiness". The word happiness itself is already is
| an over-loaded term that everyone has their own
| definition of. (At best you can measure proxy outcomes
| like measuring health based on relationships, but there
| are so many confounding variables it's hard to narrow it
| down.)
| xyzelement wrote:
| This is spot on and I just made a comment to the same point.
|
| It's maybe analogous to someone who has always been
| overweight and therefore don't perceive a problem with it
| because they don't have a reference point on how much better
| being in shape feels.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think there's a difference between self-percieved "amount
| desired" and "amount REQUIRED for sanity."
|
| Eg I have a few friends who left to their own devices would
| never make social plans and when I invite them to a BBQ they'll
| stand lamely to the side BUT at the end of the day they are
| much happier than if they sat home yet again. I am a mild case
| of this as well.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Just being around people could be the amount of social
| connection your friends desire.
|
| I think the comment you replied to is correct. Personally
| speaking not all social interaction is a positive contributor
| to one's sanity. Having the same shallow conversations over
| and over with different individuals while observing people
| express their narcissistic traits covertly within or over a
| group can have a corrosive effect on my sanity.
|
| A BBQ could be good but a bit intense for your friends hence
| their reaction. Maybe inviting them to a more intimate
| gathering e.g dinner with your own family or a couple of
| friends would allow them to engage more and allow them to
| have a deeper connection to others or yourself.
| xeromal wrote:
| I think that's roughly similar. Being around social
| situations without having to interact still charges the
| battery.
| causality0 wrote:
| It's one reason why friend-group entertainment like
| podcasts or YouTube D&D campaigns are so popular.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Could you please expand regarding podcasts - is meeting
| up just to listen to a podcast together a thing that
| people do?
| causality0 wrote:
| No, I mean podcasts that are essentially a small group of
| friends shooting the breeze or talking about a specific
| topic. It lets you feel as if you're a member of an
| intimate social group but you have neither any
| responsibility for participation or ability to fuck it up
| and make people dislike you.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "but we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by
| avoiding triggers that remind us"
|
| That is true, but a sad conclusion. I don't believe, that there
| are many people who truly want to be alone all the time. Most
| just rather be alone, than with mean idiots, who will hurt them
| again.
|
| But avoiding other people and situations to not be reminded how
| alone you are, will also never allow you to be in a position,
| where you can indeed open up and connect to the right people.
|
| This is a really magical feeling. Being connected to people who
| you like, where you just feel welcome and don't have the
| feeling to be on your guard all the time. There is a reason
| many people are obsessed with party and drugs as this will get
| them this feeling temporarily. But I want that feeling everyday
| and without drugs. But the daily grind makes it an exception.
| anon4242 wrote:
| > This is a really magical feeling. Being connected to people
| who you like, where you just feel welcome and don't have the
| feeling to be on your guard all the time.
|
| This. Maybe a bit weird but often for me these connections
| has been with total strangers while traveling when I was
| younger. Sometimes it would be with another tourist and
| sometimes with a local. It's surprising how deep it can get
| quickly.
|
| I think this is why I love the movie "Lost in Translation", I
| think it perfectly captures this emotion. But I think if you
| haven't had that kind of experience with strangers the movie
| is probably lost on you.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I have not seen the movie, but I know that experience.
|
| I think it is, because while travelling you are not bound
| by social expectations and boundaries. "What if I behave
| weird, then everyone will know in eternity".
|
| No, you meet people and you (both) can relax, because you
| know you can just move on the next day and never see anyone
| here again. So you can let go off all that fear and anxiety
| .. and suddenly you can connect with ease.
| pwpw wrote:
| > being in a situation that reminds you of your lack sometimes
| creates that desire, which creates that delta.
|
| > we can sometimes control the amount of desire we have by
| avoiding triggers that remind us.
|
| This makes me think of Instagram/Snapchat and notably the
| stories feature. If you are having a fine time on your own at
| home on a Friday night and then open someone's story that shows
| them with a few other people having fun, it can create a sense
| of missing out and trigger loneliness, when in fact, you
| weren't feeling particularly lonely right before that event.
| nojvek wrote:
| I've deleted facebook/snapchat for 5+ years now, and
| objectively feel happier. Although some of that FOMO is still
| there not being there with family.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| The difference is only much more apparent, like if you live with
| n a box next to a mansion instead of a whole city of boxes, you
| see the huge difference. It's like how advertising works to make
| you want things
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| For as much as HN hates on Psychology as a field of study, it is
| Psychology stories that get the most comments, the most
| discussion, the most interest. It might be because people like
| talking about themselves more than anything else.
|
| How can one day, the HN consensus seems to be that Psychology is
| a pseudo-science filled with con-men.
|
| Then the next day there is a new Psychology study submitted, and
| suddenly HN totally forgets its pseudo-science, now it is 'oh,
| let me talk about my experience with X'.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| No duh, any depressed person living in a city or sharing a home
| could tell you this. To be sure, many ignorant people refuse to
| listen to the voices of the depressed, but they're likely to
| refuse to listen to the NIH as well. Willfully ignorant people
| _don 't want to be informed_, as they find life more enjoyable
| when they can pick and choose their facts.
| ergonaught wrote:
| o/` I feel so alone in a room full of people. I'm loneliest when
| I'm out in a crowd. o/`
|
| https://genius.com/Suicidal-tendencies-alone-lyrics
| throwaway886622 wrote:
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9919037-loneliness-is-not-c...
| ThrowMeABC wrote:
| Absolutely agree. When I am at home working alone under a
| crushing deadline for days, I feel lonely, but that's somewhat
| tolerable, since I accomplish something. On the other hand I love
| dancing, but when I go to clubs alone, I am miserable for days
| seeing all groups enjoying themselves while I nurture my drink,
| watching the other dancers. It has gotten so bad that I rarely go
| to any social events anymore.
| nativecoinc wrote:
| This is pretty obvious from my experience. I don't really get
| "lonely" but I can be miserable when out among people. But by
| myself I might just be bored. But only some times.
|
| You know how "humans are social creatures"? A sort of corollary
| to that is that people define what a normal person is. And very
| subtle-like too. No one needs to spell it out one-on-one. But
| it's always there. A constant reminder of how you might not
| conform, might not be good enough, might not have the right
| connections, might have the wrong interests. And once you check
| enough of those anti-boxes you realize that neither you _nor
| other people_ have anything to offer each other. You are a bore,
| and they are there just to remind you of your failures.
|
| That one can be lonely or feel bad in a crowd of people might be
| counter-intuitive to many because the narrative goes that
| loneliness is a disease that inflicts the individual and is only
| about a _lack_ of people. But isn't that hypocritical? How can
| you say that "humans are social creatures" and just outright deny
| all the _negative_ signals that people (us) send to each other
| all the time?
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > And once you check enough of those anti-boxes you realize
| that neither you nor other people have anything to offer each
| other. You are a bore, and they are there just to remind you of
| your failures.
|
| Emotions aren't the truth. This is just a particular
| psychological hangup.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/o7huc5/russ_huds...
|
| > When SX is our blind spot, the self attack is along the lines
| of "I am hopelessly boring. I can't imagine anyone taking much
| interest in me, & if they do I suspect there is something wrong
| with them. Thank God I can be useful because few would be
| interested in me otherwise.
| nativecoinc wrote:
| I don't know what the Enneagram is.
|
| Some things aren't just taken out of thin air. Part of being
| a "social creature" is that you pick up on what other people
| think of you by observing how they talk about other people
| that you have something in common with. And that doesn't have
| to be something wishy-washy like "being boring"; it could be
| very concrete, objective things, like being X or having Y.
| Then you go, huh, that's me as well. And then you listen to
| them say that oh, people who are X, Y, and Z are A and B. And
| that's you as well.
|
| But no (someone says), they're wrong: it's just their
| opinion. It's entirely subjective and partial.
|
| ... But don't you see? That's what being a social creature
| _is_ --being at the whims of the opinion of others. How can
| you possibly claim that Humans Are Social Creatures, and then
| blame the person who is affected by What Others Think of
| Them?
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > I don't know what the Enneagram is.
|
| I didn't presume you did. And honestly it may not be worth
| your time learning about it. Fortunately the three
| instincts aren't a part of the enneagram proper, just
| another temperament system frequently used with the
| enneagram of personality to fill in an orthogonal hole.
|
| > Part of being a "social creature" is that you pick up on
| what other people think of you by observing how they talk
| about other people that you have something in common with.
|
| One thing I have noticed is that quite often people will
| badmouth a type of person, but when it's pointed out that
| so-and-so is also that type of person, they'll immediately
| say that so-and-so isn't and cite a bunch of 'redeeming'
| qualities. Socially inclined people seem to see nuance in
| those close to them that they don't see in those further
| away from them.
|
| > Part of being a "social creature" is that you pick up on
| what other people think of you by observing how they talk
| about other people that you have something in common with.
|
| Social is my blind spot. I don't, and really can't. I have
| never been able to answer questions that ask what other
| people think of me, at least not without days of thought
| about it. And even then I'm just guessing somewhat
| randomly.
|
| Russ Hudson posits three "zones" of the social instinct,
| "reading people, creating connections, & contribution". The
| only one I have any real facility with is "contribution".
|
| What he says about having a social blindspot:
|
| > SO blind spot often manifests as an exaggerated self-
| consciousness. It's hard to relax & be w. people. We are
| afraid of making mistakes--"faux pas." It feels easier to
| simply avoid human contact than to risk being humiliated.
| But then we do not get practice or develop skills.
|
| > We may justify this by thinking people are boring,
| shallow, clueless, etc. But w. awareness, we see these as
| defenses against our fears about ourselves. Again, the
| voices are NOT telling the truth. We discover we connect
| ABOUT something interesting/important to us. We share.
|
| So at least part of the bad feedback you're getting is
| probably people projecting their own fears defensively.
|
| > How can you possibly claim that Humans Are Social
| Creatures, and then blame the person who is affected by
| What Others Think of Them?
|
| Personally I've long argued against humans as Social
| Creatures. Many of us are, but I believe large fractions of
| us are closer to presocial or solitary-but-social creatures
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociality ).
|
| There's not blame here. Merely recognition of sometimes
| maladaptive psychological quirks. Our psychologies exist
| for very good reasons, but we are hardly universal beings.
| Sometimes our minds use the wrong inference tool for the
| job.
| ConfusedDog wrote:
| I believe so. I was the loneliest after I got married when my now
| "ex" was really demanding and paranoid. People are most lonely
| when get excluded from their peers from school or work or social
| any groups. Old people are lonely because their friends and
| families are keep dying off or unable to social any longer.
| That's the reason I recommend joining some good social or
| religious organizations and make friends across all walks of life
| and ages, keep an open mind and enjoy life. Do not engage with
| toxic people, only keep good companies. Don't engage with people
| who don't want to engage, or thinking you can help them. People
| need to walk out of their own rut to be truly happy.
| hinkley wrote:
| Sometimes I think the best you can do for people is drive them
| to their proverbial rehab.
|
| You can't lift anyone's load, but sometimes you can get them to
| acknowledge them, and occasionally clear roadblocks.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Amen. An addendum, if I may: when considering "toxic" please be
| wary of all-or-nothing cognitive fallacies. People who have one
| trait or belief or habit that you disagree with (even if
| strongly) do not necessarily come saddled with other things you
| might presume (ie just because they're catholic doesn't mean
| they're a pedo, just because they have tattoos doesn't mean
| they're a criminal, just because they have guns doesn't make
| them a white supremacist, etc.). People are complex, and you
| might be missing your best friend for life if you are
| prejudicial.
| copperx wrote:
| That's the problem with the weak popular vocabulary. 'Toxic'
| can mean just about anything.
| em-bee wrote:
| well what matters is, what it means to you.
|
| if a person makes you uncomfortable then it's probably
| better to stay away from them. only if you can't do that,
| then it may be worth it to reevaluate why it is they make
| you uncomfortable and see if you can change that.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| > well what matters is, what it means to you
|
| When giving advice on a public forum, it is very
| important to have similar understanding of words as
| others.
| em-bee wrote:
| sure, but this is not about the definition of toxic,
| which is pretty clear and i don't think there is any
| disagreement about that. the point is that different
| things are toxic to different people. someone may not be
| bothered by guns, even when they don't care about them,
| and someone else may find any support of guns utterly
| despicable because maybe any mention of them triggers
| some kind of trauma they experienced. ok, so maybe it's
| not right to call this toxic, but that's why i used the
| term "uncomfortable' myself, and i don't think the
| specific difference is important. just possibly it could
| be argued that 'toxic' is to narrow. you want to avoid
| these people either way.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| > this is not about the definition of toxic, which is
| pretty clear and i don't think there is any disagreement
| about that
|
| Ok, then, can you explain to me what exactly it means?
|
| Because the rest of your comment _kinda_ boils down to
| "it means whatever you want it to mean" which renders it
| effectively meaningless.
| coldtea wrote:
| Also, a friend who is not your cheerleader for every dumb
| thing you do and bad trait you have, is not necessarily
| toxic.
|
| You could be toxic, and they could just be pointing out
| things you need to hear.
|
| People here the BS gurus to "clear the toxic people from
| their lives" and often estrange themselves from the people
| who actually care most for them...
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I think this cognitive fallacy is actually called "labeling".
| Instead of labeling yourself: "I'm dumb", think "It was dumb
| when I forgot to turn off my car lights and the battery
| died".
|
| You are not dumb, lazy, toxic, etc, but occasionally you do
| or say dumb, lazy, toxic things
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I think there are some things that are a bright red line
| though. I don't think it's prejudicial a black person to
| avoid people who have a "habit" of going to KKK rallies. Or
| an immigrant to avoid people who have "one belief" that we
| should forcibly deport immigrants.
|
| I think for certain habits, beliefs, etc. people who avoid
| you aren't simply "unwilling to overlook this one bad thing".
| Maybe that one bad thing is actually just bad enough to
| poison you the person. [hypothetical you]
|
| I totally agree for the other, more general case though. Not
| all catholics are pedos and I know plenty of catholics super
| frustrated with their leadership, excellent and loving people
| catholicism included.
| [deleted]
| spencerchubb wrote:
| > I recommend joining some good social or religious
| organizations and make friends across all walks of life and
| ages
|
| I never considered that benefit of religious organizations, but
| it's very true. It's rare to find another place in society with
| so much diversity.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I'm no longer religious, but in the past considered joining a
| church just because it was absolutely the easiest way to make
| friends in a new area. Decided not to because it felt pretty
| unethical but I'm positive that is in large part why a lot of
| people go to church. It's a social event.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Consider just grabbing their flyer and showing up to the
| events, outside of the mass/service.
|
| I'm sure it varies by church, but in the large city
| churches I attended nobody would have cared -- or likely
| even noticed -- that you didn't also attend mass.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Haha, strolling up to the local church like "how do you do
| fellow christians, jesus saves amirite?"
| bragr wrote:
| Jokes aside, if you walk into your local average middle
| of the road protestant church, nobody is going to ask you
| anything besides "New around here? what do you do?"
| Churches are filled with people with tepid religious
| convictions so if you stand up and sit down and sing
| along when you're supposed to, nobody is going to pin you
| down on philosophical questions over donuts and coffee
| after the service.
| zapataband1 wrote:
| There's a few faiths and practices that come to mind that
| are imo seem to spread more positivity, Ba'hai faith and
| The Satanic Temple for example.
| drdec wrote:
| A good church will welcome a non-believer. It's an
| opportunity to change your mind.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I took it to be more about the ethics of supporting the
| religious institution. For all the good they provide they
| also normalise a lot of hatred and anti-social values,
| even when they preach the opposite.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I have gone from complete atheist to a fairly religious
| and I have never encountered anything resembling
| "normalization of hatred and anti social values" - but
| it's something I hear atheists talk about a lot.
|
| I don't know what to make of that - either I've been
| really lucky or the folks whose apriori stance is that
| there's no higher power and religion is bad, try to spin
| it that way.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I'm from Northern Ireland so grew up with a religious
| conflict in the background. Of course I understand it's
| different from church to church and place to place.
|
| But on the whole as I grew up and the conflict ended I
| still saw, for example, women's rights being denied, fast
| rights being denied and scientific fact (young earth,
| anti evolution) being denied by religious figures with
| political authority.
|
| From what I see around the world via the media much of
| these same values are limiting the same rights in the US,
| and even more so in the Islamic world.
|
| I've had many good experiences in churches myself and
| with being around religious people, but I'm also very
| aware of the experiences women and LGBTQIA+ people have
| in these environments and of how often church authorities
| have abused their power from covering up sexual abuse to
| exerting undue political influences or participating in
| what I would see as cultural genocides in the form of
| missionary colonialism.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Maybe so, but I would consider the "net good" of an
| institution, since most if not all institutions have at
| least some bad elements.
| [deleted]
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Ha, my church was anything but diverse. We all had the same
| ethnic background, same socioeconomic status, same religion
| (natch). We all ate the same food, celebrated the same
| holidays, and most of us went on to/came from the same
| handful of high schools and colleges. OK, you have me on
| ages, though.
| swayvil wrote:
| Thank you. Your advice is stunningly relevant.
| pradn wrote:
| For years and years of my life, I had enough friends to do stuff
| with, but with whom I couldn't really talk about things I cared
| about. I didn't realize what that did to me until way later, when
| I finally did find a few of sort of friends I was looking for.
| I'm trying to say that in-depth topical interests / ways of
| looking at life need to match as well - not just having someone
| to grab dinner with.
| browningstreet wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > These findings suggest that simply spending time with others
| (vs. alone) is not associated with a reduced burden of loneliness
| and may even backfire.
|
| As a member ranking pretty low on the socialization needs scale,
| I would suggest that the regular barrage of "you need a social
| life / people in your life at the end of your life" media isn't
| actually balanced with "learn how to be happy by yourself, and
| with yourself" counterparts.
|
| But I will concede this: I'm pretty happy being by myself most of
| the time. I miss my son when he's gone but I look forward to
| using my solo time fruitfully (if even that means vegging on the
| couch binging something).
|
| But what _can_ feel distressing, and loneliness inducing, for me
| is when I get the urge to be social and can 't drum it up. It
| sometimes feels like the urge to be gregarious arrives inversely
| proportional to its opportunities... the few people in your life
| just aren't available, and sometimes you visit a coffee shop or a
| grocery store and no one will make eye contact with you, and
| sometimes you try and run a few quick errands in peace and
| everyone seems out to chat with you.
|
| I've learned to experience each with grace, but neither flow
| really changes what I usually need, and how much of it.
| samgilb wrote:
| "I have seen others enjoying while I stood alone with myself...a
| mere dead mirror on which things reflect themselves" - W.B.Yeats
| steve918 wrote:
| For me it's more about lack of connection. My loneliest times are
| when I'm at home with my family, but we're just occupying the
| same space. If I actually make an effort to connect by sharing
| what's going on in my life or talking about the future then it's
| a lot more positive.
| gbolcer wrote:
| I skimmed through the paper and the comments, but my real
| question is: is online social networking considered a crowd and
| does it have the same effects?
| bevan wrote:
| Since quitting caffeine and alcohol, I rarely get lonely. In
| fact, quitting those drugs seems to have helped reduce the time I
| spend in any negative emotion. I still have acute bouts of
| [whatever negative emotion here], but I rarely get mired in them.
| This seems to have less to do with any change in my living
| situation since the switch (I often hermit away, as I did before)
| and more to do with being in a more resourceful state more often
| (which neither drug helped with).
|
| I suspect that alcohol and caffeine-induced negative emotion is
| widespread. Even a glass or two of alcohol can affect your sleep,
| and less REM sleep means less emotional regulation. I know
| basically everyone's on caffeine, but ingesting that can
| accentuate the peaks and valleys of one's emotional experience.
| The alcohol and caffeine-induced troughs may be sub-clinical, but
| they're probably real for a lot of people.
| survirtual wrote:
| Okay.
|
| What works for you doesn't work for everyone.
|
| My baseline "sober" -- no caffeine, no anything -- is
| crippling, paralyzing depression. Hiking is my drug of choice,
| but I need to be hiking all day, nearly every day, for months
| for it to take action, and that is not compatible with existing
| in society.
|
| Without hiking, and without any other support, then I revert to
| existing as a pool of dark sludge on a bed all day. I spent
| years this way before I decided to set aside my pride and
| accept that having a little help -- caffeine at a minimum -- to
| be functional is better for my health than any perceived ideas
| around addiction or "purity".
|
| Coffee / caffeine can take me from a non-functional, paralyzing
| mental disability to being able to move around and have
| momentum.
|
| And yes, there are circumstances that can change where this
| wouldn't happen and I wouldn't need a support like that: a
| world-wide revolution resulting in the liberation of all
| mankind from the dystopian hellscape we are in / plunging
| ourselves further into would do it.
|
| Short of that, I'll stick with a couple cups of coffee a day,
| thanks.
| bevan wrote:
| Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. I relate to this because I've
| dealt with depression too, which I also medicated in various
| ways.
|
| Other than quitting the two aforementioned drugs, what helped
| _a lot_ for me was living in a more evolutionarily consistent
| way. Especially around nutrition, sunlight, and sleep. I made
| this the focus of my life for about a year because the
| alternative was, well, you know about that.
|
| Good luck.
| survirtual wrote:
| In the grand symphony of life, navigating its dissonant
| notes--our societal complexities--calls for a harmonious
| tune within ourselves, finding resilience in our daily
| rituals, shared experiences, and self-discovery, while
| cherishing the understanding that seeking help is not a
| discord but a beautiful part of our shared composition.
| spacemadness wrote:
| Caffeine? Care to elaborate?
| htag wrote:
| I'm glad you found something that worked with you. This type of
| experiment (consume less self administered psychoactives and
| access emotional changes) is something I would encourage
| everyone to do. However, it's a common mistake to take an
| experiment with a small sample size and assume it's results
| will generalize well over the population. For that we can look
| to the scientific literature. Inside we find it's well
| supported that increasing dose of alcohol is associated with
| increased depression. We do not find the same amount of support
| for caffeine/coffee, where it's more plausible there is a
| negative correlation between caffeine and depression.
|
| Your experiment is great because now you know what works best
| for you. The way you talk about it seems to indicate that you
| use the experiment as a basis for knowing what is best for the
| population at large. A scientific study is a much stronger
| piece of evidence for shaping our views on how alcohol/caffeine
| effect the population.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I find caffeine is best reserved for when you really need it,
| and treated as a useful drug (Easier for me because I dislike
| tea and coffee and take it in pill form) in certain situations.
| Akin to taking painkillers for a particularly bad headache.
| tsss wrote:
| Good to hear that we have found yet another reason to move
| attention away from lonely men who haven't had a friend for 20
| years to those that really need it: popular people who are sad
| about not being allowed to go party for two weeks during covid
| lockdown.
| thirdreplicator wrote:
| So much discussion of loneliness on this forum makes me think
| y'all are in the wrong country. Feeling lonely? Come to the
| Philippines! Sunnier, family-oriented, cheaper, everyone wants to
| have a relationship with foreigners (both men and women),
| waterfalls, sandbars, diving, cheap food and housing, and
| recently 200 Mbps internet. Been married to a Filipina for 14
| years. So far so good. I came here from Silicon valley as a
| digital nomad and still here as a father and a husband. (Been
| back and forth though over the years.) Being a programmer and an
| introvert with a family of 3 children, creates the opposite
| problem of having too much social interaction and not enough
| alone time. Recently I've been able to negotiate more alone time
| with my children as my youngest is 8 years old, and they have
| lots of cousins to okay with. Overall, I think humans need to be
| with each other. Living in our little boxes by ourselves staring
| at screens is not natural.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Of course, if you go to some event and you're the only one, or
| one of the few without a partner or a group of friends, it's
| gonna feel shit.
|
| It's why so many people don't want to go to the movies or to the
| restaurant alone.
|
| If you go to the park and see many happy couples on benches
| kissing and you've been single and alone for a while, it's gonna
| be soul crushing.
|
| On the other hand if you go to an event where everyone goes alone
| or doesn't know anyone, you don't feel bad at all.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I was listening to The Big Picture podcast, of which the
| podcasters watch way more movies in the theatre than I ever
| could. They seem like raging extroverts, but I guess a lot of
| podcasters are. One of them poked fun at men watching a movie
| alone in the afternoon not being dating material. The host
| (mostly?) was joking as he was watching the latest Transformers
| movie alone. It's not just feeling alone in a crowd in that
| situation---people fear being judged as well, like being
| forever stamped with "not dating material" on your forehead
| regardless of it being true or not. It kind of bothered me that
| he focused on that as it just adds to the social stigma.
| robga wrote:
| I love going to the movies alone or a restaurant alone.
| Sometimes when I have half a day without family around these
| are exactly the activities that I choose to undertake. It's not
| rare.
| cubefox wrote:
| Yeah. The best example is going to a party/bar/club alone,
| while most other attendees are there with their friends. Being
| there alone can feel incredibly awful, except if you are a high
| extraversion type who can make new friends quickly.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| I see a lot of people disagreeing with you, but HN is heavily
| biased towards a certain type of person, so it's not
| surprising. Most people don't want to do those things alone, I
| couldn't even imagine going out and eating alone.
|
| Going out alone where everyone else is together feels terrible.
| It's part of why I despise work parties at Christmas, because
| in that case feeling terrible is mandatory.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I love doing both things on my own. I also deeply enjoy doing
| them with friends. Both things are fine. Both can be great
| experiences.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Couldn't disagree more with this.
|
| I've been alone my whole life and wouldn't want it any other
| way.
|
| I go to the movies alone, go out to eat alone. Who cares?
| Certainly not me.
|
| I do what I want when I want and it's fantastic. I couldn't
| care less that other people around me are "together". I've
| never had any desire for that.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| You don't want social connections which is fine, but most
| people do want them.
| avocadoburger wrote:
| hey, movies alone are pretty cool, and I like to think of
| myself as a sociable person
| drewcon wrote:
| I absolutely love going to the movies alone.
|
| One of life's great gifts.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I loved going to the movies alone. Pre-Covid, that is. Haven't
| been to a movie theater since.
|
| For some reason, that never felt weird to me. Unless it's a
| super hero movie or something similar, that kind of movie is
| more fun with friends.
| em-bee wrote:
| it depends on the motivation for going to movies. i like
| watching movies alone, because i don't want to be disturbed
| when focusing on the story. if i were someone who really
| enjoyed the big screen, i'd happily go to a movie theater by
| myself too. as it is, i don't care about big screens and high
| resolution as much, so my tv or computer screen at home is
| enough. that leaves going to movies for social events, which
| i actually don't like as much as it invariably leads to more
| disruptions.
| foxtrotwhiskey9 wrote:
| I was terribly shy very depressed for most of my life since
| childhood. I've come a long way since then but I started going
| to EDM shows alone in my home city in my mid-30s recently and
| damn has it shifted my perspective on going out alone, talking
| to strangers. I've made so many new diverse friends and it's
| really helped my own struggles with loneliness. It has been
| overall been positively transformative to me.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| During the pandemic I moved out to the middle of nowhere in NY
| State. I am surrounded by nature, wildlife, and my neighbors are
| barely within shouting distance. I rarely ever see friends, go to
| coffee shops, restaurants, clubs, movies, shopping, etc. And I
| have never been so _not-_ lonely.
|
| My time is filled with activities and projects so I barely have
| enough time to just sit with a cup of coffee. When I do, I have a
| whole backyard full of flora and fauna to look at and listen to,
| like one of those YouTube channels streaming nature sounds.
| Country folk have the right idea living out here. You don't miss
| what you don't see.
| sornaensis wrote:
| The worst feeling in the world is being a bit lonely, and then
| being by yourself in a place where you are surrounded by groups
| of people. I got more depressed more often trying to go do social
| things in uni than I ever did physically being separated from
| others and actually by myself.
| Hnaomyiph wrote:
| Yeah, I've noticed this recently. As I spend more time with my
| current friend group in the new city I live in, the worse I
| feel because it seems like we're just surface level friends,
| whereas when I spend time with my friends back home it greatly
| lifts my spirits because it's a genuine connection.
|
| It's a an extremely odd feeling because from the outside I'm
| sure it looks like I have a great social life and good friends,
| but I've never felt more alone in my life. And I'm not sure how
| to address this conundrum, on one hand I want a stronger
| friendship with this new group of friends and don't want to be
| alone, but at the same time it seems as if I would be happier
| if I disconnected myself from the group and was actually alone.
| damascus wrote:
| It was this type of setting that showed me the huge difference
| between being lonely and being alone. I'm rarely lonely when
| I'm alone. Thankfully I have long since engaged in social
| activities and have a great social life now, but even still
| that feeling is just below the surface. I went to the club with
| two girls the other night and when they both went to the
| bathroom together I was by myself in a club and even though I
| knew it was just for a few moments that old feeling was right
| there again. We are indeed social creatures.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| This might be weird, but I only feel lonely when I try to improve
| my social life (and inevitably fail). When I sort of give up and
| fall back to my usual routine, I do not mind being alone. I am
| sort of so far away from all of THAT, that I do not even have the
| desire for human connection.
| em-bee wrote:
| makes total sense to me. if i were content to be alone, i'd not
| bother trying to connect. what stops me from being content is
| that i fear i might not be content forever, and also that i
| being alone is not how i want to live, even if i were to find a
| way to be happy with it because i believe the future of our
| society depends on building community and connections.
| stef25 wrote:
| How long has that been going on for? If it goes on for many
| years you might find yourself very alone during times you
| really don't want to be. Made that mistake myself and wish I
| had not.
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| [dead]
| notShabu wrote:
| IMO most of what is "connectedness" or "anti-loneliness" is an
| illusion. Like those movie scenes where two actors mirror each
| other's movements to create the illusion of a mirror.
|
| That is, connectedness requires an external structure to
| synchronize everyone's rhythm. This can be a sports team, a
| religion, a shared love the same anime or breed of dog, etc...
|
| Loneliness feels more pronounced when in the presence of these
| illusions. It's not easily solved because from the pov of the
| lonely person, he/she is asked to believe the equivalent of
| "2+2=5" in exchange for that kind of connection. It feels like an
| ask to self-lobotomize. (even if from the pov of say a therapist,
| the client is actually just in a different kind of illusion)
|
| * "illusion" can have negative valence so an alternative here is
| "story" or "pillar of meaning"
| codeangler wrote:
| If the _feeling_ of loneliness starts with a sensory/somatic
| experience then to know it means it is interpreted. If it is
| interpreted then it went through a filter of values and beliefs.
| And all of this is contextual to environmental cues
|
| In other words if we could stimulate the same somatic experience
| in people then some may find relief and others distress and
| others may not notice it amounts the billions of sensory input in
| any given moment.
|
| Want to feel (dis)connected. Change the somatic experience?
| Change the environment/context? Change the interpretation?
|
| My mantra for a while
|
| "I am a tree in woods" ( reminded that I'm part of a connected
| system)
|
| "I am a tree in a field" ( I'm unattached )
| Isamu wrote:
| This is especially true if you find it hard to start
| conversations and connections. I would feel very lonely in a
| large unfamiliar group at university. But go walk through the
| woods and the loneliness is gone.
| laiwjrtlai wrote:
| Robin Williams (might have) said:
|
| "The worst thing isn't being alone. The worst thing is being
| surrounded by people who make you feel alone."
| Iridescent_ wrote:
| Being alone when there is no one else is just normal. Being alone
| in the middle of everyone else is what loneliness is.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| _"I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up
| alone. It 's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with
| people who make you feel alone."
|
| - Robin Williams_
| FBISurveillance wrote:
| I miss Robin Williams, it's terrifying that someone who looks
| like a happy and fulfilled person may end up... not being one
| day, out of the blue.
| arolihas wrote:
| He did have Lewy-body dementia so it's not like he had a
| sudden lack of fulfillment out of the blue. Still terrifying,
| though.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I wonder if it relates to depression and suicidality. Often
| people who died from that seemed pretty social. Maybe they were
| suffering excessively from loneliness in other people's company,
| with a smile on their faces and would be better off if they were
| left alone for a prolonged while instead?
| skim_milk wrote:
| A significant portion of people committing suicides (no one
| knows how much %) are likely to be clinical or subclinical
| Borderlines. This population isn't shy because they critically
| rely on others in order to regulate their emotions for them.
| kathlam wrote:
| Sometimes the 'cheeriest' people are the most depressed. I
| think Robin Williams is a prime example.
| some_random wrote:
| At college there was program where student volunteers would hang
| around high traffic areas and "cheer people up" by shouting at
| passersby to tell them they're loved or whatever. Obviously, this
| only makes actually depressed and lonely students feel worse.
| It's exactly the kind of thing that someone who'd never felt
| depressed in their life would come up with, and when I mentioned
| this to some of the people involved in the program they were
| absolutely flabbergasted.
| nmz wrote:
| I don't know if I'm depressed given I've never been a
| psychological assessment. But if I were down the road minding
| my own business and someone shouted this at me, my first
| thought would be "by who?". So this would be an immediate
| reminder of solitude.
| swayvil wrote:
| Probably needed more strong eye-contact. Nothing induces
| positivity like shouting, big toothy smile, and strong eye-
| contact.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| That sounds positively scary. Also, there will be no eye
| contact unless both sides are willing to maintain it.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I'm just going to add a "woosh" here for the literalists in
| the crowd replying to this.
| swayvil wrote:
| Wolves and monkeys do that when expressing threat and
| dominance. But we use it to say "hi, I want to be your
| friend". Hmmm.
|
| Reminds me of "interrogative greetings" : WHAT'S UP?! HOW
| YOU DOING??! WHAT'S GOING ON??!!
|
| My vision of the future is a big, smiling, full-eye-contact
| WAZZZUP!!!! in your face, forever.
| charles_f wrote:
| They just need to add more flair, right?
| rini17 wrote:
| Don't forget uninvited and thorough intrusions of personal
| space! /s
| JohnFen wrote:
| See someone looking down? Just give them a surprise hug! /s
| swayvil wrote:
| Surely there's a money angle. I'm looking for a new
| career.
| msie wrote:
| It actually worked for me a couple of times because it
| was someone I was attracted to!
| JohnFen wrote:
| You probably weren't a stranger to them, though.
| stef25 wrote:
| Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but I recently met
| a girl with an amazing smile and tons of confidence who
| stared in to my eyes for hours on end and it's exactly that
| which had such an effect on me.
| [deleted]
| jakear wrote:
| Most assuredly not the same as someone getting in your face
| as you're walking by as part of their generous volunteer
| effort to save you from your sorry life.
| 93po wrote:
| I experienced something very similar. I was very lonely and
| very depressed at one point in high school and while sadly
| walking home one evening, a group of 5 or 6 high school girls
| enthusiastically approached me at a nearby shopping area and
| asked if I was ok. They asked who I was friends with and told
| them no one, really. Which was true and not just me being
| dramatic. They all cheerily told me they'd be my friends. Even
| though I mostly knew it was just lip service at the time, it
| still hurt to hear it and have it be dangled in front of me
| like that. Obviously I never heard or saw them ever again. This
| was right before cell phones were popular with kids so it
| wasn't natural to ask for numbers bc most of us didn't have
| one.
|
| As an uplifting note, I'm happy and much less lonely 20+ years
| later :)
| HeckFeck wrote:
| For those volunteers, that is a great example of doing
| something to make yourself feel better at the expense of the
| others you're claiming to help.
|
| It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up
| in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but
| that is not the experience for everyone.
| johnweldon wrote:
| > For those volunteers, that is a great example of doing
| something to make yourself feel better at the expense of the
| others you're claiming to help.
|
| In this statement, you're subtly doing the same thing -
| assuming the motivation of the volunteer.
|
| I agree that "help" without actually understanding the need,
| or without the invitation of the helpee, tends to be more
| meddlesome than beneficial.
| throwitfarpls wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| That's a really cynical villainization of good faith effort.
| as the OP said, they didn't know better. Once they knew, did
| they keep going?
|
| In the end, I'd rather people try than not. Because I am
| observing that the more common trend is to not bother,
| because you're not going to get it right anyway.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| If you want to help someone, you'll put in some effort to
| find out what said person/group actually needs. Evidently
| the aforesaid volunteers did nothing of the sort, so I'll
| maintain my cynicism.
|
| If I say that I really care for the plight of conjoined
| twin myslexia sufferers, but just throw a big parade to
| raise awareness of them, while never asking the sufferers
| what they actually would like, what does that say about me?
| Ref: the Nurse Gollum episode of South Park.
|
| As an aside, if you've ever had people tell you they really
| care for you yet they never put any effort into
| communication/empathy/understanding, you'll recognise this
| pattern as the same. Basically, charlatans. They want the
| praise of doing good without any of the effort or risks.
| lumb63 wrote:
| Those volunteers took the wrong approach, since they
| didn't ask the people they were trying to help, what help
| they actually needed. But in my experience, the group
| they were targeting is very difficult to productively
| converse about their needs with.
|
| People with mental health issues oftentimes don't know
| what their problem is or how they can be helped.
| Sometimes they can't conceive of solutions outside their
| current mental space or understanding. Additionally,
| sometimes simply asking them what amounts to "I noticed
| something wrong with you and I'd like to help"
| exacerbates the feeling of "something is wrong with me"
| rather than "I'd like to help".
|
| The above is true for more issues than just mental health
| issues, as well. I definitely support asking people what
| they need and tailoring solutions to their individual or
| group needs, but it's not as easy as your post makes it
| sound.
|
| If you or others have advice regarding specifically how
| to help people struggling with mental health, I'd love to
| hear it. I have a lot of loved ones who have struggled or
| are struggling with mental health issues, and I haven't
| found any approach which does work.
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| I know many people with mental health issues (including
| myself), but my sample isn't terribly generalizable as
| they're either from my family or my wife's family. For me
| personally, the scenarios I've opened up in are, without
| exception, intimate. The absolute maximum has probably
| been 5 people in conversation, and it has always been in
| scenarios where time feels plentiful. It also helps
| tremendously if others break the ice, though that's not
| always a requirement.
|
| For these volunteers that are trying to improve the mood
| of those struggling with no prior credibility or
| relationship, my best guess would have been organizing
| something like a series of cafes where people can come
| and pet consenting animals. Have volunteers be available
| for conversation, but defer agency in that process to
| participants. I would consider things like have a
| rotation of volunteers semi-clandestinely engage in alone
| time with the animals so that socially anxious
| participants don't feel overly conspicuous if they also
| need to be alone. I might also have some PPE on-hand for
| those especially anxious about hygiene. I'd probably look
| a bunch of stuff up to see what accommodations are
| helpful to people of various mental struggles, figure out
| a subset that seems plausible and give it a shot. That's
| my best guess.
| iamben wrote:
| Oof. Whilst I get where you're coming from, I don't think
| it's evident at all.
|
| I spent my time at university doing way less (drinking
| mostly). These folk actually had to make a decision to
| give up their time for something more than themselves.
| They found something that a) probably gave them a sense
| of purpose and b) they thought was helping.
|
| I'd assume for those involved someone told them "this is
| our plan, this will help people, here's what you need to
| do." Because they didn't talk to those suffering, or go
| away and research it doesn't mean they didn't think it
| was helpful, even if it was misdirected help.
| karmakaze wrote:
| > If you want to help someone, ...
|
| The difference in interpretation is that one is about
| _actually_ helping, while the other is about having an
| earnest desire to help and taking action which may not
| actually help or possibly be detrimental.
| rideontime wrote:
| "Cynical villainization of good faith effort" is a great
| way to describe many South Park episodes, in fact.
| dingnuts wrote:
| When the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it's
| not cynical to point out where the road is going.
| swampthing wrote:
| Is that accurate though? Standing on a street and yelling
| at people actually requires effort, and arguably some
| risk.
|
| It seems more likely that a lot of these people actually
| do want to help others but simply didn't consider the
| possibility that what seemed helpful to them wouldn't be.
| You can want to help someone without being good at it.
| atlantic wrote:
| Shouting nice things at random groups of people is
| idiotic, and borderline insulting. A bit like throwing
| money in the general direction of Africa to help the
| starving. Whatever someone is going through, relating to
| them as individuals is a good first step.
| uoaei wrote:
| The intention matters little in these cases, and the
| consequences much. It is exactly the empty and
| superficial act of describing how much you care while
| remaining oblivious to their human needs and wants that
| makes the act so harmful. The obvious lack of care that
| is demonstrated while someone pats themselves on the back
| in that way deepens the feelings of social isolation and
| helplessness that caused the issue in the first place.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| The thing is that it's not just "not helpful", it's
| actually actively harmful in some cases.
| slingnow wrote:
| It doesn't matter that it requires effort. You don't get
| a gold star in these scenarios simply for putting in
| effort. If you didn't spend any time thinking about what
| someone in these scenarios might truly NEED, you're at
| best wasting everyone's time, and at worst doing harm to
| those you're intending to help.
|
| If you saw someone broken down on the side of the
| highway, and decided you would "help" by pulling over and
| rummaging around in their engine bay with a cheery
| attitude, then by your metric this is fine because it
| requires effort and arguably some risk. Who wouldn't want
| this kind of help, right?
| smoldesu wrote:
| > You can want to help someone without being good at it.
|
| Some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do
| without. I wouldn't encourage a well-meaning student to
| do my surgery if a gruff-looking surgeon who has taken
| their Hippo is around. Same goes with getting my car
| repaired, or discussing touchy topics like depression.
| It's fine if you want to help, but I'd rather you didn't
| if you have no idea what you're doing.
|
| Another brief anecdote: my high school growing up had
| been hit by a wave of bullying that left the staff
| extremely insecure about the way they handle mental
| health. So one year I showed up to school and they had a
| photo of every student in the halls on the wall, with
| enormous posters declaring "You are Loved" and other
| pithy quotes. Needless to say, 4 weeks later those same
| halls were utterly vandalized, with the posters tattered,
| threats scrawled under people's faces in Sharpie and some
| taken down entirely (often by bullying victims
| themselves). The administration didn't look before they
| leaped, and ended up using their authority to shoot
| themselves in the foot.
| louhike wrote:
| It requires effort but less than trying to understand how
| you could help them, so the point still stands. And even
| though they might genuinely help others, it's important
| to educate people to stop doing it this way, as it can be
| more harmful than doing nothing.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I think you are a bit harsh.
|
| You are thinking like an engineer, you analyze the
| problem, and try to find the most efficient solution. It
| is also my line of thought.
|
| But many people don't think like that. They value action
| and instinct above thinking and planning, and to be fair,
| sometimes, it is for the best. But sometimes, they do
| counter productive things that are infuriating for people
| with the mindset of an engineer.
|
| It doesn't mean they are not good people. They can be the
| kind who will run to save you while the engineer type
| will be stuck there thinking about the best course of
| action. I think society needs both.
| beebeepka wrote:
| > It doesn't mean they are not good people.
|
| It doesn't mean they're good people either. I am having a
| hard time believing that a person who would come up with
| such an idea is well meaning.
|
| Sounds like attempt to collect points for "trying to
| help"
| wpietri wrote:
| That is not in any way villainization. It was a polite and
| empathetic look at how well-meaning people could do harm.
|
| That they didn't know better is an explanation, not an
| excuse. If you are trying to intervene in other people's
| lives, it's on you to understand whether or not you are
| doing harm. And please miss me with the false dichotomy
| between "cluelessly cause harm" and "do nothing ever
| again". It's not hard at all to ask, "Would it help if..."
| or, "Was it helpful when I..." and then listen to people.
| ap99 wrote:
| > doing something to make yourself feel better at the expense
| of the others you're claiming to help
|
| There has to be some name for this phenomenon in psychology.
|
| > It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew
| up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood,
| but that is not the experience for everyone.
|
| Maybe there is a cycle with families similar to the idea that
| good times create weak people which create hard times which
| create strong people who create good times.
|
| A loving family creates people who only know love and don't
| understand disfunction of a family, who then create
| disfunctional families by not knowing how to avoid the
| pitfalls, which then creates people who have to struggle out
| of disfunction who then know how to create a loving family by
| avoiding the pitfalls of disfunction.
| yareally wrote:
| > doing something to make yourself feel better at the
| expense of the others you're claiming to help
|
| > There has to be some name for this phenomenon in
| psychology.
|
| Narcissism? I don't believe everyone that does this is one,
| but it's a narcissist trait.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I'm no psychologist, but from what I've read it's
| inherently damaging to be raised in a dysfunctional family,
| and that's more likely to lead to another dysfunctional
| generation. People from supportive families may not
| naturally be the most empathetic, but they're less likely
| to have issues with drugs, gambling, alcohol, violence, etc
| if I understand correctly.
|
| When you're impressed by those who have struggled out of
| dysfunction and became stellar people because/in spite of
| it, that could be selection bias.
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| From experience, being raised in dysfunction provides a
| model for (maybe?) survival, but if one wants to improve
| things, the only model you have is one of failure.
| Knowing what fails can be useful, but it is orders of
| magnitude more useful to know what works.
| mfer wrote:
| People who want to make good faith efforts are a valuable
| thing. They are willing to do the work and, typically, they
| genuinely care.
|
| Not everything they do will be useful. Sometimes they don't
| know what to do or are directed by others. When things don't
| work well, those folks should be redirected to more useful
| things and not chastised (which can kill motivation).
|
| Just my 2 cents
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Yes, and if their motivation disappears _after_ they've
| been instructed on the less feel-good more difficult
| intervention, _then_ they're fair game for ridicule
| explaininjs wrote:
| Consider if out of N they saw and attempted to speak with, a
| single person had "a switch flip" in their head to give the
| conversation a chance and they ended up forming a deep
| connection and lifelong friendship, perhaps going on to turn
| their life around completely. Would the "Ew. they don't
| actually care, i'm going to ignore them, feel bad about it,
| and complain to their bosses" of the %Depressed*(N-1) others
| outweigh that?
|
| In other words, what's P & Q here: for
| personThoughtVec of peoplesThoughtVecs: impact += P
| * dot(personThoughtVec, thought2vec("switch flip..."))
| - Q * dot(personThoughtVec, thought2vec("Ew..."))
|
| Personally, I'd put them orders of magnitude apart.
| 29vito wrote:
| this is the most HN comment i've ever read
| wpietri wrote:
| Yeah, as kid I thought "moral calculus" was literal
| advanced math, and was disappointed to learn that
| attempts to quantify morality had been abandoned. That
| turned to gratitude when I saw people actually attempting
| it in the wild.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Game theory and bayesian statistics are somewhat related
| to it.
|
| They don't quantify morality but they may explain the
| logic behind some moral judgment, and allow for
| extrapolation.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Game theory and bayesian statistics are somewhat
| related to it.
|
| > They don't quantify morality but they may explain the
| logic behind some moral judgment, and allow for
| extrapolation.
|
| Kind of, but this is a bit fuzzy langauge.
|
| Game theory can, if one assumes rational choice theory as
| a given [0], _re-explain_ what purport to be moral
| judgements on other bases as utility-maximizing decisions
| and infer actual premises from them, and Bayesian
| statistics can be used as part of that, or to reason from
| probabilistic factual premises to probabilistic factual
| conclusions as part of combined fact-value judgements.
| Maybe Bayesian statistics can even be applied to get from
| probabilistic value premises to probabilistiv valie
| conclusions in some moral frameworks (but only ones that
| explicitly incorporate Bayesian logic as a moral premise
| to start with.)
|
| [0] which may be a bad idea, because while it is
| sometimes a useful approximation, and is extremely
| convenient and tidy, rational choice theory is clearly
| false in the general sense.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Someone will figure out a way to mathematically map
| personalities out of a social profile and optimize for
| certain outcomes, and while posts like the one above may
| be made in jest, there will be someone who'll put it in
| practice.
| skim_milk wrote:
| I wouldn't necessarily consider 'always loved' a precondition
| to health. In some psychological literature, a necessary
| requirement to raise a mentally healthy adult is having a
| 'frustrating' mother who forces her child to separate and
| establish boundaries - and of course still have unconditional
| but boundaried love.
|
| Having an overly-loving, overprotective mother does not allow
| the child to establish boundaries in the same way as an
| emotionally abusive mother. Perhaps these children would
| become codependents or have fake, overdone empathy.
|
| There are two sides to the trauma coin! And with just two
| comments into the post, perhaps we've already seen both?
| some_random wrote:
| I never talked to any of them, but I guarantee you that they
| really thought they were helping.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Perhaps you should have stood next to them shouting, "You
| are helpful!"
| slifin wrote:
| Some people are completely blind to the negative externalities
| of motor vehicles
|
| Living near traffic noise increases your chance of stroke
|
| Probably not the best place to be putting impressionable young
| people looking for connection
| domador wrote:
| I think the reference was to foot traffic, not vehicle
| traffic.
| some_random wrote:
| First off, this was foot traffic.
|
| Second, not everything is about cars and bikes and shit, my
| god.
| coldtea wrote:
| I think that's basically off topic, and a very minor concern.
| goodpoint wrote:
| It's not minor at all as proven by scientific research.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| The concept of "counter-intuitive" is completely absent in some
| people's heads, and for most of them, there is no soil there
| for the idea to grow.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'm curious, as someone in my life seems to think I don't care
| about them, for those of you who have been in such depression,
| what have other people done that helped you realize they loved
| you?
| cpeterso wrote:
| Different people express and experience/receive love in
| different ways. You need to understand your loved one's
| personal "love language":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Is it obvious? Was it measured? I don't think being shouted
| towards counts as "being in other people's company" for the
| purposes of this article.
|
| I know I've felt depressed in my life. I can tell you, during
| those times, I almost certainty wouldn't have even noticed
| people shouting at me. At worst, it would have been a neutral
| effect, if it registered at all.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| One likely reaction:
|
| "Apparently everyone else is loved"
| slothtrop wrote:
| Signaling to an in-group and projecting identity is the point
| of these actions. The results are abstracted away and don't
| matter to people who do this.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It can work but for people too deep into depression it will
| indeed rub the lack of deep bond instead of boosting their
| morale.
| Spivak wrote:
| As a counterpoint I am clinically depressed, attempted suicide
| when I was in HS, and am generally a sad bop taken human form.
| At the time I still hadn't figured out the whole socializing
| thing and was lonely AF going off to college with no friends no
| support network. I _joined_ one of those groups after running
| into them a bunch. While I was a member (and eventually
| officer) we were voted "best student org" so somebody clearly
| liked us.
|
| The majority of our group was definitely in the camp of "I want
| to give to other people the help I needed." We ran a stupid
| amount of events -- everything form mental health counseling
| with the campus counseling services people, collabs with a
| queer healthcare providers, open dinners with free catered
| food, cooking classes, open parties on weekends which
| alternated between dry/not-dry, sponsored (like one of their
| friends would contact us) dorm cleaning/decorating to deal with
| depression tornadoes, open study sessions during exam season,
| we had "rent-a-spotter" (obviously actually free) in the gym
| for people who didn't anyone to go with, a few of the guys were
| in the campus runners club so they did open morning jogs,
| holiday parties for people who couldn't or ya know _couldn 't_
| go home, and yes standing in the quad with signs giving out
| high fives and hugs.
| some_random wrote:
| That sounds like an awesome group and I wish that was what
| was happening at my college. If for no reason than to get a
| spotter for the weird times I worked out at hahaha. I'm
| curious how the high fives and hugs thing worked, because it
| sounds more uhh, consensual?
| Spivak wrote:
| I'm gonna temper myself here because there's always the
| chance that there was some quiet resentment and discomfort
| we never knew about but from the inside these events were
| super successful. You are absolutely right that consent was
| like priority #1, #2, and #3. We always set up somewhere
| where people could easily avoid us entirely if they wanted.
| There's never any pressure it was like like "happy Friday,
| high five!" very low-key and if they weren't into it just
| pretend it never happened. And that kind of thing did
| happen but it wasn't super common, we had a bunch of
| regulars who would seek us out, professors loved it.
|
| We could have done without these kinds of events but they
| were super visible and honestly the best marketing we had.
| We never pitched other events while we were there but it
| got people to recognize our fliers and look us up on IG/the
| club website.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Those are the same people who go on to work in HR and come up
| with ideas like having all the minimum wage workers chip in $50
| for the CEO's birthday gift.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Is the anecdote you mentioned an actual incident that
| happened? I found [1] but it's unverified, and it's hard to
| believe it could occur because most places ban this kind of
| behavior due to the power dynamic between the employee and
| their manager.
|
| [1] https://www.newsweek.com/worker-refusing-contribute-
| towards-...
| Linell wrote:
| I can for sure confirm that this happens! It comes from
| good intentions, of course.
| coldtea wrote:
| I think the frequent advice to lonely people to "go talk to a
| professional (therapist etc)" has the same kind of effect in
| such cases. A sense that they can't even have people for
| support as friends etc, and they need to pay someone to do it
| or at least have someone do it only as their job description.
| bshacklett wrote:
| Perhaps, but it's also often the best way forward if one can
| afford it (affordability is another rabbit hole entirely).
| The right therapist can make an incredible difference in
| quality of life and, for some, can be the only way of digging
| oneself out of the rut that they're in.
|
| Having someone with an objective position who can help you
| see things differently is extremely powerful.
| alcover wrote:
| pay someone
|
| God.. that's indeed a crushing, last resort kind of advice.
|
| On the physical side of companionship there is the paid-for
| _" Girlfriend Experience"_ in the same vein.
|
| These are truly depressing considerations.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _they need to pay someone to do it or at least have someone
| do it only as their job description._
|
| Ignoring who is giving this advice and the actual state of
| the person being given the advice, this is more of a side
| effect of the poor (for patients) health care system in the
| US and negative perception of mental issues compared to
| physical issues.
|
| Untrained people can give bad support, especially to someone
| who is clinically lonely or depressed.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I disagree, most people have no idea how to deal with a
| depressed person and the need for a therapist does not
| necessarily mean a lack of friends. I go to the dentist to
| fix my teeth and that doesn't mean my friends aren't
| supportive.
|
| I'd say "go talk to a professional" is more or less the only
| useful advice one can give there.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Is it? Or is it just the safe thing to say without sticking
| one's neck out?
|
| I'd wager many depressed people would benefit from
| interacting with people who are not their psychiatrist.
| Lendal wrote:
| I never thought that. I knew seeking professional help was
| about trying to fix the underlying problem through therapy,
| not about paying for friendship. I'm in the process of doing
| this for the first time myself. I'm having a first
| consultation today and the irony is that talking to anyone,
| even a therapist, has increased my anxiety in the short term.
| But I believe it's necessary and I will get through it
| because I can't live this way anymore. There must be a better
| way to live.
|
| The reason I haven't done it earlier is because back in those
| days I had no health insurance and I knew it would be cost-
| prohibitive for me.
| nick__m wrote:
| I also get anxious before my therapy session and frequently
| feel drained afterwards but I found it to be quite
| beneficial and it gave me tools to deal with the
| existential dread that come with living with a partner who
| has metastatic breast cancer. I wish that your session will
| be as usefull to you as they are usefull to me.
|
| Even if I am a Canadian I am so grateful to have gold
| plated private drugs insurance as one drug she currently
| takes is not reimbursed by the public regime (they cost
| around 6000$cad/months) and neither are my therapy sessions
| but both are covered by my policy.
| coyotespike wrote:
| I agree and good for you. I guess all good relationships
| have some sort of similarity, but therapy is otherwise
| unlike friendship. It's one-way, that's the whole point,
| they listen and hold space in a way that doesn't work in a
| friendship! And they (hopefully) have a lot of professional
| training in doing so.
|
| Hope you find someone who can work with you in a productive
| way, best of luck!
| watwut wrote:
| If you are really lonely for a long time, you can very easily
| loose social skills. Effectively you become simultaneously
| lonely, simultaneously avoidance of people and simultaneously
| sabotaging potential relationships.
|
| The professional can actually help in a way that random
| people can't.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Pretty much all psychological advice given by people is at
| best useless and often very harmful. I used to have serious
| bouts of depression and social anxiety. All the well intended
| advice like "just go out there" "cheer up, it's not too bad"
| usually just made me hide even more.
|
| Looking for professional help can be even more depressing.
| Besides the money issue it's very hard to find a therapist
| you click with. I went to quite a few therapists. Some felt
| almost hostile or dismissive towards me and others just
| useless.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well here's to hoping that once the dust settles from the
| current LLM revolution, we'll get some proper AI therapists
| out of it.
|
| I've tested out some of the current LLama fine tunes that
| went in that direction and it's looking promising, if a bit
| crude and not quite smart enough yet at the moment. There's
| something far more comforting about having a non-human
| entity to talk to since it's always helpful, never
| dismissive, has no ulterior motives and it won't remember
| anything afterwards.
| andai wrote:
| I've found ChatGPT more helpful than any human therapist. I
| think that says more about human therapists than it does
| about AI though.
|
| It does a good job at the role of "friend that never gets
| tired of listening to you", because it's programmed that
| way. Which is kind of sad, I suppose. But I'd rather not
| burden my human friends with that stuff.
|
| (On a peculiar note, I really hope it isn't sentient! I
| wouldn't feel so comfortable "wasting its time" or asking
| stupid questions if it was!)
| munificent wrote:
| _> I think that says more about human therapists than it
| does about AI though._
|
| With respect, I think it says much more about the person
| receiving the care than does therapists or AI.
| nmz wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/widow-accuses-ai-chatbot-
| rea...
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Well... while this clearly didnt work on you... It may have for
| others. I can easily imagine someone who is on their own for
| the first time suddenly realizing they don't really know how to
| make new friends or talk to people. Someone shouts something
| positive at them, they respond and start a conversation, and
| from there a friendship might start.
|
| Is it going to happen every time? Nope. But lots of people are
| not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely.
| If someone else does, though, they will engage.
|
| I'm saying this as someone who has pretty bad social anxiety,
| doesnt really like talking to strangers, and someone who has
| pretty bad depression.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > I can easily imagine someone who is on their own for the
| first time suddenly realizing they don't really know how to
| make new friends or talk to people
|
| I can't. If you have trouble making friends that's obvious
| long before college.
|
| > But lots of people are not going to initiate an
| interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does,
| though, they will engage.
|
| People shouting nice words at me gives me the same vibes as a
| stranger asking "how are you?" as a greeting, just more
| aggressive and annoying. I may engage in a conversation but
| not if it's generic smalltalk.
| boopbeepbop wrote:
| I can, and this might have even worked for me in college.
|
| Everyone's different, I guess.
| some_random wrote:
| >Someone shouts something positive at them, they respond and
| start a conversation, and from there a friendship might
| start.
|
| The trouble is that this very much isn't what was happening.
| There was no room to respond, and in general I they think
| they weren't even yelling at any particular person. You
| certainly could stop and talk to them, but anyone willing to
| do that wouldn't be the kind of person who didn't know how to
| start a friendly interaction.
| rglover wrote:
| Just reminded me of this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_1FbjuJp4E
| nordsieck wrote:
| > when I mentioned this to some of the people involved in the
| program they were absolutely flabbergasted.
|
| I think that a lot of people have a difficult time
| understanding that good intentions can lead to bad outcomes.
| moffkalast wrote:
| And an even more difficult time accepting that people will
| hate them for it regardless of their intentions. After all
| it's all to easy to lie about having good intentions, even to
| yourself.
|
| We're evolutionarily hard wired to do what's best for
| ourselves, which often includes being altruistic to gain more
| social acceptance. That's why being "lonely" is a problem at
| all, we feel emotional pain to get us to work with the group,
| since that's what's always meant longer survival.
| munificent wrote:
| I think almost everyone understands that good intentions can
| lead to bad outcomes. But, also, everyone understands that
| good intentions can lead to good outcomes.
|
| Determining which is which is a very hard problem. One
| strategy might be, "Don't do anything unless I'm absolutely
| certain it will lead to a good outcome." If you do that,
| you'll miss out on many opportunities that _would_ have good
| outcomes but who 's certainty isn't up to your standards.
|
| So while the intention behind pointing out that good
| intentions can have bad outcomes is good, the outcome is bad.
| stockboss wrote:
| that's why there's the saying "the road to hell is paved with
| good intentions"
| jimkleiber wrote:
| And how hard it is to convince other people to believe in our
| good intentions.
| intothemild wrote:
| Yes, Another way of looking at it.
|
| I always felt hungry all the time, it wasn't till i started
| taking Semaglutide that hunger totally go away. When that did
| the thing I found was an understanding of people who don't have
| as much hunger as I used to, all saying things like "just eat
| less".
|
| For those people who say Just eat less, they don't understand
| that for those who have a hunger issue.. that it's not making
| them feel any better.
|
| Same with people who feel lonely or depressed... "Just smile or
| something"... That does the opposite of what you want it to do.
| rngname22 wrote:
| I think those people saying "just eat less" aren't implying
| that you won't feel hungry, but are instead thinking "you're
| killing yourself by being obese, better to suffer and feel
| somewhat hungry all the time than to die 10-15 years
| earlier".
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I don't think anyone really acknowledges that "just be
| hungry for the rest of your life" is a stupid expectation
| of fat people. I don't even think living another 10 years
| is worth it if you're hungry all the time, because I know
| what I'm like when I'm hungry and I hate it-- I hate the
| person I am hungry (cranky, rude, depressed). I wouldn't
| wish it on a fat person forever just for the crime of being
| a fatty. I'd rather fat people be happy, fat, and then die
| off quickly, than thin angry and depressed people
| surrounding me in a retirement home until dementia or
| alzhimers takes them slowly and brutally.
| slothtrop wrote:
| It's not the expectation.
|
| It's not well understood by people on average (and those
| dieting) how to mitigate hunger when restricting calories
| or how to successfully diet, but they are correct that a
| deficit is required to lose weight. That's physics and
| biology. The problem is the knowledge gap leading to
| strong-willed efforts that can actually backfire.
|
| For instance, there's body fat set point theory and
| metabolic adaptation. The more severe a caloric deficit,
| and more frequently a person diets, the worse your
| metabolic outcome. Your body will try to slingshot you
| back to your "original" weight (the one it's used to),
| with leptin as a regulator. But if you lose weight
| _slowly_ , and leverage resistance training, it leads to
| a better outcome.
|
| A prime issue is sustainability. Most people on a diet do
| succeed in losing weight; it's just that they gain it all
| back, _and_ they can end up with a worse metabolic rate
| than they started with, making it that much harder to
| lose weight again. Metabolic rate can actually recover,
| but the length for this seems to depend on the severity.
| Assuming a slow rate of weight loss, it can take almost
| just as much time as the diet period to recover metabolic
| rate. For the "Biggest Loser" contestants, it took
| several years.
|
| Leveraging the satiating and thermogenic effects of
| protein, fiber and resistant starch in diet also helps,
| for satiety.
|
| All of which to say, it's possible to lose weight in a
| sustainable way without drugs - notwithstanding the
| failure rate. The people who succeed in doing so are not
| necessarily "more disciplined", or "less prone to
| hunger", but they tend to have certain behaviors in
| common. One of them is exercise (particularly resistance
| training).
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I am totally down for fat people losing weight in a
| sustainable way that leads to better health outcomes. I
| think fat people in general should strive to lose weight
| through diet, exercise, and non-harmful medical
| intervention where applicable. I'm merely arguing against
| the very specific point that fat people should just learn
| to be hungry all the time, like that's an acceptable
| standard to expect out of anybody.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Sure, and I'm saying that's pretty much a strawman.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| It's not a strawman when it's literally the man I'm
| responding to.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Ah, well they're an idiot. I don't think it's a common
| sentiment.
| bt4u wrote:
| [dead]
| majormajor wrote:
| You can change your microbiome and metabolism and all,
| but it's _MUCH_ more complex than "just eat less" and
| isn't the same as starting with a natural genetic
| advantage anyway.
| [deleted]
| bumby wrote:
| While your point is well taken, I think this latest
| comment displays some dichotomous and uncharitable
| thinking. I doubt they meant you have to choose between
| being "fat and happy" or "thin, angry, and depressed."
| Surely, they were more likely to hope you could become
| "healthy and happy" but lacked some of the cognitive
| empathy to understand your situation.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| The parent poster literally said "better to feel somewhat
| hungry all the time". I disagree! I don't want fat people
| to feel "somewhat hungry all the time"! That sounds like
| a shitty existence and I a thin person would be appalled
| if we think that's just what it takes to be thin for some
| people! I acknowledge being thin for me is great: I eat
| when I'm hungry, I lay off a little bit if I know I've
| eaten a big thanksgiving dinner or something. I am
| _never_ "somewhat hungry all the time"!
| rngname22 wrote:
| The parent poster (me), isn't arguing that in all cases
| its better to feel hungry all the time than to be fat.
|
| The parent poster is arguing that for some individuals,
| the experience of being hungry would be preferable to the
| experience of being obese. Would you disagree with that?
|
| For some overweight and obese people, there are costs
| like sleep quality / apnea that CPAP might not solve
| (leading to all sorts of health issues), there can be
| sexual dysfunction (erection quality, difficulty even
| accessing the genitals or having sex in many positions),
| there can be shame and embarrassment (regardless of if
| you think society SHOULDN'T have that shame, the reality
| is many overweight or obese people feel it, and avoid
| certain settings and activities because of it), there is
| just the raw feeling of physical tiredness, back pain,
| knee pain, etc. that can come along with the physical
| stresses it puts on your body, I could really go on.
|
| For some people, those things ARE worse than feeling
| hungry most or all of the time. For some people, they CAN
| tolerate a mild or moderate feeling of hunger by
| distracting themselves or avoiding dwelling on the
| feeling, and they might find the other parts of their
| lives improve enough that it's worth it.
| bumby wrote:
| That's okay to disagree. But the idea of not eating until
| one is satiated is not new. Hippocrates said _" If you
| still have a slight sensation of hunger after a meal -
| you have eaten well. if you feel full - you have poisoned
| yourself."_
|
| I suspect the divergence in opinion comes from the how
| one defines well-being. Hedonic well-being tends to focus
| on fulfilling one's appetites, whether hunger or sex or
| whatever. The problem with that is humans tend toward
| hedonic adaptation and it can become an endless treadmill
| to try and feel "full". In a resource rich environment,
| this can obviously lead to a lot of bad outcomes.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| No, I'm not arguing against eating until satiety. That's
| fine. I'm specifically arguing against feeling "somewhat
| hungry all the time". That sounds bad and definitely not
| what I feel as a thin person and not an expectation I
| would have of fat people. I wouldn't even describe my
| satiety as feeling a little hungry. I just feel not-
| hungry, not-full, and I've been thin all my life so I
| think I understand what it's like to be thin and eat as a
| thin person.
| bumby wrote:
| The Hippocrates quote literally says remaining a little
| hungry. Now _you_ may think that 's a bad time, but my
| point is that it may be because how you define well
| being. The point is there are other frameworks to think
| about that. And that people have been doing so for a
| long, long time.
| fastball wrote:
| I feel hungry basically all the time (30 minutes after a
| meal I am hungry again, an hour and I'm at peak hunger
| until the next meal). I am thin because I only eat at
| "normal" times; I don't snack / I don't eat whenever I'm
| hungry (which would be all the time).
|
| You get used to it. People who claim to get "hangry"
| (like in those Snickers commercials[1]) need to get a
| grip. If hunger is all it takes to make you a shitty
| person then I think hunger isn't actually the primary
| issue.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shOiXy5b5Ro&themeRefr
| esh=1
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| TBH that sounds like a sucky life and I don't think we
| should expect all fat people to live it just because
| they're fat. That sounds like something's wrong with your
| hunger sensors or something.
| intothemild wrote:
| Exactly. I also think the other poster underestimates 1.
| How hungry you are 2. How often you're hungry
| (constantly) 3. What that's like to live with 4. What
| it's like for others to live with you when your hungry 5.
| How much willpower is required constantly.
|
| "Just eat less food" might as well be "just maybe don't
| have as much (insert addictive drug in here)"
|
| I never realised how much of a problem my hunger was
| until it went away. Now I don't know how I managed to do
| it.
|
| The whole point of all of this is that it's important to
| put yourself in others shoes, understand their
| perspectives. So, with that said... If it was easy to
| just not eat food, don't you think they would?
| bt4u wrote:
| [dead]
| david-gpu wrote:
| "Don't eat as much" sounds exactly like "Don't breathe as
| much". It is a miserable existence.
| bt4u wrote:
| [dead]
| hinkley wrote:
| Breath control is a pretty cool trick but you have to
| have a lot of free time to learn it. If you're an adult
| with responsibilities, good luck.
|
| Post COVID I'm subconsciously holding my breath every
| time I walk past someone in a store. If I had to think
| about it I'd never get anything else done.
|
| For food it's right there near the top of your task list
| every time you hit an interruption. Am I thirsty? Do I
| need to pee? Am I hungry? Did I promise anyone anything
| today? Is it time to feed the pets, pick up the kids?
| It's not "just" impulse control. It's interfering with
| all of your other impulses.
|
| I don't think neuro-boring people realize how many people
| around them spend their day trying to look normal instead
| of just being normal. It's an elaborate ruse and things
| like being hangry or in a loud venue make the facade
| crack and fail.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Can we agree it's a spectrum?
|
| There are some fat people for whom hunger is instant and
| incessant and a constant distraction, and perhaps losing
| 5 years of life at old age is worth it.
|
| For other people, maybe someone who's 20 lbs overweight
| and would like to be able to play with their kids without
| running out of breath, maybe the annoyance of being
| hungry isn't actually that bad for them.
|
| Pain is subjective. One person's excruciating pain - the
| same stimulus could be a mild annoyance to someone else.
| I've been tattooed for 6 hours and was able to easily
| distract myself and laugh while listening to a comedy
| podcast, other people can't handle holding their finger
| over a flame for more than a millisecond or can't eat a
| hot slice of pizza out of the oven.
|
| Pain and annoyance and discomfort can also be acclimated
| to. What might be really difficult and distracting might
| become something you get used to and learn to tune out.
| But then again, to be fair - maybe not. Maybe for some
| people that hunger is not something they can learn to
| live with.
| intothemild wrote:
| I love that this whole thread has been about people who
| don't seem to understand the experience of others, and
| you just compared having a 6 hour tattoo to living a
| lifetime of hunger.
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| I don't believe that was the intent of your parent. The 6
| hours of tattooing was instead a scenario they have
| personally experienced where they have also observed
| others having wildly divergent experiences from
| themselves, despite the same inputs, and are using that
| to bootstrap a framework for understanding how wildly
| different others' experiences with hunger might be from
| their own.
|
| It definitely belies a level of privilege that some
| people must intentionally seek out discomfort or pain in
| order to begin to even approximate the agony others are
| inherently forced to live through. I don't believe
| privilege is itself a moral failing, or we're stuck with
| whole categories of 'original sin'. It's what objectives
| its used to enable that potentially indict those that
| possess it.
| bumby wrote:
| The comparison was that for some it may be excruciating
| and that others it may not. Maybe a tattoo isn't the best
| analogy, but their main point is apropos to the idea that
| understanding the experience of others may be difficult
| when there is a wider range of experience than many want
| to admit.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| Okay but, again, this is a waaay higher standard to place
| on a fat person than a thin person just because they're
| fat. As a thin person I _never_ have to "learn to live
| with" somewhat hungry forever and I think expecting fat
| people to is stupid. I _never_ have to decide whether or
| not a lifetime of hunger is worth 5 extra years of life,
| or if my hunger isn 't so bad I can tune it out. That's a
| standard I don't hold myself to as a thin person, why
| would I hold a fat person to that standard?
| rngname22 wrote:
| As a thin person, you might have to learn to live with
| sexual urges that you cannot act on, on violent urges you
| cannot act on, on urges to scream at your boss for being
| a moron or better yet just walk out and never go back to
| work that you cannot act on.
|
| Some of those urges may be stronger for some people than
| for others.
|
| The same way that urges of hunger can be experienced
| differently by differently people (at both a signaling
| hormone / chemical level as well as a
| psychological/willpower equipment level).
|
| Are you suggesting that the feeling of hunger experienced
| by overweight and obese people is universally a higher
| standard than any other discomfort or natural drive
| humans experience?
| hinkley wrote:
| I used to drink soda as a fidget. I needed something to
| stim while poring over shitty code trying to extract
| cleverness. The preponderance of free soda situations in
| the 90's tells me there were a lot more of us hiding in
| plain sight. Several times I switched to water or tea and
| lost 10 lbs pretty quickly. Usually after bad news from
| the dentist.
|
| That's not a weight-loss plan though, that's a fit-back-
| into-your-current-wardrobe plan. People with "weight
| problems" are generally on an upward slope and a point
| source puts a notch in the graph, it doesn't zero the
| slope or take it negative. What it does say, if anything,
| is that there are factors we can control that moves the
| needle, but they are the journey not the destination.
| hinkley wrote:
| Boy this gives me new perspective on what insufferable
| little shits recent weight loss winners can be. They're
| hangry all the time, _and_ lost one of their favorite
| pastimes. So it's just gonna be lectures.
|
| Look, I used to be in better shape than pretty much
| anybody here. Unless you're an Ironman veteran I have
| nothing to learn from you about exercise and I can
| probably teach you a few things. But health problems,
| especially joint injuries, happen to old people, and they
| happen much more often to people who are rabid about
| exercise. I'm not you ten years ago. I'm you twenty years
| from now. So drop the smug bullshit and learn something.
| intothemild wrote:
| There's another tangent in here to be had.
|
| I'm someone who loves running, always have, the weight
| gain happened in my 30's, either because I had a kid and
| suddenly my ability to just run when i had free time
| disappeared, or because my metabolism slowed down, or
| most likely both and more.
|
| That said... Now I've started running again daily for the
| last year, one thing I've noticed. Beginning to exercise
| whilst overweight is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than it was
| when normal weight (or because i was 40, probably another
| "both" here too).
|
| One of the things that made me realise how much harder it
| is, was some fitness YouTuber put on 20kg of weights and
| ran, he noticed a number of things were different. Once I
| saw that it gave me enough fuel to continue ignoring the
| hunger for another month or so.
| hinkley wrote:
| I had a plan to walk a half marathon last year. High
| impact has never agreed with me, even when I was young,
| but definitely not now. Everything got put on hold when I
| got diagnosed with arthritis but I'm trying to get back
| in now.
|
| If I recall correctly runners estimate about 1 second per
| km per extra pound carried. That might not hold for body
| weight (cyclists had an old 1:2:10 rule of thumb that
| suggests that it might be better to lose 5 lbs than spend
| a fortune on a pack/bike that weighs 1 lb less, but that
| rule has been challenged and I don't know what the new
| wisdom is.
|
| Edit: kilometers not miles.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I obviously can't relate entirely, but I have bulked up to
| 220 for weight lifting and subsequently cut down to 165 for
| rock climbing and my stomachs capacity would swing wildly
| based on input. Think 8 hot dogs and buns easily at 220 to
| now where I get uncomfortable after half a burrito.
|
| I also think going from an in shape 220->165 was way harder
| than going from obese->healthy. It involved cannibalizing
| tons of muscle instead of fat, and your body will fight to
| preserve muscle.
|
| It wasn't no ice cream and soda, it was only having one plain
| hard boiled egg instead of two, pounding celery and sparkling
| water to fend off nighttime hunger, freaking out because I
| only poop once a week, having no energy or motivation and
| squashing philosophical doubts about the meaning of life.
|
| If I can do it just to climb rocks easier it feels realistic
| for obese people to do it to improve their health.
| msp26 wrote:
| I don't like to use the word just often but when I say this
| in relation to eating, it's as a response to the ridiculous
| diets and other restrictions people force on themselves to
| lose weight.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Semaglutide is fucking incredible. Stimulants don't touch the
| hunger but this does.
| tlogan wrote:
| Drugs such as Semaglutide conclusively demonstrate that it's
| possible for some individuals to eat less without
| experiencing hunger.
|
| Moreover, I find the word "just" to be problematic. It often
| acts as a command to disregard all other possibilities,
| indicating a lack of interest in delving deeper. Perhaps this
| perception is influenced by my experience as a non-native
| speaker. In my previous meetings with numerous venture
| capitalists and "advisors", some would evaluate my project
| and suggest that I "just" fix xyz. Is it really that
| straightforward? Have they considered other factors like abc?
| Do you want to learn more?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| As a native speaker, your experience with the word "just"
| is not unique. Your direct perception of the word, perhaps
| because you have to consciously translate it, may be more
| unique!
|
| But for native and non-native speakers alike, "just" acts
| as a dangerous semantic stop-sign. It's a command that's
| not even recognized as being a command, because it frames
| the discussion so that you have to argue for both the
| converse of the proposal and that the proposal is
| challenging for some reason that can't be obvious to the
| "just" user. It mis-primes even the speaker's train of
| thought to not to ask what would obvious follow-on
| questions.
| hhjinks wrote:
| A bit of a tangent, but the fact that some people just never
| feel full is so strange to me. My feeling of fullness _feels_
| like being _literally_ full; like my stomach would distend
| uncomfortably if I ate more. How can one _not_ have this
| sensation? The stomach can only fit so much food. Would
| physically expanding my stomach cause me to have to eat more
| to feel full, or is what I feel just an "illusion?"
| intothemild wrote:
| The feeling of full is still there. That's not the issue.
| The issue is that you don't feel satisfied unless you're
| full.
|
| Whereas people like my wife can feel satisfied before they
| are full. After Semaglutide, I now feel satisfied before
| I'm full, and then the full feeling comes after.
|
| Effectively stopping me from overeating both the amount in
| a single meal, and then the meals in between.
| celrod wrote:
| Given that gastic stapling/restrictive surgeries exist,
| perhaps this is related?
|
| I have a severely obese friend who got such a surgery. He
| is substantially healthier now, shedding over half his
| original body weight.
|
| EDIT: But see other replies on satiation vs fullness.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Unless I am eating something like unseasoned celery, the
| feeling of being physically unpleasantly full only comes
| after I've eaten _way_ too much food. If I ate to the point
| of feeling full on a regular basis I 'd be getting
| something like 4000 calories per day.
| skeaker wrote:
| By having a bigger stomach would be a safe guess.
| berberous wrote:
| Louis CK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be-NXGbepU0
| arrrg wrote:
| I feel full, I sometimes even feel awful after binge
| eating, but I feel full after maybe 5000-6000 calories.
| That's just too much.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| I can only speak for myself, but I normally only feel full
| after eating a _much larger_ amount of food than other
| people. There is a point where I feel like I can 't (or
| shouldn't) fit more food in my stomach, but it only happens
| after I've eaten thousands of calories.
|
| Like the GP, I am now on semaglutide, and the difference is
| remarkable. I now have a new sensation where I just _don 't
| want to eat more_ -- it takes mental effort to force down
| additional food even if my stomach is mostly empty. It's
| still easier to eat sweets than healthier food, but the
| overall reduction in appetite more than makes up for it.
| wpietri wrote:
| Yeah, I often think that "just" is code for "I assume
| everybody else's experience is exactly like mine". I had a
| period of significant back problems and I can't count the
| number of people who said, "Why don't you just..." and then
| pop off with something painfully obvious. I never actually
| shouted, "Oh, having just arrived on the turnip truck, I was
| unaware of stretching. Thanks so much!" But damn, I sure did
| consider it.
| NamTaf wrote:
| Agreed. 'Just' is code for 'I don't understand the nuances
| of the topic at hand' in my books too, and it was here on
| HN in particular that I came to realise that.
|
| I now actively try to avoid using that turn of phrase, and
| when I catch myself about to say/saying it, I check myself
| and remind myself that I'm also susceptible to this blind
| spot.
| hinkley wrote:
| You'd think we would know better.
|
| The old adage, "the worst beginning to a sentence is,
| 'Why can't you just...'" is something we understand
| viscerally. Seemingly doesn't stop us from doing it to
| others.
| bumby wrote:
| A former boss had a little sign on his desk that said
| "All you gotta do is..." as a reminder that seemingly
| simple solutions are often devoid of the necessary nuance
| and understanding of the problem.
| wpietri wrote:
| Totally. "For every complex problem there is an answer
| that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| I like to ask people how to spell said obvious thing. "Oh
| cool thanks for the suggestion. Yoga huh. Never heard of
| it. How do you spell it?"
|
| Try to maintain composure for as long as possible.
| hinkley wrote:
| Sleet? Isn't that frozen rain? How would I make it sleet
| more?
| hinkley wrote:
| "Just exercise, and get more sleep."
|
| Depressed people often deal with intrusive thoughts. The
| last thing you want is someone lying in bed, alone, while
| everyone else is asleep, entertaining those thoughts.
|
| One of the archetypes of depression+sleep disturbance is
| people staying awake until they are absolutely exhausted
| and then collapsing into a sleep that the apocalypse could
| not rouse them from. That's not a bad habit, it's a coping
| mechanism.
| tzm wrote:
| Now I'm curious about the psychology of Nike's "Just Do It"
| slogan.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| My children's elementary school has a nicely painted chair in
| the school yard, I think they call it Friends Chair or
| something. If a kid has no friends or no one to play with, they
| are supposed to go and sit on that chair and someone will come
| and play with them. I don't think people who came up with this
| idea understood how it works.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Thanks to the good graces of the internet I can speak
| candidly about this.
|
| When I was young it was drilled into me about making sure
| everyone is accepted and has friends, all that. So I would be
| the kid who would go make friends with the lonely kid.
|
| But then I would learn why they don't have friends, and I
| wouldn't want to be their friend either. Which makes the
| whole thing even worse, because now you came to them and then
| left them. So I kind of gave up on it.
| AlanYx wrote:
| It's a fairly common thing aimed at younger kids
| (kindergarten, grade 1). Usually the idea is that there are
| fifth and sixth graders who volunteer as playground helpers
| and who draw the younger kids to play with them if they're
| alone. Then a few of the younger kids get jealous this kid
| gets to play with the older kids and join in too, and it
| mostly works.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Maybe younger kids, but I could only imagine being harassed
| and ridiculed as an older kid sitting in the friend chair.
|
| It's like the difference when somebody gets hurt. Younger
| kids run to the hurt one to see if they're OK. The older
| kids tend to scatter and disappear as quickly as possible.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > It's like the difference when somebody gets hurt. (...)
| The older kids tend to scatter and disappear as quickly
| as possible.
|
| Definitely not my experience growing up. I'm sorry.
| javajosh wrote:
| This is misleading. All problems are easier to bear when you are
| connected to people dealing with the same problem. Conversely,
| all problems are harder to bear when you must deal with it alone,
| particularly when you feel you MUST deal with it alone. The
| implication is that if you feel lonely you should not seek out
| others, but rather others who feel lonely. They will understand
| you, and you them, and you can talk or sit or simply know that
| you exist, in far larger numbers than you'd expect, and find
| great comfort in the thought.
| trizoza wrote:
| If you want to feel real loneliness, go alone to a fair or a
| Christmas markets.
| silverpepsi wrote:
| I'm at a loss for how to explain the polar opposite results of
| two situations I've been in.
|
| I worked 3 year in an office in two different countries where the
| prevailing mode was absolutely silence, no socialization, no
| connection, no words beyond pleasantries about nonwork things.
| One office spoke my native language, one didn't. Those were both
| really dark depressing experiences. I often felt distressed by
| loneliness, of being a ghost haunting the human world.
|
| Currently I'm doing the nomad thing, don't speak the language for
| crap, and spend 3-10 hours a day in coffee shops working. I order
| at the kiosk so no human interaction. I people watch and feel
| fantastic. I have been here 6 months and haven't interacted with
| anyone during this time.
|
| Best guess: In the offices I feel like I had a strong expectation
| for my life to play out like an American office sitcom. I have no
| such expectation for random people in a coffee shop to ever speak
| with me. I think expectations alone determine the result, even
| for someone 9/10 on the psychologists neuroticism scales. If I
| hadn't experienced this first hand with years of personal
| evidence behind it to show, I wouldn't believe it could "all be
| in my head". But that's the only theory that works
| fluoridation wrote:
| For any given thing we desire to have, we have a set amount
| that we would like to have each day (or per amount of time) to
| feel satisfied. Total abstinence of a thing is easier than
| consumption restricted to below that set amount.
|
| When you're in total abstinence, you can forget that the thing
| even exists. It ceases to occupy your mind, so you don't feel
| like there's a want going unfulfilled. When instead you have
| just a little bit, far too little to satisfy you, the
| difference between the amount you're getting and how much you'd
| like causes intense anxiety that you have to deal with somehow.
| IAmNotAFix wrote:
| "It is better to be alone than in bad company."
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| I'd rather have shitty friends than no friends really, because
| shitty people are not shitty all the time.
| aubanel wrote:
| And yet poet Paul Valery said "A lonely man is always in bad
| company". I'd love to understand what he precisely meant by
| that though.
| spicyramen_ wrote:
| [dead]
| asylteltine wrote:
| The ONLY times I feel lonely are when I'm with people. I love
| being alone. People need to chill out and appreciate being alone
| more. God I'm so happy I'm not an extrovert it must be awful.
|
| My extroverted friend was so bad during Covid sometimes he would
| go to business just to be able to talk to someone.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Alone is when I'm happiest.
|
| People used to look at me really strangely when I said "I'd
| been hoping for this since I was fourteen" about the stay home
| measures during Covid.
|
| I _think_ I 'm reasonably fun at parties/events/neighbourhood
| conversations, and I'll go, have a good time, converse and joke
| around and whatever, but then I need a couple months to come
| back from it. I have near zero desire to be with people. It's
| exhausting.
|
| There are 3 or 4 people in the world that I spend time with
| that don't make me feel like that. Good thing my wife is
| usually one of them.
| htag wrote:
| I have a similar personal experience, except all social
| interactions make me feel like that.
| soco wrote:
| I'm extroverted but generally don't like people. So I could
| interact all fine and leave a good impression, it's just I
| prefer not to and mind my own business instead of listening
| politely to ramble. So there's no general solution to this.
| 93po wrote:
| It seems the solution would be to find people you like. If
| you struggle to find people you like then the solution seems
| it could be to figure out what you like about yourself.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Yeah, I am mostly always alone and I love it.
|
| I have never felt any reason to have it any other way.
|
| I already read that humans are "supposed" to be social, but
| then why am I happiest alone. I don't worry about it and I just
| live the way I like to live and it's worked out great.
| manicennui wrote:
| I left the city last year after living there for over a decade.
| I'm now out in the suburbs in an older neighborhood with lots
| of trees and big lots. I live alone and I've never been
| happier. Love how peaceful it is out here, and my neighbors
| mostly keep to themselves.
|
| I do wonder whether much of the introversion/extroversion
| problem boils down to those who have a rich inner life and can
| become lost in thought for hours and those who require constant
| external stimulation. It is likely a spectrum.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I concur, and I'm like you, but I also think we're edge cases.
| I believe most people are like your friend, which is why these
| studies of the gen pop usually turn out the way they do.
| scotty79 wrote:
| The edge is long and wide. I'm also like that.
| danybittel wrote:
| I believe "Loneliness" is a misnomer. The misery people feel when
| they are "alone" is not the lack of other people but the lack of
| connection. More precisely the disconnect with nature, oneself
| and to a lesser extend the community. A psychologist who studied
| loneliness said that the best remedy is time spend in the forest.
| If lonely people go and force themself to get around other
| people, they usually drag everybody down.
| soultrees wrote:
| I have to laugh, because I literally just got back from a week
| in the forest. I have a spot I escape to that I charge my
| laptop every night and then in the mornings I can drive up and
| work from my laptop overlooking an old growth forest in bc. And
| I get more work done, feel the best about myself, and just
| overall feel the modern society stress way less.
|
| It's funny because I found myself feeling very isolated and
| lonely the last few few weeks and without even thinking my body
| just packed a bag and drove out to this spot. And I have to
| say, I feel a million times better if anyone out there is
| craving the same thing.
| kodah wrote:
| I spent a year in more isolated parts of a war zone. I almost
| never felt "alone" because of the bonds I had with people while
| living life out there and daily tasks I needed to accomplish. I
| filled a lot of my time fixing stuff that had been ignored due
| to a lack of expertise and bureaucracy, which gave me a sense
| of purpose. I'd done harsh activities like burn duty, long
| watches, long patrols/convoys/missions and never felt they were
| a burden.
|
| Just before I left I returned to a larger base with many more
| people and I felt the loneliness wash over me like an ocean
| current. The day I was assigned to burn duty, which I'd done
| before as a community responsibility, because I was late to
| something put me in tears, mainly because I realized the people
| I worked with at a larger base were not actually my friends and
| we did not share a bond. I had left those people behind.
|
| My theory is that the forest requires you to do certain things
| every day so that you survive, which was one component of my
| avoided loneliness. If you do _just this_ for a long time I 'd
| suspect loneliness will still set in. You need people and,
| probably, a variety of them.
| vishkk wrote:
| Another distinction that will be helpful is between loneliness
| and solitude. Spending time with yourself in the forest,
| reflecting or enjoying your company would be the latter for me.
| wenc wrote:
| Would be interesting to see this study. I personally feel more
| lonely in nature, especially in forests. I need the energy of
| big cities to feel a warm glow. I suspect I'm not the only one
| and there's a large percentage of the population who are
| similar to me.
|
| When I used to live in small towns, I would have a strong need
| to periodically visit a big city to restore my emotions. I love
| the feeling of being in a crowd even if I never talk to anyone.
| I love the bustle and noise and potential for new encounters.
|
| Nature feels isolating to me. I wonder if I'm wired this way
| because I grew up in a big city. We're wired to look for places
| where we can feel we're "at home", and that's usually a
| function of childhood experiences.
| dotxlem wrote:
| I agree that it might be due to where we grow up ... I grew
| up in a forest on an island with few people living within
| walking distance. But I've been living in a small city for
| about 14 years, and more and more I long to go back to living
| somewhere were there aren't all these people around. Or more
| importantly, to somewhere so much more _quiet_.
| wffurr wrote:
| Being alone in the city, "alone in the crowd", feels just as
| lonely if not more so for me than walking alone in the
| forest. The latter I expect to be alone, but in the former,
| I'm surrounded by people but with no connection. It's a
| strange feeling.
| wenc wrote:
| There's a new lot coined word "sonder" that describes being
| alone in the city and observing others and wondering about
| their inner lives. As a writer this fills me with warmth
| rather than loneliness.
|
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonder#:~:text=(file)-,Ver
| b...)
| BizarreByte wrote:
| I grew up in a small rural area and experience this in the
| opposite direction. Sometimes I just need to get away from
| people, there's too many of them and crowds can be nerve
| wracking, not to mention noisy.
|
| There is nowhere on earth I am happier than at a family
| member's camp, deep in the woods away from everyone all by
| myself. Ultimately I think your last point is absolutely
| correct. I doubt I'd feel this way if this wasn't a lived
| experience while growing up.
| wenc wrote:
| Yes. I used to live in a smaller city and my friends were
| from even smaller places (small towns, farms). They have a
| relationship with open space and with crowds that I don't
| have. This is particularly pronounced here in the US where
| there's vast expanses and people love their backyards. I
| never had backyard growing up and never missed it.
|
| When I told them about my dream home being a 500 sq ft
| apartment in the middle of a bustling metropolis, they said
| the first thought they had was "claustrophobia".
|
| But for me, small spaces in dense areas give me joy --
| living in the midst of an exciting morass of people where
| people collide in Brownian motion and new ideas form feel
| like happiness. This notion is much more common in denser
| places like Europe and Asia.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| Disagree, I enjoy hanging out in nature, and when it's not
| possible I usually look at images on nature subreddits like
| r/earthporn. Always manages to calm me.
| wenc wrote:
| Sure. But consider that not everyone is like you. There has
| been a normalization of nature lovers in our time (mostly
| correlated with upbringing and environment, but in some
| cases possibly partly correlated with affluence ironically
| -- most of my nature loving friends like spending money at
| REI and posting nature photos -- if that was my hobby I
| would too -- yet I notice that there's a kind of mimesis
| going on where it's now cool to love nature) and it's an
| interesting reversal because in my day the opposite was
| true in my milieu (in a big city, so self selected
| population).
|
| I come from survivalist stock where my parents escaped
| smaller more rural places to make it in the city hence the
| opposite orientation. When my family moved from the
| downtown core to a more sparsely populated new development
| closer to nature (forest preserve next door) for my dad's
| job, my grandmother and rest of the family felt it was "too
| quiet". They missed the connections they had with the
| fishmongers and shopkeepers and the thriving commercial
| activity and convenience of being able to buy stuff.
|
| I suspect there is a bias that we see online because those
| who comment on sites like this and Reddit tend to be
| introverts and there's an intrinsic bias toward solitary
| activities like being in nature. I find the numbers to be
| more even in the non tech forum population.
| moffkalast wrote:
| These two aren't mutually exclusive tbh, both being in
| rural areas and cities has its pluses and minuses. Living
| in some area that's on the edge of a city that lets you
| have both seems like a good compromise to that. Nature a
| short walk one way, practicality and connectivity a short
| walk the other way.
| kentiko wrote:
| I think I am same as you. I recently noticed that listening
| to birds singing make me feel incredibly melancholic. I was
| very lonely for a few years. I was listening to the singing a
| lot when I was at my place, and now I have associated birds
| singing and loneliness. It is unfortunate that something so
| calming and beautiful now makes me feel sad. It has become
| the sound of loneliness to me.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Forest, ocean, desert wandering, anything that will take you
| out of your norm and reconnect with nature (and oneself) will
| help. I went through loss and found myself pretty lonely and
| disconnected. I went sailing, against the better judgement of
| my wallet, to reconnect and prove (again) to myself that I'm
| amazing. I have strong will though so YMMV. Tell me I can't do
| something and I will make it my mission to do it.
|
| If you are struggling with connection, stop thinking. Really.
| Stop thinking about whatever is going on with you and start
| listening. Talk with people and get to know them. Use that to
| determine if you would like to keep that person in your life or
| not. Connections are easy to make when you aren't trying to
| force it. Just let that guard down, realize we all have a
| story, and ask folks who they are and they will gladly tell
| you. If you struggle with making conversation then I suggest
| you start there. Say Hi to anyone within 20 feet of you today.
| If they are there longer than 5 minutes, strike up a
| conversation. Make a joke. Commend them on their clothes or
| shoes or something visible. Show some empathy for what they are
| going through at the moment and you'll be making friends in no
| time.
| etothepii wrote:
| I think this is good advice, but I'm often surprised that the
| advice isn't more formulaic.
|
| Like, "5 questions to ask someone you've just met." It might
| not be the best approach but I'm sure it's better than
| standing around. Some examples that spring to mind. "What
| brought your here to day?", "what's the best way to remember
| your name?", "where was the last place you went on holiday?".
| Etc.
|
| I suspect that for people who are "bad" at connection any
| practice is good. I like to keep a pack of cards in my pocket
| for a couple magic tricks, as I can always then ask "would
| you like to see a trick?" Very rarely is the answer no.
|
| But then could I honestly say any of this moves the dial
| drastically? Probably not, but I do meet more interesting
| people than I think I would otherwise.
| afterburner wrote:
| > they usually drag everybody down
|
| This is weirdly concerned with other people in the context of
| mental health advice for someone. "You're a bummer, go hide in
| a forest so we don't have to see you."
| closeparen wrote:
| I used to go hiking alone often, but after some wildlife
| encounters and near-misses with injury I decided I'd rather be
| with a group. At campsites I tend to be too alert to fall
| asleep, but the sounds of other campers nearby give me enough
| comfort to relax. Natural environments reinforce, not lessen,
| how we need each other.
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| This is a ridiculous take on loneliness that goes against
| modern psychology, despite "a psychologist" saying otherwise.
| We are a social species. We need others to be happy.
| yakubin wrote:
| "Social species" is a generalisation. As such, it's not a
| good argument against a more particular statement. (Different
| species aren't born with an axiom of solitary/social which
| would then produce more particular consequences, but
| particular behaviours are imperfectly generalised into a
| taxonomy. The specific here has a higher weight than the
| general.)
|
| What I see in online discussions is people repeating this
| mantra, because it agrees with their own inner experience.
| But it's unnecessary to force this onto others that this
| doesn't resonate with as much, invalidating their
| experiences.
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| Infants deprived of social contact who have their other
| needs met, will die.
|
| Solitary confinement is a form of torture.
|
| We are a social species. Social interaction is core to our
| survival and critical to our well-being.
| kiklion wrote:
| We are a social species, but we also heavily compare
| ourselves to others.
|
| The quickest solution might be to remove yourself from others
| so that you don't mentally make the comparison. The best long
| term solution might be to form the social bonds.
|
| And sometimes you need to tackle the short term solution to
| change your mood in order to enact the long term solution.
| rini17 wrote:
| But human social needs aren't fulfilled when all the people
| in your vicinity are busy with their own duties, problems,
| thoughts and don't have much capacity left to perceive you.
|
| So there's actually no contradiction.
| samhuk wrote:
| This is HN, a reply that rewords "just don't be sad" into a
| turgid essay of meandering variables and equations will shoot
| to the top or close to it.
|
| I am sometimes surprised that so many fall into producing and
| consuming this overblown, dense, turgid content, however then
| I look around and see that there exists an absolute deluge of
| essays on the misogyny of Gone Girl, and then I kind of
| understand how it's just the nature of a good chunk of humans
| to produce and consume such essays.
|
| Even this is one such example...
| andrew_eit wrote:
| I think the intuition here is: - Being surrounded by people
| one cannot connect with, increases the feeling that one is
| socially isolated and an 'outsider'. They are unable to
| engage with their organic natural (social) environment -
| Whilst being in 'a forest alone', offers the person a chance
| to engage with their natural environment and more easily
| connect with it, just by being there. You don't have to do
| anything but just exist in it. In a way you are accepted and
| do belong to that environment (genetically/instinctively). So
| it acts to counter feelings of 'not fitting in'.
| Name_Chawps wrote:
| What I object to is this: "the disconnect with nature,
| oneself and to a lesser extend the community". No,
| loneliness is not a disconnect with nature or yourself.
| It's a disconnect with the community.
| throwaway13337 wrote:
| The focus on nature might be a product of the time we
| live. However, the idea that loneliness is due to
| feelings of alienation beyond just interpersonal is a
| powerful one.
|
| This is to say that loneliness can be thought of as not
| just a sense of lack of connection to other people but a
| connection to the world. This loneliness is evident
| because of our lack of consistency of our actions with
| results. People have a 'back to nature' kind of
| philosophy when they talk about it because that is the
| most common way to find the consistency - farm to table
| and all that.
|
| But I think it's more broad. For example, Minecraft has
| the kind of consistency that makes a person feel more
| connected to, at least, that world because it is
| participatory and makes a kind of intuitive sense that
| our normal lives lack.
|
| I know it seems reaching to correlate the two - in some
| way, it is. However, the thing a lonely person lacks is
| more than just an empty person to talk to. It's a deeper
| purpose which can be often found in activity with other
| people but isn't limited to it.
|
| Some of the least lonely people are those with projects
| they are passionate about. They have a connection to the
| world that feels consistent but it isn't other people.
| kipchak wrote:
| I think the focus on nature might be a byproduct or
| reaction to modern jobs, technology and creature comforts
| decreasing the participation people have with the world
| around them. This makes it easy to want to return to a
| time (real or not) where people lived harder but more
| fulfilling lives, with camping and games offering ways to
| act out this ideal.
|
| Of course a desire for a return to nature is not
| necessarily "modern", see for example Walden, but I think
| the degree of disconnect has increased to the point it is
| harder to ignore for a larger number of people.
| nativecoinc wrote:
| What helped the most with my depression was meditation. All
| alone. A difference between hopelessness and a positive
| disposition (also among people, despite not knowing or
| interacting with any of them).
|
| > We are a social species. We need others to be happy.
|
| The flipside is that we can make each other miserable as
| well.
| gabereiser wrote:
| It's not ridiculous. It's short-circuiting the depression
| that comes with loneliness by allowing the primal part of you
| to reconnect with nature. It works. There's a whole industry
| around this premise. Once you reconnect with nature, your
| immediate instinct is to reconnect with others. So in a way
| it's paving the path back to social relationships and
| community.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| > Once you reconnect with nature, your immediate instinct
| is to reconnect with others.
|
| I have the complete opposite experience. I spend as much of
| my vacation time as possible hiking, camping, and
| backpacking alone. I go to places where the landscape is so
| beautiful that it makes me weep; where seeing the unusual
| flora makes me feel like I'm home; where the night sky is
| like diamond dust on black velvet. These places don't make
| me want to reconnect with others. They make me want to
| build a cabin and get away from everybody else.
|
| I'm skeptical of this idea in general especially with
| examples of people like John Muir. If reconnecting with
| natures gives you the immediate instinct to reconnect with
| others then why do people like him have to be coaxed away
| from it?
| i-am-agi wrote:
| super interesting!
| pickingdinner wrote:
| Loneliness has nothing to do with alone-ness. Most of us are
| perfectly happy alone, being left alone, and may even prefer it.
|
| Similarly, depression has nothing to do with alone-ness. It's
| being perfectly sad. Depression is the only cause of perfect
| sadness, and sadness is never the cause of depression. Healing
| depression cannot be done by healing sadness. Your triggers and
| the cause of your condition could be many things, but until you
| figure those things out, nothing will undo your depression or
| sadness.
| bladecd wrote:
| "I am alone. I'm not lonely"
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