Back in 2019, got to go to Hong Kong for a couple months for work and got to bring my family.
I was about to turn 40 and realized that the place we were staying had a rock wall. In a somewhat "mid life crisis" spur of the moment decision, I decided to go buy shoes, a belt and a chalk bag (I did a lot of indoor rock climbing in college).
We get there and the rock wall is a. closed and b. only for kids.
Get back to the US and COVID lockdown starts. As things open up, I go on the town dad's Facebook group and ask if anyone wants to go rock climbing with me. Multiple dads say "hell, yes!" so I start a rock climbing club.
One of the dads that joins the climbing club loves board games, is inspired by my starting the rock climbing club so he starts the town board game club.
I tell people this story to illustrate that:
- if you don't have a club or org for something that you're into, go start one
- you doing the above can trigger other people to start clubs too
Two years ago, my son was REALLY struggling with his depression. Having tried almost everything, at the suggestion of his therapist, he tried cold showers. To show some solidarity, I decided we should do cold plunges into the ocean together. A guy that I was starting to become friendly with humored us and came with.
Two years later, that guy and I are best friends, and we cold plunge every Saturday together. Just did a new years plunge with our friend group that is growing. My wife commented this morning that I've really 'farmed' my friend group, whereas a few years ago. I was myself very frustrated with having no real friends anymore.
There’s something about cold plunges. My group started when some of us started meeting for drinks and a swim after work during the summer, and we just kept doing it every week through the winter. Some joined the group during the winter. Those people became my closest friends:
- We see each other every week, almost without fail
- I suspect the invitation to a cold plunge pre-selects for people with very high openness, and those people aren’t afraid of deep friendships
- Doing something hard and a little bit scary together strengthens the bond
The way Finns do it they take a hot Sauna in the winter and when they get out of the hot-room they go lay naked in the snow. Or plunge into the frozen lake through a sawed-out hole. Then they go back to the sauna again to feel the warmth again. It does feel great and stops you from dwelling in miserable thoughts. That may be part of the reason why Finns are ranked happiest people for multiple years.
I think people often underestimate how, for dad's in particular, there's a massive need for this.
Prior to Covid, I'd started a Wednesday "Dad's Night" where we just got together from 9-10 in my backyard to hang out and have a beer. Eventually we'd move to random local pubs and often it would go to 11pm. It grew with consistency as people would invite other folks. Had one of the assistant basketball coaches from Clemson show up one time. Some of the guys who home brewed would bring something.
The key was a time, after the kids are in bed on a night in the middle of the week when people didn't have other plans.
Covid killed it, but we eventually just became a "grab lunch" text group.
I think Country Clubs and golf used to be the "default" outlet for a lot of people, but as those prices have increased there's a gap to fill.
I imagine lonely men seeing you playing basketball together on the street and thinking “How come I never make friends”…
> how, for dad’s in particular, there is a massive need for this
- Yes
- And also for single men at 45, because everyone’s busy and they feel like a failure for not having a family (meanwhile having a family is such an incredible performance)
- Teens. There is a massive loneliness epidemic among teens. At least we 40-year-olds have had friends before. But the iphonocene (the era of smart phones) has created a generation of people whose friends were always, constantly, busy with phones.
We play a game (whichyr.com) were we guess the year of random pictures. The first criteria is whether people are bent while walking. Not bent: pre-2013. Bent on the phone: Post-2013. It’s not the invention of the phone, it’s the usage of it.
Volunteering in smaller orgs is also a great option because it naturally filters for people who actually want to do something good around them, and the way you work together leaves more space for communication than a lot of group-but-actually-solitary hobbies out there.
A few years ago I joined my rural neighborhood council, and I’d never been around so many people consistently being generous with their time and energy. It’s really uplifting, and you end up learning a lot from each other in the process too.
Maybe it's been "just" my bad experiences, but in volunteering i've always seen some social "power" dynamics that I don't really like.
Some person somehow gets to be the leader and bosses people around. Those people aren't always the brightest or the most compassionate. They often are pushy, they are somewhat totalitarian, they really don't like their ways to be questioned. Sometimes (not always) they are the most dedicated but only because they made volunteering their identity or their main source of self-esteem (this can either happen because they don't have anything else going on in their life OR because what goes on in their life do not satisfy them).
They are often "open to new people, ideas and contribution" only as long as anything new is very well aligned with their (personal) line of thinking and/or does not question their "authority" in any way.
Either way, I've seen that happen too many times to take volunteering any seriously.
I’ve met some of them. To me: don’t get stuck. If it’s not working, move on. There’s a zillion volunteer orgs, so keep shopping until you find somewhere that you like and appreciates you.
I stay volunteering for the people I work with even more than my investment in the goals of the organization.
I have had this discussion with my wife, men need activities more than women to bond. My wife can make friends just by randomly running into other women at events or my daughter's activities.
Basically the whole point of the Freemasonry fraternity as well. Male only. It is dressed up with some altruistic goals and rituals, but it is a social club for men essentially.
> Basically the whole point of the Freemasonry fraternity as well. Male only. It is dressed up with some altruistic goals and rituals
Freemasonry began as a workers' guild, but the accreted "goals and rituals" take a group far beyond the simplicity of a men's shed.
The simplicity of any club rapidly becomes complex when monotheism or henotheism (any theism) is injected:
From Wikipedia:
* Anglo-American style Freemasonry, which insists that a "volume of sacred law" should be open in a working lodge, that every member should profess belief in a supreme being, that only men should be admitted, and discussion of religion or politics does not take place within the lodge.
* Continental Freemasonry or Liberal style Freemasonry which has continued to evolve beyond these restrictions, particularly regarding religious belief and political discussion.
* Women Freemasonry or Co-Freemasonry, which includes organisations that either admit women exclusively or accept both men and women."
I don't think it is complex. The theme of a social group is just there as a filter. If you like rock climbing and meet someone at a rock climbing gym that person is far more likely to be interested in things you are interested in: physical fitness, the particular mental challenges of rock climbing, etc. It was just an example. I won't analyze the sexism or male only nature of the fraternity, but I think Freemasonry anecdotally reinforces the idea that men want/need/form these kind of clubs more than women on average.
When we study this we notice very small actual bias at an individual level on socialization preference. The differences are modest and more like slight preferences. There is more overlap than not at a local individual level. What gets missed is that even though the differences are relatively small, the network effect greatly amplifies these small variances resulting in non-linear outcomes. Even small biases at an individual level essentially produce significant effect in socialization behavior.
Honestly, as a non-sports loving male, it makes it much harder to build male friendships.
Not that its impossible, but the majority* of men get together to watch, play, or talk about sports the majority of the time... whereas I'm perfectly fine just hanging out where hanging out is the activity!
I eventually just stopped trying to invite most of my guy friends out for 1-1 meals, etc.
> men need activities more than women to bond. My wife can make friends just by randomly running into other women at events or my daughter's activities.
That describes you and your wife, and that's great to know yourselves. Why do you feel the need to generalize it to everyone else?
People don't need to justify needs by pointing to some greater power that compels them. People have needs; what's most important is understanding them and their loved one loving and supporting them. That one is yours.
Each person has needs; I have no data that it has to do with gender or sex, and why would it matter? The needs aren't predictable based on gender/sex (though socialization is, to some extent). It doesn't change what I do or how I think of it.
This is generally known to be true for men. We have a much harder time connecting socially without some sort of shared activity or action. The OP isn't trying to project on to you.
> We have a much harder time connecting socially without some sort of shared activity or action.
You might have a harder time doing that; other men have different experiences. The average man has brown eyes and is 1.72m tall; does that mean your eyes and height are that way? It's certainly an error to take statistical generalizations and apply them to individuals - one of the first things you learn in statistics.
Also, the studies you cited don't address this issue. The psychcentral link is about memory research. The other looks at social relationships, but doesn't look at this aspect of them. Do you actually know of any research?
Do you have something to say about the issues? Don't worry about me, thanks anyway.
Edit: As far as learning something, the GGP's citations were nonsense, as I pointed out. What has anyone offered, other than a demonstration of the fundamentals of misapplying statistics.
lol. Just address the issues, if you can. I've done nothing more.
I don't even see something negative in what I posted - it's pretty positive to me. I didn't say, 'we're all going to die' or say something fatalistic (like the comment I originally responded to).
Unless you mean 'negative' is 'disagrees', which of course badly is miscontrued in open intellectual debate, especially on HN.
There is an interesting thing. If you study the socialization patterns there are only small to moderate average differences and huge overlap between individuals (all genders). This is in part social construct and in part nature. When you average things statistically you can mislead yourself pretty quickly reading some of these studies.
There is more overlap than not. So, how do we reconcile that with how things end up: network effect. Small biases in socialization norms lead to significant non-linear outcomes due to amplification of these biases leading to norms that exaggerate these biases and end up creating norms that are quite distorted from the average. Leads to some significant consequences for how different genders end up socialization.
While that may be true, there are exceptions. And hence I think parents comment is more inclusive to say: some people (that are overwhelmingly male) need activities to bond, while others (majority female) do not need that. (May not be the best example here but helps i.e criticising certain toxic behaviours that are somehow more linked to one sex without blaming everyone of that sex)
That assumes that there is something called 'male/female' that humans can be more or less of - what is the definition there? Certain hormones?
Also, it assumes that there's a correlation between these behaviors and that definition. For example, it could be more common in people who are non-binary.
I don't know what the 'personal' issue you have is. Perhaps a stereotype of people whose beliefs might overlap with mine in this area? It's not personal to me.
Just stick to the merits of the issue; you don't need to bring in ad hominem arguments.
All they need to know is their own needs. Mine are not defined by my gender/sex, but by me; same with the person I'm talking to, same with you.
I'm not thinking about myself on the basis of what someone else thinks all people of my gender/sex do - that's irrelevant. Do you redefine your own needs based on what you read someone else thinks half the population does?
Why does anyone need to be defensive about what someone has found for them?
For example, studies have shown that men who decide to isolate themselves to be "family men" die earlier at age 58.
It might not need to be a pub, but having a club house to do pretty much anything is enormously beneficial to the human brain to have positive social interaction.
We get to decide our own social interaction.
The world is not responsible to not triggering us.
> For example, studies have shown that men who decide to isolate themselves to be "family men" die earlier at age 58.
Yes, but isn't it a benefit to society as a whole though? All the prime working years are gone by then and there is no need to pay pension to those men or for expensive medical treatments. And younger generations can be happy for there being one less cishet white male boomer in the world.
I mean, it sure sucks for the individual not being able to enjoy their retirement, but for the society it seems that it will be a benefit.
Eventually it doesn't end well indeed. But modern society has made it pretty clear that older men aren't actually needed and are more of a burden. Just look at how triggered the GP of the thread got just about a mention that men might want a different approach when it comes to social stuff.
Well, not needed, unless an actual shooting war breaks out and you need a lot more people pulling guard duty or just some very high-risk stuff younger men should not be wasted on. Like that Ukrainian unit of pensioner men in a ground-attack missile unit who source their own missiles by repairing unexploded ones.
> modern society has made it pretty clear that older men aren't actually needed and are more of a burden
The mistake - which leads to disaster - is more fundamental. Modern society isn't an actual thing with needs, just an abstract concept. Individual people are real, and we all have real rights and needs. 'Goverments exist to protect rights' - society exists to serve the individual, not vice versa. Almost all morality includes protecting and helping the vulnerable.
Who decides who is a burden? Infants and children are also a 'burden' as are people with all sorts of illnesses (and people spreading disinformation). Only the cruelest fascists have suggested they should die to help society, as if that's a reasonable discussion.
> Just look at how triggered the GP
Ad hominem is against HN guidelines. Just stick to the issues instead of trying to change the subject by attacking and characterizing people who don't agree with you.
Rock climbing (in the US gyms, anyway) is such an easy way to meet new people.
You don’t even to find a group or friends before you go. Just go to the bouldering area and hang out during a popular time.
Most gyms have partner finder programs and designated social nights.
Every gym I’ve been a member of has also had a bring a friend program where you get to bring one new person for free periodically.
Online groups are also a good way to meet new friends. This is HN so a lot of people will turn their nose up at Facebook but it’s full of groups of people who go out and do things.
I have no interest in starting a club, but what I do (and you can too) is open your activity to others, (a) for easy access, and (b) with no strings. Typically all this means is reaching out to a small group to say "hey I'm planning to do <x>; want to come?". Encourage them to pass on your invite, don't take it personally if nobody comes (or even responds) and when they do bond over you shared love of <x>. Maybe this grows into a club, or just a shared message group, but regardless you still get to do what you wanted to in the first place.
+1. A WhatsApp group with 10-20 ppl (in similar stages of life) worked well for a while for organizing hiking/tennis/squash/some sport/DotA. We got consistently 4-5 people including their spouses showing up. Usually 2-4 weekends a month. With that size, many people can comfortably pass on the invite.
Then organically these tend to turn into trips together or simple hangouts for someone's birthday or a holiday.
Every person I meet in climbing gym defines their life in two words: BC and AC: Before Climbing and After Climbing. Had the same experience as OP, thanks to it, I am more fit than ever and have a much better social life :)
> - if you don't have a club or org for something that you're into, go start one
This is how I met most of my local friends; I went out and started a D&D game.
D&D is slightly tricky, because most people want to play a character, instead of be the DM - so, you either need to find a DM, or be the DM. I'm lucky - I love DMing.
Another problem is maybe similar to what OP was facing; I see many people joining our local Discord, looking for a game, but none of them or the people welcoming them seem to take the actual next step of picking a time and a place to meet and start discussing where and when to actually play.
This is awesome and I wish I had the courage to do it.
My experience is, in the USA, eventually nearly every meetup is ruined by politics. Eventually someone says something unintentionally trigging someone else and then off it goes.
I haven't had that experience too often here in New England. Though I'm typically involved with specific hobby based groups. Usually politics are avoided and if someone insists they are basically politely ignored.
I'm a great lover of going to places with no real plan and just wandering the streets finding stuff. Hong Kong is a great city for this. Have a general plan, e.g. visit the memorial to the walled city, but get distracted along the way.
Also watch Ghost in the Shell which is vaguely set in Hong Kong then feel the vibe when you're there.
One of the things becoming an adult that people miss is that somebody has to set stuff up and that somebody can be you.
It's really easy to be in the mindset that someone else should have already set up the rock climbing club and that if it doesn't exist it just can't.
Turns out that someone can be you! (and this is the thing people miss out on, you can actively make your world more like the way you want it to be by being that leader yourself and doing so is often way easier than you think)
Everyone I know in LA that beat the social stagnation had started their own event
Many people also just put you on a text messaging list when you exchange numbers. They only tell you the number to their list, but they are capable of responding individually from it
When they go somewhere, they tell the list, if you come you come, if you don't, nobody's missing you. No obligation, reply STOP to end. Otherwise you can bond at the event and meet everyone else too
> a significant proportion of the people you used to hang out with have kids and disappear off the face of the Earth for two decades.
I’ve been on both sides of this, so I’m going to put this out into the universe:
Your friends with kids still want to see you.
They have a lot to deal with suddenly. They’re exhausted.
But they miss hanging out with you, and will leap at the opportunity to hang out if you take the initiative and make some kid-friendly accommodations.
They may decline more often than before, because the kid is sick or sleeping or not sleeping so the adults just need to lay low. But don’t take that “no” as a “stop asking”.
As someone who used to have a highly active social life and now finds IRL socializing to be mostly a dull chore, I always find it confusing to see so many people commenting to the contrary. My partner is slightly more social than me and gets out slightly more than I do, but generally we are homebodies and we like it that way.
Other people (at least in this country) are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests. The few times I find a candidate who isn’t like this, they usually have some kind of personality disorder that makes them too unstable for long-term friendship. When I was younger I often looked past this, but there’s only so many times you are willing to let a human wrecking ball into your life.
A good book is almost always better. The life of a deep reader and casual hobbyist is rich and fulfilling if your romantic needs are satisfied at home. I do not miss my former social life at all.
Just leaving this out there for any other wayward souls who may be annoyed by the conversation.
Socializing is not a "dull chore" it is a essential component of healthy living[1]
By not socializing, you are avoiding (to quote the linked article) a "fundamental human need." This is not something you can simply live without, just like you cannot live a good live without exercise.
The view you are espousing is fundamentally unhealthy.
I used to be like you, living my life based on external beliefs of what I "should" do. Once I realized that I didn't have to all my stress disappeared and I've never been happier.
People told me I "should" exercise for years and I didn't, but when I did I suddenly got a lot less depressed and my life turned around for the better so I'm going to continue to trust other people
There is a deep irony in an argument that pushes a pro-socializing view in a black-and-white, authoritarian way, "shoulding" statements, shaming tactics. It's actually anti-social, and the authors of the cited paper probably would not agree.
I organized a large (600+-person at its peak) Meetup in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY during Meetup's hayday (2010-ish).
Meeting heaps of different people from all walks of life was interesting at first. But like a previous poster stated, connections like these are fleeting and take a lot of work to maintain (especially if you're a man, which I am; see the end of this post for more on that).
Consequently, the process of meeting people eventually became very same-y after a short while, and knowing that these conversations usually won't amount to anything other than nice, fleeting moments got old.
There was also the drama of managing "interesting" personalities in a free Meetup group. I passed the baton in 2012 or so, but that's another post for another day.
I'll conclude this post with some unsolicited advice: try to learn what people do for work without asking them directly.
EVERYONE expects this question, and it can be a conversation killer if your occupations don't intersect (less likely) or if the person you're conversing with hates their job (more likely). Everyone ALSO loves talking about themselves. Finding out how someone spends the largest part of their day without asking point-blank adds interesting twists and turns that can really liven up a conversation. It also makes you a better listener and better at asking questions.
I lied; I have more unsolicited advice. The easiest way to give a shit about what someone does for work is to ask lots of questions! Unless they hate their job, in which case, you'll want to ask questions that get them talking about what they do enjoy!
Typing that last paragraph reminded me of another reason why I got burned out on socializing with people. I'm a man. Most men only like sports and video games; two things I couldn't care less about. Socializing with other men as a man who dislikes these things is extremely difficult, especially in the US South, where I live. I blame the suburban lifestyle, but that, too, is another post for another day.
What do you like to talk about?
I'm passionate about my work and happy to discuss topics but not too keen to explain it to someone who has nill knowledge of the subject or industry.
I do think unhealthy is the way to put it. I think that being asocial is kind of like being overweight, in that they have similarly negative effects on health[1]. Of course, being in good health is multifactorial, and just as you can find many overweight people who are otherwise in fine health, you can find many people (like yourself) who eschew social situations but are otherwise perfectly happy.
Though I do think, if you extend the metaphor, that saying that socializing is a dull chore is a bit like saying exercising is a dull chore.
These kind of findings are probably accurate on average, but not to a person. Some people are wired differently. Some (presumably most) require community and extensive social connection. I really think that some of us just need much, much less. I don't get much sense of reward from social interactions. It really does just feel like a dull chore most of the time. Even with people I genuinely like and respect.
Yeah, I've been trying to wrap my head around this recently. I always get a bit irked by the inevitable comments confidently asserting things like "humans are social animals, if you think you don't need tight social connections you're just hurting yourself". And then pointing to these results averaged out over the entire population as "proof".
It seems like there's got to be some statistical fallacy being made, like asserting "all humans need visual stimulation to survive" and then all the blind people on earth shrug at the data and realize they're not human I guess? On average it's true, "all humans" would go crazy if deprived of their sight, but it turns out some people do it just fine and can have rich, human lives.
I wonder if it's just when people live very social lives, the idea of deriving satisfaction in life internally, to be able to self regulate and maintain a health sense of identity without frequent input from others, is just too alien to consider. To not dislike people, or lack social skills, but just be as disinterested in socializing as I am in starting a coin collection. Or maybe all that is just extremely uncommon and experiences like mine are just a true rounding error.
> there’s only so many times you are willing to let a human wrecking ball into your life.
I understand this deeply. On the other hand, I do believe that community is essential for a good life (for 99%+ of people). It's a struggle for me, as I want community, but I've had many wrecking balls and anchors (and been them), and so I tend to be defensive.
> Other people [...] are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests.
I also feel this. But I suspect a large part of this is that defensiveness, people are meant to live in harmony with those (fairly) different from them. But especially with regard to differing values, sometimes it feels like no one around you shares the same framework. I think that's one reason people move to new places.
+1. For every one like the author of the blog post, it's likely to be another one in the opposite direction. But they will be unlikely to write a post about that. I too found weighting 'spend time with human persons v.s. with my own thoughts, or programming and writing, or reading a paper or a post, or listening to a podcast while walking in nature' lately come down on the side away from humans. So far - it's been way more interesting. When/if that changes and becomes boring - will think what next and change.
Exactly, I may change my stripes again, but for now a life of relative solitude feels right.
No hate intended towards those who feel the need to be social. If you feel like you’re missing out, the article has some good advice. But there’s nothing wrong with those of us who prefer a quiet morning walk to an average conversation.
> But they will be unlikely to write a post about that.
I don't know what you're talking about. People loooove talking about how hell is other people or how they'd rather be curled up on the couch, how relieved they are when others cancel plans at the last minute.
> For every one like the author of the blog post, it's likely to be another one in the opposite direction. But they will be unlikely to write a post about that.
There's literally an entire website dedicated to people with this point of view, it's called Reddit.
> Other people (at least in this country) are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests.
Does every person need to be unpredicatable and intellectually stimulating in order to spend time with them? If a friend who lives in Rotorua is interested in mountain biking (how predictable, how shallow) does that make spending time on a bike in the forest with them somehow lesser?
It's always fun seeing other Kiwis on HN, but this is the first time I've seen my hometown mentioned!
I do agree with your point too: perhaps emotional stimulation is also important? That can be a lot less sharp, less well-defined, but just as enriching.
It sounds like GP has very high standards for their friends, which is not the point IMO. I think we should have friends to broaden our horizons and expose us to new things. Intelligence is only one part of that.
I am not a Kiwi but was in Rotorua once, just wanted to say it is a lovely town (there was a sign claiming it was the nicest town in NZ!) and I loved the geyser and boiling mud! Must be funny to live with the sulphur smell and not even noticing except when you leave and come back after a while.
I don’t think other people are the problem here. Harshly judging others and only wanting to socialise with people that fit a strict narrow criteria is the problem. And it sounds like you have good reason to do that due to past bad experience. I’ve been in a very similar situation and used it to justify keeping a minimal social life. But discarding a rich social life due to some bad experience is the wrong solution. It’s like getting a car accident and deciding you should never travel by car again.
Human experience is broader than you can imagine. Through reading, I regularly encounter new ideas and concepts that I never could have derived from my interactions with others. Through meditation and contemplation I have experienced strange and fascinating modes of consciousness that are available to anyone willing to sit still for a while. Casual travel has led me to an endless number of beautiful empty places, places whose very lack of humans made me feel completely free. Making physical things as a hobby has made me deeply satisfied in a way I never have felt when dealing with people.
None of this has required much in the way of socializing, in fact excessive socializing would actively interfere with these activities.
I reject your implication that a highly social life is better than a rich, mostly solitary life. It’s different, but not better.
None of these are bad things.They're all great. But rejecting socialising with other humans due to a negative experience with some is the opposite of the enlightenment that can be found through meditation. If you only read about things rather than experience them you can't really know them. If you only travel alone you miss out on the joy of travelling and discovering with others. You can do both.
You seem to misunderstand. I don’t reject socializing because of a few negative experiences, I just don’t get any significant positive feelings anymore from the majority of my social interactions, after many attempts, and especially when compared with interactions from long ago. It isn’t just other people, I have changed too. Even interactions that “go well” just don’t provide anything of value. What’s more, I don’t miss it. I much prefer what I have now.
I don’t travel alone, I travel with my partner who is a great companion.
Yes, and IMHO this kind of conversation is superior to the average IRL conversation. It is asynchronous (allowing you to return to it as you like), it places few demands on your time, and when it’s over then it’s over. You can enter just the interesting part of the conversation and then exit just as quickly. No need to drag it out or pad the ends with filler. No need to explain your departure.
IRL conversation is an art, and few people are even halfway decent at it. Maybe that’s the true source of my complaint. To make an IRL conversation entertaining you need expressiveness, creativity, as well as a good variety of topics and tolerance for differences of opinion. Not many people can check all these boxes.
The US. I think the increased political polarization has changed things somewhat, as well as the aging of my peer demographic. People tend to become more close-minded and fixed in their beliefs as they age, so if you’re a freethinker who enjoys thought experiments and challenging norms then it’s difficult to find others who are similar.
Even many so-called “freethinkers” merely regurgitate common talking points and claim that this is somehow interesting, and they get more aggressive than “normies” if you try to branch out! I used to be able to engage in open ended conversations with people where you explore topics from all angles and adopt abhorrent positions as a way to understand the truth. Nobody seems to be comfortable with that anymore. Perhaps in the past everyone was just so drunk that they didn’t care about their inhibitions; I don’t tend to drink socially anymore and alcohol is famously a social lubricant.
I'm with you all the way. It's always much easier to strike up conversations with foreigners on my travels (or the locals) abroad than it is with people from the US, even when abroad. I was on vacation taking a tour when another American family joined. It didn't take long until they started to talk about politics. We could have talked about so many other things, but that's the reality for the vast majority of Americans. Politics is the only sport left and all consuming for most here. The worst part is like you said, they are rooting simply for their own team and aren't looking for an actual intellectual discussion on anything.
I definitely see your point. I'd just say though that it can put a lot of pressure on the romantic relationship. Some can handle it; others might not. And also it makes it much more difficult to recover if things don't work out.
Social life is a bit like SEO. To get the full benefits, you needed to start on it years ago. Trying to do it just-in-time is generally a very frustrating experience. I think there's wisdom in doing casual cultivation when you don't feel you need it. It's like keeping your skills/résumé up-to-date just in case.
This suggestion is common to the point of banality, but it really does benefit hugely from having "a mailing list of several dozen friends and acquaintances" to bootstrap it.
I've been trying something very similar to the author's approach for three years now: a casual tech meetup. My results are way worse despite putting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into the endeavor.
The people you attract might themselves have no local friends. That's why they're showing up to your meetup! But it also means that they won't help to expand it.
The people you attract might not be alcohol-drinkers. A lot of people who suggest organizing casual meetups usually have a pub in mind as the venue. Bringing 12-15 people to a restaurant takes a lot more planning. Getting 12-15 people to agree on a restaurant that meets their diet and budget needs is, well...
You might attract people who are much younger or much older than you. The average author of this kind of article is 36. Do they like the company of people who are within ±20 years of age from them? And do those people like each other's company?
Long story short, you might end up like me, having invested years of your life and a surprising amount of money, to make 3 casual acquaintances who you're sort-of-but-not-super-friendly with.
>I sent the details to friends and acquaintances who appeared in my notifications, or to mutuals who appeared on my timeline. But anyway, to my relief, on the night itself, a whole bunch of people actually turned up.
If the author was able to pull 'a bunch of people' to birthday drinks with nothing but an invitation, this story is more about underestimating his social capital rather than creating new capital.
Not sure I agree with that. I think there are a lot of people (especially in the mid-2023 time frame the author is talking about) who want to get out more and want to engage more meaningfully with others. But they don't really know how, and don't know how to create opportunities to do so. They might not accept any random invitation to absolutely anything, but a punchy event description about bringing people together could easily be a solid attractor.
Yes, there are also many (stuck-up and immature, IMO) people who won't even consider attending an event without a look at the guest/RSVP list to see who else will be there. But I don't think that's the majority. If you set up an outing, invite 50 people, but only 10 show up, that's still a pretty great success, I think.
Working remotely taught me a similar lesson as the author. The most important part that I think people get wrong in general is that online friends, or your good friends from uni or your childhood youth that you only see in person once or twice a year, can't replace an active local friends group - or community as he calls it.
Cutting the daily interactions with other humans by no longer going to an office every day made me realize that - because you very quickly feel that something is missing.
I like my remote job and don’t want to leave, but I also can’t work at home because I get depressed and my productivity drops to zero.
Wework and other coworking spaces have mostly been a disappointment as a way to find community, with just two exceptions over the years (one of which was killed by covid).
i am somewhere in the middle because my work requires me to go to the office only four days per month but no one is really checking (nor they check if i go in at 9 am or 1pm).
so for me it's nice because i get to have my slow morning and go to the office during lunch break (i live relatively close).
this made me realize that i don't really mind the office (i ended up going almost every day, staying from lunch break 'till 5pm) but i loathe essentially two things:
- shitty coworkers (better to hop job at all, but avoiding them in person does help a lot)
- going to the office being mandatory (as in, not having freedom and autonomy)
in my current setup colleagues tend to autonomously organize when to meet in the office and go out for lunch together. and frankly... it's great.
the work itself has a lot of shortcomings (and i'm fixing things left and right from the first week i joined the company) but the people and the autonomy make it great.
Having online friends can be great, but you’re right that it doesn’t replace in person friend groups.
One big problem with having mostly or only online friends is that you spend all day at work in front of a computer, then if you want to spend time with your online friends you spend more time in front of a computer. It can turn into all day every day screen time.
Because they can’t reach you when there’s a power outage to check that you’re warm. They can’t share boiled water with you when the mains break. They can’t invite you to a meal when you’re lonely.
This stuff is valid, but a lot of it is more "be there in a crisis", which is not the day to day.
For me, the significant thing about having local community is the ability to throw stuff together last minute. Not every gathering has to have a spreadsheet of guests and canva invites and endless emails booking a band, a keg, whatever else.
A lot can and should just be "hey dudes, anything doing anything? Want to come over for a game/movie/whatever?" Those kinds of low-stakes hangouts are the real backbone of community, and they're hard to do if you don't have a friend group that's physically close by.
There was a period of time in my mid 20s when me and a close friend ot mine lived across the street from each other, and what you said here resonates with me strongly.
It is such a massive boost to quality of life to just be able on a whim to send a text like “i am tryna grab some food+drink in 15min, you down?” and actually make it happen more than half the time (and being able to receive similar texts from the friend too). Lots of spontaneous interactions and (barely-any-)planning for just normal low-pressure outings was absolutely my favorite part of that time period.
On a sidenote, I absolutely despise the “guest spreadsheet canva invites for an event scheduled a month in advance and endless emails booking a band” way of regularly doing social stuff. It is totally chill and reasonable to do so for special occasions and bigger events, but having it as the primary way of socializing makes me want to drill a hole in my skull.
I miss that about dorm life in college. For 4 years I lived in an arcology with people who were the same age and economic class as me. Since the commute to anyone's place was 1-5 minutes on foot, you could get food, watch a movie, and drop out whenever without worrying about the sunk cost of fucking driving 15 minutes in a car-centric city from one detached SFH to another detached SFH.
We've moved around a lot. Getting cool neighbors like this is like winning the lottery. We finally have neighbors that are fun to hang out with, and, yes, it's incredibly awesome.
I can only speak to my own experience, but for the last 1 year I have been by myself and my 2 younger daughters in a new town. I work remotely, but also have some very good friends that I can rely on when I need. Those friends are distributed all over the world and while I can call them any time off the day or night, there is a fundamental difference how I feel after a phone/video call to after a conversation over e.g. drinks/dinner. In fact I found that I sometimes avoid calling my friends because the phone call makes me feel lonelier.
So for me online communities can be a great thing, but they can't replace IRL communities, because the interactions make you feel different. I suspect that the social needs that evolution has imprinted on us can't just be fulfilled by online interactions, they require more senses than just hearing and seeing.
I feel like my favorite thing to do on a saturday is walk around the city I live in to my friend's houses and just bother them for 20-30 minutes, maybe grab lunch, the mundanity of it I think still achieves community, especially since a brief 30 minute weekly chat IRL is never overwhelming, and I get my steps in. I feel like though it's a privilege to live in a city where most people live within a 4 mile radius, and is entirely walkable at most an hour~ walk away, and much less between nodes.
Lovely read. Social health is my number one 2026 priority. I moved into a new city in 2025 and this hits home. I'm lucky to have a great and active group of online friends but it's no replacement for something local.
Some things that I've picked up last year that are a good starting point:
- timeleft dinners. I get dinner with 5 strangers every few weeks. Tons of fun and you meet a lot of interesting people.
- swing dancing: I went on a date to a social dance and immediately became addicted. It has taken a while to learn the basics, and some of the unwritten rules of the dance floor, but now this is an activity I can take with me to many of my city's social dances and meet all sorts of people. It has greatly improved my social skills and confidence.
I think the biggest different this year will be the amount of effort I put into organizing social events: I've found that everyone seems to be waiting for an invite, but no one wants to do the inviting! OP hinted at this in his article.
A "screwing club for men" was the scene at the Salsa dancing which I joined (with female friends). I really loved the salsa and really enjoyed everything with the rest of the learners, and with my friends. Unfortunately it took me too long to realize that the "top" men were more interested in fucking beginner women than in real socializing. Too predator vibe for me so we quit - I probably should have looked for a better group. That group was an outlier - later I've seen dancing groups with fantastic dynamics.
Dancing is amazing, and I'd recommend anyone to try it, but try to join a social group.
It looks like it would be great to travel with: I met a truly wonderful bunch of people at a LGBT friendly Tango (my AirBnB hosts took me in Argentina).
Wow the opening to this could have been written by me!
Solitude in your 30s (particularly as a DINK or SINK household) is dangerously addictive.
No need to leave the house… but it does lead one to feel disconnected more broadly over a prolonged period.
They’ll have to pry WFH out of my cold, dead hands; but I must say, the times I do travel to the office and spend a day chatting with people are incredibly energising (though also very unproductive!)
> Solitude in your 30s (particularly as a DINK or SINK household) is dangerously addictive.
Can confirm (SINK).
The real problem is that solitude in your 30s is peaceful. So peaceful. So much so that if you built your own safety net and covered your back, solitude is so peaceful that you might end up not even wanting a romantic partner at all.
Anybody that had their fair share of storms in life can confirm that having a calm, peaceful life of solitude can be so peaceful one often doesn't really want to change that.
On a tangent to the article- I quit my career just over two years ago now: same age as author, live in London too. The hardest thing about not working is the social life that work gives you. Whilst we may think that work is for money, it is also for 1) filling our time, and 2) spending time with people. Yes, some people are definitely a net-negative interaction, but most people are actually positive to one’s day, but in one of those “you need to not work for a year to know it” way.
Amongst other reflections I have:
1) a pay-check does give you a sense of validation. This took some getting through
2) it’s been challenging working out what I will actually end up doing with myself. There were periods where I put more pressure on myself to do so. I still don’t know what will do.
3) the process of doing things because they are fun takes some getting used to when one’s entire life was built around doing something useful to others
4) when one lives off of savings it’s almost easier to spend as it feels like you didn’t suffer for it. Getting depressed at work makes it easier to spend more money outside of work
5) the “number” people need to retire (or not work for extended periods) is probably less than people realise
6) not working in finance (amongst all the moral corruption everywhere) has generally made me happier in part because I can live in a way which is more in-keeping with my values over having constantly breach them for work reasons
7) owning my calendar is a big freedom. I don’t have to ask a boss if I can do something all the time. No need to explain yourself.
8) not constantly having to submit to a boss is huge. One can really grow this way, as constant repression to other people’s whims is soul crushing and shows just how close employment is to slavery (especially in finance with golden handcuffs)
My partner and I were discussing our need for “third spaces” this week. We’re homebodies, and enjoy being home. However mundanity of wake, work, hobbies, sleep in the same place every day is getting to us.
It’ll be a slightly different approach to the other though. For me, I want to start playing some tabletop games (war games and/or RPGs) at my Friendly Local Game Shop. I think these types of interactions are important for community.
My wife and I go to co-working spaces a couple of times a week (on separate days and different co-working spaces), despite both working fully remotely. This is our solution for a "third space".
This gets us out of the house, gives us some time away from each other and kids, and gives us some interaction with some other people (who work for completely different companies) but are kind of like colleagues in terms of gentle office banter, water-cooler chats, etc.
I know loads of them by name, who they work for, what they do and there are occasional bonus interesting chats where some aspect of our two industries/jobs overlap slightly. There's one person who is just starting out doing something similar to a niche job I did 15 years ago, so it's great to speak to him and act as a kind of mentor.
Fully remote work is great, and I could be a happy recluse, but I'm all for more in-person interaction during the working day. Next job I think I'll go back to hybrid with 1-3 days in an office if possible.
I have a couple of really, really good friends who are deep in this hole, one struggling with burnout, one with regular depression (though they’re both depressed, you get how this works) and it’s so hard to watch, because I invite them to things, I encourage them constantly, I try and get them out and moving because, and admittedly this is an uninformed opinion: I believe their homebodied lifestyle is destroying them in the exact way this comment describes.
It kills me. They are so addicted to their comforts, to their security, to their home. And I get why, they have had a tremendously bad couple of years… but I just see the repeated behaviors reinforcing the issue. I get told over and over “we just need a few months where nothing bad happens” but like… dude. That’s not coming. The bad shit always happens, it’s going to continue until you die. The only way to make that worse is to self isolate and make yourself miserable constantly between those bad things.
If anyone has advice, I would super appreciate it. I’m so worried for them.
Keep up at it. Without pressuring, or without making it the elephant in the room uncomfortable topic that makes them avoid you. One day you will catch them in a good day.
Just wanted to maybe provide a slightly different perspective, but I recently went through this process of pulling back from being socially active and it was for more than just one reason.
I wanted to focus on my health, both mental and physical, this meant going to the gym every morning and making time to read and getting rid of social media.
I also wanted to reduce my consumption of alcohol which typically was fueled by social events and always seemed to throw a wrench in taking care of my health (hard to get to the gym in the morning when you were drinking the night before, and for me it was even after just 1 drink).
What I realized was that many of the people I was spending time with, they oriented their communal time around drinking and for me that's pretty detrimental to my goals. After pulling back from social activity, I've felt so much healthier, happier and optimistic about life.
I get the same exact phone calls as you're describing, and I generally weigh the events I'm being invited to with what the focus of the event is - if the goal of the event is to just get together at a bar, I don't go. I think many of my friends feel that I've lost my way, but it's difficult because I sort of see them in the same light.
What I do hope to do eventually is to cultivate some new friendships, because I am missing that social aspect of my life, but for now I've sort of got a good thing going and I'm not too concerned about rushing it into being.
From someone who is and has been in that hole for longer than I'd care to admit, my only advice is: try to be continue to be patient, and continue to gently encourage them, without making them feel bad. We all know the logic in what you're saying. Actually following that is the difficult part. And watching your loved ones become more impatient makes it hurt even more.
Of course, I know that from your perspective, it can be frustrating and painful, and that nobody can be expected to remain infinitely patient. I don't blame people for eventually throwing in the towel...
Oh to be clear, I'm not frustrated by it, not a bit. I just hate watching it you know? You care about people, you want them to live good lives. No frustration, it just sucks to see people you love pining for a stability you fundamentally believe doesn't exist, and refusing to live until it does.
I can really relate to this post, celebrating my birthday with a party for the first time in 10+ years in 2025, it truly had a massive impact on my mental health and it made me realize I should throw little gatherings much more often.
Great write-up and encouragement on the author's part.
I had a similar problem this year after having moved to a new country, working a remote job and separated from my partner. Having had a terrible social life since I was a kid, I knew it in my bones that I'd have to find myself new friends or else. So I did - I renewed my relationship with old friends, joined a book club (was a big reader as a kid), and my dog helped me make friends at the dog park.
I find it interesting that I've thought about the exact social mechanics of making friends before as well - low stakes in person common context where you meet on a regular basis is key.
Find a close friend for whom reaching out and convincing people is not draining, and partner with them. They do the reaching out, you take care of the logistics.
The framework that helped me understand what was going on with this is Working Genius. Reaching out falls under what they call Galvanizing, which is draining for me, but my friend is super good at it.
Same as all socialization: If you're attractive, you'll succeed no matter what you try or how you try it (You do still have to try, but that's the only requirement).
If you're unattractive, you'll fail no matter what you try or how you try it.
There's a reason why success stories in this area never talk about the author being required to or benefiting from evolving their tactics.
From my experience, here's the general lowest-effort way to find community:
Make a list of public places that you like (bars, coffee shops, game shops, etc.) and go to them at the same time on the same day every week. You'll shortly start seeing the same people regularly, even if it's just the staff.
Then you can greet those people, introduce yourself, and talk with them. By asking questions about their day, their plans, and sharing the same about yourself, you'll open the door to expanding your social life outside of those locations, hours, and people.
Community doesn't need to be a series of planned events and invitations. It can be implicit and organic just by virtue of regularly sharing space.
Personal anecdote:
I do this with pinball. Sure, it's often in bars, but it's a great way to be at a bar without having to drink. Pinball players are happy to talk about pinball (or anything really), it provides an instant topic of conversation, and it's easy to invite another player to a game because it's such a short commitment. And if no one's around that you want to talk to, or you don't feel like focusing on socializing, you can just play the game while still maintaining your regular schedule.
If you want to try following in my exact footsteps, you can use Pinball Map[1] to find locations near you. Good luck!
This has absolutely never worked for me in cafes, not in decades of trying across multiple states. Cafe regulars either bring their own company or "laptops open, headphones on, heads down."
Amusingly, the rec league pinball people are absolutely ferocious about promotion. Pretty much every thread in r/bayarea about looking for friends gets a pitch from a pinball person.
1) Do something you enjoy *and* that others in your area enjoy.
2) Look for opportunities to be a first follower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ
3) Build a routine. E.g., this event will happen every 2nd Tuesday of the month.
I'll answer your question with a question. In the past, I would have recommended finding a Meetup on some activity you enjoy. Meetup isn't as popular anymore (another victim of COVID and WFH culture), but the spirit of the idea is sound. Are there apps or services that fill that void these days?
While I think his approach is not the best, even if it worked for him, I am convinced that if you identify a few thigs you like to do you will find some other people with the same interests. There are so many activities that it creates some fragmentation of interests, but the population is still large enough to find others compatible with you.
What I would do: 1. make a list of stuff I would do; 2. check if there are local communities for each item on the list and 3. start joining those communities or look for people interested to join you on the activities on the list. Is that simple, really.
I think you must be charismatic and somewhat attractive to inspire people to come hang around you. People will likely assume any event you invite them to will have other people that are similar to you, and by extension, if they are hanging around you it must mean they aspire to be similar to you.
This is the most jaundiced, obviously false, and self-pitying statement I have maybe ever encountered. Have you seen a group of people paint Warhammer figurines together? Or do Gunpla? Or play a roleplaying game? Are they cool and attractive? No! Are they having fun and bonding? Yes! The only incentive one would ever have to deny this is self-loathing covering up a fear of rejection. Go out there and do something dorky with people.
If you can throw money at it, you can offset attractiveness and to some degree, personality. Having a sweet home theater, indoor pool, or gaming room/bar can go a long way to creating an inviting environment for others.
This reminded me of E.M. Forster’s line from Howards End: “Only connect.” Not in the grand, ideological sense, but in the mundane, logistical one. It's funny how life optimizes for comfort and autonomy, but those optimizations quietly remove the scaffolding that friendships used to grow on.
Joining a hackspace/makerspace suddenly introduced me to a high quality real-life social network. It's an excuse to engage with your hobbies but also hangout with like minds and pick up new skills.
This won't be an option for everyone. I have to travel for an hour each way to get to mine, but it's worth it. If I had more energy I would start one in the city where I live.
A different take: joining one of these spaces (in the bay area) has exposed me to a weird and unpleasant underbelly of society that I barely knew existed. It's like the worst of Reddit, but in real life. People who want you to work on their projects "for the exposure," crypto scammers and people who are very naive and enthusiastic about crypto, depressed unemployable people, people who secretly live on the lobby couches, elderly people just watching videos all day, get-rich-quick people, people who are always "starting to learn" for years at a time, it's quite an array.
I'm glad Hackspace culture is still very much alive in the UK. It feels like people are starting to become interested in such things again. I'm hoping the growing right-to-repair/modify movement will steer more people in this direction.
Most of the comments here are about joining groups, and rightfully so, as most people are really in the basement when it comes to having friends, especially after your 20s.
It's probably not for everyone, as it seems like a lot of work, and it might be too regimented for many, but I've wanted to do it for a while. Maybe this is the year.
I’ve been helping build https://fractal.boston/ for about a year now and it’s been a massively rewarding experience
Like the author, I highly recommend _building_ rather than simply joining a community. If you’re joining an already established scene, get involved! Host events, and bring in new members, establish new norms
Back in grad school, I was out making new friends. I was playing tennis 4-5 times a week. I'd invite players for post-game coffees (in the morning) and dinner (evenings) at every game. Consistency mattered. I'd ask every time. Slowly we had our regulars. Our coffee times became an institution in and of themselves.
People are busy, yes. But, people also want to be in demand. People also don't want to be rejected. And, people also don't want to be left out.
Asking around, I was exposing myself to rejection. Some folks appreciated their time being demanded. More still joined because they didn't want to be left out.
Tennis is a great hub for connection when you're retired. I play a lot, and people are always meeting up after we play and forging all sorts of non-tennis relationships. Sadly for me, this is all during the day when I'm rushing back to work hoping my 90m absence didn't coincide with some emergency.
I’m that guy who gets all the introverts together.
Over the past decade I’ve built two different communities like this, both of which meet weekly. They’ve become pretty important social outlets for all the regulars.
Unfortunately, they are both at my workplace. Which means I am tied to my employer not just professionally, but socially. This makes the prospect of changing jobs much more painful and disruptive.
I also work from home, together with my wife. So even though we have kids, there is no necessity of leaving the house, save for 15 minutes a day on weekdays to drop off and pick up.
The main thing people have to get over is passivity. You want to see your friends? Invite a bunch of people to come out. Nowadays it takes very little time to book a restaurant.
I do this every few months. I just think of three or four other people I want to have dinner with, arrange a time, and then invite everyone else I come across. Dinner ends up being anywhere from 4 to 12 people, out of maybe 20 invites. As for who to invite, just invite your friends, and your "friend seeds".
Everyone has a few peripheral people they know, whose bio seems to fit the template of your actual friends: live near you, studied with you, worked with you. People who in all likelihood have the same values as you, except you haven't hung out together due to lack of opportunity. We all know that guy: you know his name, you know he does what you do, you don't know anything else. So you bring that seed along and you and your existing friends water the relationship.
A more modern way to not be lonely is to play an MMO. This isn't quite like real friends, but it also isn't quite the same as being lonely. The big benefit of course is that you can do this at home.
These games are all about cooperating, sharing knowledge and experience. It's not really all that different from cooking a meal together, you're just in your PJs as you're slaying a dragon. You can also end up learning a fair bit about your online friends from just hanging around. Life stories, that kind of thing, they are a basic part of friendship.
Sweeping self-loathing statements like that are actually a defense mechanism. Fear of rejection is so great that one would rather believe that one is worthless than have another person think one is slightly annoying. Better to self-sooth with self-abnegation than face the uncertainty of other's judgment.
Well, if you’ve been excluded your entire life, like I have, if your invitations are rejected, if you’re never the one being invited, if you search for people who never search for you, and if every connection you manage to form is shortlived and ends in ghosting, it starts to make you doubt your own humanity a little. I think my experience, like the OP, allows me to entertain the idea that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, as if I’m somehow not fully human.
I can understand being in the wrong contest once or twice in your life, but I’ve lived in five different cities. I’ve gone to college three times. I play multiple instruments and have played in bands and orchestras. And yet here I am: completely alone. I have no one to text for a little chat, no one to grab a beer with me on a Saturday night, no one to plan a coffee with, no one to reassure me when I’m struggling. I’m moving through life entirely on my own, rawdogging it, doing everything alone.
At this point, I’ve given up on relationships, on friendship, on love. The few people I’ve ever called friends eventually disappeared. It feels less painful to stop hoping altogether than to keep sinking my already low hope that it is actually all a misunderstanding and that someday I’ll finally find a circle of people who choose me back.
Unfortunately, you are under a curse. The only way to lift the curse is to build a physical space that attracts people. People cannot resist an interesting place.
Sometimes I feel the same, though I did get married, which just happened because I took desperate measures and started using Russian Brides style websites! I was lucky and can’t really recommend these days as it’s mostly scam, but it did work for me 15 years ago. I used to have one good friend, and he was the one that got called by everyone, and I just cruised along. But after he moved away I lost all contact with everyone, it’s like everyone forgot me and it was a one way street as I tried to keep in touch.
I wish I lived in a small town where you just meet people you know already by going out where everyone is or something. Having to take measures like organizing a club, or try to invite people you don’t really have a connection with and probably will not come, feels just too much to me and not sustainable.
>I wish I lived in a small town where you just meet people you know already by going out where everyone is or something
I actually grow up in a small town, like 4000 people in total, in Italy. It is even worse: if you're just a little bit strange and you don't form some kind of friendship while in grade school, the rest of your social life is basically determined to be over.
I've thought about starting my own community group, but I am pretty skeptical that I could find many folks interested in what I'm interested in. I think this is a real barrier to many. Any advice?
To elaborate, in the US, existing groups tend to be narrow and uninteresting to me. In most places I've lived, it's basically a mix of sports/fitness groups, art groups, "tech" (i.e., programmer; traditional engineers like myself won't feel entirely welcome), social dancing, popular fiction reading group, activism, etc. I can't say that any of these genuinely interest me and/or would be a good place to meet people. At a fitness class, for example, many people aren't interested in casual conversation as far as I'm aware. And without genuine interest in the subject, it's hard to engage.
Personally, I've found that running clubs attract diverse groups and tend toward activities that create ample opportunities for smalltalk and meeting people with shared interests outside of the sport. This doesn't hold true for most other sporting activities, in my experience.
Interesting. I was a decent runner in high school, way back. I'm a cyclist now, but I found that cycling groups tend to either be focused on athletic performance or activism and I don't particularly care for either at this point. I'll have to try some running groups as there are a lot of local ones.
That's interesting, but in my experience cycling groups are the most social individual sports groups (even more social than many team sports even). Even the performance focused groups tend to stop at the coffee shop for some banter after the ride, and some less performance oriented groups seem to be more focused on the coffee than even the ride itself.
Are you talking about road cycling or mountain biking? My experience is definitely with the former. I think it helps that in group rides you automatically end up riding next to someone new and chatting along. Easily breaks the ice.
Hmm... okay, I'll try some more local cycling groups as there are a lot of them. Maybe one lesson to take from all the comments I'm reading here is that there's a lot of variation between groups.
I'm thinking road cycling. When I was in grad school, a decade ago, I briefly participated in a student road cycling group. It was very performance oriented as I recall. I was definitely slower than them and my heavy steel commuter bike contrasted strongly with their lighter racing bikes. I talked to some of them, but not during the rides. I was older than the vast majority of them as I recall and in retrospect that might have prevented me from making friends there.
15 years ago I started cycling, by going to amateur XC races. I did that for almost 10 years and it was fun, I got some friends doing it and it worked great for a while. A combination of cycling injury and many people leaving the country ended that endeavor, but it is an example of some simple and practical approach. I was not even looking to socialize, but improve my sedentary life, I found others with similar interests.
I have a childhood friend that is cycling, but he lives in the Netherlands. There people who are cycling more than daily drivers are interested in athletic performance or activism and it kind of sucks, but he got friends skiing and scuba diving, as long as there are common interests you will find some decent people to socialize with.
Funny, I've had the exact same thought, and doubts, as yours. I really dislike communities focused on a certain topic, as I really don't see myself as part of any one thing that defines me. If I were doing rock climbing, I still wouldn't enjoy talking about rock climbing the entire day with my rock climbing friends; my interests are much wider. Which is the reason I do not participate in any community on- and off-line.
I honestly wish social clubs were a thing, and you would get introduced to people from all walks of life. Perhaps this is the reason the Internet is so polarizing: people don't intermingle much, they live in their small niches and echo chambers, and have to put real effort and go out of their way to engage with someone that has a new perspective. Algorithms entrenching us deeper within the same niches are to blame.
I enjoy socialising (sparingly), but I'm not an extrovert and herding people is not my definition of fun, yet I keep feeling I should be the one to form whatever community I and people like me would enjoy participating in. What a conundrum. It's also much easier to make and advertise a club around a topic than an open one for "interesting" people without sounding like a posh cult for elitists.
You've got gentlemen's clubs of the kind that Phileas Fogg from "Around the World in 80 Days" belonged to. They were leisure spaces where the rich could socialize with each other, dine from a wider menu than their own domestic staff could offer, access a bigger reading library, and organize group activities like automotive clubs and regattas.
Then you've got private societies like the Freemasons and the Rotary Club, which were usually segregated by gender and race, had a religious component, and offered services like mutual aid and insurance.
I relate very closely, having had the same thoughts over the past few years. Social clubs sound good in theory, but in my experience it's difficult to connect with people without a central activity or subject to act as a touchstone. It's a frustrating sort of paradox where the best social groups diverge greatly from their core theme, and yet the core theme is necessary to reach and maintain critical mass.
I think it's possible to get around the problem, but it would take just the right structure; there should be activities, but enough of a variety to have something for people from all walks of life. But also not too much of a variety so as not to appeal only to those interested in constantly trying new things. Perhaps a set of some baseline, fairly universal activities, with space for individual members to share their own hobbies and interests from time to time in a group setting? I don't know exactly, but it's something I've been considering for a while, and it feels like there must be an answer somewhere in there.
I think the problem comes when certain topical groups interpret their mission narrowly. Based on your other nearby comment, you mention your experience with a rock climbing group that doesn't so narrowly focus on rock climbing. I think that's the right way to do it.
There was one group I used to attend where I was definitely not as interested in the topic as others. I recall someone at the meetup said to me something along the lines of "If you don't agree with X then why are you here?" Well, I attended because I found a lot of interesting people there, and I know I wasn't the only one. Some organizers made the meetups unstructured conversation, which was great for me. Honestly, I'd just like to meet other people interested in a particular topic. Other organizers preferred meetups with more specific assigned discussion topics. I rarely cared much about the assigned topics and they made the unstructured conversation I wanted to have much more difficult or even impossible (particularly for the online meetups). I don't attend those meetups any longer in part because of the assigned topics.
If you don't mind, could you share a bit about those meetups with unstructured conversation? I would like to attend something like that, some keywords to look for would be helpful.
If the website/Facebook event/email/etc. mentions an assigned topic, then it's not likely going to have much unstructured conversation. Other than that, I can't think of any reliable ahead of time signs to look for. One thing I think I've learned from reading tons of comments today at HN is that I should try more meetups just to see what they're like because you can't really know ahead of time.
Anyhow, the specific group I was referring to was LessWrong meetups in 3 different cities over a period of about a decade. As I said, I'm not quite aligned with their philosophy, but I did find a bunch of interesting people at those meetups.
I can't speak for anyone else, but in trying to pursue groups with relevant interests, I've run into one of three issues:
1. The club/etc follows its core conceit closely, and discussions and such naturally don't branch off far
2. Connected to 1, the folks who actively engage in a club are typically very invested in the subject; when my interest is more casual, it can be difficult to connect with those more passionate
And 3., most critically, the things I am passionate about are too niche to sustain dedicated clubs anywhere but the most dense of population centers, which for a variety of reasons I have no interest in relocating to.
I would appreciate a group where a variety of unique interests is encouraged. I enjoy interacting with people who are passionate in their own ways, even when they don't necessarily line up with my own passions; I realize there are clubs and such out there which likely fit my preferences, but I have yet to find one reasonably nearby.
I think you’re perhaps too narrowly defining what a lot of groups are for. Take climbing for example, as you did - I met tons of folks while climbing, but we talked about all sorts of things. In between attempting routes it’s mostly just shooting the shit.
My point being that a lot of clubs or groups, especially in fitness, don’t have a rule against talking about other stuff. In fact, most are incredibly conducive to it.
> If I were doing rock climbing, I still wouldn't enjoy talking about rock climbing the entire day with my rock climbing friends
Um, have you actually tried? I have a "rock climbing" friends group, and it's rare that we talk rock climbing outside an actual climbing outing. Some of them are at the climbing gym 2-3x a week, some of them 1x a week, some join only once every 1-2 months. But what we do a lot is hang out just for dinner, for some hike on the weekend, going to a concert, whatnot. Climbing was really just the initial excuse to meet, by now it's only a detail we all more or less do now and then.
> I honestly wish social clubs were a thing, and you would get introduced to people from all walks of life
They are. Elks, Knights of Columbus, etc. Not as popular with the younger crowd, but nothing is stopping you from joining or starting your own.
As for the point around feeling like you have to talk about rock climbing all day: you don't. Rock climbing is just the entry point, which allows for a shared conversation topic before you branch into other things.
As another commenter said, at lot of the fraternal organizations are religious. The Elks site says to be eligible for membership, you must 1) Be at least 21 years of age; 2) Believe in God; 3) Be a citizen of the United States who pledges allegiance to and salutes the American Flag; 4) Be of good character. The Knights of Columbus says membership is limited to practicing Catholic men.
That works for some people. I like the activity-based groups. Besides the sports groups, a community garden is also good.
That's strange, I know a bunch of guys in my hometown who hang out at the Elks who aren't religious. Most of them are probably confirmed or at least baptized though.
Yeah, the Eagles Lodge in my town is pretty lax about it - they do want you to do one community service day a year but that to them was basically a "substitute" for "be of good character and righteous" or whatever.
I'll try starting a more niche group just to see what happens. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll find a handful of interesting people. Still, there's a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. If the number of people interested in a topic is small enough, reaching them can be really hard. And only a fraction of them would be willing/able to meet.
As for specific topics, there are many I could pick. My problem isn't a lack of interest in general, just a lack of overlap between my interests and what's available. One I think might have a decent chance of success would be a group based around information searching, both online and in the real world. Despite being an engineer, I've often found a lot of common ground with librarians. I love talking about the subject and could learn a lot about it. It's not going to become irrelevant any time soon either, even with LLMs, due to information siloing.
I keep expecting fraternal orders to make a comeback. It seems like they were a solution to this problem, but have been deemed old fashioned.
I knew someone with the last name ‘Mason’, who would often get asked if he was a Freemason or a decent of one. Eventually he got asked so many times that he decided to join. After that it seemed like he went from not having much of a social life to going out all the time with his Freemason buddies.
Two places I’ve lived have been a short walk to an Elk lodge. If I was a member, I’d imagine that would be a good 3rd place with community. I think VFW would be another one, for veterans, which has also dropped in popularity, but was where my grandfather found his community.
Most of society has relegated fraternal orders participation to their college days. But even in college, most people I knew looked down on fraternities.
I wonder if some of the issue is that most of them require members be religious. With church attendance declining, joining a group that seems to require it is a harder sell. Church itself is also a place where community is built that a lot of people have left behind. I know several people whose entire social network seems to revolve around the church, for better or worse.
Bringing back these groups could really help a lot of people, so everyone isn’t expected do it all on their own or be lucky enough to have a friend who does it for them.
My dad has been very good about keeping up connections throughout his life which looks to be paying off now that he’s retired. But it seems like a significant amount of work that most people aren’t willing to do.
I have an old college roommate who lives less than a mile from me who I have only seen once in the last two years. I think most guys aren’t willing to pick up the phone to set something up, so simply having a place to go, where people are, tends to work out better. My friend who lives nearby is a member at the local country club, which also falls into that bucket of fraternal orders in a way. If I joined that I’d probably see him more, because we’d both have a place to regularly go. I feel weird inviting people over my house to do nothing and just hang out.
I've been getting closer with the Unitarian Universalist church in my town. I'm an atheist and they're the only church in town that's friendly to atheism / humanism.
The unstated implicit difference between online and real world interactions is that you talk to people in real time, can't scroll by, block a person, or be rude to them. Well, you can, but, good old fashioned discourse, and friends telling you to stop being a weird idiot was/is human societal interactions for all of history until the creation of the internet. Facial and physical cues are also part of the lost tapestry that social media cannot replace.
I feel sorry for the young 'uns that have grown up with the internet, that have been able to isolate themselves and their opinions from the real world simply by choosing to not interact physically, and block those whose opinions differ.
In 2023 I built a similar community around parties in my (small) apartment. With a group of around 80 people in the end, usually about 30 shown up. It was great fun, but ultimately it did not build a community. It was great, but vast majority of the connections were fleeting.
Turns out partying is not something that really builds bonds.
My father passed away on Saturday. The aftermath drove home the importance of community.
Hundreds of people came to the funeral, even though it was short notice (24 hours) and in the middle of holiday season. They all dropped whatever they were doing, hopped in their cars or on a plane and came. Friends from his childhood. Friends from his middle/high school years. Friends from his university years, and med school years. People he had worked with and done community service with over the decades. His former students from the decades he taught at the local university. Employees at the hospital he worked at. Family friends. Friends of family. People who knew him by only name and yet still wanted to pay their respects.
I'm Turkish, and community has always played a big role in our culture. But the past few days made me realize that, ever since immigrating to the USA 20+ years ago, community had been supplanted by individualism. Like the author, I work from home. I do have a bit of a social life, and there's a couple of meetups I organize, but the size of my community is nothing compared to my parents. It makes me sad.
Reading this article gave me some hope. It reminded me that ultimately it's a matter of putting in the work, which I am determined to do. Not because I want to maximize the number of people who come to my eventual funeral or anything like that, but because I do want to live a richer life and the best way to do that is to share it with others.
Sorry if the above was all over the place. Things are still raw.
I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds like your father was a great man. No need for apologies, I think what you said is very poignant and relevant to the topic at hand. We should all be so lucky to live such full lives.
I couldn't end reading it. He was saying all the time that the read might have some envy and this was too good to complain, but what I most felt is pity. Being all day at home feels miserable to me.
It’s honestly amazing if you’re the right type of person for it (I know because I have a similar life to the author and I love it). The one important thing, as the author discovered and this article is about, is to make sure to keep up some amount of social life and not become a complete shut in as that genuinely becomes miserable after a while (at least it did for me until I started revitalizing my social life as well, though not in the way the author did).
All that is to say, please don’t feel pity for us haha. I asume the author, like me, genuinely enjoys this lifestyle.
It's scary that community is a goal to attain here, it seems. Having everything optimized, what kind of life is that? Surely not one that's worth living. What would you say in 20 years about a life without connection, spontaneity, beauty, experience and all? Or where all of those points are checkboxes to be checked? I actually see a bunch of reasons for avoiding community like "they are all leftist and I can't say this and that". I can only recommend going outside more and mingle. Life is beautiful, people are cool and the more you isolate, the more you stray from that.
Sorry, but I read the article and also another of his articles linked in this one and I found that logic is lacking seriously from both. It is so bad it will take the length of the entire article to explain point by point and I am not in the business of correcting people on Internet, but I think raising some concern and making people pay more attention to the logic of the article than the emotions it creates, will help some.
The second half of the post essentially describes low/high context social dynamics.
Outside of linguistucs, I've seen it applied as a concept of social group inclusion and mobility. Eg. America is a low context society — if you mess up you can move across town. Other cultures that are high context, your family will be shunned for generations with no hope of success.
> I’ve got no idea, I’m too busy gaming on my Playstation 5 and living a life of selfish consumption.
This is in another article of his about not having kids. But I think just focusing on enjoyment in life is a poor human experience. Life has much more to offer that is equally interesting. Enjoyment isn't the only game in town. And the other things that life has to offer, can be fucking painful. But I'd still say it's worth it to experience.
I appreciate it that life is bitter sweet. I wouldn't exactly say that I like it, but I appreciate it (and it goes up to a point, when we're talking about really rough tragedies, yea none of that please).
Many good observations here. I had time to read 50% through.
>> I think I’m particularly suspicious of community, because as a writer and pedantic arsehole on the internet, I value truth-seeking behaviour. I want people to think and say things that are true, not just things that they have to believe for the sake of keeping their community happy.
Unfortunately, this is what happens with every group of people.
Our individual realities are highly subjective. A group of people who are part of a community construct a shared reality that they can all accept. If you don’t contribute to the shared reality, you are treated as someone who is problematic.
As humans we are social creatures. In our evolution, we develop cognitive systems that help us thrive in social structures. One system is called the social protection system. This system gets activated when we sense tension in relationships and sends a signal of fear to the subject that they risk being separated from a social group. This fear motivates people to maintain connection. So some people are intrinsically motivated by fear to maintain their status, sometimes unconsciously.
Our self esteem comes from two things, relationships and mastery. Healthy self esteem comes from connection to people who accept you for who you are, where you feel visible and accepted with your good and bad traits.
If you have a few people in your life with this type of connection, you will have a healthy social foundation and rely less on belonging to a group.
Groups are valuable in that the human experience is complicated. The best source of information comes directly from other humans and their experiences overcoming complexity.
However, I do agree with the author where certain groups can be problematic, particularly engaging in things like tribalism.
Establishing good self esteem by keeping a few people close to you who see you and accept you as a flawed human is key. The other part is to immerse yourself in activities where you develop mastery and maintain a connection to the activities that are intrinsically motivating and satisfying without distraction from external signals.
I learned this by studying the science of self actualization, from the research done by Scott Barry Kaufman and his book Transcend. He’s a humanistic psychologist who was inspired by Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic psychology.
I did almost the identical project the OP did, for the same reasons, in the same style. Reading that article could have been (with 10% of details tweaked) about my experience.
The biggest difference in how the author approached and how I did: he did it monthly; I did it weekly. I found that made a HUGE difference in building community. If it's once a month, and people come on average 50% of the time, then you'll see these people 6 times a year. That's nice, but one of my goals was to build real, deep relationships with more people, and having a party where I speak a few minutes to each person (if you're the host, it's hard to get more than 30 minutes with one person) 6 times a year - you can't really build a real relationship. Also, once a month puts pressure on people psychologically to attend, but I wanted it low-key, "Come if you want, if not next week, or the week after - or never! It's all cool and you go live your life and you be you!" was part of the vibe I was going for, and it's easier to get that vibe when it's all the time, but the less frequent it is, the more subconscious pressure there is, and I wanted a low-key event (for example, imagine a wedding - that's very irregular, hopefully once in your life - so there's massive pressure to attend, and I wanted the precise inverse).
But my doing it weekly, made it a bit more like church/synagogue, in the best communal sense of the word: a place to go at the same time, same place every week, time to build real relationships, you always knew you'd have a place to go, etc. And because many of the people were the same week on week, it naturally led to longer, deeper conversations, both individual and group conversations.
I was also strict on a few rules. There were a few topics that were banned from being discussed ("politics, business, and sports" basically - and everyone knew going in those were banned) so that forced people to avoid those generic and tiresome topics that (politics in particular) just make unhappy. Also, I had a very strict "no cell phone" rule and I enforced putting cell phones into a box near the entrance.
It also became a HUGE success in my city. Mentioned in the media and featured in videos. Because it became known as the nexus of interesting conversations in a spot with cool energy. Many dotcom/tech superstars as well as ambassadors and other interesting and curious figures, when they were in my city for a few days for business, they'd hear that my apt was the place to be that night and they'd contact me to invite themselves.
It revolutionized my life and my social network. I'd strongly recommend everyone who is suffering from these same sorts of social challenges create their own sort of variation of this concept.
This lasted almost a decade, almost every Wednesday night from 2007 to 2016. Then... adult life happened: family, moving internationally, and... alas. I have a personal challenge these days that I should invest energy in figuring out: the best way to reboot this for me, but in the world I life in now, not only post-covid, but with kids and family life. Sometimes I think about rebooting it but in a public venue on my "date night", sometimes I think about doing a "Zoom" version of this where it's beers on Zoom, etc etc there are many possible ways to approach this challenge - but I haven't yet been inspired with the right formula for me.
There's a time and place for everything under the sun and this was a beautiful and life-changing era of my life.
If anyone is interested in creating their own version of this (particularly the OP), just drop me a line and I'm more than happy to Zoom any time with you and give you some tips. My email is morgan@westegg.com (I still love meeting people even if through email and Zoom!), and my personal website is westegg.com and I have an ancient and embarrassingly bad web page 2008 tumblr-style page about these events at: wnip.org - If the above sounded interesting, I'm always up for a brainstorm so ping me!
As a WNIP OG who made it to 90% of the meetups, I can honestly say these nights were a highlight of my time as an expat in Buenos Aires.
Between the consistent curation and Morgan’s "Kevin Bacon-style" network, I met a huge spectrum of people—both locals and world travelers.[1])
Side note: if you’re in a relationship, these nights are even better. You end up with so many fresh ideas to share with your partner from conversations they weren't part of.
Thanks for hosting, Morgan! And a special thanks to Celia for being so gracious about those late-night "extra innings"
I echo these takeaways! I also stumbled upon a few of these meetups while briefly living in BA, and the people I met during these meetups and conversations we had were many of highlights of that fun chapter of my life. Thank you Morgan for facilitating these!
OH MY GOD DANNY DOVER!!!!! I had no idea you read HN!!!! Our conversations were always so awesome! Wow long time, I'll send you a DM somewhere on some platform, let's catch up!
I found that a weekly meeting for a language-learning group worked great. Your family and even your friends learn, "Oh Wednesday evening, D-Coder's busy."
Your words were beautiful and I appreciate them. See my long response I just wrote, a sister comment to yours now, explaining my thinking when I wrote that joke. Your analysis is consistent with mine: the times were different than, and I made a terrible joke, that didn't stand the test of time. And due to my offensive and sometimes hurtful jokes of the past and many other life experiences, I've been going through a period of transformation, thinking as hard as I can about forgiveness while forgiving others and asking for forgiveness.
As I said to andrewl as well (and to anyone in this thread!), this thread is at its core really about making new friends as adults (weekly/monthly events being one way to do so), and I'd love to meet you and talk about this issue, how times have changed in 20 years, and anything. You can reach me at morgan@westegg.com or you can schedule a zoom here: https://westegg.com/metaphysical-beer-29-min/
Yeah, I wrote that 20 years ago, and I tried to be funny and more offensive than. I'm sorry, I was young and more uncouth; today I'd never even consider thinking-or-talking like that.
That line was meant as a joke. Some of the most frequent, prominent attendees were actually among the top female intellectuals in our city. In that sense, the joke cut both ways: the guys were mostly nerdy software developers, the girls were nerdy intellectuals, and they were generally much smarter. So the line on the webpage, which was just a silly overnight Tumblr thing I wrote 20 years ago, was really self-mockery, mocking the guys for being less intellectual than the girls. Everyone was extremely nerdy and not cool/hot by traditional standards (hence the "hot girls, intellectual guys" joke), and the idea that we'd only "tolerate" "intellectual girls" was absurd since it was mostly intellectual girls anyway, we guys were outnumbered, hahaha. The joke is bad, and yeah, sorry, my humor doesn't always land, especially decades later. (And I did warn with the web link that the page was "embarrassingly bad" - I meant not just the design but the content as well.)
Also, as brabel points out, times have changed. Back then, those sorts of jokes were common and considered funny and not offensive. I'd note that that was written 20 years ago, which is about 33% towards 1966 - the Mad Men era (20/60=0.333) - a different world in which people spoke very differently than they do now. It wasn't an overnight one day to the next transition to our new way of thinking and talking. Even remember that was the same era, around 2007, when our own beloved founder of our HN forum paulg was cancelled for making some comment that was widely considered anti-women. "The past is a different world" as they say.
I even briefly considered updating that wording (having not touched it in 20 years) worrying someone would respond like this; but I decided to leave it, as a testament to history and how we spoke then. I try not to rewrite the past with modern standards, and I own what I wrote.
Continuing my apology for my offensive joke in 2007, as I've grown and gone through my own journey of life growing up, I feel bad for offensive things I've said-and-done over the almost half-century of my lifetime. My words have hurt people. I've been going through my past and asking for forgiveness from those who I have hurt, while also forgiving those who have hurt me. My latest book is about my attempts to reflect on the meaning of forgiveness, on my asking for forgiveness, and my forgiving others. In case you're interested, it is here: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Forgiveness-S-Morgan-Frie...
Finally, andrewl, I'm interpreting your message as an interest in learning more about my journey and transformation, and if you'd like to talk about personal growth, forgiveness, or what the world was like in 2007 or the 90s or 80s, it would be an honor to meet you via zoom and talk to you about life, with an open mind and open heart. This threat is about making new friends, after all, and it would be an honor to meet me, I know your username from your many great comments on HN! You can always email me at morgan@westegg.com or schedule a zoom: https://westegg.com/metaphysical-beer-29-min/
What if you have a community but it's boring and uninspiring? It's always the same shit, STEM nerds, who can only talk shop, tech, video games, sports and bitcoin/crypto/libertarianism/ancap stuff. I mean, I've moved like 3 times in the span of 7 years and every time I end up in the same kind of community. Also, no women. :(
It sounds like his professional life or personal interests naturally being him in contact with a social circle that isn’t fulfilling socially. Doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with him.
I say, look outward! Intentionally get involved with other social circles.
You can have more than one community. Find some new ones. Look deliberately for a different kind of community. Take dance or art classes at your community college. Join a sport club. There are lots of options.
Dance classes are great for getting to known other people, esp. women: Most dance classes lack enough men (for whatever reason)
I had a colleague who was member of a dance club, then he had to move to another district, making it super uncomfortable to continue on a regular base - up until today they are calling him every few weeks if he can attend because lack of men
Well the author suggest starting your own community. If you do art classes, yoga, social dancing etc. you will probably have less crypto bros and more woman there.
You wouldn't need the long blog post or any other efforts if you didn't work remotely (remote work is poison). Having kids is a personal choice, but so many of you are failing to understand why family is so important that maybe you should revisit that choice, too. What are so afraid of? Was your home life as a kid that painful and awful? Even so, you can do a better job of it!
Congrats OP, sounds super excited for his new social life.
I live overseas and I’m very lonely. I’ve been told to join a group or club related to my interests so I can meet new people and make friends, but I can’t. It doesn’t feel natural to me to go for friend-hunting. And I’m very tired of meaningless, superficial connections and conversations I’ve had with most of the people from my surroundings. I feel my only friends are the ones I did at school. After that period of my life, people -or even me- start to disappear.
But with my friends from school, we can be without seeing each other for years and it’s always so easy and rewarding to catch up. I wish I’ve spent more time with them before moving :,(
I feel the same with my friends from school but the reason we feel like that is that school forced us to be together and a deep friendship was forged as a result.
In adulthood, that forcing function doesn't exist so you have to make the effort. So regardless of whether or not it "feels natural" to go "friend-hunting" (it doesn't to me either), if you don't do it, you will be without friends.
It's also worth framing it to yourself differently. Friend hunting sounds awful and fake but organising fun/activities for similarly minded people seems more positive
The natural, and easiest, way to make good friends is to spend a lot of time with people. Some of those people will become good friends with no effort at all.
Given nuclear families etc. in the West, this is kinda hard as an adult. Happens automatically as a child and college student, though. My advice to you is:
1) Get a housemate or several. Better yet, join an already shared house. Forget about your preconceptions about whether you "can" live with other people or not. You aren't special, people lived together for ever.
2) Explicitly decide to work through this "doesn't feel natural to me" thing. OK, fine, it's gonna feel kind of awkward at first. By the 5th friend-hunt it won't.
The author casually mentions this but basically the main reason through history to build communities is the existence of kids, which he literally decided not to have.
I'm the opposite, I don't like or want a social life, I live comfortably, but by having kids I have no other choice than to participate in a bunch of communities just as a byproduct of trying to be a good dad.
Even the communities anyone participates today were likely built around kids in a past time.
The rest of the article is just trying to overcompensate for the decision of not having children.
They literally said that online communities wasn't what they were talking about though.
> And this was when I finally realised something that should have been obvious. I had a small group of close friends who were spread across the country. I had a wider group of friends and acquaintances who I’d talk to online.
If I have an in-person community that's non-tech it's enough for me to only have an online tech community. That's how it was for me growing up, and it would be great to have that again.
yeah but it isn't about what you want. Ofc you like the idea, you built the damn thing. But the author of the post (which you replied/advertised to) explictly talked against this kind of thing. It's like a Budweiser ad on a mosque
Meta commentary: there’s something interesting in the fact that my first instinct was “great another piece of vibeslop”, which inverted completely to genuine interest when I recognized your username.
The “personal brand” and track record might be getting even more important now that the bar to building something has dropped to the floor.
I don't think you will attract any competent "devs" with a platform that is locked behind a GitHub 2FA login. I am not going to create an account at Microsoft to use your platform.
Back in 2019, got to go to Hong Kong for a couple months for work and got to bring my family.
I was about to turn 40 and realized that the place we were staying had a rock wall. In a somewhat "mid life crisis" spur of the moment decision, I decided to go buy shoes, a belt and a chalk bag (I did a lot of indoor rock climbing in college).
We get there and the rock wall is a. closed and b. only for kids.
Get back to the US and COVID lockdown starts. As things open up, I go on the town dad's Facebook group and ask if anyone wants to go rock climbing with me. Multiple dads say "hell, yes!" so I start a rock climbing club.
One of the dads that joins the climbing club loves board games, is inspired by my starting the rock climbing club so he starts the town board game club.
I tell people this story to illustrate that:
- if you don't have a club or org for something that you're into, go start one
- you doing the above can trigger other people to start clubs too
Two years ago, my son was REALLY struggling with his depression. Having tried almost everything, at the suggestion of his therapist, he tried cold showers. To show some solidarity, I decided we should do cold plunges into the ocean together. A guy that I was starting to become friendly with humored us and came with.
Two years later, that guy and I are best friends, and we cold plunge every Saturday together. Just did a new years plunge with our friend group that is growing. My wife commented this morning that I've really 'farmed' my friend group, whereas a few years ago. I was myself very frustrated with having no real friends anymore.
FYI, my son is in a much better place.
There’s something about cold plunges. My group started when some of us started meeting for drinks and a swim after work during the summer, and we just kept doing it every week through the winter. Some joined the group during the winter. Those people became my closest friends:
- We see each other every week, almost without fail
- I suspect the invitation to a cold plunge pre-selects for people with very high openness, and those people aren’t afraid of deep friendships
- Doing something hard and a little bit scary together strengthens the bond
Good to hear, I struggle with depression and cold plunges have been life changing for me also. I would love to find a community to do it with.
The way Finns do it they take a hot Sauna in the winter and when they get out of the hot-room they go lay naked in the snow. Or plunge into the frozen lake through a sawed-out hole. Then they go back to the sauna again to feel the warmth again. It does feel great and stops you from dwelling in miserable thoughts. That may be part of the reason why Finns are ranked happiest people for multiple years.
Yep, I’ve spent time in Finland and loved this… but for me it works better to skip the warm part and just do the cold.
However, the Finns in the winter did not seem to be happy at all, but mostly quite deep in seasonal depression.
I think people often underestimate how, for dad's in particular, there's a massive need for this.
Prior to Covid, I'd started a Wednesday "Dad's Night" where we just got together from 9-10 in my backyard to hang out and have a beer. Eventually we'd move to random local pubs and often it would go to 11pm. It grew with consistency as people would invite other folks. Had one of the assistant basketball coaches from Clemson show up one time. Some of the guys who home brewed would bring something.
The key was a time, after the kids are in bed on a night in the middle of the week when people didn't have other plans.
Covid killed it, but we eventually just became a "grab lunch" text group.
I think Country Clubs and golf used to be the "default" outlet for a lot of people, but as those prices have increased there's a gap to fill.
I imagine lonely men seeing you playing basketball together on the street and thinking “How come I never make friends”…
> how, for dad’s in particular, there is a massive need for this
- Yes
- And also for single men at 45, because everyone’s busy and they feel like a failure for not having a family (meanwhile having a family is such an incredible performance)
- Teens. There is a massive loneliness epidemic among teens. At least we 40-year-olds have had friends before. But the iphonocene (the era of smart phones) has created a generation of people whose friends were always, constantly, busy with phones.
We play a game (whichyr.com) were we guess the year of random pictures. The first criteria is whether people are bent while walking. Not bent: pre-2013. Bent on the phone: Post-2013. It’s not the invention of the phone, it’s the usage of it.
Volunteering in smaller orgs is also a great option because it naturally filters for people who actually want to do something good around them, and the way you work together leaves more space for communication than a lot of group-but-actually-solitary hobbies out there.
A few years ago I joined my rural neighborhood council, and I’d never been around so many people consistently being generous with their time and energy. It’s really uplifting, and you end up learning a lot from each other in the process too.
Maybe it's been "just" my bad experiences, but in volunteering i've always seen some social "power" dynamics that I don't really like.
Some person somehow gets to be the leader and bosses people around. Those people aren't always the brightest or the most compassionate. They often are pushy, they are somewhat totalitarian, they really don't like their ways to be questioned. Sometimes (not always) they are the most dedicated but only because they made volunteering their identity or their main source of self-esteem (this can either happen because they don't have anything else going on in their life OR because what goes on in their life do not satisfy them).
They are often "open to new people, ideas and contribution" only as long as anything new is very well aligned with their (personal) line of thinking and/or does not question their "authority" in any way.
Either way, I've seen that happen too many times to take volunteering any seriously.
I’ve met some of them. To me: don’t get stuck. If it’s not working, move on. There’s a zillion volunteer orgs, so keep shopping until you find somewhere that you like and appreciates you.
I stay volunteering for the people I work with even more than my investment in the goals of the organization.
You can find something like that - keep looking.
I have had this discussion with my wife, men need activities more than women to bond. My wife can make friends just by randomly running into other women at events or my daughter's activities.
The concept of a social cabin or "men's shed" has been discussed before on HN.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158616
The phenomenon began in Australia but it has spread to other countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_shed
Basically the whole point of the Freemasonry fraternity as well. Male only. It is dressed up with some altruistic goals and rituals, but it is a social club for men essentially.
> Basically the whole point of the Freemasonry fraternity as well. Male only. It is dressed up with some altruistic goals and rituals
Freemasonry began as a workers' guild, but the accreted "goals and rituals" take a group far beyond the simplicity of a men's shed.
The simplicity of any club rapidly becomes complex when monotheism or henotheism (any theism) is injected:
From Wikipedia:
* Anglo-American style Freemasonry, which insists that a "volume of sacred law" should be open in a working lodge, that every member should profess belief in a supreme being, that only men should be admitted, and discussion of religion or politics does not take place within the lodge.
* Continental Freemasonry or Liberal style Freemasonry which has continued to evolve beyond these restrictions, particularly regarding religious belief and political discussion.
* Women Freemasonry or Co-Freemasonry, which includes organisations that either admit women exclusively or accept both men and women."
[1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry
I don't think it is complex. The theme of a social group is just there as a filter. If you like rock climbing and meet someone at a rock climbing gym that person is far more likely to be interested in things you are interested in: physical fitness, the particular mental challenges of rock climbing, etc. It was just an example. I won't analyze the sexism or male only nature of the fraternity, but I think Freemasonry anecdotally reinforces the idea that men want/need/form these kind of clubs more than women on average.
When we study this we notice very small actual bias at an individual level on socialization preference. The differences are modest and more like slight preferences. There is more overlap than not at a local individual level. What gets missed is that even though the differences are relatively small, the network effect greatly amplifies these small variances resulting in non-linear outcomes. Even small biases at an individual level essentially produce significant effect in socialization behavior.
> men need activities more than women to bond
Frankly, I don't know why more women doesn't center their social life around activities.
It's an excellent idea. Seriously, what's not to like?
Honestly, as a non-sports loving male, it makes it much harder to build male friendships.
Not that its impossible, but the majority* of men get together to watch, play, or talk about sports the majority of the time... whereas I'm perfectly fine just hanging out where hanging out is the activity!
I eventually just stopped trying to invite most of my guy friends out for 1-1 meals, etc.
* hyperbole
> men need activities more than women to bond. My wife can make friends just by randomly running into other women at events or my daughter's activities.
That describes you and your wife, and that's great to know yourselves. Why do you feel the need to generalize it to everyone else?
People don't need to justify needs by pointing to some greater power that compels them. People have needs; what's most important is understanding them and their loved one loving and supporting them. That one is yours.
Each person has needs; I have no data that it has to do with gender or sex, and why would it matter? The needs aren't predictable based on gender/sex (though socialization is, to some extent). It doesn't change what I do or how I think of it.
This is generally known to be true for men. We have a much harder time connecting socially without some sort of shared activity or action. The OP isn't trying to project on to you.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051382...
https://psychcentral.com/health/didactic-memory?utm_source=c...
>> I have no data that it has to do with gender or sex, and why would it matter? The needs aren't predictable based on gender/sex
not sure what you're trying to say here, but you seem to have taken a very mild, very general statement incredbly personal.
> This is generally known to be true for men.
I haven't heard it before.
> We have a much harder time connecting socially without some sort of shared activity or action.
You might have a harder time doing that; other men have different experiences. The average man has brown eyes and is 1.72m tall; does that mean your eyes and height are that way? It's certainly an error to take statistical generalizations and apply them to individuals - one of the first things you learn in statistics.
Also, the studies you cited don't address this issue. The psychcentral link is about memory research. The other looks at social relationships, but doesn't look at this aspect of them. Do you actually know of any research?
> incredbly personal
Don't bother with the ad hominem distractions.
Chill, dawg.
>I haven't heard it before.
You learned something, today.
Do you have something to say about the issues? Don't worry about me, thanks anyway.
Edit: As far as learning something, the GGP's citations were nonsense, as I pointed out. What has anyone offered, other than a demonstration of the fundamentals of misapplying statistics.
you're ruining the mood of the discussion generally bringing in negative vibes.
nobody's worrying about you, rest assured.
lol. Just address the issues, if you can. I've done nothing more.
I don't even see something negative in what I posted - it's pretty positive to me. I didn't say, 'we're all going to die' or say something fatalistic (like the comment I originally responded to).
Unless you mean 'negative' is 'disagrees', which of course badly is miscontrued in open intellectual debate, especially on HN.
> nobody's worrying about you, rest assured.
That seems pretty negative! :)
There is an interesting thing. If you study the socialization patterns there are only small to moderate average differences and huge overlap between individuals (all genders). This is in part social construct and in part nature. When you average things statistically you can mislead yourself pretty quickly reading some of these studies.
There is more overlap than not. So, how do we reconcile that with how things end up: network effect. Small biases in socialization norms lead to significant non-linear outcomes due to amplification of these biases leading to norms that exaggerate these biases and end up creating norms that are quite distorted from the average. Leads to some significant consequences for how different genders end up socialization.
While that may be true, there are exceptions. And hence I think parents comment is more inclusive to say: some people (that are overwhelmingly male) need activities to bond, while others (majority female) do not need that. (May not be the best example here but helps i.e criticising certain toxic behaviours that are somehow more linked to one sex without blaming everyone of that sex)
That assumes that there is something called 'male/female' that humans can be more or less of - what is the definition there? Certain hormones?
Also, it assumes that there's a correlation between these behaviors and that definition. For example, it could be more common in people who are non-binary.
I don't know what the 'personal' issue you have is. Perhaps a stereotype of people whose beliefs might overlap with mine in this area? It's not personal to me.
Just stick to the merits of the issue; you don't need to bring in ad hominem arguments.
It is kinda crazy someone can be so triggered by something so simple as men starting/joining a club.
It might change how a man and a woman discuss (or should discuss) how they might relieve their sense of isolation and poor social life.
Especially if, say, that man and woman always do things together, but one of them is starting to feel like they need a little bit of something else.
All they need to know is their own needs. Mine are not defined by my gender/sex, but by me; same with the person I'm talking to, same with you.
I'm not thinking about myself on the basis of what someone else thinks all people of my gender/sex do - that's irrelevant. Do you redefine your own needs based on what you read someone else thinks half the population does?
Why does anyone need to be defensive about what someone has found for them?
For example, studies have shown that men who decide to isolate themselves to be "family men" die earlier at age 58.
It might not need to be a pub, but having a club house to do pretty much anything is enormously beneficial to the human brain to have positive social interaction.
We get to decide our own social interaction.
The world is not responsible to not triggering us.
Who is defensive and triggered? It seems like you are the one bringing that up.
> men who decide to isolate themselves to be "family men" die earlier at age 58.
That seems extremely young. Is that a typo?
No, they all die at 58. It's the darnedest thing.
(Seriously, I have no idea what the actual statistic is that's being misquoted here)
That's got to really drive up life insurance premiums.
> For example, studies have shown that men who decide to isolate themselves to be "family men" die earlier at age 58.
Yes, but isn't it a benefit to society as a whole though? All the prime working years are gone by then and there is no need to pay pension to those men or for expensive medical treatments. And younger generations can be happy for there being one less cishet white male boomer in the world.
I mean, it sure sucks for the individual not being able to enjoy their retirement, but for the society it seems that it will be a benefit.
People dying at below the average life expectancy is not a benefit to society.
This idea that people you don't like should die for the "benefit" of society has been tried before. It doesn't end well.
Eventually it doesn't end well indeed. But modern society has made it pretty clear that older men aren't actually needed and are more of a burden. Just look at how triggered the GP of the thread got just about a mention that men might want a different approach when it comes to social stuff.
Well, not needed, unless an actual shooting war breaks out and you need a lot more people pulling guard duty or just some very high-risk stuff younger men should not be wasted on. Like that Ukrainian unit of pensioner men in a ground-attack missile unit who source their own missiles by repairing unexploded ones.
> modern society has made it pretty clear that older men aren't actually needed and are more of a burden
The mistake - which leads to disaster - is more fundamental. Modern society isn't an actual thing with needs, just an abstract concept. Individual people are real, and we all have real rights and needs. 'Goverments exist to protect rights' - society exists to serve the individual, not vice versa. Almost all morality includes protecting and helping the vulnerable.
Who decides who is a burden? Infants and children are also a 'burden' as are people with all sorts of illnesses (and people spreading disinformation). Only the cruelest fascists have suggested they should die to help society, as if that's a reasonable discussion.
> Just look at how triggered the GP
Ad hominem is against HN guidelines. Just stick to the issues instead of trying to change the subject by attacking and characterizing people who don't agree with you.
Rock climbing (in the US gyms, anyway) is such an easy way to meet new people.
You don’t even to find a group or friends before you go. Just go to the bouldering area and hang out during a popular time.
Most gyms have partner finder programs and designated social nights.
Every gym I’ve been a member of has also had a bring a friend program where you get to bring one new person for free periodically.
Online groups are also a good way to meet new friends. This is HN so a lot of people will turn their nose up at Facebook but it’s full of groups of people who go out and do things.
I have no interest in starting a club, but what I do (and you can too) is open your activity to others, (a) for easy access, and (b) with no strings. Typically all this means is reaching out to a small group to say "hey I'm planning to do <x>; want to come?". Encourage them to pass on your invite, don't take it personally if nobody comes (or even responds) and when they do bond over you shared love of <x>. Maybe this grows into a club, or just a shared message group, but regardless you still get to do what you wanted to in the first place.
+1. A WhatsApp group with 10-20 ppl (in similar stages of life) worked well for a while for organizing hiking/tennis/squash/some sport/DotA. We got consistently 4-5 people including their spouses showing up. Usually 2-4 weekends a month. With that size, many people can comfortably pass on the invite.
Then organically these tend to turn into trips together or simple hangouts for someone's birthday or a holiday.
this sounds like a club.
Every person I meet in climbing gym defines their life in two words: BC and AC: Before Climbing and After Climbing. Had the same experience as OP, thanks to it, I am more fit than ever and have a much better social life :)
So true
> - if you don't have a club or org for something that you're into, go start one
This is how I met most of my local friends; I went out and started a D&D game.
D&D is slightly tricky, because most people want to play a character, instead of be the DM - so, you either need to find a DM, or be the DM. I'm lucky - I love DMing.
Another problem is maybe similar to what OP was facing; I see many people joining our local Discord, looking for a game, but none of them or the people welcoming them seem to take the actual next step of picking a time and a place to meet and start discussing where and when to actually play.
This is awesome and I wish I had the courage to do it.
My experience is, in the USA, eventually nearly every meetup is ruined by politics. Eventually someone says something unintentionally trigging someone else and then off it goes.
I haven't had that experience too often here in New England. Though I'm typically involved with specific hobby based groups. Usually politics are avoided and if someone insists they are basically politely ignored.
I needed to read this perspective, thanks.
Do you have any Hong Kong recommendations you can share? I am going there for two weeks in September and just starting to research. Very excited!
I'm a great lover of going to places with no real plan and just wandering the streets finding stuff. Hong Kong is a great city for this. Have a general plan, e.g. visit the memorial to the walled city, but get distracted along the way.
Also watch Ghost in the Shell which is vaguely set in Hong Kong then feel the vibe when you're there.
One of the things becoming an adult that people miss is that somebody has to set stuff up and that somebody can be you.
It's really easy to be in the mindset that someone else should have already set up the rock climbing club and that if it doesn't exist it just can't.
Turns out that someone can be you! (and this is the thing people miss out on, you can actively make your world more like the way you want it to be by being that leader yourself and doing so is often way easier than you think)
Everyone I know in LA that beat the social stagnation had started their own event
Many people also just put you on a text messaging list when you exchange numbers. They only tell you the number to their list, but they are capable of responding individually from it
When they go somewhere, they tell the list, if you come you come, if you don't, nobody's missing you. No obligation, reply STOP to end. Otherwise you can bond at the event and meet everyone else too
> a significant proportion of the people you used to hang out with have kids and disappear off the face of the Earth for two decades.
I’ve been on both sides of this, so I’m going to put this out into the universe:
Your friends with kids still want to see you.
They have a lot to deal with suddenly. They’re exhausted.
But they miss hanging out with you, and will leap at the opportunity to hang out if you take the initiative and make some kid-friendly accommodations.
They may decline more often than before, because the kid is sick or sleeping or not sleeping so the adults just need to lay low. But don’t take that “no” as a “stop asking”.
As someone who used to have a highly active social life and now finds IRL socializing to be mostly a dull chore, I always find it confusing to see so many people commenting to the contrary. My partner is slightly more social than me and gets out slightly more than I do, but generally we are homebodies and we like it that way.
Other people (at least in this country) are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests. The few times I find a candidate who isn’t like this, they usually have some kind of personality disorder that makes them too unstable for long-term friendship. When I was younger I often looked past this, but there’s only so many times you are willing to let a human wrecking ball into your life.
A good book is almost always better. The life of a deep reader and casual hobbyist is rich and fulfilling if your romantic needs are satisfied at home. I do not miss my former social life at all.
Just leaving this out there for any other wayward souls who may be annoyed by the conversation.
Socializing is not a "dull chore" it is a essential component of healthy living[1]
By not socializing, you are avoiding (to quote the linked article) a "fundamental human need." This is not something you can simply live without, just like you cannot live a good live without exercise.
The view you are espousing is fundamentally unhealthy.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11403199/
While you are totally right, it doesn't means we are all good and/or equal when it comes to fulfilling our fundamental human needs.
Your exemple is in fact good because a hella lot of people find exercice to be exactly a "dull chore". Same as eating healthy actually.
So, mentioning that socializing can be, for some people, a chore doesn't go against the fact that it is something essential.
You can even be conscious about it and still don't like it : I hate exercising but i still do it because, well, it's needed.
I used to be like you, living my life based on external beliefs of what I "should" do. Once I realized that I didn't have to all my stress disappeared and I've never been happier.
People told me I "should" exercise for years and I didn't, but when I did I suddenly got a lot less depressed and my life turned around for the better so I'm going to continue to trust other people
There is a deep irony in an argument that pushes a pro-socializing view in a black-and-white, authoritarian way, "shoulding" statements, shaming tactics. It's actually anti-social, and the authors of the cited paper probably would not agree.
It definitely can be a chore.
I organized a large (600+-person at its peak) Meetup in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY during Meetup's hayday (2010-ish).
Meeting heaps of different people from all walks of life was interesting at first. But like a previous poster stated, connections like these are fleeting and take a lot of work to maintain (especially if you're a man, which I am; see the end of this post for more on that).
Consequently, the process of meeting people eventually became very same-y after a short while, and knowing that these conversations usually won't amount to anything other than nice, fleeting moments got old.
There was also the drama of managing "interesting" personalities in a free Meetup group. I passed the baton in 2012 or so, but that's another post for another day.
I'll conclude this post with some unsolicited advice: try to learn what people do for work without asking them directly.
EVERYONE expects this question, and it can be a conversation killer if your occupations don't intersect (less likely) or if the person you're conversing with hates their job (more likely). Everyone ALSO loves talking about themselves. Finding out how someone spends the largest part of their day without asking point-blank adds interesting twists and turns that can really liven up a conversation. It also makes you a better listener and better at asking questions.
I lied; I have more unsolicited advice. The easiest way to give a shit about what someone does for work is to ask lots of questions! Unless they hate their job, in which case, you'll want to ask questions that get them talking about what they do enjoy!
Typing that last paragraph reminded me of another reason why I got burned out on socializing with people. I'm a man. Most men only like sports and video games; two things I couldn't care less about. Socializing with other men as a man who dislikes these things is extremely difficult, especially in the US South, where I live. I blame the suburban lifestyle, but that, too, is another post for another day.
>Everyone ALSO loves talking about themselves
I see this a lot and it's interesting because I don't like to talk about myself much. Doubly so about work. I wonder how many of us there are.
What do you like to talk about? I'm passionate about my work and happy to discuss topics but not too keen to explain it to someone who has nill knowledge of the subject or industry.
Oh man, I relate so hard on the sports conversations.
It’s perhaps possible to get the bulk of this ‘required’ socialisation from your home life though
Yes. It helps to have a partner who also has a rich intellectual and/or creative life.
While this is true, when your relationship comes to an end you are suddenly very alone.
I guess I’m unhealthy then. Sad!
I do think unhealthy is the way to put it. I think that being asocial is kind of like being overweight, in that they have similarly negative effects on health[1]. Of course, being in good health is multifactorial, and just as you can find many overweight people who are otherwise in fine health, you can find many people (like yourself) who eschew social situations but are otherwise perfectly happy.
Though I do think, if you extend the metaphor, that saying that socializing is a dull chore is a bit like saying exercising is a dull chore.
[1] https://www.ssmhealth.com/newsroom/blogs/ssm-health-matters/...
These kind of findings are probably accurate on average, but not to a person. Some people are wired differently. Some (presumably most) require community and extensive social connection. I really think that some of us just need much, much less. I don't get much sense of reward from social interactions. It really does just feel like a dull chore most of the time. Even with people I genuinely like and respect.
Yeah, I've been trying to wrap my head around this recently. I always get a bit irked by the inevitable comments confidently asserting things like "humans are social animals, if you think you don't need tight social connections you're just hurting yourself". And then pointing to these results averaged out over the entire population as "proof".
It seems like there's got to be some statistical fallacy being made, like asserting "all humans need visual stimulation to survive" and then all the blind people on earth shrug at the data and realize they're not human I guess? On average it's true, "all humans" would go crazy if deprived of their sight, but it turns out some people do it just fine and can have rich, human lives.
I wonder if it's just when people live very social lives, the idea of deriving satisfaction in life internally, to be able to self regulate and maintain a health sense of identity without frequent input from others, is just too alien to consider. To not dislike people, or lack social skills, but just be as disinterested in socializing as I am in starting a coin collection. Or maybe all that is just extremely uncommon and experiences like mine are just a true rounding error.
Finger-wag all you want, it's not going to make that Sisyphean boulder any lighter.
> there’s only so many times you are willing to let a human wrecking ball into your life.
I understand this deeply. On the other hand, I do believe that community is essential for a good life (for 99%+ of people). It's a struggle for me, as I want community, but I've had many wrecking balls and anchors (and been them), and so I tend to be defensive.
> Other people [...] are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests.
I also feel this. But I suspect a large part of this is that defensiveness, people are meant to live in harmony with those (fairly) different from them. But especially with regard to differing values, sometimes it feels like no one around you shares the same framework. I think that's one reason people move to new places.
+1. For every one like the author of the blog post, it's likely to be another one in the opposite direction. But they will be unlikely to write a post about that. I too found weighting 'spend time with human persons v.s. with my own thoughts, or programming and writing, or reading a paper or a post, or listening to a podcast while walking in nature' lately come down on the side away from humans. So far - it's been way more interesting. When/if that changes and becomes boring - will think what next and change.
Exactly, I may change my stripes again, but for now a life of relative solitude feels right.
No hate intended towards those who feel the need to be social. If you feel like you’re missing out, the article has some good advice. But there’s nothing wrong with those of us who prefer a quiet morning walk to an average conversation.
> But they will be unlikely to write a post about that.
I don't know what you're talking about. People loooove talking about how hell is other people or how they'd rather be curled up on the couch, how relieved they are when others cancel plans at the last minute.
> For every one like the author of the blog post, it's likely to be another one in the opposite direction. But they will be unlikely to write a post about that.
There's literally an entire website dedicated to people with this point of view, it's called Reddit.
> Other people (at least in this country) are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests.
Does every person need to be unpredicatable and intellectually stimulating in order to spend time with them? If a friend who lives in Rotorua is interested in mountain biking (how predictable, how shallow) does that make spending time on a bike in the forest with them somehow lesser?
It's always fun seeing other Kiwis on HN, but this is the first time I've seen my hometown mentioned!
I do agree with your point too: perhaps emotional stimulation is also important? That can be a lot less sharp, less well-defined, but just as enriching.
It sounds like GP has very high standards for their friends, which is not the point IMO. I think we should have friends to broaden our horizons and expose us to new things. Intelligence is only one part of that.
I am not a Kiwi but was in Rotorua once, just wanted to say it is a lovely town (there was a sign claiming it was the nicest town in NZ!) and I loved the geyser and boiling mud! Must be funny to live with the sulphur smell and not even noticing except when you leave and come back after a while.
I don’t think other people are the problem here. Harshly judging others and only wanting to socialise with people that fit a strict narrow criteria is the problem. And it sounds like you have good reason to do that due to past bad experience. I’ve been in a very similar situation and used it to justify keeping a minimal social life. But discarding a rich social life due to some bad experience is the wrong solution. It’s like getting a car accident and deciding you should never travel by car again.
Human experience is broader than you can imagine. Through reading, I regularly encounter new ideas and concepts that I never could have derived from my interactions with others. Through meditation and contemplation I have experienced strange and fascinating modes of consciousness that are available to anyone willing to sit still for a while. Casual travel has led me to an endless number of beautiful empty places, places whose very lack of humans made me feel completely free. Making physical things as a hobby has made me deeply satisfied in a way I never have felt when dealing with people.
None of this has required much in the way of socializing, in fact excessive socializing would actively interfere with these activities.
I reject your implication that a highly social life is better than a rich, mostly solitary life. It’s different, but not better.
None of these are bad things.They're all great. But rejecting socialising with other humans due to a negative experience with some is the opposite of the enlightenment that can be found through meditation. If you only read about things rather than experience them you can't really know them. If you only travel alone you miss out on the joy of travelling and discovering with others. You can do both.
You seem to misunderstand. I don’t reject socializing because of a few negative experiences, I just don’t get any significant positive feelings anymore from the majority of my social interactions, after many attempts, and especially when compared with interactions from long ago. It isn’t just other people, I have changed too. Even interactions that “go well” just don’t provide anything of value. What’s more, I don’t miss it. I much prefer what I have now.
I don’t travel alone, I travel with my partner who is a great companion.
This conversation is interesting, as well as it is socializing. You understand where i am getting at?
Yes, and IMHO this kind of conversation is superior to the average IRL conversation. It is asynchronous (allowing you to return to it as you like), it places few demands on your time, and when it’s over then it’s over. You can enter just the interesting part of the conversation and then exit just as quickly. No need to drag it out or pad the ends with filler. No need to explain your departure.
IRL conversation is an art, and few people are even halfway decent at it. Maybe that’s the true source of my complaint. To make an IRL conversation entertaining you need expressiveness, creativity, as well as a good variety of topics and tolerance for differences of opinion. Not many people can check all these boxes.
What country are you in?
The US. I think the increased political polarization has changed things somewhat, as well as the aging of my peer demographic. People tend to become more close-minded and fixed in their beliefs as they age, so if you’re a freethinker who enjoys thought experiments and challenging norms then it’s difficult to find others who are similar.
Even many so-called “freethinkers” merely regurgitate common talking points and claim that this is somehow interesting, and they get more aggressive than “normies” if you try to branch out! I used to be able to engage in open ended conversations with people where you explore topics from all angles and adopt abhorrent positions as a way to understand the truth. Nobody seems to be comfortable with that anymore. Perhaps in the past everyone was just so drunk that they didn’t care about their inhibitions; I don’t tend to drink socially anymore and alcohol is famously a social lubricant.
I'm with you all the way. It's always much easier to strike up conversations with foreigners on my travels (or the locals) abroad than it is with people from the US, even when abroad. I was on vacation taking a tour when another American family joined. It didn't take long until they started to talk about politics. We could have talked about so many other things, but that's the reality for the vast majority of Americans. Politics is the only sport left and all consuming for most here. The worst part is like you said, they are rooting simply for their own team and aren't looking for an actual intellectual discussion on anything.
I definitely see your point. I'd just say though that it can put a lot of pressure on the romantic relationship. Some can handle it; others might not. And also it makes it much more difficult to recover if things don't work out.
Social life is a bit like SEO. To get the full benefits, you needed to start on it years ago. Trying to do it just-in-time is generally a very frustrating experience. I think there's wisdom in doing casual cultivation when you don't feel you need it. It's like keeping your skills/résumé up-to-date just in case.
This suggestion is common to the point of banality, but it really does benefit hugely from having "a mailing list of several dozen friends and acquaintances" to bootstrap it.
I've been trying something very similar to the author's approach for three years now: a casual tech meetup. My results are way worse despite putting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into the endeavor.
The people you attract might themselves have no local friends. That's why they're showing up to your meetup! But it also means that they won't help to expand it.
The people you attract might not be alcohol-drinkers. A lot of people who suggest organizing casual meetups usually have a pub in mind as the venue. Bringing 12-15 people to a restaurant takes a lot more planning. Getting 12-15 people to agree on a restaurant that meets their diet and budget needs is, well...
You might attract people who are much younger or much older than you. The average author of this kind of article is 36. Do they like the company of people who are within ±20 years of age from them? And do those people like each other's company?
Long story short, you might end up like me, having invested years of your life and a surprising amount of money, to make 3 casual acquaintances who you're sort-of-but-not-super-friendly with.
>I sent the details to friends and acquaintances who appeared in my notifications, or to mutuals who appeared on my timeline. But anyway, to my relief, on the night itself, a whole bunch of people actually turned up.
If the author was able to pull 'a bunch of people' to birthday drinks with nothing but an invitation, this story is more about underestimating his social capital rather than creating new capital.
Not sure I agree with that. I think there are a lot of people (especially in the mid-2023 time frame the author is talking about) who want to get out more and want to engage more meaningfully with others. But they don't really know how, and don't know how to create opportunities to do so. They might not accept any random invitation to absolutely anything, but a punchy event description about bringing people together could easily be a solid attractor.
Yes, there are also many (stuck-up and immature, IMO) people who won't even consider attending an event without a look at the guest/RSVP list to see who else will be there. But I don't think that's the majority. If you set up an outing, invite 50 people, but only 10 show up, that's still a pretty great success, I think.
Working remotely taught me a similar lesson as the author. The most important part that I think people get wrong in general is that online friends, or your good friends from uni or your childhood youth that you only see in person once or twice a year, can't replace an active local friends group - or community as he calls it. Cutting the daily interactions with other humans by no longer going to an office every day made me realize that - because you very quickly feel that something is missing.
Yeah, I've been WFH since the pandemic and my team is remote anyway, so even going to the office doesn't help (much).
I'm exploring in-office jobs for 2026.
I like my remote job and don’t want to leave, but I also can’t work at home because I get depressed and my productivity drops to zero.
Wework and other coworking spaces have mostly been a disappointment as a way to find community, with just two exceptions over the years (one of which was killed by covid).
I’m still searching.
i am somewhere in the middle because my work requires me to go to the office only four days per month but no one is really checking (nor they check if i go in at 9 am or 1pm).
so for me it's nice because i get to have my slow morning and go to the office during lunch break (i live relatively close).
this made me realize that i don't really mind the office (i ended up going almost every day, staying from lunch break 'till 5pm) but i loathe essentially two things:
- shitty coworkers (better to hop job at all, but avoiding them in person does help a lot)
- going to the office being mandatory (as in, not having freedom and autonomy)
in my current setup colleagues tend to autonomously organize when to meet in the office and go out for lunch together. and frankly... it's great.
the work itself has a lot of shortcomings (and i'm fixing things left and right from the first week i joined the company) but the people and the autonomy make it great.
Having online friends can be great, but you’re right that it doesn’t replace in person friend groups.
One big problem with having mostly or only online friends is that you spend all day at work in front of a computer, then if you want to spend time with your online friends you spend more time in front of a computer. It can turn into all day every day screen time.
Why can't you have an online community?
littlecranky, put your reply back please; it was a good one.
Because they can’t reach you when there’s a power outage to check that you’re warm. They can’t share boiled water with you when the mains break. They can’t invite you to a meal when you’re lonely.
They can mostly only ever wish you well.
This stuff is valid, but a lot of it is more "be there in a crisis", which is not the day to day.
For me, the significant thing about having local community is the ability to throw stuff together last minute. Not every gathering has to have a spreadsheet of guests and canva invites and endless emails booking a band, a keg, whatever else.
A lot can and should just be "hey dudes, anything doing anything? Want to come over for a game/movie/whatever?" Those kinds of low-stakes hangouts are the real backbone of community, and they're hard to do if you don't have a friend group that's physically close by.
There was a period of time in my mid 20s when me and a close friend ot mine lived across the street from each other, and what you said here resonates with me strongly.
It is such a massive boost to quality of life to just be able on a whim to send a text like “i am tryna grab some food+drink in 15min, you down?” and actually make it happen more than half the time (and being able to receive similar texts from the friend too). Lots of spontaneous interactions and (barely-any-)planning for just normal low-pressure outings was absolutely my favorite part of that time period.
On a sidenote, I absolutely despise the “guest spreadsheet canva invites for an event scheduled a month in advance and endless emails booking a band” way of regularly doing social stuff. It is totally chill and reasonable to do so for special occasions and bigger events, but having it as the primary way of socializing makes me want to drill a hole in my skull.
I miss that about dorm life in college. For 4 years I lived in an arcology with people who were the same age and economic class as me. Since the commute to anyone's place was 1-5 minutes on foot, you could get food, watch a movie, and drop out whenever without worrying about the sunk cost of fucking driving 15 minutes in a car-centric city from one detached SFH to another detached SFH.
I miss the arco. I miss the arco a lot.
Neighbors can provide these things if you’re willing to reciprocate. And you don’t have to be close with them, just friendly.
We've moved around a lot. Getting cool neighbors like this is like winning the lottery. We finally have neighbors that are fun to hang out with, and, yes, it's incredibly awesome.
I think the nuance of the different types of community is often lost in these discussions, and that they're not mutually exclusive.
I can only speak to my own experience, but for the last 1 year I have been by myself and my 2 younger daughters in a new town. I work remotely, but also have some very good friends that I can rely on when I need. Those friends are distributed all over the world and while I can call them any time off the day or night, there is a fundamental difference how I feel after a phone/video call to after a conversation over e.g. drinks/dinner. In fact I found that I sometimes avoid calling my friends because the phone call makes me feel lonelier.
So for me online communities can be a great thing, but they can't replace IRL communities, because the interactions make you feel different. I suspect that the social needs that evolution has imprinted on us can't just be fulfilled by online interactions, they require more senses than just hearing and seeing.
You can, but it does replace meaningful irl connection with other humans.
Squigz my guy, you're missing out.
I feel like my favorite thing to do on a saturday is walk around the city I live in to my friend's houses and just bother them for 20-30 minutes, maybe grab lunch, the mundanity of it I think still achieves community, especially since a brief 30 minute weekly chat IRL is never overwhelming, and I get my steps in. I feel like though it's a privilege to live in a city where most people live within a 4 mile radius, and is entirely walkable at most an hour~ walk away, and much less between nodes.
Lovely read. Social health is my number one 2026 priority. I moved into a new city in 2025 and this hits home. I'm lucky to have a great and active group of online friends but it's no replacement for something local.
Some things that I've picked up last year that are a good starting point:
- timeleft dinners. I get dinner with 5 strangers every few weeks. Tons of fun and you meet a lot of interesting people.
- swing dancing: I went on a date to a social dance and immediately became addicted. It has taken a while to learn the basics, and some of the unwritten rules of the dance floor, but now this is an activity I can take with me to many of my city's social dances and meet all sorts of people. It has greatly improved my social skills and confidence.
I think the biggest different this year will be the amount of effort I put into organizing social events: I've found that everyone seems to be waiting for an invite, but no one wants to do the inviting! OP hinted at this in his article.
> dancing
A "screwing club for men" was the scene at the Salsa dancing which I joined (with female friends). I really loved the salsa and really enjoyed everything with the rest of the learners, and with my friends. Unfortunately it took me too long to realize that the "top" men were more interested in fucking beginner women than in real socializing. Too predator vibe for me so we quit - I probably should have looked for a better group. That group was an outlier - later I've seen dancing groups with fantastic dynamics.
Dancing is amazing, and I'd recommend anyone to try it, but try to join a social group.
It looks like it would be great to travel with: I met a truly wonderful bunch of people at a LGBT friendly Tango (my AirBnB hosts took me in Argentina).
What’s a timeleft dinner?
There's a subreddit for people using this app, if you're curious: r/TimeLeftApp
It's a "meet 5 random people for dinner/drinks" app. Actually sounds like it could be fun.
Wow the opening to this could have been written by me!
Solitude in your 30s (particularly as a DINK or SINK household) is dangerously addictive.
No need to leave the house… but it does lead one to feel disconnected more broadly over a prolonged period.
They’ll have to pry WFH out of my cold, dead hands; but I must say, the times I do travel to the office and spend a day chatting with people are incredibly energising (though also very unproductive!)
> Solitude in your 30s (particularly as a DINK or SINK household) is dangerously addictive.
Can confirm (SINK).
The real problem is that solitude in your 30s is peaceful. So peaceful. So much so that if you built your own safety net and covered your back, solitude is so peaceful that you might end up not even wanting a romantic partner at all.
Anybody that had their fair share of storms in life can confirm that having a calm, peaceful life of solitude can be so peaceful one often doesn't really want to change that.
On a tangent to the article- I quit my career just over two years ago now: same age as author, live in London too. The hardest thing about not working is the social life that work gives you. Whilst we may think that work is for money, it is also for 1) filling our time, and 2) spending time with people. Yes, some people are definitely a net-negative interaction, but most people are actually positive to one’s day, but in one of those “you need to not work for a year to know it” way.
Amongst other reflections I have:
1) a pay-check does give you a sense of validation. This took some getting through
2) it’s been challenging working out what I will actually end up doing with myself. There were periods where I put more pressure on myself to do so. I still don’t know what will do.
3) the process of doing things because they are fun takes some getting used to when one’s entire life was built around doing something useful to others
4) when one lives off of savings it’s almost easier to spend as it feels like you didn’t suffer for it. Getting depressed at work makes it easier to spend more money outside of work
5) the “number” people need to retire (or not work for extended periods) is probably less than people realise
6) not working in finance (amongst all the moral corruption everywhere) has generally made me happier in part because I can live in a way which is more in-keeping with my values over having constantly breach them for work reasons
7) owning my calendar is a big freedom. I don’t have to ask a boss if I can do something all the time. No need to explain yourself.
8) not constantly having to submit to a boss is huge. One can really grow this way, as constant repression to other people’s whims is soul crushing and shows just how close employment is to slavery (especially in finance with golden handcuffs)
My partner and I were discussing our need for “third spaces” this week. We’re homebodies, and enjoy being home. However mundanity of wake, work, hobbies, sleep in the same place every day is getting to us.
It’ll be a slightly different approach to the other though. For me, I want to start playing some tabletop games (war games and/or RPGs) at my Friendly Local Game Shop. I think these types of interactions are important for community.
My wife and I go to co-working spaces a couple of times a week (on separate days and different co-working spaces), despite both working fully remotely. This is our solution for a "third space".
This gets us out of the house, gives us some time away from each other and kids, and gives us some interaction with some other people (who work for completely different companies) but are kind of like colleagues in terms of gentle office banter, water-cooler chats, etc.
I know loads of them by name, who they work for, what they do and there are occasional bonus interesting chats where some aspect of our two industries/jobs overlap slightly. There's one person who is just starting out doing something similar to a niche job I did 15 years ago, so it's great to speak to him and act as a kind of mentor.
Fully remote work is great, and I could be a happy recluse, but I'm all for more in-person interaction during the working day. Next job I think I'll go back to hybrid with 1-3 days in an office if possible.
I have a couple of really, really good friends who are deep in this hole, one struggling with burnout, one with regular depression (though they’re both depressed, you get how this works) and it’s so hard to watch, because I invite them to things, I encourage them constantly, I try and get them out and moving because, and admittedly this is an uninformed opinion: I believe their homebodied lifestyle is destroying them in the exact way this comment describes.
It kills me. They are so addicted to their comforts, to their security, to their home. And I get why, they have had a tremendously bad couple of years… but I just see the repeated behaviors reinforcing the issue. I get told over and over “we just need a few months where nothing bad happens” but like… dude. That’s not coming. The bad shit always happens, it’s going to continue until you die. The only way to make that worse is to self isolate and make yourself miserable constantly between those bad things.
If anyone has advice, I would super appreciate it. I’m so worried for them.
Keep up at it. Without pressuring, or without making it the elephant in the room uncomfortable topic that makes them avoid you. One day you will catch them in a good day.
Just wanted to maybe provide a slightly different perspective, but I recently went through this process of pulling back from being socially active and it was for more than just one reason.
I wanted to focus on my health, both mental and physical, this meant going to the gym every morning and making time to read and getting rid of social media.
I also wanted to reduce my consumption of alcohol which typically was fueled by social events and always seemed to throw a wrench in taking care of my health (hard to get to the gym in the morning when you were drinking the night before, and for me it was even after just 1 drink).
What I realized was that many of the people I was spending time with, they oriented their communal time around drinking and for me that's pretty detrimental to my goals. After pulling back from social activity, I've felt so much healthier, happier and optimistic about life.
I get the same exact phone calls as you're describing, and I generally weigh the events I'm being invited to with what the focus of the event is - if the goal of the event is to just get together at a bar, I don't go. I think many of my friends feel that I've lost my way, but it's difficult because I sort of see them in the same light.
What I do hope to do eventually is to cultivate some new friendships, because I am missing that social aspect of my life, but for now I've sort of got a good thing going and I'm not too concerned about rushing it into being.
Find something you need their help with that forces them out of the house. Depressed people often lack purpose.
From someone who is and has been in that hole for longer than I'd care to admit, my only advice is: try to be continue to be patient, and continue to gently encourage them, without making them feel bad. We all know the logic in what you're saying. Actually following that is the difficult part. And watching your loved ones become more impatient makes it hurt even more.
Of course, I know that from your perspective, it can be frustrating and painful, and that nobody can be expected to remain infinitely patient. I don't blame people for eventually throwing in the towel...
Oh to be clear, I'm not frustrated by it, not a bit. I just hate watching it you know? You care about people, you want them to live good lives. No frustration, it just sucks to see people you love pining for a stability you fundamentally believe doesn't exist, and refusing to live until it does.
I can really relate to this post, celebrating my birthday with a party for the first time in 10+ years in 2025, it truly had a massive impact on my mental health and it made me realize I should throw little gatherings much more often.
Great write-up and encouragement on the author's part.
I had a similar problem this year after having moved to a new country, working a remote job and separated from my partner. Having had a terrible social life since I was a kid, I knew it in my bones that I'd have to find myself new friends or else. So I did - I renewed my relationship with old friends, joined a book club (was a big reader as a kid), and my dog helped me make friends at the dog park.
I find it interesting that I've thought about the exact social mechanics of making friends before as well - low stakes in person common context where you meet on a regular basis is key.
I came to the same conclusions as the author. Then I tried something like this and failed to get people interested.
It’s draining for me to reach out to try and convince people, not sure if the social anxiety or the lack of executive functioning.
Any tips for someone that understands and wants community but struggles with the building process?
I had the same problem, and solved it this way:
Find a close friend for whom reaching out and convincing people is not draining, and partner with them. They do the reaching out, you take care of the logistics.
The framework that helped me understand what was going on with this is Working Genius. Reaching out falls under what they call Galvanizing, which is draining for me, but my friend is super good at it.
Same as all socialization: If you're attractive, you'll succeed no matter what you try or how you try it (You do still have to try, but that's the only requirement).
If you're unattractive, you'll fail no matter what you try or how you try it.
There's a reason why success stories in this area never talk about the author being required to or benefiting from evolving their tactics.
From my experience, here's the general lowest-effort way to find community:
Make a list of public places that you like (bars, coffee shops, game shops, etc.) and go to them at the same time on the same day every week. You'll shortly start seeing the same people regularly, even if it's just the staff.
Then you can greet those people, introduce yourself, and talk with them. By asking questions about their day, their plans, and sharing the same about yourself, you'll open the door to expanding your social life outside of those locations, hours, and people.
Community doesn't need to be a series of planned events and invitations. It can be implicit and organic just by virtue of regularly sharing space.
Personal anecdote:
I do this with pinball. Sure, it's often in bars, but it's a great way to be at a bar without having to drink. Pinball players are happy to talk about pinball (or anything really), it provides an instant topic of conversation, and it's easy to invite another player to a game because it's such a short commitment. And if no one's around that you want to talk to, or you don't feel like focusing on socializing, you can just play the game while still maintaining your regular schedule.
If you want to try following in my exact footsteps, you can use Pinball Map[1] to find locations near you. Good luck!
1: https://pinballmap.com/map
This has absolutely never worked for me in cafes, not in decades of trying across multiple states. Cafe regulars either bring their own company or "laptops open, headphones on, heads down."
Amusingly, the rec league pinball people are absolutely ferocious about promotion. Pretty much every thread in r/bayarea about looking for friends gets a pitch from a pinball person.
I'll answer your question with a question. In the past, I would have recommended finding a Meetup on some activity you enjoy. Meetup isn't as popular anymore (another victim of COVID and WFH culture), but the spirit of the idea is sound. Are there apps or services that fill that void these days?
While I think his approach is not the best, even if it worked for him, I am convinced that if you identify a few thigs you like to do you will find some other people with the same interests. There are so many activities that it creates some fragmentation of interests, but the population is still large enough to find others compatible with you.
What I would do: 1. make a list of stuff I would do; 2. check if there are local communities for each item on the list and 3. start joining those communities or look for people interested to join you on the activities on the list. Is that simple, really.
I think you must be charismatic and somewhat attractive to inspire people to come hang around you. People will likely assume any event you invite them to will have other people that are similar to you, and by extension, if they are hanging around you it must mean they aspire to be similar to you.
This is the most jaundiced, obviously false, and self-pitying statement I have maybe ever encountered. Have you seen a group of people paint Warhammer figurines together? Or do Gunpla? Or play a roleplaying game? Are they cool and attractive? No! Are they having fun and bonding? Yes! The only incentive one would ever have to deny this is self-loathing covering up a fear of rejection. Go out there and do something dorky with people.
All I'm saying is if you're going to invite people to something dorky, you will have better success if they are dorks.
I know many "hot" dorks and many "uggo" dorks. The difference in how much fun they have doing Warhammer is negligible.
If you can throw money at it, you can offset attractiveness and to some degree, personality. Having a sweet home theater, indoor pool, or gaming room/bar can go a long way to creating an inviting environment for others.
This reminded me of E.M. Forster’s line from Howards End: “Only connect.” Not in the grand, ideological sense, but in the mundane, logistical one. It's funny how life optimizes for comfort and autonomy, but those optimizations quietly remove the scaffolding that friendships used to grow on.
Joining a hackspace/makerspace suddenly introduced me to a high quality real-life social network. It's an excuse to engage with your hobbies but also hangout with like minds and pick up new skills.
This won't be an option for everyone. I have to travel for an hour each way to get to mine, but it's worth it. If I had more energy I would start one in the city where I live.
A different take: joining one of these spaces (in the bay area) has exposed me to a weird and unpleasant underbelly of society that I barely knew existed. It's like the worst of Reddit, but in real life. People who want you to work on their projects "for the exposure," crypto scammers and people who are very naive and enthusiastic about crypto, depressed unemployable people, people who secretly live on the lobby couches, elderly people just watching videos all day, get-rich-quick people, people who are always "starting to learn" for years at a time, it's quite an array.
I miss the maker space era. I was at TechShop for most of the years it existed.
I'm glad Hackspace culture is still very much alive in the UK. It feels like people are starting to become interested in such things again. I'm hoping the growing right-to-repair/modify movement will steer more people in this direction.
https://www.hackspace.org.uk/
Most of the comments here are about joining groups, and rightfully so, as most people are really in the basement when it comes to having friends, especially after your 20s.
But what the author did (organizing drinks) reminds me a lot of a great podcast I heard about putting together cocktail parties, and the social benefits: https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/social-skills/2-hour-c...
It's probably not for everyone, as it seems like a lot of work, and it might be too regimented for many, but I've wanted to do it for a while. Maybe this is the year.
I’ve been helping build https://fractal.boston/ for about a year now and it’s been a massively rewarding experience
Like the author, I highly recommend _building_ rather than simply joining a community. If you’re joining an already established scene, get involved! Host events, and bring in new members, establish new norms
I can vouch for this with my experience.
Back in grad school, I was out making new friends. I was playing tennis 4-5 times a week. I'd invite players for post-game coffees (in the morning) and dinner (evenings) at every game. Consistency mattered. I'd ask every time. Slowly we had our regulars. Our coffee times became an institution in and of themselves.
People are busy, yes. But, people also want to be in demand. People also don't want to be rejected. And, people also don't want to be left out.
Asking around, I was exposing myself to rejection. Some folks appreciated their time being demanded. More still joined because they didn't want to be left out.
Tennis is a great hub for connection when you're retired. I play a lot, and people are always meeting up after we play and forging all sorts of non-tennis relationships. Sadly for me, this is all during the day when I'm rushing back to work hoping my 90m absence didn't coincide with some emergency.
I’m that guy who gets all the introverts together.
Over the past decade I’ve built two different communities like this, both of which meet weekly. They’ve become pretty important social outlets for all the regulars.
Unfortunately, they are both at my workplace. Which means I am tied to my employer not just professionally, but socially. This makes the prospect of changing jobs much more painful and disruptive.
I also work from home, together with my wife. So even though we have kids, there is no necessity of leaving the house, save for 15 minutes a day on weekdays to drop off and pick up.
The main thing people have to get over is passivity. You want to see your friends? Invite a bunch of people to come out. Nowadays it takes very little time to book a restaurant.
I do this every few months. I just think of three or four other people I want to have dinner with, arrange a time, and then invite everyone else I come across. Dinner ends up being anywhere from 4 to 12 people, out of maybe 20 invites. As for who to invite, just invite your friends, and your "friend seeds".
Everyone has a few peripheral people they know, whose bio seems to fit the template of your actual friends: live near you, studied with you, worked with you. People who in all likelihood have the same values as you, except you haven't hung out together due to lack of opportunity. We all know that guy: you know his name, you know he does what you do, you don't know anything else. So you bring that seed along and you and your existing friends water the relationship.
A more modern way to not be lonely is to play an MMO. This isn't quite like real friends, but it also isn't quite the same as being lonely. The big benefit of course is that you can do this at home.
These games are all about cooperating, sharing knowledge and experience. It's not really all that different from cooking a meal together, you're just in your PJs as you're slaying a dragon. You can also end up learning a fair bit about your online friends from just hanging around. Life stories, that kind of thing, they are a basic part of friendship.
Posts like these make me question whether I even exist, or at the very least, doubt my humanity.
Sweeping self-loathing statements like that are actually a defense mechanism. Fear of rejection is so great that one would rather believe that one is worthless than have another person think one is slightly annoying. Better to self-sooth with self-abnegation than face the uncertainty of other's judgment.
Well, if you’ve been excluded your entire life, like I have, if your invitations are rejected, if you’re never the one being invited, if you search for people who never search for you, and if every connection you manage to form is shortlived and ends in ghosting, it starts to make you doubt your own humanity a little. I think my experience, like the OP, allows me to entertain the idea that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, as if I’m somehow not fully human.
I can understand being in the wrong contest once or twice in your life, but I’ve lived in five different cities. I’ve gone to college three times. I play multiple instruments and have played in bands and orchestras. And yet here I am: completely alone. I have no one to text for a little chat, no one to grab a beer with me on a Saturday night, no one to plan a coffee with, no one to reassure me when I’m struggling. I’m moving through life entirely on my own, rawdogging it, doing everything alone.
At this point, I’ve given up on relationships, on friendship, on love. The few people I’ve ever called friends eventually disappeared. It feels less painful to stop hoping altogether than to keep sinking my already low hope that it is actually all a misunderstanding and that someday I’ll finally find a circle of people who choose me back.
Unfortunately, you are under a curse. The only way to lift the curse is to build a physical space that attracts people. People cannot resist an interesting place.
Stack stones, hang lights, collect interesting things. Or join a project where people are doing this, like Sandland: https://www.southeastiowaunion.com/life/ottumwa-native-creat...
Joining may be easier and nobody turns down a volunteer. You may have to start something new if nothing is nearby.
But beware the monkey’s paw: once the people come, you will not be able to get rid of them easily.
Sometimes I feel the same, though I did get married, which just happened because I took desperate measures and started using Russian Brides style websites! I was lucky and can’t really recommend these days as it’s mostly scam, but it did work for me 15 years ago. I used to have one good friend, and he was the one that got called by everyone, and I just cruised along. But after he moved away I lost all contact with everyone, it’s like everyone forgot me and it was a one way street as I tried to keep in touch. I wish I lived in a small town where you just meet people you know already by going out where everyone is or something. Having to take measures like organizing a club, or try to invite people you don’t really have a connection with and probably will not come, feels just too much to me and not sustainable.
>I wish I lived in a small town where you just meet people you know already by going out where everyone is or something
I actually grow up in a small town, like 4000 people in total, in Italy. It is even worse: if you're just a little bit strange and you don't form some kind of friendship while in grade school, the rest of your social life is basically determined to be over.
Why?
Your identity requires the participation of everyone else
I've thought about starting my own community group, but I am pretty skeptical that I could find many folks interested in what I'm interested in. I think this is a real barrier to many. Any advice?
To elaborate, in the US, existing groups tend to be narrow and uninteresting to me. In most places I've lived, it's basically a mix of sports/fitness groups, art groups, "tech" (i.e., programmer; traditional engineers like myself won't feel entirely welcome), social dancing, popular fiction reading group, activism, etc. I can't say that any of these genuinely interest me and/or would be a good place to meet people. At a fitness class, for example, many people aren't interested in casual conversation as far as I'm aware. And without genuine interest in the subject, it's hard to engage.
Personally, I've found that running clubs attract diverse groups and tend toward activities that create ample opportunities for smalltalk and meeting people with shared interests outside of the sport. This doesn't hold true for most other sporting activities, in my experience.
Interesting. I was a decent runner in high school, way back. I'm a cyclist now, but I found that cycling groups tend to either be focused on athletic performance or activism and I don't particularly care for either at this point. I'll have to try some running groups as there are a lot of local ones.
That's interesting, but in my experience cycling groups are the most social individual sports groups (even more social than many team sports even). Even the performance focused groups tend to stop at the coffee shop for some banter after the ride, and some less performance oriented groups seem to be more focused on the coffee than even the ride itself.
Are you talking about road cycling or mountain biking? My experience is definitely with the former. I think it helps that in group rides you automatically end up riding next to someone new and chatting along. Easily breaks the ice.
Hmm... okay, I'll try some more local cycling groups as there are a lot of them. Maybe one lesson to take from all the comments I'm reading here is that there's a lot of variation between groups.
I'm thinking road cycling. When I was in grad school, a decade ago, I briefly participated in a student road cycling group. It was very performance oriented as I recall. I was definitely slower than them and my heavy steel commuter bike contrasted strongly with their lighter racing bikes. I talked to some of them, but not during the rides. I was older than the vast majority of them as I recall and in retrospect that might have prevented me from making friends there.
15 years ago I started cycling, by going to amateur XC races. I did that for almost 10 years and it was fun, I got some friends doing it and it worked great for a while. A combination of cycling injury and many people leaving the country ended that endeavor, but it is an example of some simple and practical approach. I was not even looking to socialize, but improve my sedentary life, I found others with similar interests.
I have a childhood friend that is cycling, but he lives in the Netherlands. There people who are cycling more than daily drivers are interested in athletic performance or activism and it kind of sucks, but he got friends skiing and scuba diving, as long as there are common interests you will find some decent people to socialize with.
Funny, I've had the exact same thought, and doubts, as yours. I really dislike communities focused on a certain topic, as I really don't see myself as part of any one thing that defines me. If I were doing rock climbing, I still wouldn't enjoy talking about rock climbing the entire day with my rock climbing friends; my interests are much wider. Which is the reason I do not participate in any community on- and off-line.
I honestly wish social clubs were a thing, and you would get introduced to people from all walks of life. Perhaps this is the reason the Internet is so polarizing: people don't intermingle much, they live in their small niches and echo chambers, and have to put real effort and go out of their way to engage with someone that has a new perspective. Algorithms entrenching us deeper within the same niches are to blame.
I enjoy socialising (sparingly), but I'm not an extrovert and herding people is not my definition of fun, yet I keep feeling I should be the one to form whatever community I and people like me would enjoy participating in. What a conundrum. It's also much easier to make and advertise a club around a topic than an open one for "interesting" people without sounding like a posh cult for elitists.
Historically, social clubs were a thing!
You've got gentlemen's clubs of the kind that Phileas Fogg from "Around the World in 80 Days" belonged to. They were leisure spaces where the rich could socialize with each other, dine from a wider menu than their own domestic staff could offer, access a bigger reading library, and organize group activities like automotive clubs and regattas.
Then you've got private societies like the Freemasons and the Rotary Club, which were usually segregated by gender and race, had a religious component, and offered services like mutual aid and insurance.
I relate very closely, having had the same thoughts over the past few years. Social clubs sound good in theory, but in my experience it's difficult to connect with people without a central activity or subject to act as a touchstone. It's a frustrating sort of paradox where the best social groups diverge greatly from their core theme, and yet the core theme is necessary to reach and maintain critical mass.
I think it's possible to get around the problem, but it would take just the right structure; there should be activities, but enough of a variety to have something for people from all walks of life. But also not too much of a variety so as not to appeal only to those interested in constantly trying new things. Perhaps a set of some baseline, fairly universal activities, with space for individual members to share their own hobbies and interests from time to time in a group setting? I don't know exactly, but it's something I've been considering for a while, and it feels like there must be an answer somewhere in there.
> I think it's possible to get around the problem
Could you articulate what you perceive to be a problem with all that?
I think the problem comes when certain topical groups interpret their mission narrowly. Based on your other nearby comment, you mention your experience with a rock climbing group that doesn't so narrowly focus on rock climbing. I think that's the right way to do it.
There was one group I used to attend where I was definitely not as interested in the topic as others. I recall someone at the meetup said to me something along the lines of "If you don't agree with X then why are you here?" Well, I attended because I found a lot of interesting people there, and I know I wasn't the only one. Some organizers made the meetups unstructured conversation, which was great for me. Honestly, I'd just like to meet other people interested in a particular topic. Other organizers preferred meetups with more specific assigned discussion topics. I rarely cared much about the assigned topics and they made the unstructured conversation I wanted to have much more difficult or even impossible (particularly for the online meetups). I don't attend those meetups any longer in part because of the assigned topics.
If you don't mind, could you share a bit about those meetups with unstructured conversation? I would like to attend something like that, some keywords to look for would be helpful.
If the website/Facebook event/email/etc. mentions an assigned topic, then it's not likely going to have much unstructured conversation. Other than that, I can't think of any reliable ahead of time signs to look for. One thing I think I've learned from reading tons of comments today at HN is that I should try more meetups just to see what they're like because you can't really know ahead of time.
Anyhow, the specific group I was referring to was LessWrong meetups in 3 different cities over a period of about a decade. As I said, I'm not quite aligned with their philosophy, but I did find a bunch of interesting people at those meetups.
I can't speak for anyone else, but in trying to pursue groups with relevant interests, I've run into one of three issues:
1. The club/etc follows its core conceit closely, and discussions and such naturally don't branch off far
2. Connected to 1, the folks who actively engage in a club are typically very invested in the subject; when my interest is more casual, it can be difficult to connect with those more passionate
And 3., most critically, the things I am passionate about are too niche to sustain dedicated clubs anywhere but the most dense of population centers, which for a variety of reasons I have no interest in relocating to.
I would appreciate a group where a variety of unique interests is encouraged. I enjoy interacting with people who are passionate in their own ways, even when they don't necessarily line up with my own passions; I realize there are clubs and such out there which likely fit my preferences, but I have yet to find one reasonably nearby.
I think you’re perhaps too narrowly defining what a lot of groups are for. Take climbing for example, as you did - I met tons of folks while climbing, but we talked about all sorts of things. In between attempting routes it’s mostly just shooting the shit.
My point being that a lot of clubs or groups, especially in fitness, don’t have a rule against talking about other stuff. In fact, most are incredibly conducive to it.
> If I were doing rock climbing, I still wouldn't enjoy talking about rock climbing the entire day with my rock climbing friends
Um, have you actually tried? I have a "rock climbing" friends group, and it's rare that we talk rock climbing outside an actual climbing outing. Some of them are at the climbing gym 2-3x a week, some of them 1x a week, some join only once every 1-2 months. But what we do a lot is hang out just for dinner, for some hike on the weekend, going to a concert, whatnot. Climbing was really just the initial excuse to meet, by now it's only a detail we all more or less do now and then.
Maybe you are overthinking this.
> I honestly wish social clubs were a thing, and you would get introduced to people from all walks of life
They are. Elks, Knights of Columbus, etc. Not as popular with the younger crowd, but nothing is stopping you from joining or starting your own.
As for the point around feeling like you have to talk about rock climbing all day: you don't. Rock climbing is just the entry point, which allows for a shared conversation topic before you branch into other things.
As another commenter said, at lot of the fraternal organizations are religious. The Elks site says to be eligible for membership, you must 1) Be at least 21 years of age; 2) Believe in God; 3) Be a citizen of the United States who pledges allegiance to and salutes the American Flag; 4) Be of good character. The Knights of Columbus says membership is limited to practicing Catholic men.
That works for some people. I like the activity-based groups. Besides the sports groups, a community garden is also good.
That's strange, I know a bunch of guys in my hometown who hang out at the Elks who aren't religious. Most of them are probably confirmed or at least baptized though.
Yeah, the Eagles Lodge in my town is pretty lax about it - they do want you to do one community service day a year but that to them was basically a "substitute" for "be of good character and righteous" or whatever.
What interests you? Id start one. In a densely populated city, odds are you will find a few people.
I'll try starting a more niche group just to see what happens. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll find a handful of interesting people. Still, there's a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. If the number of people interested in a topic is small enough, reaching them can be really hard. And only a fraction of them would be willing/able to meet.
As for specific topics, there are many I could pick. My problem isn't a lack of interest in general, just a lack of overlap between my interests and what's available. One I think might have a decent chance of success would be a group based around information searching, both online and in the real world. Despite being an engineer, I've often found a lot of common ground with librarians. I love talking about the subject and could learn a lot about it. It's not going to become irrelevant any time soon either, even with LLMs, due to information siloing.
I keep expecting fraternal orders to make a comeback. It seems like they were a solution to this problem, but have been deemed old fashioned.
I knew someone with the last name ‘Mason’, who would often get asked if he was a Freemason or a decent of one. Eventually he got asked so many times that he decided to join. After that it seemed like he went from not having much of a social life to going out all the time with his Freemason buddies.
Two places I’ve lived have been a short walk to an Elk lodge. If I was a member, I’d imagine that would be a good 3rd place with community. I think VFW would be another one, for veterans, which has also dropped in popularity, but was where my grandfather found his community.
Most of society has relegated fraternal orders participation to their college days. But even in college, most people I knew looked down on fraternities.
I wonder if some of the issue is that most of them require members be religious. With church attendance declining, joining a group that seems to require it is a harder sell. Church itself is also a place where community is built that a lot of people have left behind. I know several people whose entire social network seems to revolve around the church, for better or worse.
Bringing back these groups could really help a lot of people, so everyone isn’t expected do it all on their own or be lucky enough to have a friend who does it for them.
My dad has been very good about keeping up connections throughout his life which looks to be paying off now that he’s retired. But it seems like a significant amount of work that most people aren’t willing to do.
I have an old college roommate who lives less than a mile from me who I have only seen once in the last two years. I think most guys aren’t willing to pick up the phone to set something up, so simply having a place to go, where people are, tends to work out better. My friend who lives nearby is a member at the local country club, which also falls into that bucket of fraternal orders in a way. If I joined that I’d probably see him more, because we’d both have a place to regularly go. I feel weird inviting people over my house to do nothing and just hang out.
I've been getting closer with the Unitarian Universalist church in my town. I'm an atheist and they're the only church in town that's friendly to atheism / humanism.
The unstated implicit difference between online and real world interactions is that you talk to people in real time, can't scroll by, block a person, or be rude to them. Well, you can, but, good old fashioned discourse, and friends telling you to stop being a weird idiot was/is human societal interactions for all of history until the creation of the internet. Facial and physical cues are also part of the lost tapestry that social media cannot replace.
I feel sorry for the young 'uns that have grown up with the internet, that have been able to isolate themselves and their opinions from the real world simply by choosing to not interact physically, and block those whose opinions differ.
In 2023 I built a similar community around parties in my (small) apartment. With a group of around 80 people in the end, usually about 30 shown up. It was great fun, but ultimately it did not build a community. It was great, but vast majority of the connections were fleeting.
Turns out partying is not something that really builds bonds.
My father passed away on Saturday. The aftermath drove home the importance of community.
Hundreds of people came to the funeral, even though it was short notice (24 hours) and in the middle of holiday season. They all dropped whatever they were doing, hopped in their cars or on a plane and came. Friends from his childhood. Friends from his middle/high school years. Friends from his university years, and med school years. People he had worked with and done community service with over the decades. His former students from the decades he taught at the local university. Employees at the hospital he worked at. Family friends. Friends of family. People who knew him by only name and yet still wanted to pay their respects.
I'm Turkish, and community has always played a big role in our culture. But the past few days made me realize that, ever since immigrating to the USA 20+ years ago, community had been supplanted by individualism. Like the author, I work from home. I do have a bit of a social life, and there's a couple of meetups I organize, but the size of my community is nothing compared to my parents. It makes me sad.
Reading this article gave me some hope. It reminded me that ultimately it's a matter of putting in the work, which I am determined to do. Not because I want to maximize the number of people who come to my eventual funeral or anything like that, but because I do want to live a richer life and the best way to do that is to share it with others.
Sorry if the above was all over the place. Things are still raw.
I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds like your father was a great man. No need for apologies, I think what you said is very poignant and relevant to the topic at hand. We should all be so lucky to live such full lives.
I couldn't end reading it. He was saying all the time that the read might have some envy and this was too good to complain, but what I most felt is pity. Being all day at home feels miserable to me.
It’s honestly amazing if you’re the right type of person for it (I know because I have a similar life to the author and I love it). The one important thing, as the author discovered and this article is about, is to make sure to keep up some amount of social life and not become a complete shut in as that genuinely becomes miserable after a while (at least it did for me until I started revitalizing my social life as well, though not in the way the author did).
All that is to say, please don’t feel pity for us haha. I asume the author, like me, genuinely enjoys this lifestyle.
I thought of building an app for this where more folks can connect on a topic.
Do you know about meetup.com?
Yep, build community - by organizing get-togethers for the most interesting people you know, not just yourself.
It’s work, it doesn’t come naturally - but you get the privilege of curating who’s there.
It's scary that community is a goal to attain here, it seems. Having everything optimized, what kind of life is that? Surely not one that's worth living. What would you say in 20 years about a life without connection, spontaneity, beauty, experience and all? Or where all of those points are checkboxes to be checked? I actually see a bunch of reasons for avoiding community like "they are all leftist and I can't say this and that". I can only recommend going outside more and mingle. Life is beautiful, people are cool and the more you isolate, the more you stray from that.
Huh? What does what you are saying and community have to do with each other?
You know you can do both right?
Planted ad for the alcohol industry?
Community is so important, and a great treasure to have, and that's why people seek to be in one.
But does there need to be a common purpose for the community? To take the world into a specific direction, fascism, or democracy?
I can relate exactly to what he's described. This decade (the 2020's) has definitely thrown a lot of curveballs.
Sorry, but I read the article and also another of his articles linked in this one and I found that logic is lacking seriously from both. It is so bad it will take the length of the entire article to explain point by point and I am not in the business of correcting people on Internet, but I think raising some concern and making people pay more attention to the logic of the article than the emotions it creates, will help some.
Wonders if author has studied low vs high context societies
That's a fascinating concept[1] that I hadn't encountered before.
What do you think the implications are regarding this post?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_c...
The second half of the post essentially describes low/high context social dynamics.
Outside of linguistucs, I've seen it applied as a concept of social group inclusion and mobility. Eg. America is a low context society — if you mess up you can move across town. Other cultures that are high context, your family will be shunned for generations with no hope of success.
You lost me at "And because my partner and I don’t have—nor want—kids,".
> I’ve got no idea, I’m too busy gaming on my Playstation 5 and living a life of selfish consumption.
This is in another article of his about not having kids. But I think just focusing on enjoyment in life is a poor human experience. Life has much more to offer that is equally interesting. Enjoyment isn't the only game in town. And the other things that life has to offer, can be fucking painful. But I'd still say it's worth it to experience.
I appreciate it that life is bitter sweet. I wouldn't exactly say that I like it, but I appreciate it (and it goes up to a point, when we're talking about really rough tragedies, yea none of that please).
Many good observations here. I had time to read 50% through.
>> I think I’m particularly suspicious of community, because as a writer and pedantic arsehole on the internet, I value truth-seeking behaviour. I want people to think and say things that are true, not just things that they have to believe for the sake of keeping their community happy.
Unfortunately, this is what happens with every group of people.
Our individual realities are highly subjective. A group of people who are part of a community construct a shared reality that they can all accept. If you don’t contribute to the shared reality, you are treated as someone who is problematic.
As humans we are social creatures. In our evolution, we develop cognitive systems that help us thrive in social structures. One system is called the social protection system. This system gets activated when we sense tension in relationships and sends a signal of fear to the subject that they risk being separated from a social group. This fear motivates people to maintain connection. So some people are intrinsically motivated by fear to maintain their status, sometimes unconsciously.
Our self esteem comes from two things, relationships and mastery. Healthy self esteem comes from connection to people who accept you for who you are, where you feel visible and accepted with your good and bad traits.
If you have a few people in your life with this type of connection, you will have a healthy social foundation and rely less on belonging to a group.
Groups are valuable in that the human experience is complicated. The best source of information comes directly from other humans and their experiences overcoming complexity.
However, I do agree with the author where certain groups can be problematic, particularly engaging in things like tribalism.
Establishing good self esteem by keeping a few people close to you who see you and accept you as a flawed human is key. The other part is to immerse yourself in activities where you develop mastery and maintain a connection to the activities that are intrinsically motivating and satisfying without distraction from external signals.
I learned this by studying the science of self actualization, from the research done by Scott Barry Kaufman and his book Transcend. He’s a humanistic psychologist who was inspired by Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic psychology.
I did almost the identical project the OP did, for the same reasons, in the same style. Reading that article could have been (with 10% of details tweaked) about my experience.
The biggest difference in how the author approached and how I did: he did it monthly; I did it weekly. I found that made a HUGE difference in building community. If it's once a month, and people come on average 50% of the time, then you'll see these people 6 times a year. That's nice, but one of my goals was to build real, deep relationships with more people, and having a party where I speak a few minutes to each person (if you're the host, it's hard to get more than 30 minutes with one person) 6 times a year - you can't really build a real relationship. Also, once a month puts pressure on people psychologically to attend, but I wanted it low-key, "Come if you want, if not next week, or the week after - or never! It's all cool and you go live your life and you be you!" was part of the vibe I was going for, and it's easier to get that vibe when it's all the time, but the less frequent it is, the more subconscious pressure there is, and I wanted a low-key event (for example, imagine a wedding - that's very irregular, hopefully once in your life - so there's massive pressure to attend, and I wanted the precise inverse).
But my doing it weekly, made it a bit more like church/synagogue, in the best communal sense of the word: a place to go at the same time, same place every week, time to build real relationships, you always knew you'd have a place to go, etc. And because many of the people were the same week on week, it naturally led to longer, deeper conversations, both individual and group conversations.
I was also strict on a few rules. There were a few topics that were banned from being discussed ("politics, business, and sports" basically - and everyone knew going in those were banned) so that forced people to avoid those generic and tiresome topics that (politics in particular) just make unhappy. Also, I had a very strict "no cell phone" rule and I enforced putting cell phones into a box near the entrance.
It also became a HUGE success in my city. Mentioned in the media and featured in videos. Because it became known as the nexus of interesting conversations in a spot with cool energy. Many dotcom/tech superstars as well as ambassadors and other interesting and curious figures, when they were in my city for a few days for business, they'd hear that my apt was the place to be that night and they'd contact me to invite themselves.
It revolutionized my life and my social network. I'd strongly recommend everyone who is suffering from these same sorts of social challenges create their own sort of variation of this concept.
This lasted almost a decade, almost every Wednesday night from 2007 to 2016. Then... adult life happened: family, moving internationally, and... alas. I have a personal challenge these days that I should invest energy in figuring out: the best way to reboot this for me, but in the world I life in now, not only post-covid, but with kids and family life. Sometimes I think about rebooting it but in a public venue on my "date night", sometimes I think about doing a "Zoom" version of this where it's beers on Zoom, etc etc there are many possible ways to approach this challenge - but I haven't yet been inspired with the right formula for me.
There's a time and place for everything under the sun and this was a beautiful and life-changing era of my life.
If anyone is interested in creating their own version of this (particularly the OP), just drop me a line and I'm more than happy to Zoom any time with you and give you some tips. My email is morgan@westegg.com (I still love meeting people even if through email and Zoom!), and my personal website is westegg.com and I have an ancient and embarrassingly bad web page 2008 tumblr-style page about these events at: wnip.org - If the above sounded interesting, I'm always up for a brainstorm so ping me!
As a WNIP OG who made it to 90% of the meetups, I can honestly say these nights were a highlight of my time as an expat in Buenos Aires.
Between the consistent curation and Morgan’s "Kevin Bacon-style" network, I met a huge spectrum of people—both locals and world travelers.[1])
Side note: if you’re in a relationship, these nights are even better. You end up with so many fresh ideas to share with your partner from conversations they weren't part of.
Thanks for hosting, Morgan! And a special thanks to Celia for being so gracious about those late-night "extra innings"
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon
I echo these takeaways! I also stumbled upon a few of these meetups while briefly living in BA, and the people I met during these meetups and conversations we had were many of highlights of that fun chapter of my life. Thank you Morgan for facilitating these!
OH MY GOD DANNY DOVER!!!!! I had no idea you read HN!!!! Our conversations were always so awesome! Wow long time, I'll send you a DM somewhere on some platform, let's catch up!
I found that a weekly meeting for a language-learning group worked great. Your family and even your friends learn, "Oh Wednesday evening, D-Coder's busy."
The WNIP.org (Wednesday Night Interesting People) home page says:
Invitees: Interesting Guys, Hot Girls.
Exceptions Tolerated: Hot Guys, Interesting Girls.
The organizer sounds like an unpleasant person.
OP said it started in 2007. At that time, something like this would be seen as funny, not toxic like today.
Hi brabel,
Your words were beautiful and I appreciate them. See my long response I just wrote, a sister comment to yours now, explaining my thinking when I wrote that joke. Your analysis is consistent with mine: the times were different than, and I made a terrible joke, that didn't stand the test of time. And due to my offensive and sometimes hurtful jokes of the past and many other life experiences, I've been going through a period of transformation, thinking as hard as I can about forgiveness while forgiving others and asking for forgiveness.
As I said to andrewl as well (and to anyone in this thread!), this thread is at its core really about making new friends as adults (weekly/monthly events being one way to do so), and I'd love to meet you and talk about this issue, how times have changed in 20 years, and anything. You can reach me at morgan@westegg.com or you can schedule a zoom here: https://westegg.com/metaphysical-beer-29-min/
Hi andrewl,
Yeah, I wrote that 20 years ago, and I tried to be funny and more offensive than. I'm sorry, I was young and more uncouth; today I'd never even consider thinking-or-talking like that.
That line was meant as a joke. Some of the most frequent, prominent attendees were actually among the top female intellectuals in our city. In that sense, the joke cut both ways: the guys were mostly nerdy software developers, the girls were nerdy intellectuals, and they were generally much smarter. So the line on the webpage, which was just a silly overnight Tumblr thing I wrote 20 years ago, was really self-mockery, mocking the guys for being less intellectual than the girls. Everyone was extremely nerdy and not cool/hot by traditional standards (hence the "hot girls, intellectual guys" joke), and the idea that we'd only "tolerate" "intellectual girls" was absurd since it was mostly intellectual girls anyway, we guys were outnumbered, hahaha. The joke is bad, and yeah, sorry, my humor doesn't always land, especially decades later. (And I did warn with the web link that the page was "embarrassingly bad" - I meant not just the design but the content as well.)
Also, as brabel points out, times have changed. Back then, those sorts of jokes were common and considered funny and not offensive. I'd note that that was written 20 years ago, which is about 33% towards 1966 - the Mad Men era (20/60=0.333) - a different world in which people spoke very differently than they do now. It wasn't an overnight one day to the next transition to our new way of thinking and talking. Even remember that was the same era, around 2007, when our own beloved founder of our HN forum paulg was cancelled for making some comment that was widely considered anti-women. "The past is a different world" as they say.
I even briefly considered updating that wording (having not touched it in 20 years) worrying someone would respond like this; but I decided to leave it, as a testament to history and how we spoke then. I try not to rewrite the past with modern standards, and I own what I wrote.
Continuing my apology for my offensive joke in 2007, as I've grown and gone through my own journey of life growing up, I feel bad for offensive things I've said-and-done over the almost half-century of my lifetime. My words have hurt people. I've been going through my past and asking for forgiveness from those who I have hurt, while also forgiving those who have hurt me. My latest book is about my attempts to reflect on the meaning of forgiveness, on my asking for forgiveness, and my forgiving others. In case you're interested, it is here: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Forgiveness-S-Morgan-Frie...
Finally, andrewl, I'm interpreting your message as an interest in learning more about my journey and transformation, and if you'd like to talk about personal growth, forgiveness, or what the world was like in 2007 or the 90s or 80s, it would be an honor to meet you via zoom and talk to you about life, with an open mind and open heart. This threat is about making new friends, after all, and it would be an honor to meet me, I know your username from your many great comments on HN! You can always email me at morgan@westegg.com or schedule a zoom: https://westegg.com/metaphysical-beer-29-min/
> If you want to organise something today, where the hell do you start? Email???
WhatsApp groups.
What if you have a community but it's boring and uninspiring? It's always the same shit, STEM nerds, who can only talk shop, tech, video games, sports and bitcoin/crypto/libertarianism/ancap stuff. I mean, I've moved like 3 times in the span of 7 years and every time I end up in the same kind of community. Also, no women. :(
Get a new hobby out of your compfort zone? (Should imply some human interaction e.g. Reading Club, Team sport, Language Exchange...)
If everywhere you go stinks, look under your own shoe.
If you move somewhere, and find the same circles why are you surprised that you’re still not happy?
> also, no women
Social groups aren’t just a place for unhappy people to meet a partner. I’d look inwards first.
Ouch! I don’t think that’s fair.
It sounds like his professional life or personal interests naturally being him in contact with a social circle that isn’t fulfilling socially. Doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with him.
I say, look outward! Intentionally get involved with other social circles.
But like, it's weird that there are no women in those groups, or that OP hasn't run across any women.
You can have more than one community. Find some new ones. Look deliberately for a different kind of community. Take dance or art classes at your community college. Join a sport club. There are lots of options.
Dance classes are great for getting to known other people, esp. women: Most dance classes lack enough men (for whatever reason)
I had a colleague who was member of a dance club, then he had to move to another district, making it super uncomfortable to continue on a regular base - up until today they are calling him every few weeks if he can attend because lack of men
Well the author suggest starting your own community. If you do art classes, yoga, social dancing etc. you will probably have less crypto bros and more woman there.
You wouldn't need the long blog post or any other efforts if you didn't work remotely (remote work is poison). Having kids is a personal choice, but so many of you are failing to understand why family is so important that maybe you should revisit that choice, too. What are so afraid of? Was your home life as a kid that painful and awful? Even so, you can do a better job of it!
What is your body count now?
ugh i hate gen ai images. please dont start ur article with one
Soon you won't be able to tell!
TLDR: You can invite people to do stuff.
Congrats OP, sounds super excited for his new social life.
I live overseas and I’m very lonely. I’ve been told to join a group or club related to my interests so I can meet new people and make friends, but I can’t. It doesn’t feel natural to me to go for friend-hunting. And I’m very tired of meaningless, superficial connections and conversations I’ve had with most of the people from my surroundings. I feel my only friends are the ones I did at school. After that period of my life, people -or even me- start to disappear.
But with my friends from school, we can be without seeing each other for years and it’s always so easy and rewarding to catch up. I wish I’ve spent more time with them before moving :,(
Don't go friend hunting, then. Go activity hunting, and if you make friends out of it, all the better.
I feel the same with my friends from school but the reason we feel like that is that school forced us to be together and a deep friendship was forged as a result.
In adulthood, that forcing function doesn't exist so you have to make the effort. So regardless of whether or not it "feels natural" to go "friend-hunting" (it doesn't to me either), if you don't do it, you will be without friends.
It's also worth framing it to yourself differently. Friend hunting sounds awful and fake but organising fun/activities for similarly minded people seems more positive
The natural, and easiest, way to make good friends is to spend a lot of time with people. Some of those people will become good friends with no effort at all.
Given nuclear families etc. in the West, this is kinda hard as an adult. Happens automatically as a child and college student, though. My advice to you is:
1) Get a housemate or several. Better yet, join an already shared house. Forget about your preconceptions about whether you "can" live with other people or not. You aren't special, people lived together for ever.
2) Explicitly decide to work through this "doesn't feel natural to me" thing. OK, fine, it's gonna feel kind of awkward at first. By the 5th friend-hunt it won't.
TLDR; Man emails friends.
The author casually mentions this but basically the main reason through history to build communities is the existence of kids, which he literally decided not to have.
I'm the opposite, I don't like or want a social life, I live comfortably, but by having kids I have no other choice than to participate in a bunch of communities just as a byproduct of trying to be a good dad.
Even the communities anyone participates today were likely built around kids in a past time.
The rest of the article is just trying to overcompensate for the decision of not having children.
> Hanging out with other humans is good – and if you can’t find a community… you can always build your own.
I did just that, and built https://wonderful.dev
It's based around jobs for devs, but right now it's just a place to chat about tech.
They literally said that online communities wasn't what they were talking about though.
> And this was when I finally realised something that should have been obvious. I had a small group of close friends who were spread across the country. I had a wider group of friends and acquaintances who I’d talk to online.
> But what I lacked was a community.
If I have an in-person community that's non-tech it's enough for me to only have an online tech community. That's how it was for me growing up, and it would be great to have that again.
yeah but it isn't about what you want. Ofc you like the idea, you built the damn thing. But the author of the post (which you replied/advertised to) explictly talked against this kind of thing. It's like a Budweiser ad on a mosque
Meta commentary: there’s something interesting in the fact that my first instinct was “great another piece of vibeslop”, which inverted completely to genuine interest when I recognized your username.
The “personal brand” and track record might be getting even more important now that the bar to building something has dropped to the floor.
I don't think you will attract any competent "devs" with a platform that is locked behind a GitHub 2FA login. I am not going to create an account at Microsoft to use your platform.