To HN: Looking for people to talk to...
I recently wrote a letter to my local television station about my experiences in college (I'm graduating in June). In it I talk about my lack of friendships, among other things. I have realized that I really enjoy talking to people about almost anything. Learning about others brings a lot of enjoyment to my life. It's also therapeutic ;)
Unfortunately, I haven't met many people in college to do that with. So anyway, I am wondering if any of you would be interested in talking to me? Maybe you've had similar experiences?
Well anyway,
my AIM screename is: stevenbe123
Link to my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=32403303
Link to the letter I wrote: http://www.stevenbe.com/
My e-mail: stevenboudreau123 [at] gmail.com
*If you want, you can e-mail me your sn, and/or other contact info. Or just leave it as a comment? Well, thanks for reading this :)
47 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 95.3 ms ] threadMy AIM is hybridxaos. Also, Kyro Beshay in Orange County, UCI, and UCSD on Facebook / kyro on #startups. I also do webcam shows every Thursday night, but that'll cost you.
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#startups is the channel, irc.freenode.net is the network (it is on the list, just a ways down).
You can hook your Jabber/GTalk, Email, Phone contacts into it as well.
One-click invite link: http://www.chatterous.com/landing/hnyc/hcker/
by phone: text CHTR JOIN hnyc hcker to 41411
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by jabber/google talk: add hnyc@chatterous.com and send @join hcker
out of the ordinary submission, but upmodding.
edit: wow, this comment is already the top google hit for 'curi42'
I'm very happy to see the community rise around you here. HN has got to be one of the best communities out there.
Be sure to reach out to your fellow human beings in person, if you can. Massive colleges/universities can seem cold and distant for many. If feasible, I would recommend transferring to a good smaller college, esp. a Liberal Arts college. You can make friends for life at the smaller institutions. That being said, I have no idea what your interests are so take my advice with a massive boulder of salt.
Take care, Steven.
I appreciate your comments, as well as everyone else's, very much! Thank you.
What I do is talk to random people on the street/mall/coffee shop with complete honesty that look interesting to you. Maybe even a few girls ;) Some will get nowhere, some will putter, others you'll click. People from more social cultures (latin,etc) are a lot less uptight. There's millions of people out there in your city today, a few of them have GOT to be interesting :P Or create user groups or meetup groups or whatever your interested in and advertise! And organize, and initiate. And keep on going and going an going. When your the one who starts it, your the one with the ultimate choice.
And to be honest, programming doesn't have to be an anti-social job. There's a lot of ranting and raving with your fellow co-workers ;) It's like saying film-making is anti-social because you have to sit infront of a terminal editing video, thinking up scripts and creating sets.
Granted if you are sober, a really drunk person can be a pain. However, drunk people don't know you are sober, so you can banter away with them sober or not, but its difficult if you are shy I admit. Its 'just' a matter of putting yourself out there and doing it.
Other good places to meet people is at the gym - take circuits classes, join a sports club of some sort (tennis, biking, swimming, rock climbing ...).
I am pretty shy naturally, but I have met a ton of people at the swimming pool and on nights out (but I do drink a bit too much beer!).
or e-mail in my profile.
Jonathan Lane on Facebook (University of Lethbridge network)
I'm also going to a school now that is more of a commuter school, so nobody lives close by. I honestly think that if people lived close to school, then everybody would have more friends.
I went through the "moving to a new place" experience a few months ago when I moved to Germany for 3 months. It was really odd, as it was the first time in my life when I really had to objectively think about how to make new friends.
And the best advice I can give about that is: DON'T go live on your own. At least not for the first few months. Go live with other people, particularly with people who value having a good vibe in the house, and not just living together to share expenses but never looking each other in the face (if you're going to Germany, look for "kein zweck WG" ;). You'll end up becoming friends with them, and meeting their friends that come over from time to time.
Our circle wasn't that we didn't let new people in, it was that people started graduating or whatever, and the circle got smaller without anyone to fill in the gaps. I guess that is because we didn't know anyone new, so we didn't have any "applicants" to join our circle of friends. I'm still convinced that all my problems here is because nobody walks here where I live. As soon as I can walk to other houses and cafes and bars, everything will get better.
It'd be an interesting sociological experiment to track the correlation between # of friends to distance walked per day.
I've graduated since and -- I'm fortunate -- things worked out for the better. But if I had it to do over again I almost certainly wouldn't transfer.
That said.. are there any people from Melbourne (Australia) that hang out here?
I go to college too and there have been some times where I felt the same way.. The best thing to do is to get involved with something you are interested in and meet people through there. Use events or activities as a medium to get closer to interesting people, its one thing that has really worked for me.
People are naturally social creatures, its probably hard but force yourself to go out and meet people. The best way to start a conversation is just to say hi. Yea you will probably get rejected by 90% of the people you meet but keep at it and the 10% will more than make up for all of those failures.
Also if you want to talk feel free to email me at chris.r.mccann [at] gmail.com I'd be happy to talk
Particularly, I live in the northern part of San Francisco Bay area and almost never travel out of the Bay area, so I would be interested if you lived somewhere in the Bay area (north or south) or were planning a trip out here soon.
ith@sonic.net
I hope this works out for you, I'm sure you'll make contact with some interesting people through here. I can't help but think that what you really need is real life contact though.
Good luck
Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote after returning from a year abroad in China:
"The concept of 'foreignerism' is not unfamiliar to me. Though I have spent the majority of my life as a citizen and resident of the United States of America, I am, in many ways, suspended between two worlds. Long before I moved to China, I felt like a stranger in a strange land and I often yearned to find a place that I could truly feel at home. Then shortly after I had adjusted to life in Beijing, I found myself completely at ease. Looking back now, I have to wonder if I did actually find somewhere that I "fit in" or if rather, I finally became comfortable with the fact that I might never quite fit in anywhere."
I can send you (or anybody else) the rest of the essay if you would like. Just email me at m[at]gee.ky. However, all of my experiences in China leading up to this realization are chronicled on: http://www.middlefusion.com/
Meeting people on the internet is no substitute for honest-to-goodness human interaction. Also, it's a good idea to have lots of friends that you have nothing in common with. The perspective you get is invaluable.
I am looking forward to getting out in the real world and engaging in human interaction once I graduate. But I think the Internet is a useful way to meet others as well, and possibly make friendships.
I also agree that having friends of multiple backgrounds, personalities, and interests provides great value. But to me it seems like doing this is much more difficult. People seem less willing to let people into their circles or lives if you have different interests or perspectives. Listening seems to be a highly undervalued characteristic these days. These are just my observations, though.
Thanks for the comment.
I'm a teenager and I'm trying to figure out what to do for a living. Programming seems good, but I've read two independent sources that say it's lonely. Does it have to be this way, or is it a question of what kind of person you are? Is working in industry X always lonely while industry Y is much more social? Etc.
You can reply to this comment, or aim johnmaxwelliv / email john.maxwelliv@gmail. I would love to make some internet friends =)
I don't doubt that there are lonely programmers. I think that you'd probably find lonely people for any X that people choose as a major pursuit in their life, though. I think that many (certainly most of the folks I know) programmers are programmers because of the fascination/cool factor/feeling of relative omnipotence/etc that comes along with creating and controlling processes that do cool things (whether for you or for millions of your friends). Within that, there's still a lot of diversity.
Also, you don't need to have a homogenous social circle if you don't want to.
feel free to give me a shout. I may or may not be responsive over the next week. I've been in the middle of moving and it's finals week. After wednesday I'll hopefully be in the free and clear. Then it's pound out my startup time.