Ask HN: Nerds of HN, did you overcome loneliness?
As Paul Graham wrote in his essay "Why nerds are unpopular", it is hard for us tech oriented people to build a great social life. Because our minds constantly revolve around tech and science.
Has anyone here ever made good progress in connecting with other people?
If so, which approaches or resources were helpful to you?
156 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] threadI can be social, but I prefer being by myself most of the time. And in my country theres an unwritten rule of never talking to strangers, if you do; you're some kind of weirdo. So that doesn't help either!
I think it depends on how you do it.
If you sit down in a cafe and start talking endlessyl to the person at the next table without invitation, then that is probably weird everywhere.
Imho, the "not weird" way is to sit down and while having eye contact (usually people look at you when you sit down close by) say something very short like "Hi" or "Is this table free?". And then only continue if you get an interested, friendly reaction. Would that make you a weirdo in your country?
I'd love to live in a place where it's more normal to just strike up a conversation with someone. I'm not usually the one to start a conversation, but if someone does, I'll usually be fine with it.
Oh, and don't even get me started on eye contact; that's some scary shuff! How does even eye contact work? I have no idea...
I think one of the things that's hard is that we are so used to always working, going, learning, building. We measure and improve. We commit, run, test, and deploy. We focus in on a particular thing and get really good at it.
But people aren't like that. They have feelings and emotions. They have a past and a history. They have fears and doubts. They have dreams and things that drive them. Some of those things which we cannot relate to. We can do all the right things and still end up getting hurt. They often don't respond the way we think and unlike compiled code, they can misunderstand what's being said or what's going on.
So, listen, ask questions, and treat others better than you'd treat yourself.
This is not true and it’s a self-defeating attitude to create an excuse for why you haven’t achieved what you want.
Being interested in technology and science don’t prevent you from developing social skills. Develop those skills the same way you developed your tech/science skills: learning, practice, and feedback.
If you don’t know where to start: Talk to people and really listen what they have to say. Ask them questions. Read books. Date more. Go to therapy.
While he's a billionaire of an example, the same thing can work for anyone. I was listening to an Arrested DevOps podcast the other day and the host was talking about how approached public speaking the way he learned new tools or tech. Before every talk, he picked one item to try and improve. Sometimes it was gesturing, so his movements could be picked up by the camera. Sometimes it was something else. Identify what success means, break it down into measurable components and work on then one at a time until they're second nature.
Or be alone and be okay with it.
Realize that any relationship requires effort from both sides. When was the last time you reached out to someone, checked in etc.
Talking to people who are not from my industry also helped me gain insight as to how others think, feel etc. More well rounded, have people who are like you but seek others who are different
Hobbies, Volunteer efforts have been the best ways for me to gain more friends
My brain seems to offer no assistance in figuring out what to do even after I manage to get something started (it often does the opposite), so it usually leads nowhere.
So I wrote down a few things I wanted to do such as contribute code to OSS, volunteer at events, better stock / financial planning research etc.
Then I picked up the top 3 and did something small such as check in code or read code a few hours on a Saturday, find a an activity using Facebook ( you can replace with any other website but I found good luck with FB ), pick two reddit thread and READ thoroughly.
I gave each one of them two or three tries and then determined to continue with the item or discard and move on to next.
For the social part or the "anti-motivation" , I would often times find my mind going "this is a waste, bail out and head home, relax". I learnt to catch that feeling right at the beginning and thinking about "this is how I grow, this is how I meet new people, learn a new skill, overcome a fear" and then roll on to meet my commitment.
This method, combined with strict boundaries around time, trial and error has helped me tremendously. I am open to suggestions if others have faced this, but this is what worked with me. Small steps, a lot of time and patience with myself, rinse & repeat. Hopefully it helps. The most important part is to try, show up, attempt...that itself is half the battle.
Edit: just a warning. Some of the things you go to will be crap or full of weirdos and you won't get on with people at some of them. That's fine; they won't remember you and you won't remember them and you never have to go again if you didn't like it. Which makes it even cooler.
After all, do you want to *be right*, or do you want to connect? At some point I realized that it made no sense to complain about loneliness because I am a brainy type AND simultaneously refuse to engage with other's emotions because they are not brainy as I am.
The book which helped me the most is *non violent communication*. Its like an universal protocol, but still filter the bullshit.
edit: Of course, as other said, growing out of your mental tendency takes years and is still a work in progress. But with this type of thing the way is the destination.
Yes, connecting with most people is hard because many can be feelers, highly emotional, dramatic, irrational..... we're in different universes. I look at them as though they are as alien as they think I am. I, personally, cannot bond at an emotional level at all - and must bond by problem solving. I don't mesh with most - and frankly don't care.
Saying that, I've found that my best friends have been "intelligent feelers". They like that I can live in the future rather than the "now", think probabilistically, make decisions detached from emotion, and absorb information.
I like that they help me become a bit closer to human. To be more accepting of people, to lighten up, and to entertain wider swaths of humans silliness as normal.
What worked for me - is finding people that pass my "personal filter" and then solving some kind of issue with them. (crisis, family, work, charity, whatever)
Reminds me of a funny story years ago:
I remember talking to a guy at work who complained about girls avoiding him like the plague, and they only talked to him when they had to cause he was an IT guy.
But sure enough, if you observed him for a few minutes, it was exactly like that SNL skit with Jimmy Fallon, the guy would berate and/or belittle coworkers for not knowing about technology as much as he did, even though it's not really their job.
The guy pretty much dried up the vagina.
And the worst part is that I tried to explain it to him and he just could not comprehend with all his intelligence, the notion that talking down to people just isn't sexy.
Exactly, but doing so requires opening and up being vulnerable, which is very difficult and/or scary for some people. It took me years to realize that I needed to open up if I really wanted to connect with people and make friends. It's kind of funny when I think back on it. I was willing to take risks with my career and join early stage startups. I was willing to risk starting my own startup (which end up failing miserably). I was willing to take on risky hobbies like rock climbing and sailing, and I was willing to make some risky financial investments (that ended up doing pretty well). But through the majority of my 20s, the one thing I was NOT willing to risk EVER was being vulnerable, embarrassed, or rejected.
https://stevepavlina.com/?s=relationships
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4553092-real-time-relati...
This stereotype needs to die. For some reason, tech people have a superiority complex about their intelligence and inferiority complex about their social intelligence (neither of which is true from what I have observed). Tech people are normal people.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox
In my opinion, it's crucial, in these conditions, to be self-aware and get a certain degree of control, as one can easily slide into, let's say, some negative patterns of the behavior in the spectrum.
That hero worship tells people that they're better programmers if they reject everything else. Not only is it not true, it's counterproductive.
Autism may be overrepresented among computer people but it's still rare. What's more common, I think, is neurotypical people trying to act autistic and failing.
Autistics do indeed need a different approach to a lot of things, but what most nerds need is to think of themselves as people who are fortunate to have a skill set that is well compensated even without being the 100x programmer who sleeps under his desk and eats only Soylent. That gives us the freedom to be interested in life outside of computers and jobs.
That's not easy when you have to see outside a culture that emulates a few highly successful individuals. Or worse, emulate the myth of their public persona without actually knowing their real lives.
The trick, I would say, is to stop telling each other that we're so different from other people, and that this is necessary to be good at our jobs.
This is in Scandinavia where people generally just work in a field they enjoy, nobody works in IT for the money, so it is probably different in a place like India or even the US.
Your comment seems to imply that non-asd folks entering tech are just in it for the money. Between the general popularity with Video Games, the changing Hollywood image of hackers (Neo, FSociety, Pied Pipper), the hero worship of Steve Jobs/Elon Musk, and the general societal acceptance of all things STEM we have a lot of people, especially young men, entering computer programming out of genuine interest.
Determining private medical data or motivations for a population is hard to do in any ethical empirical way.
I do think most people enter programming because of a genuine interest, hence the abundance of awkward introverts in the business. My point was just that in places like the US were there is such a strong focus on making money, there are probably more people getting in to IT for money, and hence more non-awkward people.
Mr Robot was fun too until it became too much of a Fight Club rip off, but I remember the protagonist as extremely awkward and weird, not someone that a mainstream person would aspire to be like.
The protagonists of Silicon Valley were displayed in incredibly high positive light. They received fame, fortune, drugs and sex. They were portrayed as a modern personification of American Independence, living life on their own terms and bashing heads against authority. They showed very strong social connections. Even scenes where Richard experiences social anxiety are shown in a highly relatable way.
I don’t think any normal, social person watches Silicon Valley and walks away wanting to be like these.
The only normal people in the show are Dinesh’ cousin and Monica.
https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682917
And I don't know much about autism in general, but it should be pretty uncontroversial to say that programmers and computer nerds are much more socially awkward than average.
Do you think this is a representative sample?
Because I’ve met plenty of otherwise on paper “smart” people who made/make horrendously unintelligent life decisions.
We do it on here where we assume a higher level of conversation compared to a facebook post so we leave a better message which reenforces the standard.
Then there is the stereotype that spent most of their free time on their computers out of passion and that's what made them end up in tech. That's the same stereotype that has a harder time forming social bonds for the simple reason that they tend to stay home to follow their passion rather than engage in social activities.
I'm also a rock climber. Last year I hiked up Mount Snowdon in Wales. I have done the Inca Trail in Peru to Machu Picchu. I have climbed in Brazil, England, Wales, Greece, France. I'm also a cyclist. I love playing football and basketball (despite being fairly short at 1m65cm). I have been trying to get into running lately, mostly because it's very easy and quick to get some exercise in, since I don't particularly like it. I have gone camping for weeks so I could climb in remote places and/or on the cheap, but also for the sheer enjoyment of it.
I have met friends on both camps, and I'm still quite socially awkward and relatively anxious. I still find it hard to relate closely to many people. That doesn't stop me from trying - and failing a lot.
The idea that those worlds are at odds on a fundamental level absolutely needs to die. It's not good for us nerds, it's not good for us athletes/workout enthusiasts, it's not good for us nature people.
I'm the kind of person who really enjoys tinkering alone and I can get hooked on a good problem for days... Did the C++ grandmaster challenge in high school and built my own smartwatch. So I belive i qualify as a nerd.
But I'm also an extrovert who's good with people. At least my friends and family think so. Plus my wife thinks it's awesome that I can repair so much stuff.
The assumption that tech people cannot have great relationships is just wrong. Try not to let it influence you and instead just practice the social skills necessary to meet and get along with people. It'll make you happier. And having friends tends to make work easier, too.
But really, do the work. Even for us (lucky?) extroverts, conversation skills are still something that you need to practice if you want to be good at it.
I thought PG's essay was a West-Coast-centric breakdown of social strata.
In my school, our nerds were not overachievers (I should know because I was one and we were all slackers :). The overachievers were all savvy enough to find their place in the social pecking order.
I wonder if other East Coasters had that same experience or if it was specific to my town. I did have the opportunity to meet some people from California in high school at a national summer camp I attended who completely matched the Hollywood nerd stereotype, being highly intelligent, D&D-playing, slightly-snooty overachievers. That was the first time I realized it wasn't completely made-up.
The smart over-achievers of my days (the 2000s to 2010s) were all athletic (mostly tennis and basketball), popular and socially well-adjusted. And they trounced everyone else’s test scores consistently.
But Southern California isn’t typical or representative of the nation as a whole so I might be stuck in some kind of local maxima/minima.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism-spectrum_quotient
"Normal people" is a lot harder to define and quantify than IQ or whatever that other one is and that might be uncomfortable. Nonetheless it is a more useful description for this purpose.
As for social awkwardness, I think that is less well-studied than intelligence, but you could imagine constructing a survey with questions that attempted to measure what you cared about. For example: "How many friends do you have?" "Were you bullied in school?" "Would you feel excited or apprehensive about attending a party where you didn't know anyone else?" "Do you find it easy to make new friends?" "Do you think others enjoy your presence at parties?" (Some questions like these have in fact been used to estimate "extroversion".) And I would ask a similar question here: do you really think tech people are average, and, if so, do you think this would likely be seen in the results of simple questionnaires?
But the person made a pretty straightforward assertion about us being, in aggregate, normal. And you pretty much went straight for the calipers, which I just don't think was helpful or necessary.
That's all that's happening here, I'm not trying to formally debate you about the truth of these different statements. Just pointing out that software devs are overall a pretty normal group of people.
You probably missed that this sub thread just concerns the intelligence part of the top post. It said that software engineers are neither superior with respect to intelligence nor are inferior with respect to social skills. The poster you argue with choose to argue against the first point, you try to say that he is wrong since the first point is valid. The points aren't really connected, so even if the second point is valid the first point might still be wrong.
On HN threads going off-topic is normal and should be expected. So just because the outer discussion only concerns social part it is still fine to poke hole in parts of people comments like this. The first person to bring up intelligence was the top post anyway, there was no reason to do so, but now they did so we have this subthread.
I agree though that the mindset that because you are a tech person you are doomed to social awkwardness is destructive and silly. Social skills are simply skills you need to put extra work into polishing as it’s not a skill that will be much developed professionally.
I also think there's an urge to flaunt that intellect at all times, Especially when among non-peers. I think it's like someone driving their Mercedez up to the middle of the impoverished neighborhood and Counting loads of cash in the public.
For me, that looked like understanding past trauma, and then doing the work: meditation, journaling, fixing diet and exercise, sleeping better, and enhancing existing relationships with friends and family.
Then, I felt more comfortable knowing myself and being my authentic self. With that foundation in place, I put real energy into expanding my communities. I put myself out there. I asked people to hang out, and I shared my struggles. I was more comfortable being vulnerable.
There are other tactics that have worked. I introduced like-minded people to one another and let those connections grow on their own. I spend time on touching base. When I read an article or see a tweet that a distant friend might enjoy, I send it. And ask how they are doing. I lean into curiosity about others. Ask people probing questions about their lives, hopes, fears.
This is also a trick I commonly employ. I rekindle our common interests with things I'm learning or reading and it is serves as a great launch point for discussion when we reconnect. I've affectionately earned a reputation among my friends as a "spammer", but perhaps that is better than "absentee"!
Being a Computer Science grad / software engineer and on the quieter side, I always labeled myself as an introvert. But I more recently identified that I get a lot of energy from talking to the right people, even if I’m not loud and gregarious like your textbook extrovert.
The main thing is I only get energy from talking to interesting people about interesting things, and I now see that as a positive, instead of hating myself for not meeting some unrealistic standard of being able to engage with boring people over small talk or trivial matters
I have never been or desired to be the life of the party. But I like being at the party, and I get bored and lonely quickly when I'm by myself.
In contrast, I had a boss who truly was the gregarious, social butterfly type -- but it drained her, and she would need to withdraw and have extended alone time to feel rejuvenated.
In the end, few of us are 100% either way. We all need periods of social time and alone time. But understanding these labels in terms of what energizes you has been very helpful to me.
From that pov, I think most of us are not introvert or extrovert but in between, e.g. "normal".
I can relate to this, but to me it's different than true extroversion.
My mom was an extrovert. I took her to the grocery store once, waited for her at the front while she tooled around in a cart (she was elderly but wanted to shop by herself). She had to pick up maybe 5 things. After about 20 minutes, I called her and she didn't answer. After 10 more minutes I called, she answered, and said she was talking to a "friend" about her husband who had recently died. I said, "Who is this?", and she said "You don't know her, we just met." I actually got kinda mad that I had been waiting all this time, she hadn't finished her shopping, and had been (and still was!) talking to some stranger so long.
Once we were in standing in line at the checkout, again at the grocery but when she was younger and getting around okay, and people would just start spontaneously talking to her, or she to them. Next thing you know they'd be telling her about their husband that cheated on them, they didn't get along with their kids, or who knows what!
In the grocery store, no one talks to me - ever. I don't care, but it just doesn't happen. My mom told me once it's because I don't look at people. My sister asked why everyone talked to Mom and my mom said, "the secret is, don't ever talk about yourself. If someone tells you something, just act interested, say 'Really?', or ask them a question, but then wait for them to start talking again." My sister has tried it and said it's amazing how well it works.
A big difference between me and my mom is that she was actually interested in the lives of complete strangers. She liked people on a level way above me. And not just for small talk: she talked with them about their lives, their problems, their goals, their careers - you name it. She was energized by talking to all kinds of people. To her, all people were interesting and energized her. A true extrovert.
* You will gain a lot of confidence in social situations. Going to a gathering as one of the fittest people there feels a lot less anxiety-inducing than entering as the overweight person. Trying to date while in shape is an entirely different experience than trying to find somebody when you're not.
* Finding an exercise you enjoy gives you an outlet for pent up stress, making you less anxious in other areas of your life.
* Finding some sport or activity you can participate in gives you numerous opportunities to join with clubs and make activity buddies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29743613 (14 hours, 7 comments)
Seriously though, I'm mostly comfortable with solitude so it's never been a huge issue with me. I like making, I like tinkering, I like doing what I want when I want. I can keep myself entertained. I also realized this about myself, so I stopped pushing myself to expand my social circles.
That's to say I don't like people. I do. I like playing games with people, going to movies, hanging out, etc.
But I can go weeks before feeling the desire for social interaction (outside what office life provides). Whereas, I'm done with most social engagements in a few hours even on my most outgoing days.
That's my best attempt at answering the title on its face. I overcame it by realizing, like BatManuel claims: "[I am] lone."
However, as to the question further asked in the body: I've leaned into myself. I allow myself to be. I've learned that people only care that you care about them. Look for the "cool" first. There's probably something you like in almost everything. Or at least interesting. Everyone wants to be interesting, so be interested.
I find that I get all my needs for social interaction through work and family, and even that can be too much. I have to spend large swaths of the day just being by myself, and I typically use that time for the things I want to do; reading books, learning Russian, trying new technologies. These are all solitary pursuits, and I like that I can do them in my own way at my own pace.
I guess my roundabout way of answering the question is that I simply got comfortable being with myself. I like me, I think I'm pretty cool. I know I'm not perfect but I have a lot of self love. Combine that with the desire and grit to always be working towards self improvement, plus a wife and kids, and I find that my day is filled to the brim with joy, love, and excitement.
> plus a wife and kids
I find, since having a larger immediate family, I have few opportunities to be by myself. Are your kids older? Does your spouse put more time into daily things or the kids?
My wife understands my introversion and that I need time to myself. We have a sort of agreement, she could be a stay at home mom but she also is going to take the majority of the child-rearing, I make and manage the money in our home.
One of the reasons I love working from home is that I actually spend more time with my kids. It's not a chore and I don't have to set aside specific time to do so, it just happens organically.
What has helped tremendously is outsourcing a number of chores. I've hired people to clean my house, maintain the yard, etc and it's really freed up more time. Now I have plenty of bandwidth to devote to family, along with all my other hobbies and intellectual pursuits.
Rotating partners every few minutes helps you leftover both dance and social skills. Each person is different, do every partner is different. Sometimes, you just don't click and that's ok. You remember the people you did enjoy dancing with and make sure to grab a few dances later
However, try to find a teacher that teaches basic technique (leading-following, body consciousness etc.) instead of step sequences. Or better yet, take private lessons. The step sequences are a bad way for brainy people to learn how to dance.
b) your mind doesn't 'constantly revolve around tech and science.', you are just bad at other things and dismiss them or want to feel superior. Normal Relationships don't revolve around a single topic they agree on
c) if you are lonely, it isn't because you are a nerd (heck, being nerdy is even popular now), if because of your lack of social skills and do nothing to improve them
d) get the fuck out of the house and interact with people. Gym, bar, supermarket, sports league, hobby place, dog park, etc. Just because the person you meet doesn't have an opinion on linux vs mac vs windows, or if Pluto is or isn't a planet, doesn't mean they aren't interesting/know interesting topics. You are not special or better because you 'pursue' science
(sorry for the negative tone, but is needed, all the 'nerds' I see that are lonely are a result of putting science or correctness or tech as the highest thing in life, and being condescending to other's interests, which makes they not really relatable, and thus lonely)