Ask HN: I'm So Lonely
I don't know if this is the right place for this but here are my stats. I'm a 32yo male, divorced with 2 kids whom I have little access to at the moment. My childhood friendships have withered, my divorce left me untrusting of women (at least for now). I work alone and don't have many opportunities to meet new people organically.
The thing is I don't even like hanging out with people most of the time but I get into this space where it feels like a biological necessity.
Does anyone have any tips on how to give myself attention? Or, in other words, how can I learn to be alone without feeling lonely? I feel like I need this lifeskill in order to proceed in my life.
I have a pattern of loneliness pushing me into making very foolish decisions.
253 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 302 ms ] threadWhat are you doing to foolishly solve your loneliness? Might give us an idea of what specifically makes you lonely.
1. Use your health insurance to get a therapist. This is a good outlet and can make you more socially attractive since you won't be carrying around as much unspoken weight.
2. Work really hard to get more people around you. The world is opening up after Omicron. Be resourceful. Make a list of all the various in-person social outlets you can find and start going to them.
3. Get "How to Win Friends and Influence People" on Audible and listen to that repeatedly until you've grokked it.
4. Open yourself up to being friends with people you might not think you could be friends with. Right now you're in need--don't be too picky, within reason.
I believe in you. You can get more people in your life.
(If I were to be honest, my plain question is “what is wrong with enjoying human company just because human company is enjoyable?”. It’s like saying it’s manipulative to eat to resolve hunger to me, as if every meal should be some Michelin star experience or starvation.)
Your not the only lonely person around!
I think I'm missing something here. Isn't this what friends are for? I call up (nonromantic) friends and be like, "I'm kind of lonely, wanna hang out?" That's not 'using people'. I don't feel used if a friend wants to hang in person or in Discord because they're feeling lonely.
Consider reading _The Elephant In The Brain_, by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson; its central thesis is that almost everything we do (including charity, art, lifting, laughing, hundreds of things) is ultimately about signalling things to other people, usually to make ourselves look good or desirable in some way. In that sense, everything we do is manipulative. Embrace it! There really are no "pure" motives.
I have a similar perspective: And what I've learned is that the core is compassion (and love): Compassion for yourself first, and compassion for others. Learn to be open with yourself about how you actually feel, not just the safe emotions but most of all the ones you hide from - compassion is for the sins, not the easy happy stuff. And have compassion for them and for yourself; it's a hard life, and loneliness can be the worst. Again, compassion isn't for the saints or perfect, it's for the serious faults we all carry, the humanity; I suspect the forgiveness of some religions is tied to that need. First be our own companions. How can we connect authentically, genuinely to others if we aren't authentic with ourselves?
Looking for others to relieve our loneliness, as you note, is just objectifying them (I don't mean to be absolute; you don't need to be an ascetic). Learn how to supply that love you need from the inside and not only will you be much less lonely, having your closest companion always with you, inseperable by the events of the outside world, but also that love and compassion will grow in you and be something you can share; it transforms how you feel about, perceive, and connect to others.
edit: try to join a local meet up group like hiking and go whenever to meet/chat with people
If you have never been religious before: go to a Catholic church. They exist almost specifically to solve this problem.
I was probably almost mid 20s before I realized people simply need an excuse to form and maintain tribal bonds, similar to how a birthday, anniversary, house warming, or other ritual provides an excuse to get together. I wish someone had explained this to me sooner.
And like the prior poster said, many/most Catholics disagree with the Pope--I think something like 85% of American Catholics disagree with the official views on birth control and abortion and homosexuality--but that doesn't stop us from calling ourselves Catholic.
A "Christian Atheist" is a modern phenomenon, and our materialist culture is the heart of that perspective and one that's deeply misunderstood and flawed.
I'd argue St. Paul and other biblical era scholars would find a western atheist not only very Christian, but also having a very childish and ignorant understanding of reality.
When everything is a thing, we have no room to see the fractal nature of happenings through time and synchronicity up and down layers of abstraction. Reality is just as much an interactive story between narrative and conscious threads as it is space/time, matter/energy. We've lost the first personal perspective of that with our modern "atheism".
It was fun for like a year, though.
In some other churches, people get to socialize more.
I had a friend who was very lonely, borderline suicidal. Went to a coffee shop for the same reasons, just to be around people because he thought it would help. Started chatting up the staff when he was getting coffee. Soon he was a regular, but still very lonely.
Doesn't show up one day because he had a doctor's appointment or interview. Phone starts buzzing. It's the people at the coffee shop, checking in on him. They had gotten worried about him and wanted to check in and make sure he was ok. Legit made him break down and cry, realizing there were people who cared about him, cared enough to reach out to him when he didn't show up - meaning they were indeed paying attention to him and enjoyed him being there.
It took some more counseling to get him squared away, but that event completely changed his outlook on life. Sometimes when we get into dark places, a lot just goes by you until someone points it out.
I have done a simple practice for many years that alleviates all kinds of suffering, loneliness being just one common kind. It's described well in this book: https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the...
The basic idea is this. You have to train the mind, a bit like how you'd train a puppy, except of course that you have a lot more material that needs to be configured, so it requires more patience. When the mind comes and disturbs you about something (usually with the intent to help you be a successful animal), you do some very simple steps to soothe the mind about that issue and reduce the likelihood of the mind bothering you about that again. In this way, you gradually get more and more peace and happiness that seems to come out of you, not in dependence on worldly circumstances.
May you be well, happy, and peaceful.
I would also suggest that you look into joining a men's group. A lot of other men are experiencing (or have experienced) things that are similar to what you are going through, and it can be very helpful to be able to share your experience with people who have empathy and can help you through it in a healthy way.
That’s pretty unusual self awareness. Respect. Glad you’re asking for help.
Let me proffer some of the obvious suggestions: D&D type of gaming (not for me but my adult child has met many great people that way), going to the gym, yoga class, chamber of commerce, get involved with a charity that means something to you, start going to church.
Try talking to people but when I say talking I really mean listening with all your heart, and being interested in them. Everyone has a story. If you’re genuinely interested, they will reveal everything within a few minutes. my kids make gentle fun of me for interviewing people, but I just like to listen to what people are really saying and respond by learning more about them. (If you are sincere it will incidentally help you enormously with women.)
A slightly less obvious one: get really good at something. When I do this I shoot to be better than about 80% of people, which you can usually do with raw work and without requiring some kind of genetic superiority. If you do it right the process is rewarding, and the outcome is also rewarding. Get fluent at a challenging language like Chinese or Arabic? Work out enough to get fairly ripped? Give away something great on GitHub? You’re a recruiter if your username applies, and maybe just focus on making a lot of money? That sounds shallow and you don’t have to take it very seriously, but I have learned that getting better than most people at some kind of lucrative or socially valued skill just helped me enormously, and you can you can usually do that simply by working hard and with common sense. The reason I harp on this angle is that when you’re pretty darn good at something, it attracts people. And getting good at something usually requires that you take on multiple topics well at once, which makes you feel better about yourself.
You can reach out to me via the email address in my profile and we can chat if you want. I have no agenda but I’m a decent listener.
Don’t expect that putting 10,000 hours into something will solve any of your social issues.
Or the other thing I thought you were going for- share your skill with people. For instance if you are a good photographer offer to take pics for Birthday parties or something. There’s your way to meet people.
Fantastic idea. That also worked for me but I wasn’t smart enough to mention it. Thank you.
My earlier reply was kind of blunt. My point was probably that one shouldn’t expect to solve personal issues by waiting for a turn in career or skills development. I lucked out in an unexpected way that put me in the 1%, with skills that happen to be in demand in the current frothy VC environment, and yet my emotional problems are exactly the same as ten years ago. Turns out it’s entirely orthogonal.
However, doing nothing is very likely to lead to nothing.
To me there has never been anything wrong with money being one of my motivations, although I always balanced it with family life and enjoyment of the job.
I worked two or three jobs a day for a generation so I could have enough money. I wasn’t safe when I grew up, and I have never felt “above that” ;) My kids grew up safe. Money means I can take care of my family’s substantial medical bills and have some reserve if things get wonky. It means my farm is completely paid off, no mortgage and no credit card debt. Having money saved meant that when I was fired from one gig I could take nine months off to level up my skills and get the best job of my life. Money meant that we could get a new roof when we needed one, as opposed to spending years when I was a kid with pots strategically located under holes in the ceiling during winter.
Nothing wrong with treating money like the valuable tool it is. To me it’s amazing that you are able to turn the spigot on and off (not being facetious).
I know this is anecdata but for me going to the gym is great but is an antithesis of a place when you make new relationships. I was going to a gym and a swimming pool for a couple of years and I met zero new people - practically no any discussions except an occasional "Hi!".
But it's always better when the exercise itself is semi-social, not a solo activity. Cycling groups can work well or meeting people, but cycling on its own doesn't really help. Same with running and swimming.
Not that it matters, but I've never managed to make friends going to the gym. Still love going of course and its worth doing, but at least for me and the gym I go to, its not really a social space.
There are much better ways to beat loneliness. This only creates problem not just to the individual but to the society. Less religion is better.
I would hate to be religious on Hacker News and see my beliefs - maybe very important and personal to me, maybe the core my family and community - scorned and dismissed out of hand. In that respect, HN is not a place of wisdom, intellect, and learning.
If you want to exchange some words send me an email (check profile).
>my divorce left me untrusting of women
Don't. Good people exist and you deserve to be around them.
Always happy to talk :)
c_e@tuta.io
Try work from a coffee shop, go to the gym, join a co-working space. These are all low pressure spaces where nobody really expects you to be actively sociable but you can still be around others.
There's a fair bit of projection in this comment as for a while I thought I didn't need to socialise (despite actually being somewhat extroverted) and went through something similar to you.
To find a sense of belonging, you need 2 things. One is frequent positive interaction and the other is ongoing relationships where you feel cared about.
Our technology to date has worked against us here.
My recommendation is to find a community that you can start to interact with regularly. There are many that will welcome you, but also know it will take time before you start feeling like you belong- and just try to stick with it while it's uncomfortable.
Some ideas: 12-step programs, there are ones like Al-anon or CoDA where you don't have to have any substance issues yourself and deal more with relationships. Communities around people you admire, like Patreon communities that surround a particular artist or thought-leader. Or potentially Meetups, if they meet more regularly than once a month. Meditation groups or other spiritual communities tend to be fairly welcoming as well. Volunteering can be another avenue if the organization does something that is meaningful to you.
The most important aspect is that they have some kind of "meeting others" aspect and aren't just Discords or something where it's a lot of work to get to know people on any sort of personal level. In person or small video calls are good.
Above all, know that this is something that does take work, though social media makes it seem like people just have these great lives or you just need to join a Facebook group or something. But it's not impossible or complicated.
The weird thing is, the more you extend acceptance to other people in a group context, the more you'll find belonging in yourself. And give yourself as much of a break as you can here. You are noticing something isn't right and that's a really good self-reflexive step.
I'd never thought about systemic root causes this way. Thank you for frame this out at a social systems level.
I grew up in a medium-sized town where a lot of people, and most business people, were part of social organizations like Elk's Club, Rotary, bowling leagues, VFW, Knights of Columbus, softball teams, etc. I watched those social organizations wither as our city grew exponentially (from a surge of transplanted Californians driving our local tech renaissance and enjoying the relatively low property values), which seemed odd - more people should mean more members in these clubs? The way you frame it seems to explain this observation though - so many people moving in, dislocating the job market, being so far from family, etc. A by-product was the the death of those social clubs. Or maybe just the death of the existing social clubs I, as a local, was used to people joining as they came of age in our business and social community.
And of course, I eventually moved for school.... So I left my local Rotary Club and softball team...
A pet also do wonders to mental health BTW.
I'd study a wall, or a blade of grass. I'd thrust my attention on whatever I could find. You always have something you can focus on. I usually had a book with me.
However, I don't feel much positive emotion, possibly related, and I don't know that I necessarily recommend eliminating loneliness. That might work like cutting off the power to your smoke alarms--just kill the pain sensors and let the problem fester.
I’ve run across some folks over the years who did this a lot, and they tended to explode when sometime did push past/overwhelm it.
Pick a new exercise (cycling ? mountain climbing?)
Pick a new skill to learn (drawing/painting/3d modelling in blender)
Woodworking/metal working (the creative hobbies of making something tangible is great for the soul assuming we have one)
read, then once you get into your reading groove, read in strange places.
My friends all had kids and moved away and I feel… lost. My wife works nights, and I spend my nights alone. I don’t know what I’m even doing anymore, and with work from home having not seen my coworkers in two years… I am alone.
Twitch can also be good to hang out with random people doing random things. Streams with a small audience let you interact with people more.
You can search for local events in your area using http://eventbrite.com or others.
You can volunteer at an animal shelter, etc.
You can also get a pet. Just don't get a bird as they scream all the time.
This was helpful for me. I joined some groups doing hikes and bike rides in the woods around town. Found I could chose how social to be, be it chatting a lot or just along for the ride.
Do you have hobbies that you ceased to practice for whatever reason? Kids, career.
Maybe this is the time to pick it up again. Engage however you like, interact with the community when you feel like.