Ask HN: Loneliness at 19, how to cope?

I'll give you an extreme example: there was a Claude AI chatbot that was obsessed with the Golden Gate Bridge. This bot (a computer... a machine) had personality and was considered quirky, funny, endearing, and people loved it.

One thing I've learned is that you yourself must make an effort first, even if you think it's unfair or if it's a lot of work, otherwise you'll be lonely forever.

Do you know if you have any sort of neurodivergence? That may be a part of it too. You say small talk tends to bore you yet that is how people start mingling at first. Maybe people are put off by you being put off on small talk.

One cool thing about university is that there are lots of clubs you can join. I'd suggest you go find a club you're interested in and participate every week. Talk to people when you get the opportunity. I've read it takes around five times attending a group before people start taking your attendance seriously enough start investing time in getting to know you. Give it a few months and I'll bet you have some acquaintances that could become friends.

Join an interest group on Meetup maybe.

There was a period when I put space between myself and my main friends which resulted in loneliness, but I found this created a new space to connect with my siblings who were really interesting and had grown in ways I hadn't noticed.

Also, as Charlie Munger always said: "Invert! Invert! Invert!". Try doing the opposite of what you normally do. This requires of course paying attention to what you normally do (or don't do). Instead of waiting for others to reach out to you, for example, you might instead approach them.

Be okay with the fear of rejection. When we are kids we make friends so easily because we haven’t yet learned to protect ourselves from rejection.

An interesting exercise I had to do recently as part of a teambuilding exercise: offer a hug to 5 random strangers. I promise this will teach you something about yourself, and about others.

I'd pop your head into random events in college, even if it's groups you don't feel align with you.

Try some courses that tend to require higher levels of interaction (like theatre)

I wouldn't join a fraternity, but that's a way some connect with others.

Turn yourself into a billboard, wearing T-shirts for things you like (bands, geeky things, etc). A "cool shirt" comment can start a conversation.

Start smoking. Ok, don't do that. But when I was in school it gave me a reason to congregate in the smoking section of campus. Terrible idea, but it did help me meet some people that almost 30 years later I still consider friends.

> What am I supposed to do? Be lonely and without any kind of company and human connection my entire life?

You won't be. I'm 48 now, and while I'm somewhat well adjusted, when I was your age, and even a bit older, I was such an introverted outcast. Still am, I just learned how to communicate better over time and more or less relate to people where they are, even if we are different. We all grow at different rates. That doesn't help your sense of loneliness today, but as you discover yourself and who your "tribe" is, those connections will form and grow, even if it seems impossible today.

This is called catastrophizing. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/catastrophizing

If you take nothing else away from my comment, I would suggest finding out why you do that, and try to change that mental behavior. It might not directly help with loneliness, but it might make your life more satisfactory.

That said, while other folks on HN will have some advice you'll find useful, I'm not sure how applicable my experiences are to anyone else. My advice would be to examine the things you're interested in, especially if they're weird or "cringe", and find people who share those interests. Be shamelessly authentic.

If you don't have any such interests, I dunno.

If you live on campus (you definitely should if possible), make friends with the people who live in your dorm. Keep your door open at all times and be friendly to everyone around. People will just drop in. If your uni has college basketball or football, become a fan of the team and go to the games or watch em in the dorm.

In college you have tons of people around you with all sorts of different backgrounds. Rest assured, someone will have common interests with you and will find you fascinating. You don't need a lot of friends in this life, just a few good ones. Not everyone will like you, that's okay.

I'd also recommend talking to a professional, you might need to practice your social interactions. They have groups for this sorta thing if they deem you ready, but there's something more going on that has put you in this situation I'd wager.

Good luck!

If you do have a well-studied issue such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder that interferes with socialization, you can find support groups and people who have been able to succeed even with those issues.

Some of these social problems (e.g, ones caused by missing childhood socialization experiences) are curable through practice, but others will require you to learn enough about human social behavior to mask until someone figures out a cure. It can be exhausting, (just like physical exercise can be exhausting) but it's a useful skill to have in order to do well in life.

Good luck.

You have two good things going for you here:

- you're able to hold a conversation with people, even if it might not be as deep a conversation as you'd like it to be.

- you're funny and can joke around with people.

It sounds like you might have some surface level relationships and want deeper connections with people, which is totally understandable. Small talk can be boring at first, but it often opens the possibility of deeper relationships. I'd recommend low-stakes/activity based social interactions and seeing where they take you.

Some ideas:

- If you're on your way to the dining hall to get a meal, ask your dorm mates if they wanna join

- Colleges have a movie night on weekends to see a movie for free, ask class mates, dorm mates to go.

- Does your campus have like a rec/game center (think pool, air hockey, games etc). Another thing to ask people to.

You might have to suffer through a lot of rejection before you get takers. After that you might have to suffer through small talk about the weather, where someone is from, what their major is, etc before you get to the deeper connections.

This happens in some school environments (eg: long-term group projects), many work environments, team sports, certain vacation environments, etc.

Join a language class, or a sports club, or find employment somewhere, or go on a hostel vacation.

Make sure it's something you want to do for its own sake - enough so that you're not obsessing over befriending people.

Feel free to reach me at alexbwell12 at gmail dot com. Don’t have any crazy wisdom to pass down — just know how much it sucked for me.

The best suggestion I received was to imagine where I wanted to be long term, and to go on working on that. Somehow it took me out of the loop of trying to find an answer outside of my own self.

The other thing that helped was to stop trying to do the same as what others around are (saying they are) doing and be honest with myself and others about what I wanted.

You can't go into this with the goal of gaining something. Go in with the goal of giving of yourself -- your time, attention and interest.

Do the reps on this and you will become a person people want to be around.

  > To make friends, be one -- figure out what this means 
  > Be vulnerable -- the quickest way to connection I have found is to be ok with sharing your vulnerability first  
  > Be ok with rejection -- the danger of being vulnerable is getting rejected, be ok with that. Plenty of fish in the sea
  > Love yourself -- learn to give yourself grace
  > Practice gratitude
  > Serve/Volunteer/Teach -- you have unique valuable skills, figure out what they are and help others
  > Join clubs that excite you -- if none exist create one. (derek sivers: how to start a movement, consider being the second person)
  > Find your tribe online -- if none exist create one (see above)

One mistake I made when I was in university was have a baseline assumption that I was unlikable or similarly flawed, hence I would always find reasons why someone disliked me and pushed them away as a defence mechanism. Regardless of if it's true it's a horribly unproductive mindset to have and I encourage you to fight it.

Also you won't make friends by reading books. It's tempting to overanalyse but human connection isn't something you learn by reading, you learn it by doing it. A bunch. Go travel and see the world.