Posted by surprisetalk 4 days ago
Later that day, walking home through darkened streets, I noticed small groups, maybe a dozen people at a time, gathered around certain spots. For some reason, a few closed shops still seemed to have working free Wi-Fi (backup generators, maybe), and people clustered there, drawn in like mosquitoes to light. Their faces glowed in the dark, lit only by their screens, and they stood in near-total silence. It’s hard to describe the feeling, it was surreal. You had to be there.
I’m no Luddite, but I went to sleep that night wondering how on earth we get ourselves out of this.
We have better heating/air conditioning, endless television/video games/entertainment, large refrigerators, lower density, etc and so on.
Back then, home covered a narrower set of needs - so the default option was to spend time elsewhere, even if it was just to escape the noise/heat/smells/smoke of home for a minute.
Yes. And public spaces are significantly less comfortable (and more expensive) than they used to be
But even before this, through wife and her hobbies (dance, pottery etc) I had chance to meet many people and their partners and through them their friends etc. Then it becomes a choice whether you will get up and go see others or pick your screen.
Going back to work was a relief, because I was able to actually talk to adults without feeling that they were judging my reasons for being there.
Its the "we" in "how on earth we get ourselves out of this." The bluntness of the "we" conflates it into a bigger problem than it is. If you walk past many parks & gardens across cities you'll find that same picture of families socialising in the old way without a blackout, but also people glued to their phones too.
People who are intentional of having classic socialising are still doing it, people who choose not to either through their own intention or, i suspect and hope, in a very ambient non-intentional way are the ones who may need to get out of it. Yes there are more of the latter now than before but the former groups are still a huge part of society. And if they can do it even with the same distractions and phones and access to social media etc. why can't others?
the raid started, they all silently stared at their phones, and at some point they all looked up, looked around and walked away.
all mostly in complete silence.
who knew this was a precursor to more of the same, maybe throughout society.
I'm sure HN will suggest another layer of technology will fix all of this.
I'm currently trying to reduce internet usage by a simple rule: no feeds (try to avoid places where I could even see them).
It's extremely difficult.
YouTube receives you with a feed, every social network as well, even the online version of a newspaper is arguably a feed. It's usually not possible to use a service without having one in frequent sight. Even my weather app tries its best to offer a feed of weather related news, the photo gallery app shows one of memories....
You want someone to be friends with you, as you actually are. And that means you need to be friends with them, as they actually are, even if you worship different brands or vote for different movies.
Margaret Thatcher got quite a lot of stick for her quote about how there is no society and its just individual people that look out for themselves first and foremost before anything. But I'd say there's more truth to that than I'd want to believe. What stops that from being true to my mind is people being very intentional about creating a society by engaging with others.
I'm always interested in people's stories about adult friendships or loneliness crisis etc. and what I tend to see is that when people start being intentional about engaging, it usually ends up with them finding new friends. It's just easy to sleepwalk, with everything going on, into not engaging. Newish parents are very apt example of this
It’s not any more or less terrifying than in previous times, but as you wrote “you don’t really need to interact with so many different people”.
I would shorten that to “you don’t need so many people anymore”. Another factor is you can easily find more agree-able people (or bots) to spend time with, such as on this website rather than a neighbor.
I can’t and don’t see an easy solution for it, to be honest.
I’m kind of horrified at people saying they had/have to work at their best friendships as with my best friends, everything is seamless.
There are no misunderstandings. We never have to forgive each other. We never even need to clarify things for each other much, as we are that well aligned.
Granted it may not be possible, but ideally go find a better match in a friend.
There's nothing wrong with having to work at friendship. For years I had a friend that I looked up to (and, as it turned out looked up to me). We were both constantly striving to justify the other's faith and respect. It was a lot of work but incredibly valuable for both of us.
Or in many cases (not mine since I don't use them), there wasn't the world's largest bathroom wall to go sound off on... Except you sign every message off with your name. The kind of stuff people post in their real name that I would take to my grave is insane.
So there's that. Obviously there are other ways, but thought it'd be fun to share.
Also research on self-disclosure might help. Long story short: be the first to reveal some details about yourself and progressively go deeper to the level that you want, it's kind of a tit for tat type of thing. There was one popular article about it so you could "fall in love" but IMO it's not love, it's simply building a deeper connection. Check it out [1].
I used to be really interested in topics like this, so if you want to know more about it or brainstorm, feel free to reach out. My email is in my profile.
they are written the same...
And given that it is Afrikaans, I guess so. Afrikaans always reads as "Dutch but it's a puzzle!" to me.
https://supernuclear.substack.com/p/stoop-coffee-how-a-simpl...
I lowered the stakes for calling/answering/not answering, and I actually catch up with my friends more often.
I do it all the time. And unfortunately this still only builds shallow relationships or keeps them alive for longer than they would. Proximity is the only thing that keeps things alive. Physical proximity is obvious, but there are other forms of proximity. Regular (almost daily) texts builds online proximity. Being financially in a similar boat brings financial proximity. Being in similar stages in life brings lifestyle proximity. The more you start drifting away (lose proximity in one or more areas), the more the relationship dies. Married people with kids who own houses rarely stay in touch with single people who are traveling the world.
If I'd get randomly called I'd actually just end up being annoyed, I need a sense of structure in my life lol.
Many of us have kids/demanding jobs - so feeling free to just call when I’ve got ten minutes alone in the car means - at minimum - one of us is free at that time.
I once dated someone who “didn’t just leave the house for any old outing” and it became exhausting trying to figure out the protocol for what qualified as a worthwhile outing. It was easier to just dump the person instead of playing this little “no you’re holding it wrong” game of comms.
I mean, people are busy and schedules don't always align. Seems like the onus is on you if you expect another friend to answer whenever you feel like calling. Even with my parents we will check with each other via text before we call (being on a time zone difference doesn't help)
- making new friends does take a massive amount of time, not just in finding friends but also in spending time with them until you can call them long-time friends
- so you need to invest time in hanging out with people! Even when you don’t know what to say to them or when it’s awkward or when you’re not sure if you like them much. We weren’t picky when we were kids making friends, we just hung out a lot with whoever wanted to hang out
- this also means make yourself available. Romantic partners, new jobs, as well as kids basically destroy your free time, but lots of it is self inflicted. Make sure you don’t seclude yourself and prioritize hanging out with people
- also, it’s a number game, you should meet a lot of people if you want to eventually have a strong group of friends
- one trick is to organize a house party or some gathering once a week, on the same day, and invite everyone you know, and ask them to invite more people as well
- make sure you also spend time doing nothing with friends. Like watching tv and sitting on the couch. That’s how you used to create friendships as a kid, you just “hang”, you didn’t “go to the restaurant and went home afterwards”
Found a local computer club, crew of lads tinkering and using open source software. Really nice, smart bunch. I'm learning loads and appreciating their company.
OP found this lacking, because it's not working fast enough and he's not getting enough time with people.
I totally agree putting in time with old friends is always worth it (maybe not through surprise calls) but on a local level, I'd encourage patience.
Things take time, friendship isn't something you can just switch on. It takes years, and that's the point. It's a journey, not a destination.
I think the solution to this is to enjoy the journey. There's not a line that someone needs to cross before you can enjoy spending time with them. Just reach out and learn and enjoy people from the beginning.
People feel overworked, tired and out of money.
This general malaise spills on almost every type of social interaction, including friendships unfortunately.
I thought HN didn't go in for AI slop? I suspect that this kind of thing has people feeling more alienated than ever, what with even the articles online lacking any level of human connection.