Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more clearly than the NYTimes piece) between what it calls loneliness of emotional isolation and loneliness of social isolation, and, to me, its examples like the condition of married couples who moved far away are much more salient (and convincing) than reliance on surveys and dry statements like "loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline" and "increases risk of heart disease by 29%".

Am I missing something?

P.S. One cool thing I learned about from reading about Cacioppo's research is that when designing a survey about loneliness you can't ask questions like "do you feel lonely?" because it's much too ambiguous and people end up giving incoherent useless answers. I never thought something so basic could be so confusing to people.

[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/loneliness

[2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...

The national highway system was great for a nation on the brink of all-out war. We needed to move troops, tanks, people, supplies quickly and efficiently. This system ended up being used to separate black people from working class whites. Naturally we have drug and violence problems in those communities that were segregated from the more educated and affluent white population.

Terrible. I wish I could be governor or something and make sure that we stop this. It makes me sad.

It is much harder to meet friends who are separated by 5 miles of bus ride than 5 miles of freeway. It is much harder to actually hear each other at a crowded bar than someone's home, but only the very rich (or the suburban) can afford homes large enough to host gatherings. Economic circumstances may coerce interaction with roommates, but living with someone is more likely to destroy your friendship than strengthen it.

I think this is a cultural/attitude thing, not really a manifestation of urban planning.

It's easier to meet people in a city, where the 5 miles of a bus ride can cover a neighborhood of a hundred thousand people and hundreds of venues to meet them, while the freeway ride in a suburb will cover less than ten thousand. And what does living with someone have to do with it? We're talking about interacting with people outside your house. I think US urban planning has certainly sucked, and the sprawl will hurt us socially as well as economically.

Where? In New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, the only people who do that are begging, preaching, or rambling incoherently. The sense of community I'll observe on a public transit vehicle is when something has gone wrong, or when everyone shares a look of relief after someone who was trying to start unwanted interactions has left. Granted there are some magical moments like the sax battle [0] that could never happen on a freeway, but did any of those people exchange contact information or form any lasting connection?

There are people who will sit down next to you and start talking. Groups of friends traveling together will "rescue" each other from these interactions. People traveling solo will just get off and move to another car, or wait for the next train. The mood afterword is "can you believe that creep?" not "wow aren't we so connected!"

> It's easier to meet people in a city,

From a pure numbers perspective, there are more people to meet per unit area. But are there more people to meet per travel minute by fastest viable means? I doubt it. If we accept 50 minutes (time for a walk to bus to train journey from mid south side to near north side Chicago by CTA), well, that is 50 miles at 60mph.

If my friend lives in a distant suburb it is not a problem, I can drive to his home in 10 minutes. If my friend lives in a distant urban neighborhood, I'm looking at a 50-minute 3-segment public transit journey.

You also have less free time living in a public-transit-oriented city. A New Yorker whose primary mode is the subway spends 90 minutes per day commuting [1]. A national average car commuter spends just 51 [2]. What would you do with an extra 3 hours per week? I'd see friends more often.

> And what does living with someone have to do with it?

Parent claims it is a problem that people live in separate boxes. Density does prevent this, in that real estate contention means relatively few people can afford their own box, but I claim that roommates of economic necessity don't actually strengthen social ties that well, and may weaken them.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_9IMZcbKHQ

[1] http://origin-states.politico.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazo...

[2] https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42...

Agree with the other replies to you; I've had lovely chats with people on the subway in literally all three of the cities when I've visited. Also at the laundromat, or at a bar, at a museum, and other places.

> ...did any of those people exchange contact information or form any lasting connection?

I never made a lifelong friend from these conversations (though I have received business cards or other contact info), but I got a sense that I mattered to a stranger, even if only for a little bit. That's certainly part of what the article is talking about.

> The mood afterword is "can you believe that creep?" not "wow aren't we so connected!"

I can genuinely tell you that many conversations I've had did not end with either side thinking the other was creepy.

Of course, I've avoided conversations with people who I felt were creepy. Typically, these conversations happen when the person is speaking to me and I've given pretty clear body and vocal language that I am not interested in speaking.

I do my best to initiate chatting only with people who show interest in talking. Having an idea of who's interested in that takes practice, and some other identification skill I have a hard time describing, but which would likely fit the definition of "emotional intelligence."

# # #

Here's a little chestnut similar to what btmorex mentioned:

A young couple moved to a new town, and upon driving up to their new home for the first time, saw their neighbors outside. After a few pleasantries, the young couple asked, "So, we're wondering, what are the people like around here? Is it a good place to live?"

The neighbor paused, then said, "What were your neighbors like at your last town?"

The young couple agreed, "they were great!"

The neighbor, audibly relieved, said, "well they'll be great here, too."

# # #

What you look for and expect from others will greatly color your experiences. I figure most people are generally friendly, and I tend to be able to recognize when someone wants to chat... and they likely see my desire for a friendly chat, too.

The point is that crossing paths is naturally going to lead to more spontaneous interactions. All else equal, driving alone and living in silo'd suburban houses means less interactions with strangers compared to living in an apartment in NYC.

I grew up in the suburbs and now live in Manhattan. I meet a lot more people in Manhattan than I ever did in the suburbs, and this is the main reason why I have no intention of moving back to the suburbs.

I'll also add that I spent my youth living in both suburban America and rural Japan. I made a lot more friends and had a lot more fun in Japan largely because I could get anywhere via walking or biking. In America I was dependent on adults driving me everywhere, so I spent way more time alone playing videogames in my house.

I'm talking about the kind of people who have to choose between part of a shared apartment in a conveniently transit-connected part of SF/Manhattan, or their own studio/1-bedroom somewhere with low density and poor transit. Y'know, software engineers making $100k.

I don't live in the NY metro area but I visit several times a year since I got friends there. I always crash on the couch.

I vary rarely socialize with people with high income because, one, I grew up poor so most of my childhood friends are still below average in income but more importantly I find it very difficult to relate to people who grew up well off. Sometimes I hear my co-workers talk and I feel I am living on a different planet.

As far as shared housing, yes, 99% of college kids live in shared housing and the vast majority of them still socialize.

In a big house, the party often naturally squeezes into the kitchen, leaving the handful of introverts to sit quietly in the living room.

I also became good friends with a bartender who I met when she was serving me. She no longer bartends now that she's out of school but we still see each other all the time.

A lot of my friends now usually prefer to meet out rather than have someone come over. It takes the pressure off to be a host.

Very likely. There are bars where people go to be alone; bars were people go in a group to stay purely within their group; bars where people go to meet between regulars and are closed to newcomers; bars where people are opened to anyone, regulars or 5-minute newcomer; etc.

The most classy, and also often the most hyped ones are the coldest ones. The most popular are often the warmest... providing that you manage to get into the 'family' circle if it is a matter of regulars/locals; or that you belong to the same scene if it is a subculture oriented place.

And it also depends also on you. And not necessarily as you expect. I am amongst the most introverted, shy, less talkative persons ever, and yet bartenders and regulars generally great me by calling my name on my 2nd or 3rd visit in a bar while some mates who've been coming to the same place dozens of times in are given the cold shoulder (I have plenty of examples like this, it was quite funny sometimes to see how upset by the situation my mate was :-).

I too have made friends with strangers I've met in bars, as well as with servers and bartenders at places I've been a regular.

Here's a book that can help you stop thinking it has anything to do with luck:

How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships [1]

[1] https://amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships/dp/...

A tip if you do decide to try this advice, don't let anyone know you aren't drinking. Not only will you often get accosted "Come on buddy just one!", but at the end of the night you will often be pressured to become some sort of unpaid Uber.

For sure some people are extremely obnoxious when they drink, especially heavily, myself included (which is a reason I don't like getting drunk - I try to stay mildly buzzed if I do drink, but usually I don't at socal gatherings, unless they are major social gatherings, and I even usually only drink water at bars) but the vast majority of people are fine after a couple brews. Most people stop getting blasted at around 25 or so anyways.

Your attitude indicates to me that if your perception of someone changes when they've had a beer, just because they've had a beer, rather than their actual behavior. I don't mean to be rude when I say that - I can understand. I used to not be able to stand being around people when they were drinking. I avoided anywhere where I thought there may be alcohol... but that was because I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and I was projecting my hatred of my father onto other people. It wasn't until years later I learned to be comfortable around social drinking. I learned to realize that my father did the things he did because he is a bad person, not because alcohol somehow forced him to.

As I said in another post, I actually ended up meeting the person I ended up marrying in a bar!

(I also did start drinking myself later on.)

To be clear I don't want to put you down or anything, just sharing my perspective.

Bars in big cities provide more opportunities but then I think people are generally seen as more "disposable" if that make sense.

This is coming from someone who also feels like they have been going to the wrong bars.

In NYC I feel much more welcome talking to strangers in bars than I do in London.

I usually went because I wanted to meet someone new. I had very mixed results. While I had mixed results; people did seem to interact with eachother. Yes--it was small talk, but interaction.

Fast forward to today. The smart phone seems to have just ruined the experience all together.

I can blame myself--I'm not the same social person? I've aged? I don't find people and their stories as interesting? Blah--blah--blah?

I don't know? I do know that Phone Stare is really played out. It seems like everyone is engrossed in that screen?

The last time I was out, I was in an Irish themed bar in San Francisco. The older Bartender was asked a question by a patron. "This place is dead?"

He then said, "Maybe you should put the phone away? Plus, the led light brings out all the fine lines around the eyes?"

Yea--it was kinda rude, but he said it in a joking way, and with that Irish accent it came across as kinda endearing. Someting a father might say?

The phone eventually went into the bag. A person sat next to her, and asked her if he could buy her a drink. They talked, and talked. They genuinely seemed content--

I walked out, and it seemed like 90% of the patrons were still staring into that screen. All looked kinda misserable. I thought--what could be so interesting? A fifteen dollar drink, and waste the time on the screen?

I don't know if we are going to put the phone away, but I hope I'm still around if that day comes.

(I understand pulling out the phone if your socially awkward, or shy, but after awhile of Staring into the Abyss, put it away? And yes, if your at lunch putting together that huge business deal; I get it, but most of us just arn't that important. You're in a bar because your lonely. Admit it! Own it! Life is short--no one is judging you, nor cares. That phone is a huge turn off on so many levels. This goes two fold for guys.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_pub#North_America

A typical "Irish pub" these days is usually the bar equivalent of Applebee's. However, the bartender in your story definitely sounded legit. :)

I find that small, established live music venues that operate a bar regardless of shows tend to be far more "real". There's usually only a few of these in any given major metropolitan area.

The phone stare ratio is far lower than average, but you run into the opposite problem: everyone knows everyone, and you're the outsider. Of course, that's usually a healthy sign that just indicates the place is worth becoming a regular at.

Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, he took the midnight train going anywhere...

Never live with someone you aren't prepared to hate. Nothing kills a friendship like becoming roommates.

I live in Barcelona and the majority of people live in flats/apartments, my apartment building is like a large family, mixture of retirees, families, young couples and mixed flats of people just out of university. Everyone knows each other and relies on each other, for our neighbours' 90th birthday almost the whole building (10 flats) took her cake and stayed and chatted and had fun. (My partner and myself are both foreigners here and we're still accepted into the culture and events like this. IMO it's really hard to overstate how crucial this sort of interaction and sense of belonging is in a large city. What intensifies this even more is in Barcelona the first floor of a lot of apartment buildings is where there are shops/bars/butchers/restaurants etc. For most of my food and leisure needs (including the gym for example) I don't need to go more than 400m, this also creates social situations where you bump into the same people and staff over and over creating a real village feel.

Here's a great shot of Eixample, a district in Barcelona divided by distinctive grids that lends itself to these 'micro' village communities. http://lh4.ggpht.com/-I28z_xwspR0/UdgqfgPxzCI/AAAAAAAAqCY/Mj...

Sorry that was quite the tangent to go off on!

The way I see it, the level of community involvement and social interaction in general have almost nothing to do with infrastructure, unless you decide to go full-on hermit in the mountains. It matters what people are in your life, not just how many are in your proximity.

> surrounded by people who don't care about you

That's the difference. Not city vs. suburban. Where are the people that care about you and that you care about? That's where you will feel less socially isolated.

I'd bet that if you went to a suburbia that doesn't contain your family, you'd feel just as isolated as you do in the city.

It matters how many of the people you meet actually know you.

That said, I do not feel that expectation of social and civic engagement in San Francisco.

We work all day, come home at 8pm, watch TV while surfing with phone, update Facebook, text a friend, go to bed. Repeat.

Go back 10,000 years and almost all people encountered would be people familiar to you. Any other instances would've been a potential stand-off. I'd guess it's a carry over from that.

That's not the highways fault in any way. Walkable neighborhoods are expensive, and most Americans are too poor to afford anything like that.

You can't jump in early, because you'll just get gentrified out as soon as decent density & transit exist. You can't jump in after, because the costs are 3x to 50x higher. If your not wealthy, it's a loose-loose situation. That's why walkable neighborhoods can't maintain their "variety of incomes and backgrounds".

If anyone could afford to put their family in walkable NYC / San Francisco / Seattle / etc, many more would choose to do it. But until high-quality safe family housing in walkable neighborhoods drops to $150k - $250k, it's just not going to happen.

Suburbs don't happen because people love looking at asphalt. Suburbs can be made cheap, safe and affordable for regular middle-class people. Dense urban housing is almost never affordable, even in tiny little towns with no zoning or permitting in low-cost-of-living places like the Midwest.

Until people honestly address the exploding high costs of density (and not just blame "red tape" or "design" or "subsidy" for it), that won't change and suburbs will continue to get built.

I'm not defending suburbia... I don't like it in general, and now have a small homestead in a small town, but my dislike of suburbia does NOT stem from social isolation.

Neither of these is proof that one is inherently better than the other, just that there are many dependent factors which can change the fabric of a neighborhood in any setting. That's the point of the entire field of urban studies existing; to understand what makes these types of places happen. As you would expect, many of the communities that we have in reality don't implement the best solutions that have been discovered due to local resistance, funding issues, misguided political mandates, etc.

It's pretty time-consuming, but it's a big responsibility, making decisions that affect lots of people's lives. So, trade-offs.

How would you stop this as governor? I have a feeling your solution would be far worse than the problem you're trying to solve.

knock knock knock <opens door> "Huh?"

"I'm Sergeant Jones with the 665th Airborne. Our records show you haven't been out all week. Come with us, sir... "

It'd be different if he handed you a beer first, I guess.

I'd also fix the schools. But that's a much larger discussion.

This is my opinion.

You'd probably have better luck as a senator.

* That the researchers looked into previous research, examined those results, and are either replicating them (thus adding extra evidence to those hypothesis), or have found some sort of flaw in how the research was gathered.

* That the researches have, in their research, looked into multiple previous studies, including the old one you referenced, and synthesized them all for their new research.

* It's often been shown that older research studies are flawed in some way, especially in certain fields, such as nutrition, so older studies should be held suspect (really the newer studies should be held with just as much skepticism, but they never are)

Again, the assumptions that this is done is not necessarily what happened in reality, but without media or laypeople doing their own research into things (and neither have time for that), it's usually a useful greedy heuristic to assume newer research is better and more accurate than older research.

I think this passage is key, I had not heard this postulated before:

"New research suggests that loneliness is not necessarily the result of poor social skills or lack of social support, but can be caused in part by unusual sensitivity to social cues. Lonely people are more likely to perceive ambiguous social cues negatively, and enter a self-preservation mind-set — worsening the problem."

"Her book is worth reading for its storytelling alone. But what makes it even more fascinating is Solnit's demonstration that disasters give rise to small, temporary utopias in which the best of human nature emerges and a remarkable spirit of generosity and cooperation takes over. 'Disaster,' she writes, 'along with moments of social upheaval, is when the shackles of conventional belief and role fall away and the possibilities open up.' People suffering unimaginable misfortune often revert not to savagery but to an almost beatific selflessness, comforting themselves in extremis by aiding others. Solnit cites many examples of those who remember a disaster as, paradoxically, one of the great moments of their lives. The reaction is similar to that of some who recall the Great Depression as a time of spiritual and social richness."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_front_during_World_War_II...

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08...

Because the NYT is a newspaper and they need a reason to publish a news article. This is known as a "hook." The hook in cases like this will be something new being published. It's hard to hook readers by announcing: What we've known since the 1970s still holds true. Just doesn't work.

Indeed.. while waiting for the new research to come out, read Marcus Aurelius, Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt. Maybe throw in some Roman and Greek classics. That should "help a bit".

The problem isn't that we don't know how to live well and healthy and sleep soundly, it's that we want to be healthy and sleep soundly without living that way. We don't want to be simply just and honest and go from there. Well, joke's on us, the truth remains where it is, waiting for dithering people to stop being scared of it.

It seems like a sense of community is extremely important for a society, particularly with the connection there seems to be between community and happiness (my understanding is that much of the happiness that religious people get is from the community, for example). Still, I haven't seen a great idea as to how one can be fostered (though there are some decent ideas about what you as an individual can do to get a better sense).

Also we used to think that heart disease risk is mostly tied to diet and exercise. But it's still the #1 killer in the United States. So every protective or risk factor needs to be considered. As such, new research linking heart disease, CVD, CHD to loneliness, friendship or marriage is interesting.

And It doesn't stop there. Loneliness is also tied to breast cancer, lymphoma and obesity : http://outcomereference.com/causes/59

After 16 months of continuous practice, I have made 0 friends. Conversations with strangers, yes. I got contact information, was religious about following up, but people who agreed to do something with me in the future suddenly didn't respond to my messages. Attempted to have a few gatherings at my apartment and despite the people I invited saying they would come, nobody showed up.

Why even bother if people won't meet you a tenth of the way?

Just show an interest in people, without being creepy. Respect boundaries but show you are a good listener and ask questions that show that you have listened and do care. Rather than shotgun everyone, just be friendly and interested and concentrate on developing relationships with people that appear interested in you.

It is also important to not rush things. If you perceive a connection with someone - don't ask them around to your house for drinks immediately, but develop the relationship for a few more meetings before taking it to the next level (I mean this from a platonic point of view).

Also consider your appearance and personal hygiene. Are you dressed about the same as everyone else? Try to be better dressed than average without being extreme. Have you too much deodorant? Are you freshly showered? Do you have bad breath?

Try to ask a family member or honest friend the tough questions about yourself.

Then bring this up with them. They will tell you the truth.

Also, do you suffer from low self-esteem or are otherwise needy? Needy people are human repellants and other people can smell it a mile away.

Just repeatedly showing up to these things and making an effort to talk to these people a bit each time and eventually I stopped being a stranger to people and started getting invited to private events they hosted. It might have helped that the meetups I focused on were often board game related (or movies or dinners or theater) and I'm a board game nut, though. I'm also getting more and move involved with my local writer's group (hosted two writer's workshops last year).

I've gone to several software development meetups and had really poor experiences befriending people there. People seem to be more shy or standoff-ish, or the focus is too much on the lecture or 'hacking in a corner' and not on a group activity, so that might be part of it. Oh, also I think too many of those people go to those for 'professional networking' purposes and not to have some fun talking about technology and making some genuine connections, so it feels a little artificial, too.

It's frustrating when you're trying to make friends to work on an open source collaboration with, or just grab a beer and vent or talk shop.

Some 10 years ago I joined a new management team in the company I was working for, and our director took us on a trip to a seaside town where we would work on a "teambuilding" activity, we would do some sailing. Sailing a midsize boat when you know zero about it can be very demanding. You are solving problems all the time to yourself, to the crew and to the ship. At the end of those two days sailing we were a completely different team. I felt that I had made 3 new friends and spotted a new enemy, a person I couldn't get along with. I keep their friendship till this day.

There is something about this that just makes me chuckle. Don't know why.

Who has no shortage of friends? People with obvious value propositions. Rich or influential people. Well connected people. Good looking people. People who already have a lot of friends. It's strange to think about it in economic terms, but I've found it's a very useful abstraction.

I am not attractive, influential, connected or rich, but I also don't expect anything from people... as in I'm not trying to gain anything from them, not that that I have low expectations of people.

I find that people appreciate social interactions where they feel comfortable being themselves and don't feel like they have to be on guard or put on a mask lest they find themselves in some kind of obligation or awkward situation.

How is that done?

I've been continuously trending toward more comfortable in my own skin as I've gotten older, though I've also actively worked toward breaking down my internal belief systems and assumptions about people, the world and what people expect of me.

I've done that by exploring a lot of psychology, philosophy, spirituality and mind-altering experiences to get out of my own head. I think the most profound effect has been from combination ayahuasca/san pedro plant medicine ceremonies though I don't know how much all the prior work I'd done toward breaking down my ego academically set me up to take advantage of those experiences.

I think the biggest thing that makes people feel uncomfortable in social situations is anxiety and insecurity... which are both just forms of fear. Fear of being vulnerable, fear of being perceived as "less than", fear of being rejected or humiliated by exposing too much of yourself.

These are all things that might not be conscious thoughts, but the underlying signal does come across in body language, intonation and automatic reactions which can make people feel uneasy.

I think the first step is to become more mindful of how you're carrying yourself in social situations, which means focusing less at "succeeding" in a social situation and more seeing about what you can learn from them. How do "successful" socializers carry themselves? How does their reaction compare to how you would have reacted? Why would you have reacted the way you would have and why do you think they reacted the way they did? Eventually you stop thinking about it and you say something you see gets a more positive reaction (like asking an interesting question of someone) and you consciously avoid doing something that probably would have gotten a negative reaction (like bringing the conversation back to yourself for the third time)

Another thing that helps is realizing that other people are in the exact same boat for the most part and they aren't judging you as much as you might think and are much more willing to forgive a fuck up.

Fucking up in a social situation and not being weird can actually be really good since it's an opportunity to let other people feel like you won't care if they say something stupid... it's like an agreed step down of the social threat level.

Alright, prob wrote more than necessary, but soooo bored waiting on this holiday commute.

The problem is that reddit and digg killed the conventional forum, so no one really cares who you are any more (unlike when people would start to 'know' regular posters on forums). Now it's a crapshoot of random people and a smattering of comment replies if people vote on your comment. No personality, no real interaction.

the problem with reddit is that there is too much news, outrage, and hype there.

I visit no forums today, whereas when I grew up it was a majority of my online-life.

And I like people! I have no trouble engaging in small talk while getting to know new folks. But man, they wear me out. Even ones I love. At the end of the day, I need aloneness if I'm going to recharge for tomorrow's challenges.

But even introverts need some social interaction.

If social isolation is as deadly as smoking or not exercising, should we approach the problem with a similar level of seriousness? Maybe we need "social exercise" three times a week, and if we aren't getting it naturally should contrive a way to get it much like going to the gym.

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18167005-the-village-eff...

We should be asking ourselves how we were living 100,000 years ago. This is what our bodies and our brains are expecting. The whole concept of the nuclear family and a house and a fence is a completely foreign concept to our bodies because we haven't been doing it for very many generations.

From what I know, we should be living in tribes, right?

From that perspective, I would immediately look at communal housing solutions. Maybe we should often be living in very small apartments with communal living areas and communal eating and cooking areas. That's closer to what our bodies and minds expect, right?

Spot on. I was an Anthropology major in college, and this is the single most important takeaway from my education.

Even a few decades ago, families often at least lived with or close to the elder generation (grandparents) which created a greater sense of community and history. At some point it was decided that elder persons should live by themselves, or they were not welcome in their adult children' homes (or there was no room for them there.)

I think what you say about tribes is interesting -- I think people tend to create their own "tribes" either with friends, workmates, hobbies that are communal etc.

There is a whole age spectrum from 0 to 100 where the 20-60 year olds are providing the main physical sustenance, but the others are giving the main social sustenance.

Our society has organized all that away. So kids wait to grow up so that they can finally have freedom and old people wait around to die. That's a bit extreme, of course, but there is a kernel of truth in it.

I don't remember the name, but in an anthro class we discussed a culture where children were married as infants and raised together. This ends up being suboptimal because the kids identify each other as siblings and biology basically interferes with them developing a romantic relationship. As a result they end up taking romantic partners outside the arranged marriage. But hey, it still produces kids so the culture continued on, even with this suboptimal practice.

Likewise for tribes who practiced eating the brains of the deceased. It gives you a neurodegenerative disease, but the incubation period is sufficiently long so that you can still keep your population up.

LOL yea because we have totally stopped polluting the earth or filling our food with sugar. Give me a break, this is pop evopsych at its worst

Personally, I love being alone. I don't get lonely though. It's from my social life where all my bad and unhealthy habits come from. So, I would say it's a wash for me.

Also, does anyone else like it when the power goes out? Its so surreal to be in the city without power (I'm used to it in the country however) and all the sudden everyone is on their porch or out in the street chatting. Then it comes on and everyone goes back into their little isolation chambers.

I really like Venkat’s write-up about masks[0]. Large cities, dense yet impersonal, strain our voice masks. Smaller communities, what you likely experienced in the rural area when you were not outside alone, can be psychologically healing but on the other hand strain our exit masks. Everyone has their own tipping point—you seem less susceptible to exit mask stress than me, for example.

[0] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/05/20/pretending-to-care-pret...

Just look at different age groups. Children are isolated forcibly by their parents, so they're not informative. Adolescents, though, take great pains to avoid isolation even though their parents and society generally goes to great lengths to try to impose it upon them. Retired people do not generally isolate themselves (there are, of course, exceptions). It's only the working stiffs that tend to isolate themselves. And even that is mostly a modern phenomenon. It might be down to people being satisfied with social media as their means of socializing, but I doubt it.

Personally I think it’s a crapshoot: your expectation might be true or these workers might become recluse and replace the time commuting with sitting at home (especially if they tend to be in a neighborhood that favours individualism over collectivism, isolation over community).

Do the studies factor in introverts vs. extroverts? Do the studies factor in intelligence? Do the studies factor in people that have been alone for nearly all their life? And what about pets? Are they useful in alleviating loneliness?

I still think that the internet can make people who live near each other meet and socialize. I don't understand why no site like this is being created, and why facebook has become so alienating instead of becoming a site that encourage exclusivity between friends. People are really adopting the jetset attitude of social circles, always excluding the more people they can because they think it will improve their social life.

I have thought so long and hard about my isolation, I also had the idea of: * building new types of apartments where people live together, instead of individual apartment that make you feel you are in a prison cell, unable to see your neighbor. People eat together, but they still have their bedrooms and private space. Basically you make life collective instead of individual. You reduce costs, so it's another incentive for people with low income. * Renting large apartments with many bedrooms and organizing life with people inside of it. * organizing regular meals for 10 people at a time, to improve food quality and make people eat together.

I'm really tempted to create this kind of real life, "open" social website where you can do things with people based on proximity and maps. There are a million things people can do in the context of a sharing economy. It would be targeted towards isolated people so that they can find each others.

The topics I discuss at meetups I attend - software development, business development, and just geeky folks who like to discuss what they're hacking on - don't particularly have punctuality needs.

You have to organize it by some location metric. It would be cool to have more options - let the Meetup folks know what you'd like!

There are four ways to create a social life:

Fake it till its fact - be someone else until it feels like you

Be artistic - find an expressive outlet you enjoy and find other people who express the same way

Be vulnerable and live in moments - take every loss and win with a grain of salt, acknowledge something happened then move on. No moment has more emphasis than others, they are just lily pads for you to jump on and off.

Think outward, not in - react to what people say or do without introspection, trust what you already intrinsically know/feel

Robert Putnam has written extensively on this issue and the underlying causes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone

People are staring down in the cell phone screens instead of talking to strangers in social environments. Plus if one is looking at the phone one is not that approachable. Apps can connect people but also disconnect humans. Time for a debate on how to use new tech in a positive manner.

Even people that know each other sometime disconnect through tech for example friends going to a cafe together instead of talking using their cell phones.

We are using GPS instead of asking others for directions.

Robots are replacing cashiers and simple jobs at service desks.

First, I think we can agree that frequent interactions with another is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for friendship. If so, it should be obvious that density is good but size is bad.

Second, I believe our major metros—especislly since the great invertion—attract a certain sort of person less likely to foster community. Your steriotypical new gentrifier is career-focused with strong sense of individuality, moving for work, and, perhaps most importantly, fresh out of school where making friends presents very different challenges.

http://www.elderhelpers.org/

I've recently been searching for some alternatives. There's Unitarian Universalists [1], who welcomes people from any faith, including atheists and agnostics. You can discuss any religion openly, and they have regular services on Sunday where you can socialize, enjoy some music, and listen to a speaker.

There's also the Rotary Club [2], where people regularly meet for meals, and work to help their community. Then there's the Freemasons, but I don't think that's for me.

I might like to organize a secular humanist "church" or club with regular meetings and meals. I think it would be nice to have discussions about philosophy and science, maybe watch some documentaries and talks together, and have a book club.

Another random thought on the topic of isolation: St. John's runs a "caring caller" [3] service in New Zealand, where people can volunteer to call elderly people on the phone, and just have conversations with them. If I'm ever back in New Zealand, I think I would like to get involved with that.

Also in New Zealand: The High Street Cohousing project [4] in Dunedin. I think it's a fantastic idea. I love the idea of a shared community space, and the sustainability. I'm seriously thinking about getting involved, or maybe I can buy one of the houses in the future.

I enjoy living in Chiang Mai, and it's not too hard to meet people here. There are plenty of meetups and groups to join. I meet a lot of digital nomads who come and go, but my wife and I have a small group of friends that are living here long term. There's also a Rotary Club here that we have been thinking about joining.

My wife and I have also been rewatching Gilmore Girls. We agree that it would be really nice to live somewhere like their fictional town of Stars Hollow, in Connecticut. The main reason is to be part of a close-knit community, but also because that area has distinct seasons (especially fall and winter), beautiful architecture, history, and close proximity to New York. I ended up reading quite a lot of articles and blog posts from people who want the same thing, and have visited similar towns in Connecticut. One blog post was a bit depressing [5]. They are saying that this town could never exist, because of big-box stores like Walmart who are killing many small businesses.

YC has a plan to build a new city, so I hope they are thinking about these things. I think the issues of community and isolation might be more important than anything else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism

[2] https://www.rotary.org/en

[3] http://www.stjohn.org.nz/What-we-do/Community-programmes/Car...

[4] http://highstreetcohousing.nz/

[5] https://thecompletistblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/stars-hol...

I found this out a few years ago and thought it might be pertinent to my situation: “Observation shows that there is a direct ratio between the intelligence of the leader and that of the led. To be a leader of his contemporaries a child must be more intelligent but not too much more intelligent than those to be led… But generally speaking, a leadership pattern will not form—or it will break up—when a discrepancy of more than about 30 points of IQ comes to exist between leader and led [1]

I grew up in a developing country with inadequate educational system, to put it mildly. I have always done well academically, ranking top 10 nation-wide in two middle school exams. I got impatient and skipped two years of high school to attend a local college, which is considered a 'good' one. (I picked it for personal reasons, while having the 'national entrance exam' score high enough to pick the top university in the country.) I became increasingly aware of how much most people think differently in those years, as I could ace most analytical tests without putting much efforts and my friends struggled. We remained good friends but we shared few interests and not much in common intellectually. (I can perform most other activities, like sports or dance, fairly well given the little amount of time I spend on them, but I find most of them boring.)

Then I got a scholarship to study in a top 10 CS graduate departments in the US. I found out that there are many more people who share my interests and we can interact on equal terms intellectually. I moved back to the country after graduation and started to suffer social isolation again.

I dated someone who is a bit above average in intelligence but did not have the patience to explain everything so we parted away soon after. I had since have trouble finding people who I can be myself with in most respects intellectually and can explain my thought process concisely and get them to give interesting responses back in turn. For friends, it's not as big a problem since we usually don't have to see each other that often; but for dates, I think it might be a problem after a while. (Please let me know if and why you disagree. It would be helpful.)

Earlier this year, I went back to live for a few months in a very intellectual city with a top university in the US and felt like I could connect with people around me again. Unfortunately, it will take quite a bit of efforts to move there permanently.

If anyone has a differing perspective and interpretation that I have, please comment here. I'd love to connect better with the 'intellectually average' people as well.

[1] http://www.functionalmovement.com/articles/Philosophy/2013-0...

I went to college where nothing was happening and nothing is really interesting and I didn't connect with anyone really.

Now, I am reaching 30, and have spent the most of my 20s trying to find a way to move to a place that will make me happy. I'm hoping this will eventually happen, but I have lost a lot of hope.

I don't feel connected to humans whatsoever. However, the greatest joy for me is sitting in front of my computer interacting with you folk.

I don't get social interaction...

i feel you man, I feel you

For the first half of my 20s I didn't leave the house under the assumption that, "if I work hard, I can live where I want to and find a job in a cool place. No reason to make friends now."

I have since replaced that assumption, but it's hard to find meaningful relationships in a place you despise.

Take this lightly, but I bet you can find at least one more person that "despises" your place and you can discuss that with them. :)

Not sure if that is good or bad.

Very different, oposing views and values can break a relationship. Very similar views cannot make them - only if this similarity leads to continuous contact.

My friends come from: childhood neighboors, two student organizations I was part of and college soccer team. Each of these environments allowed for years long contact with the same people. And from that came friendships. Not from similar anything.

Friendships are born from tedious hours of boring conversation with random people that only happened because no one there had nothing else better to do.

That comfortable feeling of having a meaningful relationship only comes years after that.

If you live in a community too small to have a meetup, make one yourself and see if anyone attends. I did it, fully expecting not a single person to show up. I met so many people through that, starting in a community of under 70,000 people.

Life (generally) returns what a portion of what you give. If you never put yourself out there, you can't get relationships back in return. I'd focus first on getting new acquaintances, they don't have to be friends. As your circles grow, you will find some number of actual friends.

I really hope you do not stop trying, and find your place.

I think you have to at least "expect" things to change for the better socially. Maybe its just a matter of finding the right people where you can set expectations of each other? There will be times when the expectations cannot be met, but respect and communication help with that.

Maybe this view is too idealistic :/

Making friends is hard. I am a lot more social than I used to be now but I have a wide and shallow list of people I get along with. I don't feel there is anyone I am actually close to (other than my wife and kids). So don't take my advice too closely because I am definitely not a model for socialisation, I spend most of my free time child raising and studying.

If I can give one piece of advice it is that you should get involved in some activities. Be it sports, gaming, joining a hackerspace, whatever it really doesn't matter what it is as long as there is some level of complexity that keeps people hooked and enough to keep you interested as well. You will find that in situations of mutual difficulty you find the people you actually like and the people who actually like you. As long as you aren't a completely antisocial arsehole you should develop a connection to someone eventually if you just throw yourself into it. Listen to people when they talk, almost everyone has some interesting story lurking away inside them. Even if you don't like them at all you can at least be entertained by the occasional anecdote or bizarre circumstance. The important thing is to try and you might surprise yourself.

I gave up trying to pick up all the cues at all. Instead I focus mainly just on conversation. It take a lot of work but it is possible (for me at least) to focus entirely on the content and when to say something, when not to in an almost scripted way. Listen to conversation and interject at the right time. I am interested in almost everything and if you listen and probe well enough then you will find almost anyone has something interesting to say or an amusing story to tell. That said, I don't pick up on much of the group interaction at all but it doesn't matter. All this is quite mentally challenging but just focusing on one part, the conversation, and not all of the other meta communication is pretty much how I do it. It is still quite stressful and mentally draining but I think that I can mostly hold a discussion with random strangers now. People will either think I am an interesting person to talk to or not and we part ways.

How this ties back into dating is where it gets interesting. I've had remarkable luck in forming lasting relationships just by talking to people, I usually miss all of the early cues entirely and I don't even know whether someone is interested in me until their number is in my phone (the modern equivalent is adding you on facebook) or some similar forward sign. The important thing is just to start the conversation and to listen to people. Don't hold any preconceptions about people; be open and friendly and be unafraid to talk about yourself and your own experiences.

This is an honest fear of mine. Maybe "fear" isn't the right word, but I feel like I exhibit behaviors that would indicate I'm on the spectrum, but they're always intentional and rooted in the idea that I don't want to bother or disturb others.

So I keep to myself, avoid eye contact, and don't initiate conversation if it's for "selfish" reasons. I need an excuse to be social that isn't just "because I want to". If I have such an excuse (like I'm part of an established group, or it's business related, or so on), I have absolutely no problem. Only when the purpose is personal or self-serving do I have problems. Not because I don't want to interact, but because my fear is that in doing so I'll just upset or annoy everyone else. I've been actively fighting this peculiarity for many years (with professional help) and while it's gotten better it's still very difficult. And I think from an outside perspective this comes off as a bit like mild autistic behavior.

That sounds like my version of hell.

I think the best thing you can do is ask people to do things with you. Many will say no, but that's okay. Eventually you'll make friends.

Be happy where you are. It's essentially a form of self-delusion. And I DARE you to watch Ren & Stimpy's "Stimpy's Invention[1]" and not be happy, at least for a little while.

[1] in which Stimpy invents "The Happy Helmet" and Ren is his ... involuntary happiness subject. And yes - it's on YouTube.

"I don't think you're happy enough! That's right! I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVRJ8TiicM4

Love that rockabilly beat. Can't be sad when listening to that.

I'm sorry, but that is not how it works.

You are what's making you unhappy, and that's what you have to change. The good thing is you have plenty of free time to do it in, and all the power to do it.

When you live in a place for years, a mental cocoon forms that blocks out most of the stimuli.

I still don't connect to most folks, but that's ok. I found a few.

But I also moved countries, so the stakes changed and so did my relationship with the world around me. Best thing I've ever done.

Long version:

I have a couple recommendations that could help you to connect with people better if you can take a couple minutes to read this, its a little longer than I would like but I really think that you can turn things around. I am by no means an expert and I have struggled with isolation myself at other times in my life, but I do feel like I have made some small improvements so my guess is you could to.

First off, while I think a location can be either conducive or adverse to the type of lifestyle you would like, I think a big part of how well or poorly you fit into a place is on you - you get out of it what you put into it (or something like that). That sucks to hear and you probably already know it and I think it is the truth. The only reason I say that is to caution you to not overlook what might be around you already. That being said, I have a buddy who I feel like was in a similar situation until he picked up and move to Portland kind of on a whim (after doing similar things with other places) and this time it worked out for him (so far), but he probably had to be ready and open to good things happening or else it would have been like it had been before in other places.

More importantly, I think it is way easier to connect with people outside of what we typically think of as "social" situations. I've never liked going to bars to meet people or any kind of mixer situation although these days I'm much better at it. What really did it for me was to go way out of my comfort zone and do volunteer activities that forced me to do things I really didn't feel like doing but I kind of put myself in a situation that made it hard to give into my desire to bail. The main one for me was political volunteering, starting during the primaries of this year and going into the general election. The outcome was devastating but the process and the changes I felt were pretty amazing. The actual work required connecting with total strangers in situations where I otherwise never would have: registering people to vote (talking to people on the street, going to large festivals and walking around and talking to strangers), going door to door to talk to people (mostly giving information but also trying to convince people to vote and giving them my personal opinions), and phone banking (talking to random strangers who were mostly in my city but who I would never likely meet). All these things were really uncomfortable at first but once I met the organizers involved and got excited by their excitement and passion I would sign up for something and then it was like "well, guess I gotta do it". Lock yourself into something that can't really hurt you but that pushes you outside your comfort zone.

After doing all of that, at 30 years old I felt like I had kind of finally figured out how to be a part of my own environment (as opposed to a mindless drone only focused on going from A->B). I haven't found my "next thing" yet, but since then I've found many social situations to be easier than they used to be, even something as stupid as buying a car was 10x less stressful than it used to be for me (and I got a couple grand better of a deal than I usually would have). Once you get over knocking on the door of a strangers house and realizing that a) most people are actually pretty cool and b) the vast majority of the time you are going to be totally fine no matter what, a lot of other things feel like a cakewalk. I met more new people in 6 months than in the prior 6 years and since we were all going to a similar stressful time, connecting was easy for once (even though aside from politics personality wise nobody was that similar to me).

All that to say this: forget (or at least, demphasize) the typical social stuff and find a cause that you can get on board with, just pull the trigger and show up and say "what can I do?". Don't spend ages shopping around for something to do (I've done that, I had no less than 60 bookmarks from a volunteermatch.org at one point before this, never did a single one of them), look around in your area (volunteermatch.org is not bad if you don't abuse it like I did), find anything that will involve working with other people you don't know (both other volunteers and strangers ideally, which is a lot of things) and just sign yourself up and do it. In my experience once you are actually there, nature kind of takes its course. I may be lucky in that but my problem has largely been hesitation. If you are male you will find in a lot of volunteer situations that you will be one of the few men and your contributions will be appreciated if you don't hold back and give it your best shot. You won't have to deal with the weirdness of finding a like-minded social group to fit into and honestly, I enjoyed the interactions I had more than I usually would have in a purely social environment (sometimes working towards a common goal that isn't job is more fun than just hanging out).

I know this was long as hell but your comment got the juices flowing, sorry if it was a slog but I've had my perception change quite a lot over the last year (in some ways at least) and I would like to think that other people can have a similar experience.

I guess I just need to start doing it and not question it so much

I'm doing my part to address this problem right now:

    Any HN'ers in downtown Vancouver reading this post, let's
    grab coffee near Robson Square. My email is in my profile
    and synced to my phone so I will reply promptly.

Btw, nobody showed up yesterday but I haven't given up. I'm here from 9am ~ 5pm near Robson Square. Coffee (or tea) is on me.

If you are not in Vancouver then shoot me an email, you can talk about anything.