[neilk]

You have to be the one who creates things to do.

Really, that’s it.

You want to play D&D together, you host and DM.

You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing.

You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with.

Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little alarms in your head that go off when you haven’t seen someone in a while, you can use automated reminders.

I have observed my spouse (who is not on social media) do this and she maintains friendships for decades this way. Nowadays she has regular zoom check ins, book clubs, and more, even with people who moved to the other coast. You do now have the tools for this. I have adopted it into my own life with good results.

Note: you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake. It may always feel painful (and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive). You have to feel your feelings, accept it, and move on.

You are struggling against many aspects of the way we in the developed world/nerd world live. We have a wealth of passive entertainment, often we have all consuming jobs or have more time-consuming relationship with our families than our parents ever did. We move to different cities for jobs, and even as suburban sprawl has grown, you’re on average probably further away from people who even live in the same city! You get from place to place in a private box on wheels, or alternatively in a really big box on wheels with a random assortment of people. You don’t see people at church, or market day, or whatever other rituals our ancestors had. On the positive side, you have more tools and leisure than ever before to arrange more voluntary meetings.

[eagsalazar2]

I love this but I think you'll be surprised at your success rate. Everyone is struggling with this, not just you. Right on the heels of covid we were debating whether to have a NYE party or just go to a friend's house for a low key thing. We were paralyzed a bit feeling like, why we weren't invited to other parties ourselves? Won't everyone already be busy doing other stuff? In the end my wife took the leap and invited a ton of neighbors and friends. Guess what?? Almost everyone showed up! Which means all those people were going to be sitting at home feeling bad and wondering the same thing. You just need to believe and get over it, people want to hang out. We've all just gotten out of the habit.

[sailfast]

In my experience, the problem is not a low success rate, but the burnout from being the only person that invites people to do things. At a certain point you want to see some reciprocation to create community. It can definitely happen, but a lot of folks still fall back on the habits. You have to invite and then also start asking people who's gonna host the next one and get them on the hook, and then not burnout from being a constant organizer :)

[ozim]

Not fun part is that the longer you stay at your home comfort zone the bigger social anxiety grows.

Other annoying parts are if you fight off anxiety and do go out you most likely will run into minor inconvenience like some Karen honking on you or making a fuss in front of you when you’re waiting in line. Minor inconvenience like that refuels social anxiety.

[cortesoft]

> Everyone is struggling with this, not just you.

Eh, I don't think EVERYONE is struggling with this. I am an introvert, and have no desire to go out and do more things with friends. I get enough socialization with my wife and kids, and don't really have the desire to do more things.

[publicdebates]

Sure, but this only works as advice for people who you can talk to, such as me. I'm not trying to solve my loneliness, my own personal goal is to find ways to reach out to people who sit alone all day, and are dying from loneliness, and the only way to reach them is to catch them as they walk on the way to the grocery store, and hold up a sign that they can read. The question in my mind is, what next? So far, I've only been doing surveys[1], but I'm looking for the next step.

Piggybacking off your suggestion, I like the idea of holding up a sign advertising a free activity that anyone can join, located in a very public space, with zero committment, so they can both show up and walk away at the drop of a hat. Whether it's an ad hoc organized chess tournament, or D&D game, or "one word story" or literally anything. That will have to wait until nicer weather, though, to avoid having to rent a place.

[1] https://chicagosignguy.com

[tclancy]

This isn’t quite true. I’m in the last stages of organizing a record club (basically a book club with a much lower commitment) and I started by talking to a small handful of close friends who I knew were music nerds because I am picky and shy by nature and the most annoying thing is how many people got wind of it and wanted in. People are starving for these sorts of things. Try. Fail. It’s ok, it’s just going to take a couple of us to make a few hits and we can start to sew some of the fabric of society back together.

[hare2eternity]

You can reach people you otherwise might not have by inviting your neighbours around for coffee and cake one weekend morning? Even if you have nothing in common it starts building a community of people who live in proximity to one another.

[bossyTeacher]

You have a very interesting website. Do you feel lonely? Your website portraits you as a sad person who has suffered a lot. I wouldn't say you are insignificant at all :) You do certain seem to be quite significant probably to more people than you realize even if it isn't to all the people you wish to be significant to.

I feel the best way to do what you seem to want to do is by meeting people where they are. No matter what you do, the last part of your mission relies on the lonely person. They have to choose to connect to others and then they have to do it. Arguably, that's the hardest part.

[fsmv]

I think what you're doing is really cool.

Your instructions to comment on your blog are incredible, come talk to you face to face. If I didn't live on the other side of the country it would be meaningful to tell you what it meant to me in person.

[yibg]

Unfortunately a lot of these require either an existing network or high stakes interaction (sending invites, accepting invites etc). They're good advise, but can be hard to execute on for most people.

If we want to solve this at the society or community level, there needs to be more opportunities for low stakes interaction. Places that people can passively gather around a communal activity. I'm reminded of the ladies dancing together in public squares / parks in China. They're usually a group, but mostly anyone can join in. You can just follow along and interact as much as you'd like. If you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay and chat, stay and chat.

Downtown San Mateo for example has the potential for this. It's already a closed off street where people go. But today there aren't group activities there that encourages passive interaction, people are still in silos. Perhaps if there were some games / puzzles, chalk boards, townhall type of table setup, that'll encourage passive interaction.

[cushychicken]

They're good advise, but can be hard to execute on for most people.

OP gave the thread a very good and valid suggestion. Treating this as a societal problem - for "society" to solve - is lazy thinking.

If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.

[tqwhite]

When I was young, I solved loneliness very well by volunteering for political campaigns. Until the last one (I'm too old to care now), I worked every campaign in my life and at various times had a lot of good friends as a result.

My town does an annual party. I heard about it and showed up to volunteer. I did that for a few years. It wasn't as productive in producing friends (I'm in a different location than before that is more insular) but even so, it got me out of the house and, for the few months before the event, was pretty much fun.

These kinds of things are often available if you just look around. It doesn't require knowing people ahead of time and is low stakes. If nobody is friendly, it doesn't matter.

[SwtCyber]

"Be the organizer" assumes a certain baseline of energy, confidence, and emotional resilience. For people who are already lonely, depressed, neurodivergent, burned out, or socially anxious, that constant reaching out + rejection tax can be genuinely exhausting, not just uncomfortable

[marliechiller]

As someone that fits some of the above categories, I think you really have to step back and repeatedly tell yourself "get over it". Its the same mentality to "I dont want to go to the gym today". You immediately feel better as soon as youve finished it and wonder why you always drag your feet before.

[UncleMeat]

This becomes an unlimited excuse.

Even if there were state programs that established and ran these sorts of events and created low-friction ways of interacting with people, people could still say "well that assumes a certain baseline of energy."

It is true that somebody who is in the midst of extreme depression and can't get out of bed is probably not going to be able to set up a local dnd game. It is also the case that the large majority of people are absolutely capable of doing this sort of thing.

[vibedev]

If I may suggest to start small, it doesn't have to be a group of people playing football. I personally like to just meet 1 or 2 people to which I can have interaction with all of them.

If I may I made an attempt to crack at this very problem with Tatapp (tatapp.astekita.com). Any feedback is very much appreciated.

[Archer6621]

I agree. I also don't think forcing yourself to be an organizer is necessarily a solution to fixing the loneliness, as it also just requires a certain passion. In my experience, some people love organizing things, others just really hate it. I am in that last camp, after having organized quite a lot. For me, simply participating with things that are organized by others has done me much more good. Of course, that still requires being in a state of mind where you are able to take initiative with signing up for such group activities.

[mynameisash]

> You have to be the one who creates things to do.

> You have to do it on a regular cadence.

I've posted about this before, but my wife and I sort of accidentally started a trivia team that's been going strong for like four years. Nearly every single week for four years, we get together with some subset of about 15 people. Most the regulars are there most days.

I also started cold plunging and have been doing it with the same regularity as trivia -- nearly every single week. It's a much smaller group, but it is absolutely part of our routine. Rain or shine.

Both these things have given several of us some really great friend time that makes that loneliness fade away.

[publicdebates]

> I've posted about this before, but my wife and I sort of accidentally started a trivia team that's been going strong for like four years.

I looked through your history and can't find it. (And you say "trivial" and "trivially" disproportionately often.) Can you link to it?

[Llamamoe]

Personal solutions to systemic problems are not solutions. Yours is great advice for the few people able to take it to heart, find the motivation, and succeed, but you cannot solve societal problems at any kind of scale this way.

[saimiam]

Just like you aren’t in traffic, you are traffic, you aren’t part of the society, you are society.

Every idea like “let’s have icecream socials at..” started as one person’s pipe dream which they then acted on and executed. No one is coming to rescue us. There’s no secret hand guiding humankind.

You definitely can’t solve loneliness for society but you can solve loneliness for your immediate circle by organising activities and that’s already a huge improvement.

In contrast, sitting back and saying this needs to be solved at a higher level does nothing at all.

[kbelder]

>Personal solutions to systemic problems are not solutions.

That idea is a social problem. I hope a sufficient number of individuals reject that reasoning.

[wraptile]

Agree but the flaking culture is too normalized right now, at least in the west. Nothing is more demotivating than majority of people just not coming and doing it in such a non-chalant manner. It's really not fun to put all that work and people don't take the invitation seriously to the point where they jusut ghost the event.

[hare2eternity]

This annoys me: at least say you're not going to make it. I don't expect you always to be free or even want to attend, but how hard is it to say 'Thanks but I can't come.'?

[SchemaLoad]

I've been trying to do this. One thing I've observed is trying to arrange people to play board games is quite difficult because you can't predict how many people will show up. People get sick, misread the times, etc. And a lot of games are very sensitive to player count, so having 2 people too few or too many has the ability to make the game somewhat unplayable or risk people sitting out watching.

Easier to just host a party or meetup where you can over invite and if some people don't show up it's no issue.

[neilk]

A friend of mine has this problem with their D&D campaigns. He makes huge efforts and there’s always one or two people who flake or don’t have the same commitment level. He’s gotten quite angry and sad about it.

He is trying something different now, to make a hybrid campaign where there’s a lot of one-shots in a broader story arc. It’s structured like missions in an ongoing struggle.

Maybe if you want to do board games, we need more games that scale up and down easily. I’m not a board game person, IDK.

[jimnotgym]

Could you be more flexible about what game you are playing depending on how many show up?

[LinXitoW]

Just in case you need some recommendations:

Party games: Scale well with more people, easy to explain

- Werewolf

- Werewords

- Codenames (favorite)

Beginner Games: Accept a decent amount, somewhat easy to explain

- Camel Up

- Flip 7

- Dungeon Fighter

- Ticket to Ride

Games that have nothing to do with your problem, but I just wanna mention:

- Everdell: Cute critters prepare for winter

- Root: Cute critters prepare for war

- Azul: Place fancy tiles that look and feel delicious

- Bohnanza: The best part of Catan without the bad parts

[stevage]

I host a lot of board game days and...yes.

One thing I do that helps is get people to RSVP with a specific arrival time, and do my best to have a game about to start around that time.

If you show up unexpectedly, then I'm not going to feel bad about you sitting out for an hour or more.

People unexpectedly bringing a partner/friend who is not really that into board games is the absolute worst thoguh.

[thaumasiotes]

> One thing I've observed is trying to arrange people to play board games is quite difficult because you can't predict how many people will show up. People get sick, misread the times, etc. And a lot of games are very sensitive to player count, so having 2 people too few or too many has the ability to make the game somewhat unplayable

You're trying to arrange the wrong type of event. A board game group plays a variable number of games simultaneously to accommodate the number of players each game can support. A board game group does not try to fit everyone into the same game as a matter of principle.

[MrDresden]

I have a group of people who play boardgames in a turned based fashion over at boardgamearena. This solves the flakiness issue. The lack of direct social interaction is then made slightly better by having a chat channel where we chat about ongoing games.

We've been having ongoing games (around 2 going at every one time) since about a year now I think.

Still do in person games as well, but this at least keeps that group going through in-perwon drought periods.

[gulugawa]

As someone who has tried to host events for specific board games, I completely agree. Most games I play are best with 3 to 4, and I will flat out refuse to play them with more than 5.

Now, I host meetups which typically get 8-15 people and multiple games, so an unpredictable player count is not an issue.

[benry1]

I've had success with this! It required a little bit of an existing network. I always wanted to be in a band but never could, I was never invited. But I went to an open mic for a couple months, and just decided to .. start one. Invited people over to jam sometimes. Turned into a regular event, then turned into a band.

I've repeated this a couple times. Yeah, usually I have to do the bulk of the inviting and organizing. And yeah, it's uncomfortable being the "leader". But I know everyone enjoyed the time together. Those that didn't just never came and that's fine too.

You really can just do things!

[btilly]

You don't have to do it all yourself.

Join an organization. For example every city has Toastmasters, most have several. Easy to find, and it is an excellent place to meet people. And you'll learn how to convert social anxiety into social adrenaline.

Do you have a faith? Actually go to church instead of just believing. Are you non-religious? Several strands of Buddhism can be followed as philosophy and practice without adopting any mystical beliefs. Vipassanā (also called Insight) and Zen are a couple of examples.

And how do you turn random people that you met into life-long friends? You can reduce the time investment by a lot. If you call someone on a spaced repetition schedule, you can make them internalize that the door is always open. Without requiring a large commitment on either side. And a spaced repetition schedule is easy to achieve - just think Fibonacci. I'll call you back in 3 days. Then 5. Then 8 (round down to a week). And so on. It feels like a lot of calls at the start. But it slows down fast. Over a lifetime, it is only around 20 calls.

Play around with it. If it was someone you met and hung out with on a cruise, maybe start at a week for that first call. Either way, you're reinforcing the idea that we like to talk, and the door is always open.

You can use a similar idea to keep people who move on from your workplace in your life. People always mean to stay in contact. Then don't. But with structured reinforcement, you can actually make it work.

[shermantanktop]

A spaced repetition schedule for speedrunning the friend-making process?

If it works, it works, I guess. And in a thread about loneliness, that’s all that matters. But it seems a bit calculated rather than organic, which is what we think of as the platonic ideal of friendmaking.

[stevage]

Wow. This is so true. My social life has improved hugely in the last couple of years and it's almost all because of this.

I host board game days.

I organise a pub trivia team.

I organise singalong nights.

I host occasional parties. Soup nights. Zucchini parties.

I set up a lot of group chats and keep them alive.

I organise to visit my family.

For a lot of events, I get a 5-10% attendance rate compared to the number of people I invite. People are busy. It just means I need to keep expanding the circles of people to invite. If people don't want to come it eventually becomes clear and I quietly remove them from the lists. But mostly I hear the opposite - they really want to keep being invited, even if they don't make it often.

[wisemang]

What’s a zucchini party

[blumenkraft]

So what you're saying is you basically have to give. This is what I find real life is like. Unless I'm giving something, like a ride to some interesting place, people are not interested in me at all. They just want to get something from me, that's it.

[virtue3]

It helps to not look at this as zero sum.

A lot of people are more comfortable with a shared experience objective. This provides a means to do something and a reason behind meeting.

If you are always in the mindset that you are giving and everyone else is taking that can really impact how you perceive everyone. And 9/10 most people over estimate how much they give and under-estimate how much they take.

There is also something powerful with "I _get_ to take my new friend to a place I find cool" rather than "My new friend is using me to go to my cool place". Changing the way you internally frame things drastically helps.

I know it sounds absolutely stupid hogwash but it helps.

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/gratitude-bed-every-morning...

I hope this helps!

[publicdebates]

I think of this all the time. What is the relationship between value and relationships? And what is the value of such a relationship?

It seems to me that every relationship is value oriented, even ones we consider absolutely perfect and pure.

Take for instance a mother's undying love for her newborn. She values that newborn for a few reasons. She sees herself in it. She sees pure innocence in it that needs to be protected and nourished. She sees all the potential good (i.e. value) this little child may one day bring to society. She sees her own personal fulfillment in the act of bringing this to fruition, which brings her joy, even amidst all the sacrifices she may have to make for it.

Is any of this selfish or bad? Does it in any way devalue her relationship to the child?

Extrapolate this to other relationships. A perfect friendship, where two people meet together regularly to find out about each other's recent activities, and encourage each other in life's difficulties, and foster one another's growth and good. They each care about the other, ask how the other is doing and what they're thinking and feeling, offer each other consolation, comfort, and help in times of distress or difficulty. Each gets this from the other, mutually beneficial. One may offer it exclusively at one time, the other reciprocates later, not out of obligation, but gratitude and personal desire.

Is this wrong? Is this selfish? Is this bad?

[Underqualified]

Many years ago I read the classic 'How to win friends and influence people' and I was just hit with, according to that book, how little people actually care about other people and how fundamentally lonely our existence is.

I don't think that was the message the book was trying to give, but that's what I got out of it.

So yes, people will wonder, subconsciously or not, what's in it for them. If you can give status or if you are naturally entertaining, this might all seem a little less obvious.

[unsupp0rted]

You have to provide value.

Unless you are pretty and young, nobody will automatically want to be around you unless you’re providing value.

[HansHamster]

> You have to be the one who reaches out.

But that's the whole issue. Who am I supposed to reach out to? The 2 people at work I occasionally talk to because they happen to sit in the same office as me?

[bojan]

I'm late for this comment, but finding a recreational team sport club in your area is what I could recommend. You have immediately something in common with everyone and it's a healthy exercise.

[codebje]

Those two people might be a start, and it's a low barrier to their participation to say you want to try a nearby cafe for lunch tomorrow if they're interested.

Longer term: make opportunities to occasionally talk to other people. Join a club, join a fitness group of some kind, take a class at your local library. It's got be something in person with enough repetition with the same people that everyone involved can overcome inertia enough to talk.

Try to say 'yes' should an occasional contact invite you to something, because it's pretty common that you won't get asked a second time if you pass on the first - I assume that's because we're all scared stiff that no-one likes us.

[Twisol]

I need to take a heaping spoonful of my own advice here, but: yeah, kind of yes. You don't have to think of them as the people you've been searching all your life for, but to meet people, you need a source of people to draw from. Those two people you talk to on a semi-regular basis are entry nodes into the social network.

[IsTom]

I've seen people organize for boardgames on facebook neighbourhood groups.

[tomgp]

>Accept that most people flake

This is a thing that's always surprised me when I've been in the US. How common it is to enthusiastically arrange to do some activity together, get a meal, play a game, have a drink, whatever, and then for people to just call it off at the last minute. It seems much more socially acceptable to do so than either the UK (where I live) or France (where I have lived and still visit regularly).

The loneliness thing seems common across Europe too though so I'm not suggesting this is the root of the problem. But I do think that whilst this is a global problem the solutions are likely to be local, working with and leveraging different cultural norms.

[amunozo]

I think that most of us Europeans think the Americans are over enthusiastic, which can give us the impression that they want to do something more than they actually do.

[Aromasin]

I think your comment about social acceptance in the UK is slightly off. It's person dependent. I would say my experience aligns closer with the 50% mark. It's a massive variant from person to person. I have friends that will turn up to anything, rain or shine, sickness or in health. Equally, I know people that would flake on a wedding because they stubbed their toe or the latest season of [insert meaningless reality show] came out.

[maerF0x0]

> enthusiastically arrange

Anything but a purely positive or enthusiastic response is not allowed in US culture.

[arkaic]

On the other hand, you also can't have an attachment to what you want the outcomes to be. You can't expect the same in return from everyone else. Until you let go of this transactional mindset, you will grow resentful when a lot of them start canceling on you, and believe me, at your 30s and above, with all these things that compete for our time, they will.

[Forgeties79]

> Note: you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake. It may always feel painful (and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive). You have to feel your feelings, accept it, and move on.

Most importantly, you have to hear “I can’t” and be really cool about it or folks will half commit out of guilt and bail. They probably have a good reason, especially if they have kids. Or maybe they’re just exhausted! That is valid - you will sometimes feel that way too, and you should clearly (but politely) communicate it when you need.

If you consistently say yes/no and adhere to it, people will return the favor and you’ll all be better for it. My social life vastly improved post COVID when I adhered to that. My friends and I are incredibly honest so now folks rarely bail (always for good reason) and we all can reliably plan to hang out without guessing if someone actually means “no” when they say maybe and all that nonsense.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I think I saw this quote somewhere else on HN about a post lamenting how difficult it can be to make new friends after age 30 or so:

Finding new friends as an adult can be exceedingly difficult, but becoming a friend to someone is surprisingly easy.

Lots of people (and if I'm being honest I'm one of them, so no judgement) just sort of expect friendships to come to them. But if you actually do the hard (and somewhat socially risky) work of inviting people to do things, offering to help unsolicited, organizing gatherings, etc. new friendships are much easier to come by.

[0xmattf]

I was writing a reply, but then saw your comment. It's basically what I was going to say as well.

I moved to a new area. Searched for chess clubs. Couldn't find one.

So I created one. We now have ~10 people showing up to each meeting. From young kids, to older retired people. Facebook is a blessing for finding groups of people who are looking for things to do. It's really that simple. Just do things.

[vibedev]

Would say that changing mind i.e. cancelling is probably also parts of our nerds traits, I feel that the closer to the time I starts getting cold feet for no reason. The irony is that probably that the most time-consuming part is probably scrolling social media.

I've been working on a solution that makes it easier to meet people. When you're out for coffee or something and feeling social, you can signal you're available. Since you and your potential friend already nearby, it should reduce cancellations. I built an app for this, check it out if you have time: https://tatapp.astekita.com/

[The1JDC]

That is excellent advice. How do we amplify this advice to more areas? I practice that by being intentional about my work: I think about all the opportunities I have to meet people and how I can give back to them. I call that slow multicast. I have a startup in my incubator that I call .find . I am a looking for a founder. I love how you explained it simply, clearly. I would love to have you in my "combat loneliness" team My ingredients: - walk the walk - Multicast - Seed - Tie to your bucket lists as growth engine (virtuous cycle)

I would love to further the combat, please reach out to me Joseph de Castelnau on IG and X.

[Quizzical4230]

I agree with this so much! I've found that going to people and initiating is the only thing you can do. How people respond varies a lot and you have to be resilient to rejection.

There was a post[1] sometime back about just having coffee in the afternoon outisdes and how that brought in more people.

I also write about it here [2].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618

[2]: https://blog.papermatch.me/html/Wheres_the_human_touch

[pragma_x]

> Note: you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake. It may always feel painful (and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive). You have to feel your feelings, accept it, and move on.

This is an incredibly good point. Like all things of this nature, I liken the process to panning for gold. In truth, you may not want to invest in people that aren't all that invested in you or the activity at hand. It stinks that the success rate is lower than chance, but it's probably better this way.

[hk1337]

Yeah, I realized recently you have to be more intentional for things you want. You don’t necessarily have to host it but you need to reach out and find things going on where there are people.

[p_v_doom]

> You have to be the one who creates things to do.

Problem is it gets fucking exhausting to organize and reach out after a while. Especially with DnD.

[account42]

You can minimize that though - just give the event a regular schedule or have some way to easily inform all participants of the next date. If people stop showing up without individual nagging then maybe they weren't all that interested in that activity and that's OK too.

[sriku]

Great point and many of the responses are very interesting too.

I wonder whether part of this is a habitualization of intolerance for just being with oneself - to be ok with feeling bored, for instance. Most suggestions are about "doing". Just being with oneself without a doing is painful for many from what I've seen.

[Wurdan]

I think it's what that intolerance leads to which is a big part of the problem. It's natural that we don't like being bored, but these days we have infinite means to keep boredom away that don't involve connecting with others. Why go through the risks and awkwardness of opening yourself up to others when you have a device of infinite rabbit holes and time sinks in your pocket at all times? 40 years ago it was very possible to run out of entertainment, which is quite different today.

[yamilg]

This! I agree 100%. How do you deal with the feeling of tiredness that comes after doing this for a while? You know, when you reach a ratio of 20:1 invitations sent versus received? When you inevitably start wanting reciprocity, or for someone else to take the initiative for a change?

[roboror]

If it's truly down to 20:1 I think you need to start looking at what other variables in your life are keeping that number down and maybe have a conversation about it. Poor circle of friends match, poor scheduling, some personality flaw that you can work on etc.

[kome]

people are so fucked up by consumerism that they expect to be just consumers also in their sociality... like they expect that social relations to be like commodities.

in consumer societies people flee real freedom's anxiety by conforming to market ways, treating connections as consumption not production. lasting bonds need effort patience vulnerability, all anti-consumer virtues.

Fromm said that in market societies love and relations follow the commodity and labor market exchange pattern. they want low-effort replaceable humans. So they became low-effort replaceable humans.

[deeg]

I'm just going to be a "me too" but I think you nailed it. It's just hard for some people to do. It's sort of like losing weight: the formula is easy, but the doing is hard.

[thiodrio]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46453114

I would like to mention this link from HN

[account42]

While you are not wrong, I think in many cases this advice is as effective as telling someone to "just stop being depressed".

[threethirtytwo]

I think this advice works in practice, but it misidentifies the problem. It treats friendship as something that has always required deliberate effort and personal initiative, when historically the opposite was true. For most of human history, social bonds were not maintained through planning or follow-ups. They emerged automatically from structure. Humans evolved in small, stable groups with repeated contact, shared labor, shared risk, and strong norms against withdrawal. You did not “reach out” to maintain relationships; you saw the same people every day because survival required it. Social connection was not a lifestyle choice but an unavoidable condition of being alive.

Anthropologically, this matters because our social brains are tuned for inevitability, not optionality. We are adapted to environments where interaction is frequent, predictable, and constrained. Dunbar-scale groups, reciprocal dependence, and ritualized coordination did the work that calendars and reminders now attempt to approximate. When those constraints exist, friendship is an emergent property. When they are removed, it becomes a management problem.

Modern life systematically dismantled those constraints. Mobility replaced permanence, private space replaced shared space, and passive entertainment replaced collective activity. Flaking became costless. Absence became invisible. Optionality exploded. None of this happened accidentally; it was a deliberate trade in exchange for autonomy, flexibility, and economic efficiency. But the biological machinery did not change with the environment. We are still running hunter-gatherer social hardware in a world optimized for individual choice.

Seen through that lens, the advice to host, schedule, follow up, and accept rejection is not wrong, but it is compensatory. It asks individuals to manually recreate what used to be automatic. One person becomes the forcing function that the environment no longer provides. That can work, but it is fragile, asymmetric, and emotionally expensive, especially for people who are sensitive to imbalance or rejection. Framing this as “how friendship works” subtly turns a systems failure into a personal obligation.

If the goal is to reduce effort rather than heroically absorb it, the real lever is not better social skills or more persistence but reintroducing constraint. Social bonds form most reliably where interaction is inevitable rather than intentional: fixed schedules, shared physical spaces, repeated exposure to the same people, and light obligations that make absence noticeable. This is why gyms, religious communities, teams, classes, and other ritualized environments still produce friendships with relatively little effort. They partially restore the conditions under which our social instincts evolved.

There is no free lunch here. Effortless social life was never free; it was paid for with reduced choice, reduced mobility, and reduced privacy. You cannot fully recover that world without giving something up. But you can recover much of its function by selectively sacrificing optionality in exchange for repetition and proximity. The modern workaround of turning individuals into social project managers is effective but unnatural. Rebuilding environments that do the work for us is closer to our biology, closer to our history, and probably the only scalable way to make social connection feel less like a second job again.

[sjw987]

> you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake

This is true, but as long as the success rate is >= 1 other person, it's okay.

I started a running club for my apartment block (about 200 flats with maybe 300 residents). I posted flyers out once advertising it as a friendly social running club. Of the 300, the group has about 15 people, of which 5 are regulars (every other week at least), and just 2 of us are super regulars (multiple times per week). It's a terrible success rate, but those are 4/5 good friends.

At first it bothered me how flaky people were. Some people joined the group but have yet to show up in person. And some joined the group and are yet to even converse in the group chat, but hey, they'll come along when they're ready.

[hadlock]

Not only do you need to create the things to do, but you need to pick up the phone and CALL them (on the telephone! not voicemail, not whatsapp/facetime) and have a conversation with them. Sometime in 2006-2008 we started sending people online invites to parties and the habit of calling people died out.

If you call 12 people, on the telephone, and invite them for a dinner party next weekend, and 12 people say yes, I give 90% odds that 12 people show up to your party

[publicdebates]

I see young people facetiming each other all the time, maybe a little too much. It definitely fills the same role as audio calls used to. But I just text. I remember when texting started to become a thing, and I was very much looking forward to the absolute convenience of being able to read and respond whatever I had time, and not have to deal with a phone call. I wonder if that was common in my generation (millenials), and I wonder if we call/facetime significantly less and text more than other generations.

[tayo42]

It's weird that no one else plans things?

I always feel like I organize things to much. It's one sided

[rcbdev]

> and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive As opposed to non-nerds of course, who are famously fine with rejection.

In all seriousness, there is no evidence to suggest that being a nerd (read: having nerdy interests) is related to being more emotionally stunted than the average person. You're just perpetuating a bad stereotype.

[account42]

You might be working with a different definition of "nerd" compared to OP. From wikipedia:

> A nerd is a person seen as over-intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills.

It's not a stereotype that nerds are socially awkward but rather "nerd" is the name for the stereotype.

[hendler]

Finland happiness study revealed the concept of "go first".

[ivanjermakov]

Peer to peer networks' rules apply to real life - give more than take and be happy.

[jmyeet]

D&D is extraordinarily difficult to bootstrap. You ened 4-8 people to commit to being at a certain place at a certain time. If you play online instead, just the coordinated time alone is a monumental effort.

There are a ton of reasons for this. Work, school, coordinating plans with their partner, other commitments , other friends and family and honestly people just being flaky. For D&D this can be particularly bad if you're missing a couple of people who just flaked. Other activities don't have that problem and it can still be an issue.

There was a time when going out and doing things was necessary for social interaction. That's not true anymore. Online is sorta social. It's kinda close enough to scratch that itch for many, particularly because it has none of the coordination and/or travel issues.

But also people just have less free time. Because we have to work so much.

Hobbies in general have becom ea luxury. By that I mean you're spending your time doing something that doesn't earn an income. That's good but an increasingly large number of people don't have that as an option, hence "luxury".

Put another way, the ultimate goal of capitalism is to have all the worker bees constantly creating wealth so Bezos can have $210 billion instead of $215 billion.

[joeiq]

The advice “create things to do” is a huge leap for someone with atrophied social skills. Even just attending an event is a terrifying prospect to someone with debilitating social anxiety or low self-esteem.

Instead, a better goal is to become comfortable talking to strangers. If you could do that confidently, anything is possible socially.

Here’s a framework to do that:

1. Adopt a useful attitude.

Before any social situation, consciously choose an attitude that serves you socially: calm, relaxed, enthusiastic, curious, friendly, or simply open. This replaces the useless defaults that keep you stuck: reticent, scared, angry, confused.

Assume people will like you.

2. Set an intention for the interaction.

Decide on one small goal for the interaction. Not “be charming” or “make friends,” rather something achievable.

Example intentions, ranked from easier to more difficult: - To appear friendly (smile, make eye contact) - To greet people - To find out what’s going on around town - To enjoy talking with people - To meet people - To make someone smile - To enjoy getting to know someone - To make someone laugh - To get someone’s contact info - To flirt - To talk to the most attractive person in the room

3. Find comfort in your body.

When you arrive at a social space, take a deep breath. Know that you’re safe inhabiting your body, no matter what anyone thinks of you or says.

4. Set your expectations.

Paralyzed about what to say? Set the bar low. Say your words and expect nothing in return. Confidence in delivering your words will grow. Confidence in social acceptance will follow as you see people respond neutrally and positively.

You might be talking to a grumpy person. It’s okay if you don’t get the response you’d hoped for.

5. Start impossibly small.

If you’re severely out of practice (nervous, anxious, uncertain), set out to initiate an interaction with someone where you accomplish just one objective. Then stop and celebrate that win. Don’t try to combine all of these into one interaction—you will get overwhelmed. Then initiate another interaction on another day and accomplish another objective.

Objective: Say “hello.” If you tend to be quiet, focus on being heard. Find confidence in your voice.

Objective: Say the first thing that comes to mind and see what happens.

Objective: Notice something about a person and comment on it. “Nice shoes!”

Objective: Notice something about the environment and comment on it to someone nearby.

Objective: Ask someone a question for information.

Objective: Ask someone their opinion.

Objective: Ask a question that invites an emotional response rather than a factual one. “What do you love about living here?”

Objective: Join a circle of people in conversation.

6. Make it a habit.

Start today: say one thing to one person. Repeat tomorrow. Then the next day. Within about a week, it becomes second nature. The scariness diminishes. Soon, you’ll actually want to talk to people.

When you learn to talk to strangers, you’re more than halfway to making a friend. Friends will help keep you out of loneliness.

[RyanOD]

I'm terrible at this because I just can't handle extended lulls in conversations with anyone who isn't a close friend. As a result, I talk too much and that's the end of building a friendship. Sigh...

[carrozo]

this!

when i am in this mood my mantra becomes, "be an instigator".

[lo_zamoyski]

> nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive

This "hypersensitivity" and even paralytic fear must be understood as a narcissistic trait (people fail to recognize this, in part, because they have a limited view of what is narcissistic, as something necessarily bombastic, and of course, narcissism tends toward a blindness of one's own narcissism). By recognizing this to be the case, the subtle temptation toward self-pity, or normalization or even valorization of such qualities, can be prevented. Narcissistic traits are antisocial, and so it stands to reason that narcissistic traits impede one's ability to form healthy relationships.

> You are struggling against many aspects of the way we in the developed world/nerd world live.

The liberal consumerist hyperindividualism of our age is an anthropological position that conceives of human beings as atomized units that merely enter into transactional relations with other human beings. "Society" is merely something contractual and utilitarian, and in practice has the flavor of mutual exploitation. In effect, society is reduced to something like a marketplace. This is, of course, totally bogus and destructive. We are intrinsically social animals. Society is a common good, a superordinate good, toward which we have certain general, non-consensual moral obligations and something we need to flourish as human beings.

Because of the bad anthropology the contemporary world is rooted in, we often feel its practices and aims to be meaningless and hollow. We also find ourselves oscillating between the twin errors of collectivism and hyperindividualism. These two extremes are forced onto us by the paradigm of this false anthropology. One looming danger today is that, as the liberal order collapses, we do not know what will replace it. The loudest contenders are undesirable.

> more time-consuming relationship with our families than our parents ever did

That depends. On the one hand, family life was much more robust and lively in many ways than it is today. Parents weren't as careerist then in general. Families were larger, so the abundance of siblings meant you didn't have a lonely childhood at home, and a large pool of potential friends outside of it. Older siblings would assist with younger siblings, and children would participate in domestic duties, so in that sense, parents would not need to be as involved in all aspects of the daily life of the children and the functioning of the household. And in the past, families tended to concentrate more in the local area, so grandparents were typically near children and grandchildren and so on. In other words, a robust family life enables a robust society in general. Social life becomes "thicker" and mutually reinforcing.

The time-consuming element you have in mind is therefore related. All of the responsibility for taking care of aging parents falls on the few children they have or who live nearby. Without siblings or friends, parents step in socially more than they would with their children (or else consign them to the cesspool of social media and internet garbage). There are also cultural factors: parents can become overinvolved or inappropriately involved in some respects, like the proverbial helicopter parent, which itself can be spurred by the collapse of society around them, if not careerist ambitions for one's children.

Which brings us to your main point...

> You have to be the one who creates things to do.

Today, communities often need to be more intentional. If there isn't a community around you'd like to join, you have to be the one who initiates it. It's not guaranteed to function or last, but what's the alternative?

This doesn't "solve" the so-called loneliness epidemic, of course. The proposal here is more modest, namely, if you want people in your life, you have to look for them. Every community or social group needs a reason for its existence. The weakest form is rooted in utility, the second weakest in fun and pleasure. They are transient. The best and more robust kind are to be found in the common pursuit of virtue. In these and through these, we could begin to witness the birth of a healthy society.