A practical guide to reducing loneliness
Sorry but I find this list terrible - why is this on HN? This is written from such a privileged place and doesn&#x27;t even consider the pandemic, let alone disability&#x2F;economic factors that make this list unfeasible...It bugs me in the same way people push McMindfulness and yoga as some crappy solution to everything and put the onus&#x2F;blame on people who are suffering (loneliness is a serious mortality risk, for real) rather than cast light on societal issues and barriers that are contributing to this problem<p>&quot;Put Down Your Damn Phone&quot; We&#x27;re in a pandemic...There are a lot of reasons to stay inside right and be more cautious. While you can go to the park or read a book or whatever. I would argue that using your phone to socialize is now more realistic than ever, with the caveats with unhealthy social media and so on. It&#x27;s not realistic that you&#x27;re going to have some meet cute on the subway and the grocery store right now, people have pods and are serious about them, and you&#x27;re just going to be setting yourself up. Honestly, I am a lot more comfortable controlling my social interactions due to being part of a marginalized group so being online for social stuff is a no brainer for me. If you haven&#x27;t had to deal with discrimination&#x2F;harassment maybe you don&#x27;t think of this. The time could be spent doing healthy socializing online.<p>&quot;Stop Ordering Stuff Off Amazon&quot; Point taken in theory, but why would I walk down to the local Safeway, Costco, or whatever, and buy the same junk using the same supply chains as Amazon at a markup that I can&#x27;t afford? I like to support local businesses and I&#x27;ll give them credit for that, but sometimes you need some random kitchen appliance and you can&#x27;t get that from a Fair Trade craft company! I really don&#x27;t see any difference between &quot;supporting Amazon&quot; and &quot;supporting Generic Mega Grocery Corp&quot; for every day things that I need to get. Couple this with the fact that stores never seem to have what I need and I buy it online anyway. And again, consider the classism inherent in this..None of us want to use the supply chain but it&#x27;s unreasonable assume people in poverty shouldn&#x27;t use Amazon to save money to improve their quality of life.<p>&quot;Say Yes to Everything You Are Invited To (and Even Some Things You Aren’t)&quot; Hmm, what about learning about yourself and your boundaries&#x2F;limits and sticking to them regardless of peer pressure? A lot of people suffer from social anxiety and other behavioral health conditions that make this such a toxic comment. I struggled with this kind of pressure for years and only now am I going in the opposite direction and learning to say NO, that&#x27;s NOT for me, and I&#x27;m NOT comfortable in that scenario. Again I&#x27;m female so maybe that&#x27;s another factor.<p>&quot;Join a Club and Go a Minimum of 3 Times&quot; There is some merit as with the last point in gently pushing boundaries and seeing things out but sorry, no. If I don&#x27;t feel safe at this club or I&#x27;m harassed I&#x27;m not going to go a &quot;minimum of 3 times&quot;.<p>&quot;Say Hello to Your Neighbors&quot; I don&#x27;t take a ton of issue with this but if I have nothing in common with said neighbors this is a recipe for awkward one sided relationships I&#x27;d rather avoid. Going to point out again that &quot;yay community&quot; doesn&#x27;t work for marginalized people. In this study he cited I wonder if that was a homogeneous area in terms of diversity..Do you really think the only gay guy in a small, conservative town is going to feel less lonely by knowing 6 of his neighbors? For sure this isn&#x27;t the case all the time but don&#x27;t throw around statistics like this as if it&#x27;s going to be a cure all for a particular situation.<p>&quot;Make Small Talk in Public&quot; Not everyone can do this due to various disabilities, and some people hate small talk. It&#x27;s ok to work on this if you want to within reason but I&#x27;m not going to feel any less lonely talking about baseball or the weather with my 6 neighbors, in fact probably the opposite.<p>&quot;Play (or Learn) a Sport&quot; As a woman I don&#x27;t often feel safe&#x2F;comfortable showing my body in public doing sports or going to gyms. If you&#x27;re trans for example, this may be super dangerous depending on the gym&#x2F;area. A year ago here in Seattle a group of POC got arrested&#x2F;detained for an &quot;Antifa Soccer game&quot; in a public park at 4pm. And again, pandemic. I also hate sports in general and I think this should be widened to &quot;find a physical activity you enjoy&quot;. This can be yoga at home, Wii Fit, bouncing on a trampoline, using a standing bicycle while coding, or whatever.<p>&quot;Don’t Flake on Plans — Especially with Yourself&quot; Agree with this in theory but &quot;When you cancel plans, you’re not letting others down; you’re letting yourself down.&quot; really? For people with chronic illness, children, caregivers, etc, things come up, and you can be branded as toxic or flakey due to life circumstances you can&#x27;t change. I agree for sure on the point of accountability but this borders on beating yourself up for this which I already have a problem with so no thanks.<p>&quot;Reach Out to Friends of Friends&quot; The introvert&#x27;s nightmare. Now you have some issue with the friend of the friend, and you lose the original friend. Both me and another introvert I know prefer to keep our friend groups really segmented for this reason. We both are on the autism spectrum as well and it&#x27;s just too much to deal with that additional dynamic. Works in some cases but not all. Will give credit for someone being potentially &quot;vetted&quot; by someone you trust.<p>&quot;The Long Con: Deepen Existing Interests&quot; Only thing I agree with whole heatedly&quot; :D<p>&quot;Awkwardness Is Endearing; Vulnerability Is Cool&quot; <i>laughs in neruodivergent</i> Yeah dude no, try having C-PTSD over how people treat you for your &quot;endearing vulnerabilities&quot;.<p>Just an intersectional take on this article. One size really doesn&#x27;t fit all and it&#x27;s negligent to tout this as some lifehack when a lot of these things are unreasonable or even dangerous for certain populations. I understand this was done to help but I would add caveats and explanations and alternatives to these rather than some kind of prescriptive one size fits all list. Remember that loneliness isn&#x27;t not having people around. It&#x27;s not having people around who accept you and understand you and that&#x27;s the trauma the US is working through today. It is shocking how many people, even people who aren&#x27;t from traditionally marginalized groups, don&#x27;t have the bare minimum when it comes to their social support and their history of social support has been neglectful or even abusive. There is no quick fix for the loneliness we are suffering as a nation with all the tech stuff pushing us to these unhealthy extremes even more. We are dealing with such a difficult and unprecedented time. The solution is not to invalidate people&#x27;s real lived experiences of ostracization, discrimination, harassment and so forth by telling them to go kick the ole pigskin around. You may not ever really fully comprehend what it&#x27;s like, the real danger many people risk when going out into the community, sexual assault, harassment by law enforcement, and so forth, if you&#x27;re a white dude in the Valley, and these solutions may seem reasonable if looked at only from that tiny lens. That&#x27;s not to say people should isolate themselves to the point where it&#x27;s unhealthy but I do find a lot of rhetoric like &quot;GET OUT THERE CHAMP LOL UR NOT THAT AWKWARD&quot; honestly quite marginalizing and harmful. The community really isn&#x27;t and hasn&#x27;t been the solution to the issues marginalized people experience. We need to take additional reasonable measures in some cases to protect ourselves because the community just isn&#x27;t there yet, and that needs to be understood and validated. Being heard, and validated, is how we heal...Not band aid platitudes like this.