Intellectual Loneliness
I&#x27;m a few years out of grad school, working at a tech company, and single.  I came from an academic background where talking about interesting ideas and concepts was the norm.  I had a pretty uncommon career path into tech and I&#x27;m not some coder.<p>My experience is that when you&#x27;re in my position, it&#x27;s getting harder and harder (with age) to find people who are interested in talking about ideas, entertaining the curiosities in life without some agenda&#x2F;getting offended by the controversial ones, talking about possibilities and concepts (rather than objects).  Like having conversations on advanced mode with people who are similar.<p>Often times at parties, when I get bored, I think of a quote, &quot;Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events&#x2F;things. Small minds discuss wine.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s getting more and more common that I find people just wanting to talk about wine.  Or the equivalent.  Stuff that&#x27;s completely forgettable after you leave the party.  I mean that stuff is fine, and there&#x27;s nothing wrong with talking about good food you&#x27;ve had, some articles you&#x27;ve read, movies seen, etc. too.   And to be funny and engaging while talking about it.  It just feels like... after you&#x27;re done talking about that, what then?<p>Or if I do meet people who are intellectually interesting, how to get more connected or where to take it after a chance meeting and pleasant chat?<p>That said, what do I have to offer at this stage of my life either, to a stranger?  I&#x27;m unmarried, so I don&#x27;t have kids or the mortgage to talk about.  I&#x27;m not a CEO or someone powerful.  Also I&#x27;m single -- what are people supposed do with that?   Don&#x27;t have a lot of great reasons for anyone to want to go out of their way to spend more time with me after even an interesting 30 min conversation, without some other excuse.<p>We&#x27;re not all living close together in shared housing to make intellectually stimulating conversations natural and prolonged.  People have their lives to lead, not sit around talking about theoretical ideas.  To contact the few people I&#x27;ve found who are interesting would be... how?  &quot;Would you like to schedule a get-together again for a conversation date?&quot;<p>It&#x27;s not going to get easier either.   Probably in a few years I&#x27;ll be the really odd guy.  Eh, it&#x27;s a life choice I&#x27;ve made, I realize that too -- to be more interested in ideas and experiences than say... people.<p>I figure I&#x27;d better find some interesting hobbies to make up for the lack of intellectual stimulation.   But deeper, what am I working towards?  For whom?  So, sometimes I think of changing jobs just to see more of the world and gather experiences to be able to have more intellectually stimulating conversations.  Learn about VC?  Hear about more companies?  Where&#x2F;how?<p>Yeah, it&#x27;s a bit of a problem sometimes to ponder.