Ask HN: What should I do as a forever alone software engineer?
Learn how to sail.<p>* It is generally impossible to sail a boat &quot;single-handed&quot;  (alone), you always need a crew, so sailors are forced to socialize. People who own sailboats are perpetually trying to find people who will help crew a boat with them, so they are always willing to make new friends.<p>* Crewing on a sailboat (especially during a race) teaches you how to work in a team, how to follow orders from people, how to be coachable, etc. This helps build social skills.<p>* Sailing puts people together face-to-face for several hours, there is nowhere to leave, everyone can&#x27;t be staring into their phones (since they all have a job to do), and you might not even have a cell phone signal. This makes it easy to socialize and make new friends.<p>* Sailing gives you something in common with others to talk about, which helps build relationships and make friends. Sailors are very passionate about sailing, sailing is a very involved sport, and sailors love to talk for hours about all aspects of sailing. So when you are with fellow sailors, you always have something to talk about and stories to share, that are completely unrelated to your work life.<p>* Sailing is a highly knowledge-based activity. You have to know how to tie different types of knots, you have to learn a whole vocabulary of sailing terms, you have to know how to maintain an engine, how to read nautical maps and navigate, how to operate on analog and digital radio and sattelite communications (HAM radio can be subset hobby of sailing), how aerodynamics work (lift&#x2F;drag on sails), how weather patterns work, how the &quot;rules of the road&quot; work on the water, how to dock and moor a boat, how to do various kinds of emergency &quot;MacGyver&quot; repairs on a boat while on the water, you have to know about all the different kinds of sailboats, sails and rigs, you need to know safety, surival and rescue skills, how to plan and provision for a long trip, you have know the rules of racing and different racing tactics, you can learn about celestial navigation (how to navigate using the stars), you learn about different islands and destinations where people go to sail, you can learn about all kinds of software that is used for competitive sailing (to plan optimal routes based on real-time wind patterns), you can learn about naval architecture (how boats are designed), you can build your own boat, you can learn how to repair and make sails, you can learn about state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics designs for sails and vessels, you can read about the history of sailing, you can follow different competitive sailing sport events (America&#x27;s Cup, Fastnet, Olympics, etc), you can learn about different building materials used in boats (wood, fiber class, carbon fiber, etc), you can learn how to cook in a galley, how to climb a mast, you can pursue sailing &quot;fashions&quot; (what to wear to look good while sailing), etc. It is really a world and a culture unto itself.<p>* You will literally be part of a social club. Sailing clubs hold all kinds of social events. It is highly entertaining, everyone is friendly and willing to make friends - much more so than meeting strangers at a bar or a nightclub.<p>* You get to be out in nature when you are sailing. You get to see beautiful sights of nature and city skylines, that most people do not experience. Sailboats are powered by the wind, which means that they are very quiet (no noisy engine running), so it is a very serene experience and helps you relax and connect with nature. You might sail the oceans under the night sky where you can see the spectacular show of stars in the night sky.<p>* A lot of people like to &quot;party&quot; on sailboats, when they are docked for the day. It&#x27;s much better than the bar or nightclub.<p>* Sailboats are vehicles. That means you can go on trips with them. That could be a trip a few hours away, to another port in your locality, or it could be crossing oceans and sailing through exotic islands that most people never get to visit.  Experiencing this with others can build lifelong friendships.<p>* Sailing is for people of all ages and genders. There are plenty of women who love to sail. Some of them like to ride on boats and wear bikinis ... When you are young, you might meet a girl this way. If you have children, you can take them on sailing vacations. When you are old and you retire, you will have something to do with your spare time.<p>* Contrary to popular opinion, you don&#x27;t need to be rich to sail. Some community sailing clubs or local colleges let you be a member for a small monthly fee, and freely use their boats. At the fancier sailing clubs, you do need to know a member who owns a boat, but you will find mailing lists for people who want to sign up to crew on other people&#x27;s boats during race nights.<p>* I could go on, but I&#x27;ll stop here.