Jump to content

People are lonely


Argus

Recommended Posts

Not sure where this belongs so I'm putting it here. It does talk about how serial monogomy has led to fewer marriages and children and thus loneliness so I think this is a decent fit.

I've encountered a couple of stories in the last two days about loneliness, which seems to be a product of our changing society. It's especially bad among the young, many of whom have no friends whatsoever. But it's widespread among the elderly too, whose friends have died and who never had children. This is a western thing. We've all, I think, become fixated with consumerism and careers (the better to get ahead so we can buy more). We've all moved much of out lives online, which can be entertaining but does little to satisfy a need for human contact.

The breakdown of families, with many having no kids or just one, means many people are now growing up without siblings, without uncles and aunts, and because of the way society has moved online, without friends. Humans are tribal, and familial. Without any tribe or clan or family a lot of us are lost and adrift. I read somewhere  that 25 of the 26 largest mass shooters had no fathers in their lives. I'm not surprised. The breakdown of families has done nothing good for society.

In August of 2003, a dreadful heat wave washed across Europe. Some 35,000 people died; most of them fit the above profile. A disproportion of the deaths — 14,000 —occurred in France, prompting investigation, which revealed the uncomfortable fact that it was not material poverty that was the key factor in many of these deaths. Rather it was a form of social poverty; the victims had nobody who cared enough about them to check up on them and alleviate their distress.

This new form of social poverty is, paradoxically, most evident in the world’s richest nations. A May 2018 Cigna poll cited by the author found that nearly half of all Americans report “sometimes or always” feeling alone, and that Generation Z — adults aged 18 to 22 — is the loneliest generation of all. Loneliness is sad in itself, but it also has public health implications. Eberstadt cites studies showing a causal link between loneliness and overeating, higher stress levels, cardiovascular conditions and immune dysfunction

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-loneliness-is-a-human-catastrophe-and-its-getting-worse

31% of millenials and 28% of GenXers have no friends.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-05/22-millennials-say-they-have-no-friends

 

 

 

Edited by Argus
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a Gen Xer and I'm perfectly happy to spend most of my time with my wife and her family.

We don't have children nor do we want them, but we do have nieces and nephews and they seem quite happy to me.

Having grown up in an institution like the army I frankly enjoy quite a bit of solitude now, I had my friends around me all the time for so long, I frankly got my fill of that.

I do get together with my friends  from the regiment once in awhile for reunions of one sort or another, and the fact that we don't see each other much anymore, makes those events all the better, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Mostly we just enjoy our property, landed gentry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm honestly quite friendly with my neighbors, I mean, you don't want to go overboard because you have to get along with your neighbors so you don't want to be in each others pockets, none the less, I've always found that I have become friends organically, with the other landowners I have had the privilege of knowing, because they've all been lovely people, out here in Wellington County at least.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have many of what I would call acquaintances and associates.

Friend is a pretty high bar with me, that's quite intimate.

But I do enjoy doing business with associates and meeting with acquaintances, and having a nice meal after.

Socializing without too much intimacy, its more relaxed than having to catch up with friends.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Boges said:

People need hobbies then. Adults don't often find friends organically, they usually do it by congregating with people of similar interests. 

If people are lonely, it's because they want to be. 

Seriously doubt that has any truth to it. I remember reading somewhere that people pretty much make all the friends they're going to by 30. After that, it's very hard to make friends because everyone is busy in their lives, and most jobs don't have enough continuing social interaction with people to form tight bonds. You have to make a deliberate effort to try to go out to something regularly, like joining a sports team, say, in the hopes that you meet someone there to become a friend. Plus there are shy people, people who spent all their time playing video games and online as children (not allowed out alone), and never developed the social skills to make friends.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Dougie93 said:

If you're looking for constant companionship join the armed forces.

It's basically just hanging out with your friends all the time, twenty four seven three six five.

I would have loved that.  My lower back kept me out of the armed forces...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Today young people are brought up in the world of the internet, and many think of it as some kind of blessed oracle. Just ask a question of the Googler, he will tell you everything. In fact, much more than you want to know. And yet I learned so much more in my childhood than my kids did. My kids didn't go outside as much as I did. They didn't go skating. They didn't hang out and play tag all day with other kids. They don't know how to tie a fishing knot, nor will they likely ever need to. Their main portal to reality is the web browser, and for that I pity them. We unleashed the internet, a total revolution without considering the social impact it would have on us. We need to put the genie back in the bottle.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, J4L said:

Did you know that people who are genetically predisposed to Alzheimers, will suffer from it at a younger age, if they lack a social circle.

I knew that, but I had forgotten it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

Still, there is a big difference between being lonely and being alone (by choice). 

Just ask any cat lady !

Some of my best memories are out fishing alone.  Working all day then drifting and relaxing later at night 20 miles offshore under a pitch black star filled sky with a cold beer and a few tunes.  When being alone is a joy loneliness is probably the farthest thing on your mind.  The only time I felt like I could shoot someone was when they fucked up fishing so badly I had to give that all up.

I don't know if I buy this missing father reason for explaining gun-nuttery.  My dad was absent, my family blew apart and I came out west with a few buddies in similar circumstances. We just kinda figured it out ourselves. The most mythical people in my life were my father's grandparents and mostly my Papa. I was only 4 when they died.  My grandkids are visiting again this summer.  City kids raised by kids I raised in the boonies, I had them all out on the boat the other evening and showed them a bear catching a crab in the sunset.  Pulled a couple out of the trap on the way home ourselves. The stuff of myths.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, J4L said:

I was an elite athlete turning 18. Unfortunately my L4 and L5 discs were degenerative and I had to quit my chosen sport as well. That's awesome you were able to serve.

I wasn't an elite athlete,  I was a lazy 17 year old who had been kicked out of the house, but the school of hard knocks made me iron hard, in just 26 weeks.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's all mental tho, the body gets harder with pushups and whatnot, but it's hardening the mind which is the trick, it's all about maintaining supreme attention to detail, while you endure suffering.

And that's where your friends get you through, you can't let down your peers, and that's the friends you have for life, because you all suffered together, and only by becoming closer than your own blood brothers, did you all make it through as one, only as fast as your slowest man, no brother left behind.

Edited by Dougie93
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I wasn't an elite athlete,  I was a lazy 17 year old who had been kicked out of the house, but the school of hard knocks made me iron hard, in just 26 weeks.

Working on a logging crew had a bit of an effect like that on me. First day on the job the hooktender says "grab that block, strap and strawline and I'll see up there" pointing a thousand feet up the mountain. I left the strap behind a couple hundred feet up and the strawline a couple hundred feet later. A couple hundred feet after that Sully blew past me with a block, two straps, and strawlines (his and mine) plus a chainsaw and a cigarette in his mouth.

He sat up top screaming "today man today" until I finally made it.    

Edited by eyeball
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Working on a logging crew had a bit of an effect like that on me. First day on the job the hooktender says "grab that block, strap and strawline and I'll see up there" pointing a thousand feet up the mountain. I left the strap behind a couple hundred feet up and the strawline a couple hundred feet later. A couple hundred feet after that Sully blew past me with a block, two straps, and strawlines (his and mine) plus a chainsaw and a cigarette in his mouth.

He sat up top screaming "today man today" until I finally made it.    

Yeah, things sound easy in theory, but once the back breaking labour sets in, fatigue starts to dull the mind, the actually hardest thing about the infantry, is sleep deprivation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

Yeah, things sound easy in theory, but once the back breaking labour sets in, fatigue starts to dull the mind, the actually hardest thing about the infantry, is sleep deprivation.

In logging its the blackflies.  Fishing is better for sleep deprivation.  That said there's nothing quite like fresh jellyfish on yesterday's leader cuts your first time around the gear to really wake you up in the morning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, eyeball said:

In logging its the blackflies.  Fishing is better for sleep deprivation.  That said there's nothing quite like fresh jellyfish on yesterday's leader cuts your first time around the gear to really wake you up in the morning.

The trick with sleep dep, is getting through the first three days, the first three days without sleep are the hardest, after that you become like a zombie and are just on autopilot, by the end of a week without sleep, you start to hallucinate.  I never had to do more than nine days without sleep, but I was pretty close to breaking, couldn't take much more, it was becoming torture, but they called endex just in time for that course.

On day one of that course its like a hundred guys or whatever, and you look around and you see all these guys who are elite athletes, and you think to yourself "I'm out  of my league", but one by one they fall by the wayside, they break down and quit, but the thing that actually broke them, was lack of sleep.

Edited by Dougie93
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

The trick with sleep dep, is getting through the first three days, the first three days without sleep are the hardest, after that you become like a zombie and are just on autopilot, by the end of a week without sleep, you start to hallucinate.  I never had to do more than nine days without sleep, but I was pretty close to breaking, couldn't take much more, it was becoming torture, but they called endex just in time for that course.

Ten days or more at sea fishing dawn to dusk then trying to sleep on an old wooden boat that's groaning and creaking all night in heaving seas is a challenge.  Add a layer of thick fog in which you see little to nothing during that whole time and you feel like you're in an episode from the Twilight Zone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Ten days or more at sea fishing dawn to dusk then trying to sleep on an old wooden boat that's groaning and creaking all night in heaving seas is a challenge.  Add a layer of thick fog in which you see little to nothing during that whole time and you feel like you're in an episode from the Twilight Zone.

I was never built for the navy, I'm tough when it comes to pain, but I'm a big baby when it comes to nausea.

I'm lazy too, it was only for the infantry that I was prepared to suffer, I would go to my death in defense of my principles, but otherwise I'm a slacker.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Argus said:

Seriously doubt that has any truth to it. I remember reading somewhere that people pretty much make all the friends they're going to by 30. After that, it's very hard to make friends because everyone is busy in their lives, and most jobs don't have enough continuing social interaction with people to form tight bonds. You have to make a deliberate effort to try to go out to something regularly, like joining a sports team, say, in the hopes that you meet someone there to become a friend. Plus there are shy people, people who spent all their time playing video games and online as children (not allowed out alone), and never developed the social skills to make friends.

I'm just speaking anecdotally. I'm relatively shy. The "Good Friends" people develop at a young age are somewhat are hard to cultivate and when people are busy it's certainly hard to keep those interactions regular. 

It's not just sports teams. With sports where you cultivate social interactions with people afterwards. After my marriage fell a part I started playing sports multiple times a week and it created good friends, at the time. It can also be something like running, or biking, or church, or trivia or whatever. People even get social interactions from self help groups. 

Those interactions are plentiful if you live in a big enough urban or suburban area. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Tell a friend

    Love Repolitics.com - Political Discussion Forums? Tell a friend!
  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      10,712
    • Most Online
      1,403

    Newest Member
    nyralucas
    Joined
  • Recent Achievements

    • Jeary earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Venandi went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Gaétan earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • Dictatords earned a badge
      First Post
    • babetteteets earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...