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This is a weird question, but my dears, if I can't find weirdoes here to help answer it, where will I find them?
So... what do you do if you're not lonely?
By which I mean, all the pop psychology and media opinion pieces and chatty helpful (annoying) little mental health wellness driblets tell you you should be lonely if (check off list of things).
Apparently there's a loneliness epidemic. Or maybe there isn't, opinions differ. But there is agreement: lack of connection is bad for you, including bad for your physical health. Some are optimistic that AI can be your friend instead.
Yeah, but... I'm alone, but I'm not lonely. I can check off that list:
Lack of human connection? Yes
Social isolation? Yes
No friends? Yes
No close family members? Yes
No romantic partners (this seems to be the big one, the cri de coeur of the incels and I do not mock them with this)? Yes
No kids/fulfilment? Yes
Not even furbabies? Oh hell yeah no pets
But you socialise? You travel? You do things? You have hobbies? No
I should be curled up in a ball crying and weeping and wringing my hands about wanting all that, and I'm not.
Now, am I depressed? I think I might be (can't get a diagnosis, the one and only time I mentioned suicidal ideation to my doctor I got asked was I self-harming or tried suicide? no? nothing to see there, then), but while the big light-bulb "aha!" moment there should be "and that's because you're so isolated", I don't think so. I've wanted to be dead (not the same as wanted to commit suicide, I've never tried that) since I was about eleven, but here it is decades and decades later and I'm still here.
The cynical view is "but you need friends because friendships are transactional and can be monetised; if you do things for them they have to do things for you". That's never worked for me, because the few times back when I was young and dumb enough to ask, in return for 'do this for me get that for me of course we'll do the same for you', "okay so now can you do this for me?" suddenly and miraculously it was always the wrong time, inconvenient, impossible for some reason.
So I never grew to regard friendship as transactional because I could never get those transactions going (sorry, Rorschach, I disagree with you there even though I would be sympathetic to a lot of your thinking and if that makes me an authoritarian, Alan Moore, then too bad).
But I'm not lonely. I'm on my own, and I'm happy that way (if you accept that this, for me, constitutes "happy"). Mostly I don't like people. I can fake it, I can get along for short bursts of interaction at work and elsewhere, remember things other person said and bring them up or talk about some topic in the news, but about five minutes is my maximum tolerance and ability to pretend normality. After that, I have to consciously remind myself "do not say out loud 'I wish this person would shut up and go away and stop bothering me', keep the expression of mild interest and pleasant smile on until they do feck off, don't look at something else like paperwork or computer screen or whatever".
So what do I do, when I'm supposed to be lonely and wanting all that human connection, but I don't. I really, honestly, don't.
What do you do when you're supposed to be lonely but you're not?
This plus "not wanting to be alive" (!) suggests some underlying tensions here?
Based on somebody else's assertion below, I'm going to respond as an assumed co-religionist, so disregard if that assumption is false. I also don't have as much life experience as you, so I want to apologize if it's presumptuous to say this, that's definitely not my intent. I've thought a lot about the fact that most people, married or not, parents or not, have a very good chance of ending up in effective solitude, so in a real sense I'm speaking to my future self here.
"Cool friends, fun hobbies and a cute pet" is a very urban-atomized, Enlightenment-via-Instagram model of the Good Life. I think you're fortunate to have the resources to push back against it. But you know there's also a clear tradition of writing, by far smarter folks than us who have also suffered far more, and whose experiences thus give them the right to opine, pointing out that pure indolent, avoidant solitude is also not how humans are meant to spend the life they are given. Like dogs, I think we are really better in service, even unpleasant service, than in leisure. Definitely not because, like, "volunteering makes you friends" or because human beings will ever reciprocate the painful care you give (luckily Christianity is very clear on this!), but because (at least as I understand it) unreciprocated love also appears to be what God does, possibly the nature of Creation itself, hence is just part of our basic design.
I don't want to get out over my skis here, so I'll quit with the dubious theology. But you are a clever woman, excellent with language, based on your posts at least a generous-natured person with some wisdom and capability. Is there no way that you're being called to put those talents to service? Nothing dumb and menial that needs doing in your parish, your neighborhood, your building? No way that you should be the one to help a plant, an animal, a child, some other person in your world, whom you are currently failing to assist? If apparently not, do you ask enough to be sure of hearing the call if it came? Do you at least pray hard for all the rest of us losers, like the anchoresses did? (Because if you don't, uh, I at least could sure use somebody to put in a good word for me.)
I guess what I'm saying is, are you quite sure you're not the one lazily shirking reciprocity for the gifts you've been given, and could the cognitive dissonance here be a bit of a guilty conscience? And that's coming with all sympathy from someone who knows this struggle to be real.
That is definitely part of it. I really don't like people, so I grumble hard about "God commands I love you (dammit)".
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I'll add that if you're alone, and it's all you've ever known, it's hard to know what you're missing. I've lived all my teens completely isolated, and had you asked me, I would've said I was happy, or at least "satisfied". Then I got a friend, who became my best friend, and I realized what I've been missing this entire time. Later I got a partner too, and that truly cemented that I never want to be alone again.
While I do know that people who genuinely aren't interested in other people do exist, they tend to be extraordinarily rare. Now this is going to sound really dismissive, but I would put most people like me (and maybe you) into one of two camps. They just either haven't found someone they actually work well with. Or they do interact with others, but it's unpleasant, basic interactions that drain you instead of adding anything. Which gives you the perception that you don't like socializing in general.
But I bond with people over common interests(presumably most people do). If you don't have hobbies, if you don't have pets, if you don't have some common interest in talking about something with someone, why should you talk with them at all? Why should they talk to you? There is another option with which you can bond with others, which is your own personal life experiences, be they good or bad. But I wouldn't recommend that, since it hasn't worked well for me in the past.
I would recommend socializing more, because it can be an incredibly pleasant and fulfilling experience.
Also I have to ask, do you truly not have hobbies? Like what do you spend your free time on? Maybe your definition of a hobby is just more strict, but pretty much anything you do in your spare time from reading, to cooking, to playing games, or working out can be counted, among many others. Do you not do any of that? You mention Alan Moore, so presumably you read comics, so that's one thing, that you either don't count so it fits into your post more cleanly.
Tried that, in my youth. Hated it. Really find it draining to be around people, with noise and lights and drinking and chatting and everything. I've skipped more "this is our graduation dinner and happy time, here's your invite!/this is the work Christmas party!" occasions because I've gone to one or even two of those previously and the result was "the amount of enjoyment I got out of going was much less than staying home and doing my own thing".
I'm happy under my little rock!
That's not what I mean. I was also happy under my rock, but I'm happier under my rock with someone else. Even simply mundane everyday activities are more pleasant if you do them with someone you like, and who likes you.
Like this study showed anything is more enjoyable if you do it with someone else. Doing laundry, cooking together, watching movies, going out. That's the kind of socializing I'm talking about.
Not work parties where you're surrounded by strangers you don't know, don't care about, and aren't invested in.
And that gives me the hives. Possibly because I've become too used to This Is My Routine And This Is How Things Are Done, but trying to (for example) work in a kitchen with a sibling makes me very uncomfortable. I'm working training in a new co-worker and the amount of times I've had to bite my tongue about "go away! lemme do this myself!" (because I am not doing this myself, that is the point of training someone else to do it) has been very high.
I really am just "hermit crab, this my shell, go find own shell, farther away the better".
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I've been mulling over this comment since I read it shortly after you posted yesterday. Like others, I have the impression that within your comment is a need, a plaintive statement of dissatisfaction, though most of what you write here suggests the opposite (that you're happy, though you immediately qualify the term.) Yet you do now wish and long have wished to not exist:
Why? Not why are you still here but why would you wish to not be?
I didn't answer immediately because I'm certainly not a trained counselor or psychiatrist but I felt like I wanted to probe deeper into your motivations in posting this comment. I'm probably just as weird (to use your term) as anyone on here but with a more normie veneer. I too have little problem being alone most of the time. I've spent vast swaths of my life alone, and not in the "we're all really alone" sense but in the no one else anywhere near me sense. I'm not a stranger to it. But it can be a great weight. It's like anything, fine for as long as it's fine, but too much of it and you're asking for trouble. You sense this, though you're not giving voice to it.
I couldn't understand it. At the time I just felt tired. Tired of everything. Didn't want to continue existing.
I also had bouts of whatever the opposite of solipsism is; that is, I used to feel I was not, in fact, a real person really existing. My reason could talk me down with "but if you're not here, what is this entity experiencing the sensation of not being real?" but what most convinced me was tricking myself with "well that's my mother, and I believe she has an independent, real, existence, so if she's my mother and she's real, I have to be real, too, because she couldn't be my mother if I wasn't real".
Very odd feeling. Never done drugs so I have no idea if the reports of ego death or whatever are similar.
Depersonalization though you've probably researched the phenomenon yourself. Again, interesting. Does this come and go even now or is it just a memory of how you used to be?
Haven't had it in a long, long time and this is memory of how it used to be. It was a very odd experience, and puzzling; if I wasn't real, then who or what was this "I" experiencing this?
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Generally it was "hey guys, am I a sociopath?" and the response so far seems to be "yeah of course, you weirdo" "okay, thanks for the clarification!" š
Because as I say, I'm reading and hearing all this "loneliness epidemic" stuff, even to the extent of participating in a work webinar about social isolation and suicide (cheerful topic) and while the speaker was going on about "and this and this and this means people are isolated and that means increased risk of that bad outcome and that bad outcome and that", I was internally going "but I don't feel like that, I don't have this and this and this but I don't miss it or want it?"
Very interesting. You're not quite what I would have predicted or imagined, and I'm not terrible at predicting/imagining, though of course I'm not Kreskin. You don't seem insane or sociopathic to me, except when you do, but then that's just Woman TM. Vive la difference. You got Sloot in here derailing the conversation so that's a point on the board for you. I'm sorry if my interest seemed untoward, but I am forever trying to print faces on the masks/usernames here.
Oh no problem, I am absolutely terrible at name remembering (I can remember faces, you should hear me go "oh! that's so-and-so, you know, that person from back when we did the thing! is her name Margaret? Jane? something like that?" about people I worked with for eight years but have not seen for a whole six months) so I can't match up usernames to people on here. I just go "hey isn't this that same numbskull who said that dumb thing about peppercorns?" and launch into the fray even if it's not, in fact, the same person.
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I mean, you spend a lot of time posting here and, I assume (but am not 100% certain), in the ACX (formerly SSC) comments, that's not exactly IRL friendship but it's not not social interaction. Perhaps, as an antisocial person, that is enough to assuage your need for human connection.
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One problem people have is in what they think a āfriendshipā is. I knew many people from all walks of life growing up, but I can count on maybe little more than two hands the amount of people I can truly call friends, the rest are either acquaintances or people teetering on the edge between one or the other. Thereās people Iāve known for 20 years who Iām on great terms with who I wouldnāt describe as my friend.
Several years ago, my best friends younger brother came home from school one day and when we were all hanging out he asked me what the difference between a friend and an acquaintance was. I said āan acquaintance is just someone you know.ā āA friend is someone who puts in work on your behalf.ā (Putting in work is a phrase used by gang members to commit acts to socially prove youāre a part of the in-group.) If youāre someoneās friend, you care about them, and work where you can in ways that promote their self-interest where opportunities are available to do so; because your friends are an extension of you. Iāve made sacrifices and taken hits to my reputation for my friends before, to me thatās what it means to be someoneās friend. I will go far out of my way to support my friends. Very far out of my way.
If you feel normal without many friends (or even any), I donāt think thereās necessarily anything wrong with you, although itās a little sad youāve not experienced the sustained joy of sharing interactions and experiences with others that make you feel connected. For some people it just takes time, for others they just havenāt found their tribe yet.
May be worth noting HereAndGone2 is a woman because - women as a group tend make poor friends per your definition (which I agree with). In all the women I've known in my life in school or work, they were all just acquaintances despite me putting in work on a platonic level, at least I think so. From my observation of all of my male friends, none of them have any female friends either (unless their wives count), and some of them are very social butterflies not posting on the Motte.
Almost all of the women who have put work in for me are mom and female relatives. I do come from a clannish family so that's probably not surprising. But no unrelated women, except maybe the wife of one of my social friends has ever given me any advice or help. I did not get a chance to befriend that woman unfortunately, as I ended up moving away from the area. I'm still friends with the husband, but we're too busy to socialize now.
Being a woman, I suspect it's difficult to make friends as other women are generally poor friendship material. Men might be difficult to approach as they would see friendship gestures as sexual interest.
I didnāt not know that, :o. Thank you.
Men and women are capable of being friends but in my own life I generally advise against it, especially if theyāre in a relationship. I have many women friends in my life but the nature of those friendships is built very differently from the ones I have with my guy friends. (Yes, most of your guy friends want to fuck you; I donāt care how much they lie about it.) Itās also a major reason I donāt date women who keep male friends. Women arenāt stupid, they know what theyāre doing by keeping men in the mix that play into the role of their backup plans ājust in case.ā In a relationship youāre either all in or not. A person who keeps one foot permanently out the door tells you much about the sincerity of their commitment.
Men often interpret womenās friendship as sexual interest because most men get zero attention from women. But Iāve seen it the other way as well, where women insist theyāve dropped every signal and the guy isnāt interested. (No. He sees it. He doesnāt want to risk interpreting your sexual interest as friendship, so he cautions himself not to press it. Heās not stupid either.) The problem is women flirt and express interest with full plausible deniability, and thatās why they lose out on so many opportunities. If you want to make a move, it has to be one thatās unmistakable and that you canāt back out of; you have to be able to bear risking rejection.
Thereās only two women in my life (apart from my mother) that Iāve had an āI have to be careful about this person,ā moment; who could read me very well; and it was eerie. I loved hanging with them though because they had an incredibly high powered perception and amazing situational awareness. It was very evident to me that they hid their intelligence from the rest of the group, but they were very confident people and just every āonceā in awhile theyād drop the mask on purpose. Occasionally weād be talking about something and look over at each other at the same time and smirk. They knew what I was thinking before I did and could see right through me. They were āincrediblyā sharp women and kept me on my toes.
Well said, I have had similar experiences. And I believe it is never good to be a backup man and/or piggy bank, but most men tire of it as they age and see the orbital relationship for what it is. My friend's female cousin is an absolute man eater, to the detriment of every man she lures in and to her own life. Predictably, she works in a strip club, has no dad, and was raised by grandma. She has many, many orbitals.
I agree. And I would never allow myself to be that guy or tolerate that kind of disrespect. If sheās prepared to accept that Iād never marry her I suppose Iād be content with ābeing a thing,ā but Iām not under any illusion for even a moment about what kind of relationship this is.
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Some or most of what you describe is due to the distinct one-sidedness of male-female friendships, compared to male-male or female-female friendships.
Commonly, a woman will tend to expect a male friend to monkey dance and serve as a meatshield for her; spend effort and money on her; help, provide labor, and do favors for her; in ways she wouldnāt expect a female friend to do.
If a female friend asks for help or a favor, sheāll be more inclined to assist since you gotta help a sista out and everyone knows how difficult it is to be a woman. If a male friend asks for help or a favor, heās being needy, entitled, and/or pathetic. Doesnāt he know how busy she is and how valuable her time and energy are? Ugh, stupid man-child.
This describes approximately 0 male-female friendships I've had, though some relationships may qualify.
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Think you meant female-female friendships in the end of your first paragraph. I may be personally have grown up around many self-centered women, because I noted the female-female friendships seemed shallow without much work put in either direction. Hard to tell though from the outside. This is mostly an observation of my female relatives and former classmates.
Indeed, I did. Fixed.
Or what if the women you grew up around are not unusually self-centered or their friendships not unusually shallow for women?
Itās pretty funny how female friendship groups tend to be self-selected for similar attractiveness levels, with perhaps the exception of a token fat/ugly friend as popular lore would suggest.
No, I think you are preaching to the choir here, I do believe female-female friendships are more shallow compared to male-male friendships. It's why I think HereAndGone2 has trouble finding friendships worth sustaining, there are too few fish in the pond worth the effort.
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I can relate with most of the things you've said. I'm an introvert with social anxiety that has prevented me from being more social throughout my life. I've been working on it in the past year or so, but I'm still far away from being described as "social". Aside from the fact that not having some sort of support system you can rely on if things go bad is objectively not good, I think you should reflect on whether you've successfully managed to distract yourself from your shortcomings in social life. For me, that's definitely the case. I'm a natural workaholic. I derive value from work, winning games. So it's very easy to get distracted - find a goal, an idea to pursue, a new game to play and I can sit inside for weeks on end being obsessed. I can do this for years. But the brief moments when I run out of things to do are brutal. I no longer have distractions to keep my mind from reflecting. I start feeling like something is wrong in my life. If that sounds familiar, then I think you gotta start reflecting on your life and pinpoint what's wrong. If not, perhaps you're just a hermit and that's okay. I know I'm not, so I gotta make change or I will be looking back at my life with regret and I don't want that. Even though it's so comfortable to be in your own little world in the moment
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So, uh, what do you want?
You put it as a problem in need of a solution, yet by your own description you seem more or less happy (for some value of "happy") with your life.
By the fact that you are asking, I guess you aren't entirely happy. Is it just because you look around and see other people doing things you aren't and wonder what's wrong with you? Or do you vaguely sense something missing in your life?
Tbh with your religious beliefs and temperament I'd half-seriously suggest checking out convents.
Assuming that's off the table, well... You sound like you may be depressed. I think you have some conception of depression as being miserable and hating life all the time, but it can be just a gray blah that prevents you from enjoying life.
A lack of friends is very sad. Friendships don't have to be all transactional.
A lack of hobbies is also very sad. I mean, what the fuck does one do with one's life, aside from working, if you don't have a family? It's never too late to take an interest in... something.
You sound like what you lack is a purpose. If you have no purpose in life other than to get up every morning and do it all again, that would be pretty depressing to me.
Back when I was eighteen or so, a lot of people suggested I should be a nun. But joining religious life just because you don't fit into secular life doesn't work (that was a huge part of the reason for all the abuse and sex abuse cases in the Church). I knew by myself that I did not have a genuine vocation so that was not for me.
I don't mind if the explanation is "you're just weird or mentally ill or both". It was a reaction to all this about loneliness that I see getting mentioned more and more, and how the default assumption is "everyone wants and needs X, Y, Z" (funnily enough, right now I'm listening to the radio and a song is on with a chorus of "nobody to love" where the singer is lamenting that state), and I'm going "well I don't, so not everybody". If that means "okay a tiny, tiny proportion of the population are just weirdo loner nutcases", fine. I was just wondering "am I the 1 person out of a hundred million who feels like this, or is it genuinely "7,999,999,999 people want love and connection and you are the 1 human on Earth who doesn't"?
Well, if you are not unhappy, you are not unhappy. What you describe seems like a pretty joyless existence to me, but there have always been loners who genuinely don't like socializing with anyone. I don't anyone here is going to try to persuade you that you must make friends and must have a relationship to make your life worth living.
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Not a problem, just more an idea of "have you considered that in fact some people don't want X or Y?"
I suppose a bit like recommending to a gay guy "now what you really need is a nice wife, so you'll have someone to love and take care of you". Not what is wanted.
The messaging seems to be taking for granted that everyone wants friends, family, lovers, social interaction. If you don't have it, you miss it and want it. If you don't have it, this is loneliness which is a problem.
For the majority of people, that's true. But for some people it's not, and so the pat answers about "well find friends, get involved in your community, mix with people, get a hobby that will help you meet others" and the rest of it is like, as I said, telling a gay guy that all he really needs is a good woman.
Following the gay guy analogy, what if the gay guy posted on a forum asking why everyone assumed he was bi or straight even though he checked every gay guy stereotype? He said he was annoyed everyone kept telling him to get married to a woman - he was so gay that he couldn't even walk in a straight line!
He did confess that despite all this, he might actually be attracted to some women, some of the time. My advice to this gay guy would be to try and date some women again, and maybe he could finally figure out his gayness or lack thereof. Even if women had never worked out for him in his entire flaming life, maybe he was just unlucky all along or something. But if he didn't feel like dating women again, that was okay too. Some gay guys just have straight-conformity anxiety, and it will probably never go away.
My friend, let me introduce you to the myriad wonders of gender and sexual orientation. Your hypothetical gay guy could be described as homosexual (that is, he only wants to bonk people of the same gender) but hetero- or biromantic, that is, he can feel romantic - not sexual! - attraction for his own and other genders.
Also pls note not use "man" and "woman" as icky terms reinforcing binary sexuality, ignoring and insulting entire wonders of Genderbread Person, thanks!
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the problem with introverted fucks like you is that your isolation stems from conceit, you are convinced you are alone by choice and volition and not because you had to get accustomed to your pariah status that only got more ossified over time through repeated social rejection (whether you choose to acknowledge this or not). People around you likely do not hold you high in their opinion and you probably don't even understand what all you are missing out on, at least try to figure out the mental configuration those supposed ''normies'' operate from and then reject it once you have proven your ability to be a part of that social cohesion. The most insufferable dudes I know are both introverted and arrogant about their solitary status
Thank you for the cheerful assessment, and is it any wonder I don't like people?
When I was a kid, my friends were willow trees. In the years since, I have never seen any reason to prefer a human to a tree.
I can definitely say that at school I was not bullied or socially rejected. I did hang out with other kids, just that I never wanted to do this by choice as my first option. I was more content on my own.
"You're a loser because nobody likes you so you have to pretend you don't care about it" is not true in my case. I don't feel all this need for connection and intimacy that, apparently, I should be feeling according to the received wisdom. But I don't feel this need or lack.
Now, you are probably perfectly correct that my wiring is all messed-up and I'm nuts and the rest of it, but I just find it unusual that surely there must be more people, even if only a handful, out there who are solitary and happy to be that way and not wishing they had all this normal life?
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You know the saying about "Be at least two of Truthful, Useful, and Kind"?
Even if your armchair psychologizing is accurate (dubious), you still fail 2 out of 3 and seem to have posted this only to be nasty.
I'm only letting you out of the new user filter to give you a temp ban since this isn't actually your first post. You've been around, kind of, for a while. Obviously a sockpuppet though, probably a ban evader. So next time maybe I just don't let you out of the filter.
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Work more? Assuming you are not set for retirement and maybe plan to have kids in the future a bit more money saved never hurts. If you're not lonely or depressed get out there and make some moolah! Unless you feel unmotivated to work for whatever reason - then maybe you are lonely and/or depressed.
My childbearing days are behind me, thank God. I never wanted children, because I knew I would be incapable as a parent and would cause more harm than good. Also, you need another person even for a minimum period of time to get pregnant, and I couldn't tolerate even that minimum of being involved with another person.
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Nothing.
I mean, what do you expect us to say? Should we be arguing you into loneliness? Do you want us to be arguing you into loneliness? I'd be more concerned about that impulse, if present, than the claim you're not lonely when you "should" be.
Humans are not made alike. Normality is not a well-delineated construct, as shocking as that might sound coming from someone in psychiatry. The same stimuli or stressor that can make someone jump off a bridge might make someone else shrug and carry on carrying on.
The opposite of shocking would be me observing that you are an introvert. That is the kind of cutting, incisive socio-cultural commentary I'm paid for, which explains why I'm paid less than I'd like. You do not strike me as schizoid or schizotypal. You do not sound autistic. There is no obvious psychiatric diagnosis to pin on you, which I am usually loathe to do anyway for random people on the internet. You claim to not even be suffering, which is the main reason I ever break from psychiatric dogma and go "fuck it, I don't care what NICE says, the important thing is to help".
Being introverted, bookish and self-contained isn't a problem, particularly if you don't want to be otherwise. The world has room for all kinds. You don't have to feel lonely just because you're alone.
While I'm here: a GP responding to a disclosure of passive suicidal ideation with one checklist question and then dropping it is bad medicine. I am embarrassed. I can only hope that this happened well in the past, before standards were raised (in theory). If you do not quite feel like you're where you want to be mood-wise, there is little harm in seeing a new GP and getting assessed for dysthymia or low-grade depression. Some people can be surprisingly functional despite moderate to severe depression (wink wink). People with depression are, unfortunately, often lacking the energy or motivation to go get the help they desperately need, even if you don't sound as desperate as many. If you were, I'd be telling you to take this to your actual doctor immediately, instead of the Motte.
No, I was just curious to see what you guys would say, because at least on here something other than the commonplace is considered. If I look around, the advice and discussion is all about "loneliness, what do we do about it, is it an epidemic" because the default assumption if "if not having A, then result B" which is loneliness.
But some people are "if not having A, result C". Now, maybe the answer is "yeah that's 'cos you're a psychopath" and maybe so. For example, the current hit movie "Hail Mary Project" where the protagonist is pressganged into that expedition, against his very vehement opposition and protest, where he is kidnapped, drugged with amnesiacs, put in a coma, and shot off into space on what is a suicide mission (they can get out to the Tau Ceti planet but they won't have enough fuel to get back to Earth).
And the expectation is, and the result is, that he will solve the mystery and send the solution back home to save Earth. He's explicitly told, by the person who ends up shanghaiing him, that he has no connections on Earth: no family, no partner, not even a dog.
And this is all supposed to make him care enough to save them? Were I in that situation, even if I found the solution, I'd send back the message "Fuck you and fuck Earth. You sent me here to die? Well all of you can die along with me. I don't like any of you, I don't care about any of you - WHICH YOU TOLD ME TO MY FACE - and I don't have any reason to help you".
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Isn't there some drug you can prescribe that would induce crippling feelings of loneliness in this defective person?!
Alcohol is a good solution, but sadly it's over the counter in Ireland and my prescription would be redundant. I don't think she's likely to be carded.
That's more of an indirect, slow burner though. A lot of collateral damage involved before the sought-after effect can really kick in.
Hmm. You might want to consider cocaine or meth. The comedown involve, among other things, a strong sense of regret and loneliness. Unfortunately, dentists seem to have a monopoly on the former, and I'd need to be an American shrink in order to prescribe the latter.
Read that as 'regret and homelessness' which made me laugh, almost.
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You forgot to copy-and-paste a link here.
Astral Codex Ten suggests taking the PHQ-9 questionnaire for self-diagnosis of depression.
Based (1 2). This is the part where we suddenly fall in love.
Or not.
Well, I sort of have hobbies, mostly "reading, listening to music, and getting away from people as fast as I can". All the solitary pursuits. It was a constant problem when writing up CVs because you're supposed to put a list of hobbies which are thinly-disguised (or not disguised at all) lists of achievements for why you are such a go-getter successful hard-charger who will maximise value for any employer: captain of this, winner of that, involved in club A and sport B and activity C where you were leader and organiser and winner winner winner.
Having "I don't do any of that" on the 'this is where you sell yourself' document never helped, so eventually I just dropped it anyway. Ironically, the first time I handed in a revised CV with that taken off and went to interview was the first time ever an interviewer asked me "What about your hobbies?" š¤£
Quote from a text message sent by me to my mother (who has failed to take up any hobbies several years after I pestered her into retiring): Reading books and watching shows are not sufficiently interactive to count as real hobbies.
Hobbies can delay cognitive decline in old people. Try designing a code-compliant dream house.
This is the most ToaKraka sentence I can possibly imagine. I'm not sure if the emotion it evoked in me is surprise, per se, I'd need to consult that stupid book Tumblr loves, "A Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows".
Occhiolism? Adronitis? They're all made up words anyway, more made up than words normally are.
Your "dream house" is code-compliant. Of course it is. It could never have been otherwise.
What would be the point of designing a house that you can't build?
Codes don't cover just structural integrity (though you should look at those parts, too, in order to avoid laying out a gigantic living room without realizing that it needs a bunch of obstructive columns in the middle to hold up the roof). They also prescribe minimum dimensions for rooms (both habitable rooms like living rooms, and non-habitable rooms like bathrooms).
Realistically, who's going to stop you? Genuine question, if you submitted a compliant project and then built something else that's not very obviously out of code, barring some incredibly nosy neighbours, as long as you don't have to sell it, wouldn't you just be able to do it?
The local code official conducts inspections throughout construction. If he isn't slacking, he presumably will notice the difference between the 7-foot-wide living room shown on the plans (code-compliant) and the 6-foot-wide living room from which you have cannibalized a foot of width for the adjacent bedroom (not compliant), or between the 77.5-% stairway shown on the plans (code-compliant) and the 85-% stairway from which you have cannibalized a foot of length for the adjacent bedroom (not compliant).
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The only houses I've ever built were in the Sims or Rimworld, and I doubt they were up to code. If they were built in real life, I'd be sued. I'm glad that this is only an academic concern, I'm a doctor and the House of God has all the planning permits it requires.
But yes, if you're designing a house you intend to build and then live in, code compliance isn't something you should ignore. I'm just wistfully observing that even your recreational activities are incredibly pragmatic.
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