The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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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?
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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