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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?
One problem people have is in what they think a “friendship” 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. There’s people I’ve known for 20 years who I’m on great terms with who I wouldn’t 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 “an acquaintance is just someone you know.” “A friend is someone who puts in work on your behalf.” (Putting in work is a phrase used by gang members to commit acts to socially prove you’re a part of the in-group.) If you’re someone’s 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. I’ve made sacrifices and taken hits to my reputation for my friends before, to me that’s what it means to be someone’s 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 don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with you, although it’s a little sad you’ve 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 haven’t 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 didn’t 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 they’re 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 don’t care how much they lie about it.) It’s also a major reason I don’t date women who keep male friends. Women aren’t stupid, they know what they’re doing by keeping men in the mix that play into the role of their backup plans “just in case.” In a relationship you’re 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 women’s friendship as sexual interest because most men get zero attention from women. But I’ve seen it the other way as well, where women insist they’ve dropped every signal and the guy isn’t interested. (No. He sees it. He doesn’t want to risk interpreting your sexual interest as friendship, so he cautions himself not to press it. He’s not stupid either.) The problem is women flirt and express interest with full plausible deniability, and that’s why they lose out on so many opportunities. If you want to make a move, it has to be one that’s unmistakable and that you can’t back out of; you have to be able to bear risking rejection.
There’s only two women in my life (apart from my mother) that I’ve had an “I have to be careful about this person,” 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 “once” in awhile they’d drop the mask on purpose. Occasionally we’d 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 ‘incredibly’ 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 she’s prepared to accept that I’d never marry her I suppose I’d be content with “being a thing,” but I’m 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 wouldn’t expect a female friend to do.
If a female friend asks for help or a favor, she’ll 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, he’s being needy, entitled, and/or pathetic. Doesn’t 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?
It’s 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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