[axaxs]

Anecdotally... I am, but I seem doomed.

I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.

[lloeki]

Sounds like you have an introvert trait (in the Myers Briggs sense), which does not mean despising human interaction but that even though you enjoy it, it’s taxing at some level (but you get some benefit at another level). If this is the case, the rejection comes from energy being exhausted (no one enjoys being exhausted) and you have to recharge your social interactions batteries.

At some point you may have intuitively associated meeting with people with that exhaustion and balanced your NN towards “not meeting” by default, hence the doominess feeling.

Active, conscious steps I took to get me out of that:

1. Recognise that being social brings you something internal (mood improvements)

2. Recognise that being social costs you some energy (depletes a battery)

3. Stop self-bashing for “not being social” at times (battery needs topping up)

4. Create a positive feedback loop instead of a negative one, by having less long/intense social interactions but more frequent, so that the battery never truly runs out and has time to recharge quickly

This takes time as the NN has to be retrained to break the default fight or flight reaction of staying in the safe zone at home.

It’s a bit like enjoying running a marathon and have a happy and relaxed mind following that, but the body is exhausted and certainly doesn’t want to run again back to back as it needs time to recover.

The introvert trait will not go away but the battery can be trained and improved in capacity, and end up looking forward to meeting people as long as it’s properly managed.

[humanrebar]

Protip: Volunteer somewhere. Or just find people who enjoy your company.

If you're treating this like a diet or exercise regimen, it will probably turn out the way most of those turn out.

Instead, maybe think about the other people involved and consider them important as well. There are plenty of people that need some attention, care, resources, advice, and so on. If people come to rely on you, it is motivating, meaningful, and is more in line with the Golden Rule. I'm sure most of us would rather be friends with someone than be their weekly dose of socializing.

If you really don't like people, help out animals. Or the environment. Or "the commu ity". As long as it's part of a team.

[kd5bjo]

On the opposite end of the scale: go to a sporting event and cheer on the home team. You’ll be in an energetic group with common purpose, and no expectation to hold a conversation of any kind.

[humanrebar]

My point was that "how am I minmaxing my life?" is a poor foundation for a healthy relationship on an ethical level if not a practical one. Go ahead and start with being focused on others and trust that the personal benefits will follow.

Cheering on an underappreciated club might have the same benefits, but I'm mostly doubtful that consumer activities, albeit fun and mildly social ones, qualify as being externally focused.

[taborj]

Can confirm; generally dislike going out around people, but love me a good baseball/softball game.

[Kiro]

What if you don't feel social interactions bring you anything positive at all? I get exhausted _and_ depressed by meeting people. Totally not worth it.

[stronglikedan]

Then you should talk to someone, because that doesn't sound healthy. There are no externalities that should be triggering depression.

[passwordreset]

My father just died, my mother is depressed. That's a natural, normal, healthy reaction to a traumatic externality.

Being depressed as a result of meeting people that you don't want to meet seems perfectly normal to me. Talking to someone when you don't want to talk to them seems like it would only get you more depressed.

IMO, bad advice, please rethink.

[stronglikedan]

Your mother isn't depressed because your father died. You should not be feeling depressed because you meet some people you'd rather not. It seems like there are some unhealthy internalizations going on that can be identified by talking to someone (for a start). I hope for the best.

[watwut]

His mother emotional state should be unaffected by husbands death?

[lawlorino]

> NN

Neural network??

[jlnthws]

Yes, nobody uses brain anymore.

[lloeki]

This was on purpose, as "brain" is a fuzzy, complex thing whereas taking a license to use NN as a (limited) model of learning and reinforcement echoes to some much more precise concept including its behaviour and corner cases that many around here know about when playing with CUDA but fail to make the leap that our brain/mind/psychology (see? fuzzy!) works quite the same way.

[BrendanD]

Mushy grey stuff.

[williamchangnpu]

> balanced your NN towards “not meeting” by default

I'm wondering what does NN mean, am I losing some context?

[jraby3]

I’m the same way, so I built in a fix to my lifestyle. When I was single I always lived with a roommate. Most times I preferred meeting friends than going home after work. And I chose to marry someone who loves social interaction so now we kind of balance each other out.

Worst period of my life was single and living alone. Way too easy to go home after work and never meet or talk to anyone outside of work.

[colechristensen]

What helps is building awareness of your attention/desire traps and consciously manipulating the system that is you to optimize it. That can take the form of depriving yourself of things you "want" (looking at screens is real common) to let yourself get bored to seek out that attention fix somewhere else, it could take the form of creating a regular reminder with a calendar app, it could take the form of convincing someone else to keep you social... you don't have to be a slave to your built-in drives, they're often really stupid and too easily satisfied.

[forgotmypw]

I think this is common. In small/tribal communities, this is often mitigated by group events on a regular basis, as well as smaller circles that all check on each other.

[kr4]

I think the key to attain ever-lasting happiness is to commit ourselves to doing kind or selfless deeds as a habit [0]. Scientifically it's been observed that when we make someone happy the same region lights up in our brain [1] when we do something to make ourselves happy.

Coupled with meditation that makes you more mindful so you can be more kind (kindfullness), you can attain a state of mind in which you can remain happy most of the time. The problems of the world will continue to be there but those will decreasingly have lesser impact on your inner state of happiness.

0: I track and share my random act of kindness (RAKs) on Black Lotus along with logging/measuring my meditation/chanting sessions (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rt.pinpric... )

1: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/want-to-be-happier-give-m_b_6...

[randomsearch]

Sharing this because I said it the other day and it seemed to resonate.

Happiness is overvalued. Meaning or purpose is undervalued.

Happiness is based on a transition: something new, a change of circumstances, and is by its nature temporary. Meaning and purpose are long term.

Seek meaning, not happiness.

[Reelin]

Closely related - instead of looking for something that will make you happy, look for something that will engage your interest or excite you.

[saiya-jin]

> Seek meaning, not happiness.

Hold your horses a bit here. Just because some mental model works for your, please don't do blanket statements for entire human civilization.

I for example pursue many utterly selfish hobbies without any proper meaning to me or anybody else, full of objective dangers that can kill me in case of lack of attention (or pure bad time at bad spot situation), last time this Sunday (ended up with scratches all over me after some nasty snow field slide, albeit this is very rare outcome).

The only meaning of those things (hiking, climbing, diving, paraglide, ski alpinism etc.) is feeling 200% alive, being extremely content with my life which can be described as... you get it... happiness. Climbing to the top of some peak doesn't have any proper meaning, it has been done 1000s before and will be done after me, the only meaning is how it feels during and after the adventure.

Maybe its just juggling words and we both mean same thing at the end, but I know far too many people technically unable to find long term happiness, to see how that sucks. Most of them are these highly-driven super-competitive types that have lives that look great on outside... but only if you don't know them very well.

[murm]

> I for example pursue many utterly selfish hobbies without any proper meaning to me or anybody else ... the only meaning of those things is feeling 200% alive

> Climbing to the top of some peak doesn't have any proper meaning, it has been done 1000s before and will be done after me, the only meaning is how it feels during and after the adventure.

I don't quite understand what is your concept of meaning. You say that you pursue all these difficult and dangerous things that make you feel 200% alive and extremely content with your life. I wonder, how much more meaning could you ask for? To me, feeling completely alive while immersed in something is pretty much the definition of a meaningful activity! Happiness and contentment seems to be a nice bonus caused by the realization that you are in the middle of something that feels very meaningful to you.

[saiya-jin]

Well then we have different views on what a meaningful activity is for us. I don't have an exact definition per se, but it would go along: changing the world for the better, if only by slightest amount. Helping others. Improve myself (debatable since its usually a tough workout and exposing oneself to dangers changes personality a bit for the better).

Maybe its about about direction - inwards vs outwards. Dunno. But climbing some big rock, risking my life definitely doesn't feel like it has big meaning to me. I am not saving anybody hanging there. But it makes me happy. Working for some NGO, being a doctor or improving peoples lives would definitely be in the category of work with purpose/meaning.

[randomsearch]

> Hold your horses a bit here. Just because some mental model works for your, please don't do blanket statements for entire human civilization.

It sounds like you've taken the aphorism to be all-encompassing.

I didn't mean "pursue meaning and forget happiness", rather that it is better to weight your goals in life to the former, as it is more sustainable.

In general I think aphorisms are rules of thumb. All such observations require careful interpretation/application to enact them usefully.

[User23]

Display behaviors such as willful risk taking and demonstrating physical prowess that greatly increase your mating market value are far from meaningless or purposeless. That they also make you happy in themselves is wonderful, but even if they made you miserable and you just chose to do them anyhow they would still have meaning and purpose.

[kr4]

An act of kindness is a way to express our gratitude toward the society and/or nature by contributing with our skills and resources. It makes us feel that we have something valuable to offer and that certainly gives meaning to our life.

[kyuudou]

Also, eudaimonia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia)

[wodenokoto]

That's how most people feel about working out. The hardest part is getting the running shoes on, but once you're doing it, it feels really good.

I don't think it is unusual for people to have an averse reaction to investing in themselves, although it does look illogical from the outside.

[Balgair]

Nitpick: It feels really good for most people.

For me, I just feel like crap. I've run a marathon before and done a lot of other types of exercise, but that 'glow' that people report having is not something that I've ever gotten. I don't feel good after a workout or during one; I feel tired, gross, and irratiable.

[scarejunba]

The trick is pre-planning. When you commit to events with groups, the desire to not let anyone down overrules all else. Then you realize you have fun anyway!

Most of my weekends are already assigned and I purposely allow for some rest days. And I usually allow for some spontaneous requests to hang out.

I'm happier than I've ever been and I know more people now than I've ever known.

You still need time to yourself so you should respect that but knowing that these people care about me is nice :)

[mikekchar]

You may be like me. I discovered when I did a teaching gig that I love being at the centre of attention. If you have an opportunity to try giving some talks, you may find that you really enjoy it. Having a schedule where you have to show up and do that kind of thing helps (or at least it does for me). Speaking of which, I really need to find some place to give talks around here...

[sAbakumoff]

nah..social connections frequency is not the only factor for long living. if a person goes out every day and meets friends and stuff but drinks a bunch of alcohol and smokes and does not care about sleeping properly then he/she is doomed more than a loner who is trying to keep healthy lifestyle.

[Kiro]

Sounds like an exact description of me, except one major difference:

> I am in such a better mood for a few days

I get incredible anxiety after meeting people that disappears after a few days. It's not worth it at all and I'm extremely happy if I just avoid people.

[SN76477]

I started doing grubhub just because it forces me out of the house a few times a day. It really shakes things since I work from home on my career work.

[hycaria]

A lot of my socialization is done through my job (not coworkers), that's one solution.

[msiyer]

you are not doomed. you are just fine.

you can be talkative or you can go in to deep meditation in the middle of a crowd. whatever be it do it consciously. remove all guilt and all negativity from it. experience everything deeply - silence or noise.

[mapcars]

>I seem doomed

If you think you are doomed you will be doomed.

>I'm not really antisocial

If you think you are not really antisocial you will be not really antisocial.

>I can become overtalkative at times

If you think you can become overtalkative you will be able to become overtalkative.

>I never seem to want to 'get out'

If you think you never seem to want - you will never seem to want

>when I force myself

If you think you force yourself - you will force yourself.

>I am in such a better mood

If you think you are in a better mood - you will be in a better mood.

>back to normal

If you think you are back to normal - you will be back to normal.

Once you reach a place beyond thinking you will gain control over these things.

[andai]

But how? Also your comment could have been a bit more concise. This way it reads really tedious and kinda like you're making fun of it.

Or rather, the actually important part (how to do it) is concise to the point of not even being included!

[mapcars]

I wanted to show how much we tend to condition ourselves. I don't have the intention to make fun here.

It's good you are asking about the how - please see once you think "I am <something>" - this is what will determine your whole behavior on many levels and this is what you will become in many ways. Try to be conscious through the day and see every decision you are making - is it in some way based on the idea of yourself? A simple pattern of a mind "I will (not) do that because I am (not) a ...".

One way to go beyond this is to see clearly - every single moment of your life you are not "somebody" defined. Instead according to the situation around you become somebody. In the office you become an office worker and behave in one way, at home you become a family member and behave another way, at a party with friends it is again another way. Sometimes you can even forget to "be someone" and just be - for example in moments of great joy or intense activity.

Just see if you can observe this through your day - you should see yourself that your personality is flexible, it is not set in stone. See if you can find where does it come from, what defines it - I promise you this discovery will be one of the most wonderful things happened to you.

This is as much as I can give you via a text message.

[mapcars]

Randomly I just hit this text related to the topic, it's easy to tell he does experience something beyond the thinking mind

https://the-talks.com/interview/jim-carrey/