For one thing, I was severely traumatized as a kid, which delayed a lot of my social skills. I'm catching up but not all the way there yet. When my social battery is full, I can do pretty well, but if I'm even a little down, it's basically impossible to act normally.

I also had it hammered into me as a kid that nobody wants me around, nobody could ever love me, I'm a failure, a burden, a creep, a weirdo, and nothing but a bothersome nuisance that nobody would ever want to spend 30 seconds alone with. I'm trying to reject these thoughts, but it's difficult when you have nobody to talk to. It's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I wonder how many people have the same issue. I've made a few friends in person, but I rarely get to see them.

Well I've started doing public surveys in my nearby big city, and documenting the results. I just hold out a posterboard that says "how alone do you feel" or "have you ever been in love" etc, and hold out a marker, and people come up and take the survey. At first I did this out of sheer loneliness and boredom. But I have done it for enough months that some people have come up to me and told me that I've helped them, or that they look forward to my signs.

I'm trying to reach those people who feel the way I feel have no way of connecting with anyone, or at least feel that they don't. Do you have any new ideas of how to achieve this?

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250212233145/https://www.hhs.g...

[1] https://thepeoplescommunity.substack.com/

[3] https://www.tiktok.com/@amandalitman/video/75927501854034854...

[4] https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-s...

[5] https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html

[6] How A Decline In Churchgoing Led To A Rise In ‘Deaths Of Despair’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 - December 2025 (2 comments)

And that can happen even when you are among 1000s of people, not just alone , if you are among people thinking of something else, staring into the void or that you can't connect etc. you are a deep person.

Deep person + deep thinker is the worse. Also people aren't doing them any favor by singing the praise of being a deep person and a deep thinker.

It also has to do with abundance of everything and being not in need of cooperating 24/7/365 to avoid starving ....some people slip into deep thinking and deep emotional introspection...yeah fuck that

I am a tail-end boomer in the U.S. so my experiences were with a world where socializing was more functional: we shopped in public, played in public, read in public libraries, watched movies in public, rode transit together, etc. Being in public was a requirement, not a choice. While there are still remnants of this older culture still active in today's world in urban life, there are so many options for not being in public that it is simply easier to avoid it. We all want our space in one degree or another.

On the playground growing up, my world was filled with name-calling and backbiting. I was a heavier kid, so that was my burden. Other kids had bucked teeth, warts, limps, they were too short, or too tall, uncoordinated--whatever--nobody really escaped the wrath of the crowd. We were forced, by our parents, to just deal with it.

My parents like many others in their generation recognized this behavior for what it was--natural. Watch an episode of the Little Rascals--you will see what I am referring to.

Most if not all of those kids who were called names and isolated in some way found ways to break out of their pigeon hole: playing sports, playing music, making art, studying hard at school, boxing, singing, dancing, cracking jokes, whatever. Then they were heroes, and the crowd could celebrate them--and they thrived.

I know this sounds overly idealistic, but it is true. I experienced this first hand in a neighborhood of several hundred kids from broken homes, poor homes, ethnic homes, etc.

Voiceless people must find their voice. The responsibility is their's. The crowd will not come to the rescue of the person who won't stand up for themselves and make their way in life.

Loneliness is very, very sad. The cure to loneliness is in the powerful hands of the lonely person. Do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to work on those things that hold the lonely person back from achieving something--anything--for themselves and then engage with the crowd with more confidence.

I appreciate what you are doing by helping others--that is one of your superpowers. Live a good, strong life!

Make them interact and do things, generally they will be less toxic because it will reduce their online disinhibition effect.

Make them have meals, meet, walk at the park, whatever.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/655493/new-low-satisfied-person...

1: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-10-09/Community

When you are younger, you belong in school. When you get older, you belong at work.

If you fall out of any of these social structures its extremely difficult to find your way back in.

I was already pretty disconnected from society and people in general when my divorce hit and now I am completely untethered from any kind of community. Living is miserable I hate my life and I do not want to exist like this anymore.

None of the solutions people provide are easy or functional. "Go meet people" is the most vague, unhelpful bullshit ever.

I think the reality is some people, no matter how intelligent, caring or otherwise full of empathy they may be are just "too far gone" for anyone to have the initiative or concern to care about us. The world is so corroded and socially poisoned that any kind of meaningful effort in this kind of thing is pointless. Anybody with time or money is busy making money.

You can't solve the epidemic because it is a byproduct of multiple irreparably broken systems. People will continue to fall through the cracks and it will get worse. I don't know what happens after that but we'll probably all be dead.