<story><title>A practical guide to reducing loneliness</title><url>https://burgesspowell.medium.com/a-practical-guide-for-reducing-loneliness-right-now-f02f8c3035bd</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hardwaregeek</author><text>This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy? One underrated benefit of therapy is that it can help you analyze social situations and build the necessary skills to be more social. Therapists are professionals at talking to people and building a rapport after all.</text></item><item><author>spaetzleesser</author><text>This is the typical advice by extroverts: “just go out and have fun  . If I can do it why can’t you do it?”. Most lonely people know already what to do in theory but for whatever reason they can’t pull it off. That’s certainly the story of my life. I know what I should do but I can’t execute it correctly. I mess up small talk all the time and for some reason never get better. It seems some of my social circuits haven’t been wired correctly and are introducing errors.&lt;p&gt;Advice giving is a dangerous thing if you haven’t experienced the problem. I don’t  have eating problems  so for me it’s really easy not to eat that donut or the bucket of ice cream but I have learned and accepted that for some overweight people it’s an almost insurmountable problem. I can’t really relate but I have learned enough over the years to stay away from giving ignorant or condescending advice.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anand-bala</author><text>I suffer from severe depression in general and social anxiety around more than a handful of people, and have talked to therapists regarding this. One huge benefit of therapy is that I was quite quickly able to answer the question of __why__ I feel the way I do, especially around new people I meet. But it is a whole another thing to actually being able to &amp;quot;fix&amp;quot; it. The way I think about it is that I know what the problem is _in theory_, but have no idea how to come up with a _practical_ fix for it.&lt;p&gt;When I was less depressed, I was able to join a local D&amp;amp;D group, go for bar trivia nights, etc. but as I became more depressed&amp;#x2F;anxious&amp;#x2F;stressed (coz of personal and professional situations), it became harder to push myself to become sociable and not get anxious around crowds.&lt;p&gt;So I think the main point that the parent comment is trying to say is that people need to recognize that problems that may seem to have simple and straightforward &amp;quot;solutions&amp;quot; (like &amp;quot;have you considered therapy&amp;quot;) are significantly harder for some individuals purely due to other mental health issues.&lt;p&gt;I am not trying to fault you, but it is a thing I see in a lot of my friends&amp;#x2F;peers&amp;#x2F;relatives is that it gets harder to understand how different mental health issues affect different people in incredibly different ways.</text></comment>
<story><title>A practical guide to reducing loneliness</title><url>https://burgesspowell.medium.com/a-practical-guide-for-reducing-loneliness-right-now-f02f8c3035bd</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hardwaregeek</author><text>This is a little left-field, but have you considered therapy? One underrated benefit of therapy is that it can help you analyze social situations and build the necessary skills to be more social. Therapists are professionals at talking to people and building a rapport after all.</text></item><item><author>spaetzleesser</author><text>This is the typical advice by extroverts: “just go out and have fun  . If I can do it why can’t you do it?”. Most lonely people know already what to do in theory but for whatever reason they can’t pull it off. That’s certainly the story of my life. I know what I should do but I can’t execute it correctly. I mess up small talk all the time and for some reason never get better. It seems some of my social circuits haven’t been wired correctly and are introducing errors.&lt;p&gt;Advice giving is a dangerous thing if you haven’t experienced the problem. I don’t  have eating problems  so for me it’s really easy not to eat that donut or the bucket of ice cream but I have learned and accepted that for some overweight people it’s an almost insurmountable problem. I can’t really relate but I have learned enough over the years to stay away from giving ignorant or condescending advice.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nonbirithm</author><text>Therapists are in extremely short supply right now. I recently got a wait-list for four months where I live.&lt;p&gt;The intervening period of time reminds me that I&amp;#x27;m supposed to be in therapy, that I might &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; therapy, but am instead unable to see anyone. That makes my day-to-day life feel wrong, moreso than if I had never considered it as an option.</text></comment>