Gladwell observed in Tipping Point that most peoples' social circle is usually created by one high connection "maven" who connects many low connection end nodes. You want to try to move closer to how that maven operates.
Concretely: If you go out with a friend, and end up becoming buddies with the waitress, and then also know of an after party you can bring the friend to, by virtue of your network, you will constantly be getting solicited to hang out. Even more quantitatively: if you can average +2 casual connections per day when you try, you'll be doing very well. But two connections in a day is very difficult for most people on HN; you'll have to work and experiment on how to achieve that.
Another interesting dynamic in Seattle is that people seem to assume all the people they know already know each other, which means nobody tries to introduce people. I have an old friend up there who used to insist I already knew people I hadn't met, which was frustrating. The result of this tendency is a social network with a highly connected center and a lot of poorly connected leaves. This structure really revealed itself when my social network was struck by a tragedy where several people were victims of a shooting -- there was a group of people who all had direct connections to at least one victim, and another group who didn't know any of the victims personally but a majority of their friends had. I was in the latter group and I found it very strange.
It was a huge contrast when I moved to the Bay Area, where people assumed everyone was a transplant and went out of their way to do introductions. I was at a party once where I was reintroduced to the same person four times -- someone who I had already met years earlier.
[0]:http://johnassaraf.com/goal-achieving-2/a-tale-of-two-shoe-s...
Most of all, have compassion for and care about yourself. It doesn't solve every problem, but it's the most important relationship you have by far. Without it, you'll always be lonely no matter who is around. With it, how others respond won't matter so much.
Have compassion for the other people too, especially those who don't respond. They have their own problems which have nothing to do with you, which, like everyone else's problems, might make them a*holes at times. The reasons they don't respond likely have nothing to do with you. Don't objectify them - don't make them characters in your narrative of your social life; they have their own narratives independently of everyone else.
Another reason to have compassion for them is that people in your situation tend to adopt a perspective where all the power is in the hands of others: They respond or they don't. It's not a healthy (or realistic) perspective; you have power too and they are flawed, vulnerable human beings too.
And more practically, instead of worrying about people who don't seem to respond, keep trying until you find some who do - it can be hard to motivate yourself but it's worth the effort. For everyone, there are plenty of both kinds and it's no shame if it doesn't work out with some - that's inevitable given the odds - or if the ones that will respond are hard to find. You don't need many successes to have a social life and you are worth the effort no matter how bad your experiences so far.
Finally, many people find themselves lonely at times in their life, and find they need only one really close relationship, a life partner. If you have yourself (see above) and a life partner, then the other relationships become much less significant. Maybe that's the real goal; it can take a lot of looking, but once you find the person you both have it made (with plenty of work!).
Good luck!
But it's very, very hard.
You probably have a reason for liking those Japanese bands. They excite you somehow. Find out why. If you can articulate it, then people will be able to understand your passion.
I love creating Technologie that contributes to my way of life instead of making me more isolated.
No I don’t support a family. But keep in mind my parents raised me waiting on tables.
I'm sorry, but your whole experience reeks of the annoying kind of self-righteousness that only people with no real obligations have.
Correct me if I'm wrong but you choose to have children, a partner and other "obligations", so how is he the self-righteous one?
Because he doesn't have kids?
It is an obligation to take care of oneself, to be self sufficient. What you say is slandering this guy's work.
he's not living at home with his parents paying his rent, he's not living on welfare. He's making his way in the world on his own. "No real obligations"?
I struggle too, with resisting consumerist urges; which have been ingrained in me since birth. But really, they are right. Does purchasing Tom Ford apparel make you happy? It's fine if it does, but what happens if you don't? Nothing at all, actually.
We don't need all the things we're so constantly sold, and recognizing that lifts a weight (or anxiety, if you wanna call it that) from the shoulders. There's freedom in not needing things.
Go outside. It's free and fun.
Let's face it - 33% of males aren't going to have families of their own, and probably 66% or so (very rough figures) will end up spending the majority of their lives without their families (due to ez-divorce and custody laws favoring mothers).
The next step in our little social activism pendulum is looking at custody laws for sure. Men are very much at risk here on the topic of loneliness especially.
I now deeply regret working as a software engineer in my 20s, as I’ve realized it contributed massively to my loneliness. Which is sad because I used to be so excited about technology and now I see it as the biggest trend in reducing quality of life.
It seems the more interactions that are mediated by technology the less human contact we have.