This is a modern requirement of having to talk to people other than your family and friends. If you were a farmer or shepherd or fisherman or … 50 years ago, to whom would you talk during the day and work? Probably noone. You would just talk to your family when back at home.

>If you were a farmer or shepherd or fisherman or … 50 years ago, to whom would you talk during the day and work?

Co-workers? their boss? some entity of the company they are employed by?

Are these farmers/fishermen working solo? it could be their family, but generally in such a situation their family is also employing teenage labor in the form of offspring.

>You would just talk to your family when back at home.

how does that work when you have no family? In the classic times you'd also gather around at a bar to discuss the day with strangers. That doesn't quite work out so well in modern urban environments where even bars come in as groups.

I simply do not get much if any of my human connection needs met by coworkers. I have a family, neighbors, close friends I see frequently and less close friends I see occasionally. A church, relationships based on volunteering, hobbies and interests, teens I mentor and their parents I shoot the shit with. Coworkers are so far down the list of priority socialization that my life isn't negatively affected by not interacting with them physically.

Me me me. Other people exist apart from you!

I'm not the one trying to change everyone else's work environment because I can't meet my human needs elsewhere! (and I don't think you are either?) If you value human connectedness then build it into your life. If you don't then learn to live without it. Don't try to shape the lives of others around you in order that they meet your needs merely because they are easily accessible as coworkers.

> I have a family, neighbors, close friends I see frequently and less close friends I see occasionally

I guess some people have all the luck. By the time I graduated:

- my family was across the country

- neighbors have never been really friends

- close friends mostly went to San Fransico. No one was in my town.

- Meetups didn't form any relationships.

If there was no work I'd just be lonely, and not for the lack of trying.

I have experienced all of these things as well, it's not luck that changed it but time and effort. Except meetups, never seen a real friendship come out of those.

* * *

I'm old and my oldest social ties go back decades now. I think it usually takes 2-5 years of consistent interaction for someone to transition from acquaintance to friend. Neighbors takes years and is just constantly pretty uncomfortable & awkward until eventually it isn't. People come and go too you just roll with it. Most of my closest friends now I didn't know ten years ago. Some of them I won't know in ten years. It's just like that.

At one point I went to a lot of tech meetups and I think they're cool for other reasons but not for forming meaningful relationships. The things that have been most fruitful in that are ones that bring people together for value-based reasons: religion, volunteering, organizing for a specific local cause or movement.

In between are activity-based things like book clubs, sports leagues or game groups. They are good for meeting people to hang out with but individuals in them tend to be transient and I haven't formed many deep friendships from them. Sometimes the line gets blurry though, like martial arts dojos & boxing gyms are activity-based but tend to form tight bonds.

Other than 1 or 2 individuals from previous jobs I've never in my life felt social fulfillment from colleagues. Even those 2 people I haven't spoken to in a long, long time and in fact only remembered they existed because I'm writing this post.

As far as social situations go, colleagues rank somewhere near the bus driver I greet every morning in terms of how much fulfillment they give me.

Meanwhile, the only people in 6 years of work in this town I managed to keep talking to in more than one occasion (outside of work) are my co-workers. And I was trying to go to 2-3 meetups a week pre-COVID. Nothing stuck.

If I graduated amidst COVID, I may legitimately not have anyone to talk to.