By not socializing, you are avoiding (to quote the linked article) a "fundamental human need." This is not something you can simply live without, just like you cannot live a good live without exercise.
The view you are espousing is fundamentally unhealthy.
Though I do think, if you extend the metaphor, that saying that socializing is a dull chore is a bit like saying exercising is a dull chore.
[1] https://www.ssmhealth.com/newsroom/blogs/ssm-health-matters/...
I organized a large (600+-person at its peak) Meetup in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY during Meetup's hayday (2010-ish).
Meeting heaps of different people from all walks of life was interesting at first. But like a previous poster stated, connections like these are fleeting and take a lot of work to maintain (especially if you're a man, which I am; see the end of this post for more on that).
Consequently, the process of meeting people eventually became very same-y after a short while, and knowing that these conversations usually won't amount to anything other than nice, fleeting moments got old.
There was also the drama of managing "interesting" personalities in a free Meetup group. I passed the baton in 2012 or so, but that's another post for another day.
I'll conclude this post with some unsolicited advice: try to learn what people do for work without asking them directly.
EVERYONE expects this question, and it can be a conversation killer if your occupations don't intersect (less likely) or if the person you're conversing with hates their job (more likely). Everyone ALSO loves talking about themselves. Finding out how someone spends the largest part of their day without asking point-blank adds interesting twists and turns that can really liven up a conversation. It also makes you a better listener and better at asking questions.
I lied; I have more unsolicited advice. The easiest way to give a shit about what someone does for work is to ask lots of questions! Unless they hate their job, in which case, you'll want to ask questions that get them talking about what they do enjoy!
Typing that last paragraph reminded me of another reason why I got burned out on socializing with people. I'm a man. Most men only like sports and video games; two things I couldn't care less about. Socializing with other men as a man who dislikes these things is extremely difficult, especially in the US South, where I live. I blame the suburban lifestyle, but that, too, is another post for another day.
I see this a lot and it's interesting because I don't like to talk about myself much. Doubly so about work. I wonder how many of us there are.
I don't like asking about movies, music, or books because those discussions can end up being performative.
Anecdotally, I'd say women are worse when it comes to interests. It's incredibly common that they just don't have any, which isn't the end of the world, oddly enough. There might be little to discuss, but drinking some wine, going to the movies or a gallery while having a pleasant conversation - these can be fine activities. Hard to turn it into a club, but on the other hand it's basically universal.
You're looking at it wrong, or from a Mans perspective. Woman don't need the same "activities" or "hobbies" as men, these are doing thing that Men like.
Woman just need to socialize to socialize. Thats why they have book clubs, brunches and wine/art. They just need to talk.
YMMV: This is all generally speaking.
One thing that vexes me in dating women, however, is that it's hard to figure out what "type" of woman a woman is. I think men might be a bit easier to read at a glance.
I ask 'What keeps you busy?' and if people think of work then that's fine, but for those of us that don't center our lives that way there is an opportunity to discuss something else. Asking what you do for income is a more narrow and closed conversation.
It seems like there's got to be some statistical fallacy being made, like asserting "all humans need visual stimulation to survive" and then all the blind people on earth shrug at the data and realize they're not human I guess? On average it's true, "all humans" would go crazy if deprived of their sight, but it turns out some people do it just fine and can have rich, human lives.
I wonder if it's just when people live very social lives, the idea of deriving satisfaction in life internally, to be able to self regulate and maintain a health sense of identity without frequent input from others, is just too alien to consider. To not dislike people, or lack social skills, but just be as disinterested in socializing as I am in starting a coin collection. Or maybe all that is just extremely uncommon and experiences like mine are just a true rounding error.
When you have this sort of a revelation, it's difficult to hold it in. You want to shout it from the rooftops. You want to grab every single person you can find who has a life remotely like yours years ago when you were unhappy, and save them, in the same way that you yourself needed saving.
I try not to do this any more because I understand it's annoying, and the message is unlikely to successfully transmit anyways. But I suspect this is the phenomenon you are observing.
I've found a lot of those assertions about how to live a "great" life (often based on societal averages about life expectancy) don't fit my actual subjective experience, and I had to spend years doing all the "right things" in life and wondering why it wasn't fulfilling for me. Similar to the sibling comment, it's been liberating to stop taking that type of advice as applicable to me, but that means it jumps out at me everywhere now, hah.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm approaching my 40's, have had partners, lived with them for years, good relationship with family, never been burned or damaged socially. Those things just still never seemed as central or necessary to me as they apparently are for others.
Friends and a partner act like a small life coach. I am sure many unhealthy habits are correlated with being left entirely to your own devices. I know I would go to the doctor more if I had a partner coaching/bugging me that I go more.
We are the outliers. If everyone was wired like me, the concept of a dinner party would simply not exist and Facebook would look like this.
Your exemple is in fact good because a hella lot of people find exercice to be exactly a "dull chore". Same as eating healthy actually.
So, mentioning that socializing can be, for some people, a chore doesn't go against the fact that it is something essential.
You can even be conscious about it and still don't like it : I hate exercising but i still do it because, well, it's needed.
No hate intended towards those who feel the need to be social. If you feel like you’re missing out, the article has some good advice. But there’s nothing wrong with those of us who prefer a quiet morning walk to an average conversation.
I don't know what you're talking about. People loooove talking about how hell is other people or how they'd rather be curled up on the couch, how relieved they are when others cancel plans at the last minute.
There's literally an entire website dedicated to people with this point of view, it's called Reddit.
None of this has required much in the way of socializing, in fact excessive socializing would actively interfere with these activities.
I reject your implication that a highly social life is better than a rich, mostly solitary life. It’s different, but not better.
I don’t travel alone, I travel with my partner who is a great companion.
IRL conversation is an art, and few people are even halfway decent at it. Maybe that’s the true source of my complaint. To make an IRL conversation entertaining you need expressiveness, creativity, as well as a good variety of topics and tolerance for differences of opinion. Not many people can check all these boxes.
Even many so-called “freethinkers” merely regurgitate common talking points and claim that this is somehow interesting, and they get more aggressive than “normies” if you try to branch out! I used to be able to engage in open ended conversations with people where you explore topics from all angles and adopt abhorrent positions as a way to understand the truth. Nobody seems to be comfortable with that anymore. Perhaps in the past everyone was just so drunk that they didn’t care about their inhibitions; I don’t tend to drink socially anymore and alcohol is famously a social lubricant.
That sounds very unpleasant to be around.
I understand this deeply. On the other hand, I do believe that community is essential for a good life (for 99%+ of people). It's a struggle for me, as I want community, but I've had many wrecking balls and anchors (and been them), and so I tend to be defensive.
> Other people [...] are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests.
I also feel this. But I suspect a large part of this is that defensiveness, people are meant to live in harmony with those (fairly) different from them. But especially with regard to differing values, sometimes it feels like no one around you shares the same framework. I think that's one reason people move to new places.
Social life is a bit like SEO. To get the full benefits, you needed to start on it years ago. Trying to do it just-in-time is generally a very frustrating experience. I think there's wisdom in doing casual cultivation when you don't feel you need it. It's like keeping your skills/résumé up-to-date just in case.
Does every person need to be unpredicatable and intellectually stimulating in order to spend time with them? If a friend who lives in Rotorua is interested in mountain biking (how predictable, how shallow) does that make spending time on a bike in the forest with them somehow lesser?
I do agree with your point too: perhaps emotional stimulation is also important? That can be a lot less sharp, less well-defined, but just as enriching.
It sounds like GP has very high standards for their friends, which is not the point IMO. I think we should have friends to broaden our horizons and expose us to new things. Intelligence is only one part of that.
I can attribute jumping several economic classes to the social skills I honed in high school and college. I have many friendships that are decades-plus and I had 150+ of my invited friends / family attend my wedding.
Emotionally, I do not long for new friends. It's a lot of work to maintain the relationships I have with my friends, family, wife and daughter.
I find aimless socialization these days to be laborious. I just do not give a shit.
I recently moved to NYC. I am at a point in my career where it's networking and politics that will get me ahead. I see a lot of my net-new socialization moving this direction.
I realized all of this while not having gone to the apparent extreme you have, and never stopped building new friendships, but my level of engagement in those friendships and how I felt about them did change. I don't believe you can constantly add new arbitrary friends and have them all be equally as deep or stimulating—it's not economical from a time perspective, assuming you want to be friends with yourself too and devote time to your own interests alone—but that doesn't mean you need to exempt yourself from social life altogether.
Additionally, I've found that the people I'm exposed to and can build strong relationships with are only limited by own interests and depth. I have been fairly one-dimensional at times, and thus my friends end up being people who can tolerate that one-dimensionality. If I bring political bs to every party, I'll only be invited to parties I won't kill the vibe at, it's not their fault, and likewise if all I could talk about was programming, I'd only have tech friends. Incidentally I have only two tech friends among at least 20-30 pther "strong" friends from completely unrelated backgrounds with different dispositions.
It's okay to not miss a specific type of social life, but I think it's worth reflecting more deeply on a lack of interest in any social life. Your social life should not be transactional, imho. A book won't show up to your wedding, a book will not wave at you while on your to a grocery store, and a book will not climb a mountain, go biking, or play cards with you during a rainstorm on a train. Your romantic partner might, but they can't be expected to do it all the time. I don't do any of that with all my friends either.
They're people that I've known typically for at least 2 years, I trust, and I'd be able to DM for a hangout, drink with, engage in a variety of common interests together, we can roast each other and be toxic and give each other a pass as long as it's all in good humor.
The skills and traits that make me reasonably good at that don't help me in the kinds of activities that make people boring and successful in a nostalgic middle class suburbia sense, so it has tradeoffs, and it's not always easy, but it averages out to easy. I used to be very shy, and probably wouldn't be this way if I'd stayed in my hometown where everyone just stays away from each other and knows their high school mates. I live in a relatively expensive city, don't have a car or a house, or kids, or many physical assets. I'm employed, but probably have not been for more than half of my adult life, and I rent.
Spreading myself too thin beyond that isn't really sustainable until there's a good foundation of trust built and it's not as necessary to see each other every week. Some older friends I see once a year, others I've seen 4 times this week due to holiday parties, and some are people I know in my community. Events and lots of socializing come in bursts and it can be tiring, so I'll just dip out for a while and refresh when necessary, which I'm currently looking forward to, but have a wedding and a birthday coming up in the next 3 days lol
Incidentally, I've also never once known my immediate neighbors beyond a brief few conversations.
Other people (at least in this country) are generally emotionally messy, unwilling to tolerate people with radically different views/values, and either intellectually lacking or overly predictable in their interests. The few times I find a candidate who isn’t like this, they usually have some kind of personality disorder that makes them too unstable for long-term friendship. When I was younger I often looked past this, but there’s only so many times you are willing to let a human wrecking ball into your life.
A good book is almost always better. The life of a deep reader and casual hobbyist is rich and fulfilling if your romantic needs are satisfied at home. I do not miss my former social life at all.
Just leaving this out there for any other wayward souls who may be annoyed by the conversation.