Social isolation causing legitimate problems

ardour said:

I came across this website. Whoever this is is obviously trying to flog some popularity manual by making readers feel insecure and hopeless, but this page raised some interesting issues: http://www.adultsocialskills.com/problems.html

"For normal people with friends and social lives these thoughts that never cross their mind. For adult losers, having no friends causes legitimate problems that interfere with their ability to live normally and fit in. Some of the most common of which include:

They have nobody to sign their passport as personal references who are not relatives. The people who they can ask may be individuals they haven’t spoken to in years and it would look incredibly weird to ask them to be references. It would be obvious and embarrassing that you have no friends to the old acquaintance you are asking.

While for most loners finding a partner for marriage is not an option, if they ever had a wedding it would be obvious that they have no friends to invite or stand with them. For socially rejected adults, this would alert family members and the whole world to the fact that they are isolated and alone.

Pictures taken at graduation ceremonies would show that the person has no close friends to invite and everyone there would be wondering where the person’s friends are.

Facebook profiles show little activity and virtually no pictures with friends or out at parties/gatherings. Pictures with other people in them may be extremely dated making it obvious the person has no social life whatsoever.

Certain professions and job applications require personal references that are not family members. Similar to the passport application, the loner has no one to ask other than perhaps old acquaintances who they haven’t spoken to in years. There is virtually no solution to this problem.

If the loner wins or is given tickets to a sports game, concert, vacation or other event, the tickets often come in pairs. The problem is that the loner has no friends to invite to go with them. The people they do know who they can ask are distant contacts that they haven’t spoken to in possibly years or just casual acquaintances. Again, it would be obvious and embarrassing because it would show the world that they loner simply has nobody else to go with.

While most socially rejected adults are unable to attract romantic partners, when dating it would become extremely obvious that you have no friends or social life. The discovery of your social isolation will often cause the potential romantic partner to reject you.

For socially rejected adults these are legitimate problems that cause anxiety, depression, and stress. Friendlessness is not just about being lonely, it is self-limiting condition that is very difficult to break out of and negatively impacts the social rejects’:

career, travel and entertainment related options

ability to partake in common activities and opportunities without people they know finding out that they are a loser

the loners’ chances of dating or securing a long term relationship because they guy/girl they are seeing will often consider them not worthy of dating once they realize that they have no friends or social life"

I don't plan on getting a passport any time soon, but I've faced problems of this sort when applying for jobs (no referees outside of family).

One of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination, or jumping onto the victim identity politics bandwagon...

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sothatwasmylife said:

Yep you've really stated the case there ..but maybe omitted one very significant factor....complete absence of a stabilising family, this may be because of highly damaged individual members within that family and bearing in mind that a person's family while growing up may consist of one parental figure...so instead of a nurturing experience it becomes a transfer of damaging negative behaviours ..undermining an individual to the extent that eventual isolation becomes inevitable...these people are not ' losers ' they are victims

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ardour said:

sothatwasmylife said:

Yep you've really stated the case there ..but maybe omitted one very significant factor....complete absence of a stabilising family, this may be because of highly damaged individual members within that family and bearing in mind that a person's family while growing up may consist of one parental figure...so instead of a nurturing experience it becomes a transfer of damaging negative behaviours ..undermining an individual to the extent that eventual isolation becomes inevitable...these people are not ' losers ' they are victims

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That's a quote from the page if you hadn't realized.

The entire website is horrendous really; the author trying to make money by compounding people's feelings of inadequacy, offering solutions with what seems like generic (and sometimes contradictory) advice. Still there's a few genuine issues raised here and there:

I didn't graduate in-person for the reason stated.

Didn't have a 21st either: literally only 2 friends I could have invited back then and no way I wanted them to know.

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sothatwasmylife said:

No I did realise that ...Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah
Finished now !!

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sothatwasmylife said:

No I did realise that ...I just wanted to add what really infuriates me is although we are encouraged to embrace 'gay marriage'' and pretty much ignore social ills...'gay marriage'' is a contradiction in terms marriage having for most people religious associations and homosexuality being utterly unacceptable within Cristian creed..it is utterly insane....does the state really imagine we are all totally stupid ..A great cause for politicians to sign up to as it involves no government expense and may have the benefit of appearing to make them look enlightened...well it doesn't it just exposes them for the coniving parasites they truly are that's my rant !!
We've even got same sex members of the clergy embarking on gay marriages...for crying out loud just shove Christianity and the entire hypocrisy of religion in the bin and embark on something that may bring about enlightened change...ok..phew!!
Finished now !!

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sothatwasmylife said:

ardour said:

I came across this website. Whoever this is is obviously trying to flog some popularity manual by making readers feel insecure and hopeless, but this page raised some interesting issues: http://www.adultsocialskills.com/problems.html

"For normal people with friends and social lives these thoughts that never cross their mind. For adult losers, having no friends causes legitimate problems that interfere with their ability to live normally and fit in. Some of the most common of which include:

They have nobody to sign their passport as personal references who are not relatives. The people who they can ask may be individuals they haven’t spoken to in years and it would look incredibly weird to ask them to be references. It would be obvious and embarrassing that you have no friends to the old acquaintance you are asking.

While for most loners finding a partner for marriage is not an option, if they ever had a wedding it would be obvious that they have no friends to invite or stand with them. For socially rejected adults, this would alert family members and the whole world to the fact that they are isolated and alone.

Pictures taken at graduation ceremonies would show that the person has no close friends to invite and everyone there would be wondering where the person’s friends are.

Facebook profiles show little activity and virtually no pictures with friends or out at parties/gatherings. Pictures with other people in them may be extremely dated making it obvious the person has no social life whatsoever.

Certain professions and job applications require personal references that are not family members. Similar to the passport application, the loner has no one to ask other than perhaps old acquaintances who they haven’t spoken to in years. There is virtually no solution to this problem.

If the loner wins or is given tickets to a sports game, concert, vacation or other event, the tickets often come in pairs. The problem is that the loner has no friends to invite to go with them. The people they do know who they can ask are distant contacts that they haven’t spoken to in possibly years or just casual acquaintances. Again, it would be obvious and embarrassing because it would show the world that they loner simply has nobody else to go with.

While most socially rejected adults are unable to attract romantic partners, when dating it would become extremely obvious that you have no friends or social life. The discovery of your social isolation will often cause the potential romantic partner to reject you.

For socially rejected adults these are legitimate problems that cause anxiety, depression, and stress. Friendlessness is not just about being lonely, it is self-limiting condition that is very difficult to break out of and negatively impacts the social rejects’:

career, travel and entertainment related options

ability to partake in common activities and opportunities without people they know finding out that they are a loser

the loners’ chances of dating or securing a long term relationship because they guy/girl they are seeing will often consider them not worthy of dating once they realize that they have no friends or social life"

I don't plan on getting a passport any time soon, but I've faced problems of this sort when applying for jobs (no referees outside of family).

One of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination, or jumping onto the victim identity politics bandwagon...

Click to expand...

Yep you've really stated the case there ..but maybe omitted one very significant factor....complete absence of a stabilising family, this may be because of highly damaged individual members within that family and bearing in mind that a person's family while growing up may consist of one parental figure...so instead of a nurturing experience it becomes a transfer of damaging negative behaviours ..undermining an individual to the extent that eventual isolation becomes inevitable...these people are not ' losers ' they are victims

Click to expand...

TheRealCallie said:

sothatwasmylife said:

No I did realise that ...Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah
Finished now !!

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Oh, so you're one of those people that pick and choose where to look in the Bible and determine what it means, huh? Look a little harder and you might realize why what you said is wrong and completely offensive.

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VanillaCreme said:

Keep the religion talk and debate off the forums, please. If you wish to talk about it, take it to PM or other means of communication.

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Rodent said:

Yeah, apart from the legit bureaucratic and professional hurdles named there, that list is really just a travesty. Most of the problems amount to nothing more than "You're gonna look bad in front of others". As if every loner/social isolate wasn't already fully aware of this consequence. Luckily this has lowest possible priority to some of us.

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sothatwasmylife said:

I think if the aim is to prey upon people's insecurities that's a pretty effective tool particularly for younger people who want to be seen as of worth by thier peers and may already be experiencing self doubt...but as you say lowest priority for some of us but I think we may be a minority...I'm gong to take a look at the site/link see if it offers any greater clarity
Yeah well only $30 and a free month subscription to their audio programme...now that's going to totally revolutionize your life.... and covering all the options..fat and lonely...thin and lonely.... excessively good looking and lonely ...and so very many more ... but the market will always attempt to exploit vulnerability where it exists...
it's a part of the human condition...and the web is an ideal tool...we shouldn't condone it ...but it shouldn't really surprise us.

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Rodent said:

sothatwasmylife said:

I think if the aim is to prey upon people's insecurities that's a pretty effective tool particularly for younger people who want to be seen as of worth by thier peers and may already be experiencing self doubt...but as you say lowest priority for some of us but I think we may be a minority...I'm gong to take a look at the site/link see if it offers any greater clarity
Yeah well only $30 and a free month subscription to their audio programme...now that's going to totally revolutionize your life.... and covering all the options..fat and lonely...thin and lonely.... excessively good looking and lonely ...and so very many more ... but the market will always attempt to exploit vulnerability where it exists...
it's a part of the human condition...and the web is an ideal tool...we shouldn't condone it ...but it shouldn't really surprise us.

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Indeed, it's very effective like all the other shaming and ostracizing tactics used to nag one into submission. But I'm not fooling myself either, we are a minority. Acceptance from the flock of the average at the convenient price of 30$ and the relief of your personal integrity is quite tempting...even if this great wisdom is effectively as valuable as whatever can be scraped from the bottom of any cereal box.

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Rodent said:

Yeah, apart from the legit bureaucratic and professional hurdles named there, that list is really just a travesty. Most of the problems amount to nothing more than "You're gonna look bad in front of others". As if every loner/social isolate wasn't already fully aware of this consequence. Luckily this has lowest possible priority to some of us.

Click to expand...

ardour said:

For those of us who aren’t completely satisfied with isolation those problems still matter. I didn’t graduate in-person for the reason stated here, something which felt significant at the time.

The author seems to have done of good job of condensing the negative self-talk lonely people fall into with the intent to exploit those insecurities, but I can’t help thinking some observations are actually on point, particularly the part about in-groups and fear of the loner: http://www.adultsocialskills.com/givingup.htm

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Loners not only project bitterness towards other people, they also, as a defense mechanism to being perceived as a failure, be the first people to declare how happy, successful, or well off they are. This bragging not only comes across as unusual (and pathetic) to normal people, it is normally seen as an indicator of weakness. People who are happy with their lives don’t have to go out of their way to try to tell people – they are too busy being happy.
Trying to overcompensate for what their lives are lacking not only signals to the world that the person is an obvious weak minded loser, it also makes the person even more unlikable. This becomes another part of the cycle as the person grows fatter, more bitter, more annoying, and less likable.

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