Related Recs

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Freeing myself from loneliness

Since some big life changes that have left me feeling incredibly alone. I’ve had time to reflect on it and I wanted to share what has helped me so far.. 1. loneliness, in its solitude, is an emotion, a way in which we feel. I’ve found it so difficult to stop thinking ‘I have no one and I am alone’. but try to replace it with ‘I am feeling lonely right now, how can I stop this?’ Everything is temporary, including this feeling. 2. Find autonomy with your time. When I became lonely I soon became depressed. A vicious cycle of feeling lonely but only refining yourself to your bed and room. You don’t need to do things with people to help this feeling. Just do the thing! find hobbies and activities that you enjoy first. It gives you more autonomy and confidence. 3. You probably don’t need that person that you think will ‘fix’ the problem. How you feel should not be dependent on anyone but yourself. Any other tips? I still feel like shit. It’s just some realisations I’ve had. *pic because nice*

@youfreeontuesday

Jan 8, 2025

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You Aren’t Alone — we all are

From the Atlantic: ”There is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own.” I don’t know anything about you—how funny is that? I couldn’t even begin to guess what your life looks like. I couldn’t spot you in a crowd. If I were a friend, I’m sure I could give better advice. Perhaps suggest joining a local group  I know of, or a class at the gym that always puts me in a good mood. Perhaps introduce you to someone I’ve always thought you’d get along with.  The beautiful thing about the internet is that you can ask this question to the void and the void speaks back. It’s so much easier this way, but so much worse.  Geography, family, shared interests, shared labor. Community used to be inescapable. We still depend on each other for everything, but we do it all at a distance. I’ll chat for an hour with a friend across the country, but I know nothing about the people across the street. It’s a selling point if the grocer can name the farmer who grew your food. I could have been writing this to send to a distant family member, who I want to reconnect with, or an old friend—instead I’m writing to you, a stranger. It’s easier. Our community ties have been broken.  So: what do you, an individual, do? You may find more success if you develop individual friendships tied to a place—several articles about the loneliness epidemic talk about the gym—or a group that meets regularly. Apparently, the best way to beak down peoples’ walls is just to see them constantly. This is true for new friends and for deepening relationships. For those friends and acquaintances you’d like to be closer to, keep inviting them to shit. Set your boundaries, but keep trying. The thing about people is that everybody is interesting and confusing and stupid and wise and mean and wonderful—but it’s safer to spill all that on the internet, where no one can spot you in a crowd. Let people know that you’re around and interested no matter what, and see what happens. It will take a long time, but it’ll be worth it. Not just for you, but for them. For everyone, if we all put the effort in.  I’m sorry—it shouldn’t be this way. But we have to try. We’re all counting on each other <3

@bluz

Apr 23, 2024

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You know it’s kind of hard

I left all social media for something like five years and only posted on a small insular abandoned app during that time and that was the main way I communicated with people. After feeling repeatedly hurt and misunderstood and wondering why it was so hard to build earnest connections through this medium I decided to leave. I realized that constantly narrativizing my life with no filter gave me no space to process or examine and kept me trapped in deeply baked-in stories in my head. Anyway I’ve maintained contact with a small handful of my closest friends and it has honestly been somewhat difficult keeping in touch to the same degree as I did before about everyone’s day to day lives. I think the hardest part is being the odd one out so you’re missing out on the tidbits they share in this one centralized place for the purpose of economy and time and that’s something you kind of just have to accept. There’s a certain level of meticulous detail that may be lost to you and I think interactions become more of a broad big-picture thing; not being so bogged down in the mundanity allows you to engage with more distance and perspective which can lead to greater depth and emotional honesty. And then it’s funny because the communication you’re engaging in becomes so direct that rather than everything being so uniform and kind of tossed out there, everything has to be very intentional and personal. You have to choose to reach out, again and again; you also have to choose when to give people space. You have to be very conscious of the balance between giving and taking because everything isn’t just being offered all at once indirectly on both sides—and this balance won’t always be perfect and sometimes you might not handle it in the most perfect way. I decided at the beginning of the year that intentionality would be my main theme and I’m still working on it. So I don’t really have the answers but engaging with friends off of social media shapes everything in new and interesting ways and those are some thoughts I’ve had as I begin to navigate this…

@taterhole

Feb 24, 2025

Top Recs from @blu-hunt

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READING/WRITING DETAILED INSCRIPTIONS IN BOOKS

Well, first, let me just say that if you don’t read often, my initial recommendation is that you change that, and begin reading often.I love to read. I refuse to borrow books from people, and I never lend them out. I’ve always felt like there was something special about the physical copy of the book you read any story in. Something I love to do is to inscribe my books. In fact, it’s sort of a rule of mine, or if not a rule, a sort of ritual. Years ago, my inscriptions started out simply, usually just when and where I got the book (i.e. Mast Books 2019) with my signature underneath. But over time my inscriptions have become increasingly more detailed. In addition to when and where I got the book, I now write everything about the moment in which I bought it, including my day preceding the moment of purchase, my mood during the actual sale, and whatever else springs to mind. After this I write another equally detailed inscription whenever I actually start reading the book. Finally, I write a culminating inscription in the back of the book as soon as I finish reading the last page. Through this process, every book I own becomes a sort of makeshift diary, demarcating the specific period of my life in which that book kept me company. Little bits of ordinary days that I otherwise would never have thought to remember become a matter of permanent record in my library. And when I flip through an old book, I remember not only my life at that time, but also how it was interwoven with the actual narrative of the book. It’s a strangely comforting feeling. Whenever someone gives me a book, I always request an inscription from them, so I never forget who gave it to me, and when I give a book, I of course inscribe it for them too. So, if you ever find yourself looking at your pile of books, big or small, and can’t remember when you read them, or who gave them to you, just start inscribing them! You don’t have to be tedious and sentimental about it like me (although being tedious and sentimental, I do highly recommend), just write a little something, and then you’ll have a library of memories too. And an inscribed book really is the best gift you can give! (Along with cakes)(If you do want a good book rec, check out The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada, it’s like 120 pages, so hardly a book, but a really great quick and profound little read)

@blu-hunt

Oct 13, 2022

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LEAVING

My most recent example of misanthropy (love this word), the one that probed my Ex to label me as such over the phone, is my current chosen state of extended solitude. Over a month ago, during a bad night’s sleep, I woke up at 3AM and decided to pack a couple suitcases and get on the next flight out of LAX. I ended up in Mexico City, where I don’t know a soul and can’t speak the language. I just had an intense desire to be alone and away from (mostly) everyone I know. And now I’ve been here for weeks and weeks, completely alone outside of a couple short visits from some good and trusted friends. And so, what I would like to recommend to you is the act of leaving. Leaving everything behind you when you need to. And you probably need to or have needed to or will need to. So just do it, leave! Leave your home, the place you live, wherever it is, as often as you can, whenever the impulse strikes, if you have the lifestyle that offers you that privilege. Get on a plane, get in your car, rent a hotel. Go somewhere, anywhere, that makes you feel a little apprehensive at first, somewhere new that you’ve never been, or somewhere far away that you know well and that you love. Go to see others, or go to be alone, but go for longer than you think you should. If you try to think of reasons not to leave, you won’t, so don’t consider any of them, don’t think about it at all. You will never regret it. And if you can’t get on a plane and go to another country near or far, if you have a solid job like a normal decent person, or something seriously tethering you to one place… Then get up from whatever you are doing and go somewhere else. Start walking to a park or drive to some neighborhood you’re not familiar with and spend time alone there. Explore your unfamiliar surroundings. Just forge an escape plan, suddenly and without thought, whatever it is or whatever it looks like, and just do it….

@blu-hunt

Oct 13, 2022

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MISANTHROPY

Recently a close friend (my ex-boyfriend) called me a misanthrope. I felt a little insulted, but I didn’t disagree… Scrooge is a misanthrope. That guy notoriously really sucks until he isn’t a misanthrope anymore. Then everyone decides he’s better. I’m not sure I agree with this. Maybe Scrooge was right all along! Scrooge’s real issue was the degree in which he was misanthropic (also his hoarding of wealth but that’s not what this is about). You can’t let it control your life. But a little bit of misanthropy never hurt anyone. Am I really a misanthrope? Sure, yeah, I don’t really like people! Or at least… I don’t like most people. Or maybe what I mean is that I don’t like people because I have to or because I should. The sole reason I like a person isn’t just because they are talented or successful or beautiful or (ugh) popular. Sure, if someone I do like has those qualities then that’s great of course… But for a long time, I think I may have deluded myself that some of my friendships were deeper than my attraction to those qualities and how they benefited me and vice versa. Like an ouroboros of narcissism disguised as friendship and intimacy. For a long time, I was nervous to give in to what felt like my less personable traits, like being critical of people, or being reclusive, because I didn’t want to degrade my social capital, I didn’t want to be perceived as the bitch I was afraid I really was deep down inside. But the more I felt guilt over my feelings of dislike, the more I started to hate myself, the more I started to act in ways that I never would have, had I just been more conscious of the reasons behind my lifestyle in the first place. And I know that not everybody has experienced this, but I know I’m not the only one who has. The realization that I was living a life that was a rejection of my actual self in order to protect my place in “the world” was not an easy one to come to. It’s not like it’s easy to admit to yourself that you aren’t immune to the shallowest impulses of human behavior and connection. It’s so much easier to continue pretending that you enjoy the presence of everyone around you, that you like all the things they do and make and say. It’s easy to accept someone as being interesting and smart because everyone says they are and because they are right there looking at you, talking to you. And so it’s then very easy to assume that you are also smart and interesting, because they are, or at least everyone says they are. And if questioning someone's merit also questions yours? Well it’s just easier to not. It’s easy because it feels good to be liked, it feels good to be liked by people who other people like. It feels good to receive admiration for simply ‘being’. But just because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s right. And just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s good for you. And this is where a little touch of misanthropy comes in to save the day. And not like, hate for mankind! Just an acceptance of your own moral failings, and those of the people around you. It’s weird because as soon as I took myself out of the center of the dissatisfactions of my life, only then was I finally able to honestly relate to everyone. It’s like… We are all equal to each other in our inadequacies, but then different in what we do about it. So, once you’ve come to the realization that you might suck and that the people around you might suck, and that both of these things lend themselves to making the entirety of your life suck, you can take action!

@blu-hunt

Oct 13, 2022