My loneliness is killing me

Round where I live that would be:

"They'd go up yer hole for news!"

Irish people are friendly to tourists, but treat their own like dirt.

How is society or others people suppose to fix this for individuals.

Irish people are no more or no less friendly that any national, nor are Irish people more nosey or gossip more than anywhere else.

A lot of this threads are individuals extrapolating their own issues on to Irish society.

That's totally not true. Irish people are way more nosey and gossip far more then say, Finnish people, for an example.

I've spent quite a bit of time there and nobody asks you your business, in fact, they are notorious for not talking. Yet they have a low percentage of lonely people.

UK looks the loneliest on that map.

Anyway as western societies age what we look at as pitiful will become a norm in time.

Almost 40,000 people died alone in their homes in Japan during the first half of 2024, a report by the country’s police shows.

Of that number, nearly 4,000 people were discovered more than a month after they died, and 130 bodies went unmissed for a year before they were found, according to the National Police Agency.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyx6wwp5d5o

It is interesting that from that infographic posted that Spain has a low level of loneliness as it also has one of the highest global rates of apartment living. I'd imagine it's easier to remain both independent in old age and sociable when you're surrounded by people in the same context.

I can already see the isolation problems in the car dependent hinterlands stack up, there simply won't possibly be enough home help support to keep old people living alone in one off housing in the countryside. My granny lived alone with no running water up til the 1990s, but she had no shortage of relatives living nearby to drop in a pail of water everyday from a nearby well. With smaller families half the size they were in the 60/70s the chances of such support are greatly diminished.

The people on this thread who are saying that 'people' are not friendly/willing to be sociable are those 'people' to someone else.

Another Irish bashing thread.

I bet same people who complain about the "welcome" probably don't give two hoots outside themselves.

Everyone has their own problems.

BTW it actually scares when when I think about being alone myself. Could happen to me as much as anyone. My parnter joined Alone and found the experience rewarding but also sad that many elderly have nobody. That is awful think about. I do think we need it needs be taken more serious but blaming everything on locals is bit harsh.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/09/ireland-fact-of-the-day-6.html

Ireland ranks as the loneliest country in Europe, with almost a fifth of people lonely most or all of the time and nearly two-thirds of people suffer from anxiety or depression, according to EU data. One in seven children live in homes below the poverty line, defined as 60 per cent of the median disposable household income.

Here is more from the FT, with much of the piece about how Ireland should spend its budget surplus.

Does anybody have a link to the EU data?

i only go to a pub to meet a friend ,no harm looking at a phone for a few minutes .i think alot of people buy cans or smoke weed at home , a pint is now over 5 euro.gen z has netflix and chill going to a pub is just another option or past time.maybe the pandemic has made people wary of going to crowded places .

maybe people have virtual friends whom they post messages to and follow /like posts on social media .its easier to make friends at school college than starting to look for friends as an adult

^

We've enough bleedin ministers.

Look, friendliness goes both ways but a lot of people just view a societies "friendliness" on how it is toward them and never bother to hold that mirror up to themselves and judge how they are interacting with that society. As an anecdote, I used to know this girl (let's say she was from the Antipodes) down the local who would complain about her "loneliness" and how the Irish weren't friendly and we had this conversation a number of times. But she was one of the most disagreeable people I think I've ever met in my life. She had a real knack of alienating everyone she came into contact with and then wondered why people were tending to avoid her after a few yaps. She also thought she was absolutely gorgeous too, but complained that she couldn't get a boyfriend.

"Head wreck" doesn't even begin to cover it.

I find that if you're friendly towards people, they are generally friendly back to you. But you have to temper your expectations. Merely being friendly doesn't mean you're going to be invited over for dinner in a week. Friendly and friends are two different things entirely. One takes a while to build.

In saying all that, I find that the Irish aren't any different to any other nationality that I've come across. As the father used to say, "There are good, bad, and indifferent everywhere". And I'll add that "national traits" should be ejected most of the time because they are often very misleading. For instance, the Germans have a reputation of being standoffish, unfunny and unfriendly, but some of the most readily friendly people I've ever met have been from Germany.

TBH, I don't think Covid has had that much of an impact on younger people as much as the impact of so called "social media". It's amazing to see, sometimes, people sitting in the corner of the local stuck to their phones furiously tapping away at the screen and then being completely unable to hold a conversation with the person next to them. People that can be incredibly verbose over a phone can't find the way to do that IRL. It's been an odd development over the past couple of decades.

Also, we just don't do the coffee shit here and the thing from 'Friends' is just TV. In reality, there's no such place as "Central Perk" and never will be. In Ireland you head to the pub, or at least you used to, because you can spend a good few hours there. A few cups of coffee is what, an hour? Hour and half? It's why that scene never took off in a meaningful way over here. And I know several people who don't even drink alcohol and will still head the local for the chats. 0.0's have been a great way for some people to do that.

Lastly, being friendly is not a matter of introvert or extrovert (I don't particularly like those terms). You can be introverted and still be friendly. There are numerous people I know that are very quiet, but are still friendly people who respond to friendliness. They just won't be the ones to open that particular door, as it were. But if the conversation is right, they'll be just as friendly as the "extrovert" down the way.

I don't think that cigarette comparison works if you are someone who is content being alone. I assume they are referring to the anxiety that loneliness causes for some. I get highly stressed when around people and over the years I have developed into a misanthrope due to bullying, etc. Lets say I had to get a job serving customers in Tesco, the stress of that would take years of my life so it sounds like i will die young either way.

Loneliness is less common for women because they have loads of men queuing up to date them on dating apps unlike men like myself who never have had anyone romantically interesting in them.

People judge you by how friendly you are, you could be a serial killer but if you have a charismatic personality you would be seen as a good person. Personality is often just genetic luck. I have always found it hard to appear friendly as I don't have a charismatic voice and my anxiety in social situations means my face tenses up and so smiling doesn't come naturally. Also I have problems with eye contact.

People become resistant to new human connections, even if they have few friends as it is. Modern conveniences like Netflix eat into people's time for socialising

was a member of a mens shed for a while, and seen similar, men have their own way of showing care to one another