What I mean is, how do you deal with the logical conclusion that no one can ever truly be relied on and that you can always find yourself alone with no support?
Or do you disagree with this conclusion and think that some people can be relied on and that you can know that you won’t end up alone?
And if you are alone, how do you deal with the inherent human yearn for others when you know that you can never truly rely on them?
Edit: To clarify, I am talking about personal relationships and not about professional or paid help.
It’s a tricky balance. You have to learn to let yourself trust and rely on others, but also understand it’s a gamble.
Be ready for the possibility that you may end up having to pick yourself up if they let you fall. It’s not necessarily because people don’t want to do the right thing. They’re only human.
You’ve almost certainly let somebody down at some point. As long as you didn’t set out with the intention of hurting the other person, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s just life.
You have to learn to give yourself and others grace when it’s deserved, and accept that sometimes it’s not deserved. You have to learn to be vulnerable, but also learn to be resilient. Refusing to take the risk just because you’re afraid of being let down or letting others down, is a guaranteed way to be lonely.
Thank you
You join my cult
Find a way to help others. You’ll feel a part of something if you do. Being alone isn’t hard but being lonely is crippling. Even getting a kitten as a pet will alleviate some of that. All the best.
Being alone isn’t hard but being lonely is crippling.
Best comment out there.
I’ve just gotten used to it
Learning to feel comfortable with yourself and to be grateful to those who are with you in the present.
Everyone gets off the train sooner or later, including ourselves. Don’t worry about it, just enjoy the ride and the company of the moment.
This is generally my approach as well. I only find it problematic when I reach really tough times in my life and I find out that it is hard to just be with yourself.
I understand that feeling all too well. Do you really have no one by your side for those moments? It can be hard sometimes to tell the difference between perceived loneliness and “real” loneliness.
As an example, when I was a teenager, many of the times I felt lonely, I was actually isolating myself so as not to bother anyone. So, whenever something bad happened to me, I didn’t have anyone to help me.
Navigating hard times alone was never difficult for me. Finding myself alone during the good times is rough.
Try to let your “self” “die” when you can. I have trouble being around my “self” at times, and I’ve found the best way to deal with that is to let the part of you see as that “self” fall away from your mind and just exist. That little “death” can help you to be more in the moment and less in your own head dealing with whatever ruminations are rattling around in there today.
I definitely want to try psychedelics at some point to truly experience ego death/ego loss, but my methods work well enough for me.
I have struggled with feeling lonely during different times in my life. I found In was attached to preconceived outcomes and some unhappiness I was feeling stemmed from that. When I stopped searching, I learned to find. I stopped trying to plug that hole and I sat uncomfortably in my loneliness. I’m definitely still a work in progress, but now I try to enjoy my time with people, to be more in the moment and less “10 steps ahead”. Now, most of the time, my loneliness doesn’t live on the surface, just in that occasional existential dread of knowing that one day I will have to die. I hope someone I love will be there to hold my hand, and I’m scared to be alone. That’s a heavy weight and I sometimes wish I was too stupid to recognize our mortality so I didn’t have to wrestle with it.
When I was young, I had my parents, grandparents, even great grandparents, and thought I always would. I was friends with a bunch of kids in the neighborhood and at school. I’m down to one parent and a super young and hip grandparent in-law in their 90s. When everyone was sick with Covid and my partner was feeling the stress too, there were times I felt very alone and I really felt the weight of having nobody to lean on in those moments because everyone was just as overwhelmed as me. It’s an uncomfortable part of the human experience. I try not to put all my eggs in one basket, but as an introvert it can be hard to maintain a large circle of support. Hopefully some of that answers the question. I’m curious how others see it.
I personally find the answer is quite simple, I just tend not to interact with people irl. People suck tbh and the most deranged toxic people I have met are irl, online I have my silly gay frens :3
People ca be relied on up to the point they can handle. You can’t expect someone who is barely getting by on an hourly job for example to take off work for some emergency or for someone living with a roommate to take you in without getting the roommates ok. There are plenty of people that I know that would love to help me in a variety of ways that are just not really feasible. I know there are friends I have had and we live in different states and such that likely remember me fondly as I do them. Heck I even have a brother not to far away and we help each other some but we both are married and our first repsonsibility is to our spouse and family. We do what we can. But yeah in the end we mostly die alone as others go before or after us. If we don’t die alone its usually a pretty horrible thing.
I’m 100% sure some people can be relied upon. But only if it’s a two-way street. IF it works one way, it will only be once.
But think about it, you can never truly know, both for factors outside of their control and factors within their control. For example, they might get sick, they might die, they might get mental health issues that stop them from being a good friend. As well as factors within their control, they might decide to prioritize you less, they might decide that they just don’t want to do it anymore. You can never really be sure, even your best friend, your partner, your parent, your sibling, all of them can one day decide that they don’t want to be there for you, or that it’s not right for them. Even if you never gave up on them and was always there for them, they might not want or feel obligated to, or even if they feel obligated to, they might not act on it.
You are stretching it. T.ex. when someone -as you said- get ill or dies, you just can’t say they are unreliable because being dead is not very supportive to you.
Being reliable isn’t the same as being able to give the desired support. Someone is relieable when they make maximum effort -compared to the situation- to be there and provide whatever support they can.
Reliability isn’t black or white, there are varying degrees to it. Some people can be counted on more for some things than others. Some people can only be counted on in certain contexts or with proper preparation. You’ll never find anyone you could rely on 100%, I’d wager you couldn’t even rely on yourself that much.
How much you can rely on someone or vice versa isn’t what I would consider in my rubric for whether I’m alone or not. Sometimes you have to deal with things alone, sometimes you choose to. That’s just life. Support and help are nice when you can get it, but it’s your life in the end. You have to be the one to live it.
I’d only consider myself lonely if there’s no one I connect to and if that were the case, I’d look for new people. Eventually I’ll find someone I connect to in some aspect of our lives. Even if I can’t always talk to them about my struggles in that aspect, I’ll know they’re out there struggling too and that will give me some peace and validation.
I really like your perspective.
i don’t know, I’ve never been lonely, alone for sure but that’s often something I desire.
how do you deal with the inherent human yearn for others when you know that you can never truly rely on them?
flip that around, are you someone that can be relied on, they way you write this it seems every relationship is transactional for you?
Poetry.
Journaling.
Make songs about the fact of the cruelty of this world of constant betrayals… and sing it alone. Maybe in front of a mirror so you feel like you are looking at a parallel timeline you and wont feel alone.
I have like lyrics written about the concept of secrets and betrayal and there is this one line that I’ve written I want to mention:
“你到底是谁，看不透你的心里
但没办法，生存依靠一起”Translated something like:
“Who the hell really are you, I cannot see through inside your heart [as in: your mind, what you’re really thinking]
But there’s nothing I can do about it, life depends on us [humans] being together”So… just accept it…
Accept the fact that someone can declare their love for you and can totally stab you in the back
And be prepared for it
But try to not be too paranoid and accidentally shoot them first, careful of friendly fire
But at the mean time, enjoy the company of whoever you might have…
I’ve kinda accepted the fact the even my mom who constantly told me she loves me and I remember cuddling with her as a kid, could just totally do “bipolar” stuff that would harm me…
You need to have a shield… to be activated when you feel something isn’t right.
The first step is to understand that all relationships are transactional. Not a single human relationship is unconditional.
You start by making yourself useful, pleasant and interesting to be around and people who understand and accept the “deal” will reciprocate and most of them will be reliable.
There are no guarantees so it’s also a little bit of a numbers game. More is better to a point… usually about a dozen close relationships is optimal.
It’s just a closer and more intimate version of the broader social contract. Break it and suffer. Maintain it, nurture it, and benefit.
Learn what you can, and are expected, to bring to a relationship (be it romantic or otherwise) and work on improving what you offer.
All human relationships and communities since the beginning of time have relied on this transactional nature of relationships.
Anyone who says otherwise is blindly naive or misunderstanding what any given individual can bring to a relationship.
How is my wife looking after me for the past 6 years because I can barely do anything myself anymore (thanks to Covid) “transactional”? She’s the one who earns the money, by the way.
I would need a lot more deeply personal information on your relationship and history to answer that for you.
If you genuinely consider what you have previously brought to the relationship and what you’re bringing today I’m sure you’ll find some answers.
Sounds like capitalist propaganda. I’m not sure what your childhood was like but parental love isn’t really transactional, and if it was for you then I feel really sorry for you.
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I knew someone would bring up children to try and debunk that all relationships are transactional but this is actually extremely simple.
A child’s role is to grow, develop and learn from their parents and society. Very easy on their part as it’s basically all automatic for them.
A parent’s role is to protect, provide, nurture and support their child. All easy stuff to understand.
If a parent fails they will be judged extremely harshly by society and end up with a child that has behavioural problems.
Historically the driving desire to have lots of children was so that some would survive and be able to provide for you in your old age. Still somewhat relevant but far less so than historically.
Turns out pre-modern agriculture the work required to survive was hard on the body and basically doomed the elderly who didn’t have a younger generation to provide for them. So not a problem resulting from capitalism as it was different but present under feudal and tribal societies.
We’ve seen what happens when parents fail, such as a child having an extremely abusive and controlling mother is a strong predictor of psychopathy. Basically all the worst serial killers you’ve ever heard about had abusive mothers.
The only way for children to fail on their end of the transaction really is to die or be severely disabled. When they’re closer to being adults that dynamic changes and some people, both child and parent, have great difficulty ‘renegotiating’ the relationship.
Having children with severe disabilities is devastating and I won’t go into that right now as it’s a massive topic by itself.
Oh and I had a pretty good childhood and am on good terms with my parents but thanks for taking a pity swipe at me lol
Weird, because raising a child, or a child helping a parent, doesn’t really strike me as a transaction. Helping people out isn’t really transactional. None of what you described seemed as a transaction.
Social transactions aren’t the same as monetary transactions. I don’t know what you expected.
Studies on altruism are very interesting but almost no relationships are based purely on altruism from what I understand.
From a biological or evolutionary perspective, altruism is a behaviour that decreases the fitness or genetic contribution of one individual while increasing the fitness of another.
Did… Did your even read the article you posted?
In humans, there is evidence that infants exhibit altruistic behavior beginning at a young age. For example, infants as young as 14–18 months of age assist others in obtaining out-of-reach objects and help to open cabinets for others.7 Infants engage in these behaviors without reward or encouragement from an adult and expectedly without knowledge of concepts such as reciprocation and reputation.
Previous behavioral research suggests that humans willingly interact with strangers in ways that are beneficial to others, even when it is not in their own best interest.8 Additionally, humans have been reported to continue to engage in altruistic behaviors even in situations when there will be no future interaction.9 Fehr and Fischbacher3 suggest that if two strangers are allowed to engage in repeated anonymous monetary exchanges in the laboratory, there exists a high probability that altruistic behavior will spontaneously emerge. Therefore, these findings propose that there appears to be a natural tendency for humans to exhibit altruistic behaviors.
Literally parenting a child is altruistic in nature. Sometimes, as defined by the article, reciprocal.
Reciprocity, which is similar to altruism in that the action may be harmful to the self and beneficial to another, involves the expectation that the other person will act similarly in a subsequent interaction.
Your perspective is twisted, you need to go out and touch grass and interact with people in person if you think everything is transactional.
how do you deal with the logical conclusion that no one can ever truly be relied on and that you can always find yourself alone with no support?
I simply don’t think that is the logical conclusion to come to.
I contest that it is not a logical conclusion, and more likely you’re suffering from loneliness and not coming to that conclusion with a clear mind.
You want people to be “truly relied on”? What does that mean? At your beck and call with whatever whims one has? People can be reliable but there are limits. Unless you yourself think it’s acceptable to be everyone else’s gopher.
What’s your standard for being reliable that makes you, through a twisted facsimile of rationality, think you’re going to be alone? Why would someone have to meet that standard to give you company?
I think you are assuming a lot of things.
When I say someone to rely on, I mean someone who would show me that they want to be there for me when I’m going through tough times. I’m not even talking about necessarily being there for me, but knowing that there’s someone who cares and wants to be there for you.
So where’s this “logic” you speak of that no one ever does this for anyone, and it’s a universal trait to not have this experience?
That yoi can never be sure that it will happen, of course that doesn’t mean that it won’t
That’s illogical, binary thinking. Things aren’t so black and white. Some people will have an estimated 98% reliability for emotional support, some might have much lower. It’s circumstantial to the person and the situation.
With your logic, unless something is 100% going to happen, it may as well be 0%. That’s like, almost an inverse of a gambler thinking that even if there’s a miniscule chance of winning the lottery, it’s 100% guaranteed.
I feel like you are taking everything I am saying to the extreme…
The point is that you never know until you need them and they either fail you or not, and even someone that has been there for you everytime for years and you might consider to be 100% reliable, can surprise you and stop being reliable.
It is a fact that no matter your situation, you are not guaranteed to have external support, but obviously for some people it is extremely unlikely to happen and for others it is more likely.
