Basically what the title says, two questions:
- Do you feel lonely or socially isolated?
- If you are, what are you trying to change that?
According to the WHO it’s an epidemic,
I’ve been emigrating to different countries about every 15 years and had to rebuild a network of friends from scratch every time. The younger I was the easier it was obviously. But that is a lot of work and you need to invest time and energy which I sometimes don’t have so much, especially now with a small child which needs a lot of attention.
We meet up as a family with other families about once a month and it’s really great, but while my wife keeps in contact with the other mothers in between online, somehow we dads don’t even have a group chat where we would do that and perhaps propose to meet up, it’s always the women who propose it.
It’s kind of weird that its like that and I should change it.
While the WHO doesn’t call it outright an epidemic, it seems they think it’s such a big problem that they created a specific commission to foster social connection: https://www.who.int/news/item/15-11-2023-who-launches-commission-to-foster-social-connection
RE: cat, Looking directly at a cat or engaging with one directly can be interpreted as an act of aggression. Note that cats do not have the ability to discern species. To the cat, you are one of these things: food; enemy; a bigger cat with less hair. If you ignore the cat, it will assume you are not a threat. It may warm up to you faster this way. Some cats are just jerks too.