This is fascinating to me - my own situation is similar, but I do not consider myself lonely. I also have the pleasure of working remotely and don't have friends or family close by. I don't miss the awkward chaos of interpersonal social interaction in the flesh, nor do I engage in the use of social media.

I'm also employed as a software dev and assume that I must be filling my social well with banal Zoom meetings. I, too, have no specific ambitions or long-term goals beyond living as comfortably and well as possible until my meaningless little stretch of life reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Everybody needs somebody to love. It could be anybody. You just need someone to love.

Seriously, are you ok? Life doesn’t have to be meaningless, but that’s up to you. You get out what you put in.

It's nice to have somebody to love, and to be loved by somebody.

But you don't really need it. And being alone is better than be in company of toxic people. A surprisingly amount of people are toxic to have around. Being alone and feeling lonely are entirely different things anyway.

And life being meaningless is not really a bad thing, maybe it depends on how a person faces its meaninglessness. I happen to cherish it. I enjoy my meaningless moments.

This is really interesting!

I think my life would be much less complicated if i had the same feeling.

I always thought that most people that are most of the time alone, would be lonely. Especially because you hear a lot of old people trying to talk a lot to the people who help (cook/clean/shopping) because they tend to be lonely.

So suppose one day I would loose my close friends and family, there's a chance i could be happy on my own?

> Everybody needs somebody to love. It could be anybody. You just need someone to love.

Why?

Maybe just some thing to love is fulfilling. For example a hobby?

Song lyrics tell us so it must be true.

Similar here. Mostly alone, but not lonely (thanks in part to HN?). I usually manage to hang out with someone once a week or so (mostly, they come visit me to surf with me). That feels just about right. I do worry, though, about what happens if I get sick or injured.

In our country, the government helps people who are sick or injured, financially and materially. I hope it is the case in your country as well.

Hah, that would be nice! Unfortunately, I live in the USA. Where are you?

Belgium aka the country that was referred to as a 'hellhole' by a former US 'president'.

You don't need to alter your beliefs to conform to a social group. I often say stuff even on hn that is apparently wildly controversial but I arrived at that belief on my own yet people accuse me of being part of wildly different political groups.

There are two main types people in this category as well. Those at peace with their situation and those that aren't. Controlling for this in a study like this one is crucial in my opinion.

But on your comment about consistent pattern, I agree.

For whatever reason, I would prefer to not have friends and even be hated than accept something I know to be wrong. But that also means when i myself am wrong you would need to reason and change my mind which is too much for most people. I find most people want to conform to some larger group, but if I don't belong to any group anyways then why not take advantage of that and find truth, even if i am wildly wrong at times maybe I can be authentic.

What I learned is that the world and other people owe me nothing but the opposite works too. But if I seek truth and take time to reason and understand how things work and what the root causes of different issues are then at least I can help change my situation and if I help others then my help would be based in truth and will eradicate problems at their core not at the surface level.

No plans to get married and have children?

That is often the default plan, but not necessarily a goal for everyone.

Nope