Lots to digest here. For the record I live in the US. I'm also 30 years old.

> Is the "loneliness" epidemic that the media reports a genuine phenomenon?
I don't really have a lot of (or any for that matter) friends, but I do have coworkers who are around my age (+/-1-2 years). None of us are married, and we're all from engineering backgrounds. A few of us do have 3DPDs, however. Me personally, I would say that my main "problem" is that I am lonely. I think about it daily, and I struggle with it. My main source of dealing with it is image boards and trying to be cheerful at work (I am actively afraid of losing my job, as it means everything to me). I don't know how to solve this problem, because of my live situation. The real solution would be to, obviously look for a nice women to befriend, but I really don't have the living situation to deal with that (I live with my parents).

> Or do you think the type of "loneliness" affecting the general population differs from our situation in some sense.
No I think that Hikiki and what we're experiencing are very similar. Both stem from a feeling of inadequacy, fear, lack of meaning, and self esteem issues. Not saying these are all of the reasons, but they're the ones I have at times related to.

> Note: the articles and studies conducted specifically mention friends, not romantic interactions.
Specifically on the subject of friends. I don't even know how you make ones anymore. I've lived with an "inability to make long term relationships" all of my life, and I struggle with whether or not I want a relationship, as I'm afraid of being let down again (Being let down is pretty much a core aspect of my existence). People say "go to the gym, get fit, go drink / watch sports at a bar, play sports, ect." but none of those things interest me. I'm sorry. Also no, it has nothing to do with "Soy" or other BS that's being propagated. I just find those things boring, and part of "normal culture".

> been part of the "excluded group" from childhood
Not going to lie, there was only a small part of my life (Between the end of high school and the end of college) where I ever felt accepted. Once I left college, there was nobody to be my friend, and I didn't know how to meet new people, except from work (And that's generally a bad idea, I lost a previous job because I got in a relationship with a manipulative women).

> With the above I'm also reminded of Ted Kaczynski's ideas, which while not entirely novel, poignantly predicted all the above pinning the above as inevitable given the rise of technology and industry. How much of this is self-inflicted (people *do* seem content to avoid anything requiring thought and preferring to spend time on social media) versus an inherently emergent property of the type of society enabled by technology?
I've been thinking a lot about Kaczynski's ideas recently. I learned about Kaczynski originally from my mother, who frequently compares me to him (not in the way you think, she does it because I wear a ratty old hoodie a lot). I'm not sure if she understands that my beliefs align well with his, about the dangers of technology / socialization and how they interfere with free thought specifically.

>Specifically on the subject of friends. I don't even know how you make ones anymore.
I don't think the structure of modern society is really conducive to making genuine friends. Most of your day is spent at work, but forming deep friendships probably requires a long period of having known each other which necessarily limits new friendships to your co-workers. This is combined with the fact that most other people prefer to stay in their cliques and that social media has normalized the notion of shallow interpersonal connections. And if you are not very sociable or have interests outside the mainstream, the challenges become almost insurmountable given that there are very few others who you'd likely get along with in the first place (and they would probably be as unsociable or quiet as you apriori so finding them is akin to finding a needle in a haystack).

If we accept technology, modern society, and ephemeral relations as a given, maybe the solution might be to somehow follow in the footsteps of monks and cultivate an appreciation for the ephemera while learning to distance oneself from others? It's certainly not easy, but you have many monks and such who spend most of their time in isolation just meditating, and I assume that by doing so they've overcome most of these emotional desires.

>Oh you're lonely and possibly involuntarily celibate? LMAO fucking privileged alt-gamergate anime avatar russian nazi bot manbaby misogynist, why don't you fucking KILL YOURSELF while we have sex and fight climate change and shit *dabs on u* #Winning #MurderedByWords
And that's all society has to say on the matter.

>>24700
I think that's primarily limited to the (very) vocal segments of twitter/facebook/etc. though. Sure, the average person probably harbors those same sentiments but not to the same extent.