Social life and Physics/Mathematics?

[^_^physicist]

Here's something that I have found useful in developing a set of friends. Talk to people in your classes before class. Just asking a vaildating question or asking if they managed to get one of the homework problems done. I have often found that after using that icebreaker, the next time they see me they are a little more confortable around me and they will strike up a converstation. After awhile these conversations lead to us hanging out and having some fun. Of course doing this was a bit tricky consistering at first I didn't have much confidence in myself to ask questions or just talk to someone I didn't know very well, but over time it got better.

Also, if you live in a dorm your first year of college introduce yourself to your neighbors if you overhear someone having a computer problem or a hard time with something make yourself usefull if they want your help. Its a good way to get to know more people.

One last thing, if you want to meet people with similar interests, if there exists commons/lounge for your major (such as a physics lab people hang out in, or a set of desks some math majors seem to hang out at and study), just go there and study. Just being there will get people's attention.

 

[pivoxa15]

Tim, you could just stay your way that is to keep working hard and be antisocial - which is what I try to do, although the latter is not really done purposely on mybehalf. And whenever you get depressed or suicidal which I admit often happens to me, try to look to people like Newton, Riemann, Dirac and Grigori Perelman for insipiration and as role models and that might ease your pain and give you encourgement since from reading their biographies, also took this route.

 

[Equilibrium]

^ Hes right... be more of yourself
tim, i feel your pain, I am also like you
we are the same...
I have no feelings at all, and it feels good... all i think about are studies.. and i feel numb about my social life... i don't care about people who snob me...who critisizes me... i don't care about anything... the reason why i don't wna socialize is because i am silent and people are getting away from me because i don't speak up... but i don't care... i don't have a purpose for my life... id be happy if i die

 

[imastud]

no offense but you shouldn't encourage people to be more like you have the attitude "id be happy if i die"

 

[tim_lou]

I do get depressed sometimes... actually, very often in the past. However, whenever I felt lonely, I would get myself occupied (reading, doing problems). I wouldn't say there is no purpose for life. In fact, I think I have a sense of purpose more than a lot of the people.

I believe that our purpose is to understand life itself... actually, not just life, but things that surround us, or even the whole entire universe!

Equilibrium, believe it or not, I have experienced what you are going through. When I first came to America, I was really depressed. I got no friends, no one to talk to... life seemed empty. However, once I got past the "oh, I'm screwed, there is nothing I can do" attitude, opportunities came (that took more than a year).

There are lots of things that one can do in free time, it's just that it is hard to initiate the motivation to do these things.

My advice to those who feel depressed all the time:
1. Analyze your mind and admit that you do have a problem.

2. Force yourself to smile. I heard that smiling trigger some brain mechanism which can help one feel better... it seems to work quite well (at least for me).

2. Get your brains dirty and think! not about how your life sucks or whatever, but think about what you can do! Even though one might be stuck at home alone (like me), one can still learn, and explorer the vast world. Just pick up a book in the library and have fun.

 

[JasonRox]

2. Force yourself to smile. I heard that smiling trigger some brain mechanism which can help one feel better... it seems to work quite well (at least for me).

I talked about this briefly in my blog of Road to Success.

The thing you need to do once in awhile is to compliment yourself. Say to yourself, I'm a good person. Or I'm a good student. I really enjoy what I am doing.

If you truly do not enjoy yourself as a person, student, and/or what you're doing, then do something about it and change it. If you never enjoy anything because of you're expectations, re-think those expectation like I mentionned earlier.

 

[verty]

The thing you need to do once in awhile is to compliment yourself. Say to yourself, I'm a good person. Or I'm a good student. I really enjoy what I am doing.

I would go beyond that to say that if you are feeling down, you should try to identify what factors cause you to feel down. You might find that you feel down after certain things happen, or in the presence of certain people, and you can then determine where those feelings come from.

You can always do with having fewer negative people hanging around you. It may be as simple as telling your negative friends to get lost, ditching your girlfriend, etc.

So I mean that you must take charge of the situation you find yourself in. Look at it, accept it, critique it, then solve it.

 

[acm]

I feel your pain. Keep your head up and keep on working, eventually you will find people who you feel comfortable around.

 

[Equilibrium]

no offense but you shouldn't encourage people to be more like you have the attitude "id be happy if i die"

Im not encouraging... I just am telling about myself...
And its true in my social life,...
i can prove that i don't need friends to succeed...
i just need hard work...

 

[physics girl phd]

The thing you need to do once in awhile is to compliment yourself.

Great advice JasonRox!

Also -- I try to find things to compliment in others. I find making people smile helps me smile.

 

[JasonRox]

^ Hes right... be more of yourself
tim, i feel your pain, I am also like you
we are the same...
I have no feelings at all, and it feels good... all i think about are studies.. and i feel numb about my social life... i don't care about people who snob me...who critisizes me... i don't care about anything... the reason why i don't wna socialize is because i am silent and people are getting away from me because i don't speak up... but i don't care... i don't have a purpose for my life... id be happy if i die

No offense, but I really don't like your approach... at all.

It will affect you in the long run. You can not care about it now, but it will affect you too much later to not care about it. Trust me, I've tried something similar to this and it doesn't work. You have to have a good balance, and that is determining what you should care about and what you should not care about.

 

[proton]

I have a similar problem in that I used to be extremely depressed because I had no friends and I felt useless. But now, I got over that nonsense idea that teenagers have to "fit in" by being popular, doing stupid things for fun, etc. Even though I still have hardly any friends, I hardly feel depressed at all. I created purpose in my life by always trying to push myself by constantly studying or working.

The only major problem I have now, is that I get absolutely furious when I sense that another person doesn't like me. Recently, I've been trying to tell myself "you don't need everyones approval" or "what do you care what other people think?". Its been getting better but I guess its going to take a while for it to sink in since this has been bothering me my whole and I'm only now starting to eliminate the problem.

But anyways, if you don't have many friends, don't feel ashamed as there are many other people who suffer, they're just not as noticeable as the happy ones. Theres also nothing wrong with being lonely. Alot of the great physicists and mathematicians weren't the most sociable as well.

 

[Quaoar]

Dear Quaoar,

You are awesome in every way!Quaoar

 

[gravenewworld]

Close your books.


Grab some beer.



Hit on some hot girls.


It works.

 

[verty]

Close your books.
Grab some beer.
Hit on some hot girls.
It works.

Perhaps that works for some but it certainly won't work for others. The main reason it won't work it that it seems pointless. Do you live to 'hit on hot girls'? Mother nature would be proud.

 

[dontdisturbmycircles]

I have a book recommendation for you, tim. This was written by a fellow who was a genius at having fun (and not half bad at physics either ):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393316041/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I was shopping for gifts when I saw a book store so I decided to see if they had this book. They did... as well as this one, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393320928/?tag=pfamazon01-20. I got both. The first has been very good so far, thanks for the recommendation. Although of course I have heard of feynman's books, you got me to buy them.

 

[JasonRox]

Perhaps that works for some but it certainly won't work for others. The main reason it won't work it that it seems pointless. Do you live to 'hit on hot girls'? Mother nature would be proud.

It doesn't need to be your life to "hit on girls". If you never "hit on girls" (or preferred sex), I think you lack more of a life than the former.

Seriously, don't throw negative feedback to someone who is enjoying his/her life. It's utter stupidity. I personally don't care if someone makes there whole life into "hitting on girls" and/or building many Lego buildings. All I care is that they're happy and it does not interfere with anyone else's happiness.

 

[khalil]

Im not encouraging... I just am telling about myself...
And its true in my social life,...
i can prove that i don't need friends to succeed...
i just need hard work...

Sureuly not a dynamic equilibrium!

 

[gravenewworld]

Perhaps that works for some but it certainly won't work for others. The main reason it won't work it that it seems pointless. Do you live to 'hit on hot girls'? Mother nature would be proud.

Trust me, you will seriously regret wasting your college years being a wallflower later on in life. Do I live to pick up hot girls? Of course I do, so does every other male on this earth. I have no sympathy for introverts who want to be felt sorry for because they have no friends. I used to be that way in high school until I forced myself to talk to people, network, and become socially active. And you know what, I made some really good life long friends that I know I could count on no matter what. The people that get ahead in life the most and the fastest do so because of who they know not just because of what they know.

 

[tylerp]

quality over quantity. cliche and over-used, i know, but it really applies to this situation. best way to be happy is to just have a couple good friends that you can really trust and really have fun with. having a girlfriend/wife is, in my opinion, the ultimate cure to loneliness.

 

[tim_lou]

I have a similar problem in that I used to be extremely depressed because I had no friends and I felt useless. But now, I got over that nonsense idea that teenagers have to "fit in" by being popular, doing stupid things for fun, etc. Even though I still have hardly any friends, I hardly feel depressed at all. I created purpose in my life by always trying to push myself by constantly studying or working.

That pretty much summed it all on what happened to me.
Most of my friends in high school thought that I'm weird... but eventually i realized that I do not have to adjust to the norm just because I'm a little different.

 

[Hurkyl]

Do I live to pick up hot girls? Of course I do, so does every other male on this earth. I have no sympathy for introverts who want to be felt sorry for because they have no friends.

Huh?

(1) Not everybody is as shallow as you.
(2) One can have friends without trying to pick up hot girls.
(3) One can be an introvert and have friends.
(4) One can have no friends and not desire sympathy.

Hrm, did I miss anything?

 

[JasonRox]

Huh?

(1) Not everybody is as shallow as you.
(2) One can have friends without trying to pick up hot girls.
(3) One can be an introvert and have friends.
(4) One can have no friends and not desire sympathy.

Hrm, did I miss anything?

Nope, I don't think you missed anything.

 

[gravenewworld]

Huh?

(1) Not everybody is as shallow as you.
(2) One can have friends without trying to pick up hot girls.
(3) One can be an introvert and have friends.
(4) One can have no friends and not desire sympathy.

(1) don't even try to pretend like you know anything about me from what i post on an internet forum. half the time i come off as a douche bag because of my extreme sarcasm.

(2) true, but having friends that are hot girls is even better

(3) true (like me in high school), but people like to be around other people who are more social.

(4). maybe, but some people need a good kick in the ass to get them going in the right direction. be reasonable, do you honestly believe someone could live their entire life without having any friends? i don't think so.

Hrm, did I miss anything?

why are math nerds weirdos?


























(did you pick up on the sarcasm?_

 

[SeReNiTy]

Stop whinging like fools. You only live once, so embrace the anghst moment and make your meaning in life. Be it antisocial or not, it doesn't matter.

But seriously, follow grave new world's advice, its amazing how fast a hot girl can take your mind of your problems.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Tim, if you don't have new experiences, you'll never know what are the things that you actually like! (You know now, you like math/phys, but what else do you like?)

 

[Weave]

I agree, you just can't beat hot girls, I prefer one night standers if yah know what I mean. But do what makes you happy-this is key. Try to understand what you want in life and work torwards it.

 

[quasar987]

This thread is depressing.

It is my opinion that advices on how to run your life are useless. There is some kind of force that drives one's life that is infinitely stronger than the mind. This means that trying to follow any kind of advice that is not in alignement with this force (exemple: get hot girls) will meet with failure and more frustration.

Just go with the flow. You'll die tomorrow.

(I hope I didn't make it worse )

 

[pivoxa15]

I agree, you just can't beat hot girls

As much as I want to disgree (for moral reasons), I have to admit its true because you can't beat millions of years of homo evolution.

Some things are more 'natural' than others because we are humans and have adopted certain traits, like it or not. From an evolutionary point of view, the purpose of life is to love the opposite sex and reproduce. Its very hard to go against it and probably the most accurate 'meaning of life' answer there is, unless you want to make one up but this is the 'natural' answer.

Sometimes love can be more powerful than any other feeling even discoveries in math/physics. I'm sure you watched movies like Good Will Hunting, A beautiful Mind, Enigma etc they all have the same grand theme which is love. Even though they are movies and their main goals is to increase sales, there must still be genuine reasons behind this unifying theme.

But I agree that offering advice about how someone should live their life is hopeless, especially over the internet. Even offering future career paths for someone is difficult enough as I have found from experience. But there is a unifying response which is just to 'do what you enjoy'. You can't really go wrong with this advice, because no matter what you do, at least you have enjoyed it.

 

[gravenewworld]

This thread is depressing.

It is my opinion that advices on how to run your life are useless. There is some kind of force that drives one's life that is infinitely stronger than the mind. This means that trying to follow any kind of advice that is not in alignement with this force (exemple: get hot girls) will meet with failure and more frustration.

Just go with the flow. You'll die tomorrow.

(I hope I didn't make it worse )

Well If you expect to fail before you even try somethign, then you are probably going to fail. That is the biggest problem I have been reading in this entire thread. There is just too much expectation of failure. Maybe advice on how to live your life is worthless, but if it is then what is the point of starting this entire thread?

All the OP needs is confidence (which many women find very attracive in a man). It just takes time and practice to build it up, but you have to start somewhere. If you never open yourself up no one is ever going to bother attempting to get to know you. Even if you fail when TRYING to meet new people so what? At least you TRIED. There is no other way to build your personal confidence up about meeting new people until you force yourself to talk to others and become more friendly.

Why is it that the OP and several others in this thread can spill all their guts to completely random strangers on an internet forum but can't do the same in real life? There is always someone around who will listen.