Be really careful with this one. I spent my 20s working for startups, loved going to the office, and hanging out with friends outside work.

Then my manager quit. Or a power-hungry executive starts targeting your area, creating chaos. Or the company doesn't raise the funding it needs.

So, you quit, or get laid off, or fired. That family culture, and friends you saw every day and bonded with are either no where to be seen or the dynamic shifts so dramatically it becomes practically unbearable.

Each job I seem to stay in touch with 1 or 2 coworkers regularly, and am on good terms with a few dozen more. But in terms meeting your social needs, it ends up hurting a lot more when you realize you were all alone the entire time and your coworkers were just paid to talk to you.

This is part of why you see a lot more people in their 20s attending company functions or working in startup "family" cultures, and fewer in their 30s, 40s, or 50.

It's good that you're finding something to help address your loneliness. I would encourage you to try to find a few work friendships that you can take offline and outside of work to start building a social network that's divorced from where you're working. And if you have a difficult time doing that, then that's particularly a skill you should work on developing -- because as someone in my mid-30s, it's only going to get harder to make and maintain friendships from here on out.

The problem, I think, is that only the people who don't like reading this leave comments.

So here I am, commenting that I feel exactly the same way as you. This is the reason I went back to the office

I used to think I was someone who did NOT like the light social interactions in the office. After the pandemic lockdowns I thought I'd continue working from home. After six months of that I realized that I did enjoy the office.

Turns out I don't like small talk, but I like having a small group of people I can bond with over a meal or whatever. Its a lighter interaction. It's still professional, but it helps me.

And before anyone asks I do have that outside of office. That wasn't enough for me.

I can totally understand this perspective; we're social animals.

But I'm also mindful that the reverse has applied to a lot of people both throughout history and the present day, who had to be away from their families for work. Or situations where a couple have to choose who gives up their career in order to live in the same place. Or people jammed into overcrowded apartments because that's all they can afford in order to get to where the work is.

No easy answers, but the people who say remote work has been liberatory for them aren't lying.

(I'm grateful that I can have a partial-wfh experience where I go into the office two days a week, I think that's a compromise that works for me. I like being in the office, it's a nice office, I just don't like commuting.)

I'm with you. Other than parents, I do not understand people who can work from home all day...and like it.

I felt like I was in my own prison, made even worse by moving to a suburb where the nearest non-chain coffee shop is over two hours by foot. It drove me nuts.

What I did that seems to be working really well is this:

- Drive to a gym that's about 30 minutes away from a coffee shop, walking distance

- Work out

- Walk to coffee shop

- Work for a few hours

- Walk back to my car

- Drive back home, or (likely) to some other place

- Close my work day.

However, I'd prefer to commute to an office, work in the office, walk somewhere interesting during lunch break, walk back, gym, then home.

Me too man. I burned out from my previous company, which was already in a bit of crisis, but I think I prolonged my suffering with the disconnect that comes from WFH. Don't get me wrong, there were many things I liked about WFH, but I underestimated my ability to isolate myself as an unhealthy coping mechanism and get away with it.

I'm at a new firm now, in a better role, but also in office - and I'm constantly shocked by how much I enjoy going into the office. Like you, I'm in my 20s, and I do have an active social life outside of work whether WFH or not. For now, I prefer being in the office (on a good team, with a good culture and work-life balance, on a good project) than being WFH at a cool company with a mediocre culture.

This doesn't help the actual problem for me. Which is much more about embodied effort and tangible outcome.

You can feel yourself swing a pick or cut through an onion, pay attention to the minute physical, aural stimuli, experience how small adjustments to the angle or force or whatever affect those feelings and the outcome of the next motion. Nearly all kinds of work have this embodiment in some form, even things like washing the dishes have so much sensory experience in them.

Coding just... doesn't. It has analogs to those things, in refining techniques or "honing" "tools" but without the embodiment something essential is missing from my connection to the work. I swear I think this is why mechanical keyboards are so popular right now.

And yeah it's also true that I have a lot of other places to experience those but there seems to be something important about it tied up with my experience of work per se. Being in an office doesn't help me at all because it's not a social problem really.

A few months into the pandemic I overheard someone who eventually become a friend, a welder, ask "do you have a computer job or a real job?" It's a dismissive way to phrase it but I knew immediately that this is what he was talking about.

This happens even in university situation. Before moving for study abroad, I thought I had made connections at former university, until I realized I didn’t. Recently I had few episodes of really wanting to talk to people, but none of them were available. However, they hit up everytime, they need something. Might be my personal nature too. But I realized this recently. So I stopped talking to them either. I thought it was because of the distance, but I had few friends from university who moved to same place as me. Then after going on one trip with them, I realized everyone was phony and I didn’t have friends at all. Now I have accepted I will be alone. So I will never put trust in any form of social relationships. I can control the algorithms but not people. Human are selfish, so I would rather be selfish and happy than social and depressed. It doesn’t mean I am antisocial. Simply put, I put numbers before emotions. Performance over humanity. Machine over heart. I might hangout with people but there won’t be any deep connections. I will crack jokes, but won’t bother helping them in need. Learnt my lesson the hard way. Most of the time, it’s best to say “No”.

Anecdote from someone in their mid-30s:

I've spent the majority of my professional life fully remote. The few years I have spent in an office, I've really appreciated. These days, I do miss the meat-space office and having in-person interactions with coworkers from time to time.

Pros and cons for sure, and I guess the factors that tipped me to still being remote again can be summarized as

* country and location where the lifestyle suits me

* stimulating and rewarding work where I feel I can make an impact in something I believe in while working with skilled people

* not moving every couple of years

* not spending half my free time in commute

If my current work magically had an office in town tomorrow I'd 100% start going there.

My guess that it'll come down a lot to the people you'll be working with.

Anyway, sounds like you made the right call! Good luck and hope you found something that brings you joy!

Yeah, I don't blame you at all. All my 20s were spent working at software companies in the office.

I went remote when I turned 30. I am very grateful I spent that time working in the office, making friends, and hanging out. It was a lot of fun.

Super important warning though: make sure that you still work on developing some friendships in your city outside of the office.

I've kinda fell into that trap myself during the pandemic. Both my team and our customers are really cool, and I spend a lot of time on calls, so I didn't feel any need to meet people outside of work.

But then I took some time off and realized I barely have any friends in my city. I fixed it since then and met some great people, but at the time it wasn't a pleasant experience.

     An office job is a very consistent way to talk 
     to another human person in real life.

Well, it's certainly a way, but your coworkers are (essentially) forced to be there and to talk to you.

I have made many genuine lifelong friends this way, but "forced proximity to another person whose finances depend on their presence" is not always going to be the healthiest basis for human relationships.

     Before someone comments about "go to a rock 
     climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop"

I don't want to extrapolate/interpolate too much from your words here, but simply showing up at those places seems like a very non-ideal way to make friends. I'm sometimes up for chitchat with randos, but often not, and I'm not really looking to form lasting friendships.

The real key is to join groups who do things together, whether it's gaming or hiking or volunteering or whatever. Those are true shared passions, interests, and experiences.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood your words. Perhaps you already tried things like that, e.g. you were part of a group at the rock climbing gym or something like that.

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop" - I tried all of those things. It's not that simple. An office job is a very consistent way to talk to another human person in real life.

There's something to be said for joining a club or joining a church if so inclined.

It's much easier to create a community once you get rolling, but very hard to get started.

Getting a job in an office is good, it'll help build friendships. I'd just caution against that being the only community you're apart of. I personally try to be apart of 3-4 communities, it keeps me busy and makes my life more robust if one community is impacted.

"Rock climbing", "going to a coffee shop", isn't a community - those are effectively solo activities. You may get some human contact, but it's not someone you can call when you're sick.

I think people often memetically comment that because they've found they like it or found it to be a cheap way they can buy into hypothetically socializing. I like coffee shops and would happily meet there with a friend, but for someone with a scarcity of organic interests that would naturally take them there, they need to explore why that is and why it seems troublesome first. You can't or shouldn't try to just hack your way into a good social life by adopting arbitrary social activities; though many of them might be fun to explore among a long list of potential other things to explore.

Many people move to cities from the suburbs of their hometown where everyone they knew just happened because they were already around them for the specific reason that they had to be around them day in and day out, like an office job in a way.

My biggest recommendations would be to explore the area and be open to trying new things, and then also to meet your coworkers and their friends eventually, if you can.

So many people I know back home have only ever made "friends" with their coworkers, and if that job went away, so would their "friends", because they are linked in only that way. If you meet your coworkers friends somehow though, the only reason that relationship would flourish to the point of friendship is that you each felt that it should, because you discovered common ground or realized you both had chemistry.

Likewise, another thing I recommend to people who feel isolated, is to try and find something you like doing for 2-3 hours a day, once or twice a week, somewhat around other people. Could be the gym, could be hanging at a coffee shop, could be many other things, you just need some common faces regularly so you have the opportunity to discover if you vibe with them. It's important that you'd do it regardless of anyone else being there too. You need to be down for it, and anything else that happens should be considered a lucky side-effect.

So yes, it's not that simple, and you're absolutely right.

> I know some people aren't going to like reading this, but this is the reason I got an office job after working 2+ years remotely.

Nobody dislikes reading about how someone finds value for themselves in going into the office.

Some people would greatly dislike reading about how everyone should go into the office.

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop" - I tried all of those things. It's not that simple. An office job is a very consistent way to talk to another human person in real life.

Yes and no. Living in a city defeats the purpose of working remotely. If you're remote with no dependants, you have ultimate freedom. Pick an outdoor activity and move east from your working timezone. Stay at a hostel, they usually have private rooms. Do said activity in the morning, work during the day, hang out with people from the hostel at night.

If you're in the city, then yeah, go to an office. Preferably one that is walking distance from a good pub or a good music venue.

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym"

Not all climbing gyms are exactly social spaces.

Some have a good culture of being a social space etc, others don't.

I've been a member of both types - the current place I climb (the only one in my current city) really lacks the social element.

I suspect there's a survivorship bias esque thing happening where people only really report on the sociable climbing walls, and nobody talks about the others.

I have a very large friendship network outside of work (to the point of it being overbearing). I still hate working from home. It’s convenient, efficient and soulless. My excitement from work is solving problems with people in person, and the human element is a critical component.

If you woke up tomorrow and found you were the only person left on the world, would you be inspired to create? I wouldn’t.

I think happiness with remote work depends a lot on whether you live with a family / roommates who you see regularly.

> "go to a rock climbing gym"

why not go skiing on the weekends. My eyes and body was degenerating from sitting in front of screens all day. I had crazy cervical degeneration and poor eyesight from using computers all day. Skiing is helping me manage the constant cervical pain and helping my eyes relax.

Escape the screens before its too late.

> I know some people aren't going to like reading this

That's because it's an unpopular opinion in an industry teeming with reclusive and rabidly antisocial people.

But it's one that I subscribe to and indeed all the engineers at the company I work for do, as well. The fact is, at remote jobs I made zero relationships even though the people were generally approachable and easy to talk to. I got one job with a person I already had good relationships and wouldn't you know but our relationship never got much deeper until I flew out to Utah to simply hang out with him.

That was what made me switch to an on-site job, and 14 months in, I think I've made the right decision. Office shenanigans, small talk, an overheard joke are what really make the relationship. To say nothing of breaking bread with your office companions! Who likes eating alone every day? I've also found that the artificiality of Zoom sessions really ruin mundane interactions. I communicated less with people whilst working remotely, and the communications themselves were noticeably less satisfying.

Do activities that require interaction with other people. Sign up for a dance class, or a hiking group or a book club or a marital arts class or chess club and commit to going two to three times a week. You’ll make a lot more friends not related to your job.

I worked in an office that I really enjoyed. Then due to covid, ended up working remote, and then taking a remote only job. It's a weird feeling thinking that such a drastic social change may basically be permanent.

Try a crossfit gym with group classes and attend at the same time a few times a week. You'll get to know people and be involved in a "shared struggle" which is a good way to build friendships.

also adding my voice to say I did a very similar thing. 2 years WFH (as a young single male) was a miserable experience for me. I switched to an office job and I’m much happier.

So you're using the office as a crutch for your social life. Don't drag us all back into the office just for that.

Plus you're destroying the planet commuting every day.

> I know some people aren't going to like reading this

Sure, just don't push your preferences on other people. That's really the issue of work remote or not.

Oh yeah, I couldn't do it alone. I love working remotely, but that's because I have my wife, dogs, and nearby family to keep me more or less sane.

He took the red pill!

> Before someone comments about "go to a rock climbing gym" or "go to a coffee shop" - I tried all of those things. It's not that simple.

So, you are choosing the cheapest/easiest of the options out there: to talk to people that are forced to see you in person every day of the week. To that, I can only say: good luck.

This is one reason why I regularly participate in Crossfit. It pushes me into a very uncomfortable place, perhaps even painful. Yet it has a strong grounding effect on my mental health, and makes me feel alive. Other stress/pain in my life seems much more manageable somehow.

That's exactly how I see it. Everything that is frictionless has been designed that way to either suck your attention or your money. Everything that rewards you in life has always had some modicum of struggle to it, and now that we're all used to convenience, those struggle walls seem much higher than before.

I don't really know how to get out of it. I take ice-cold showers every morning and it's now more or less "easy". Doesn't really feel like a big step though. I guess I just keep going, trying more and more difficult things.