Oh My. The article is a self centered rant on "why is it hard to make friends over 30?" and ALL the HN comments at the time I wrote my screed were self centered in the sense of the article is correct nobody will hang out with me and I don't know how to change myself. That problem solving strategy seems very lacking in success over time and practical concrete action items. I've found that when a problem solving strategy fails to work, its time to try another strategy which is to step back and re-evaluate the problem.

I posted all my details because I have a lot of data about them, but more importantly I don't think I'm unusually busy or unusually bored so the list should resonate well with others. Also all the I / We pronouns are more of a generic "Everyman" on both sides of the situation for the sake of this discussion to keep discussion out of the weeds.

Unlike the self-focused discussion in the article, my new problem solving technique actually provides action items fairly obviously to most readers. Based on an analysis of my performance as a friend I can observe some general trends. First of all, most of my unavailable time was medium term, so yes its illegal under sex harassment laws to ask a girl out on a date more than once, I get it, but in the course of normal human events you should ask a potential non-sex partner friend to hang out more than once over at least a moderate period of time, because "life happens". Secondly virtually all of the posts at the time I posted assumed something was wrong with them not the people unwilling to hang out with them; do they need psychiatric treatment or drugs, counseling, advice. However no quantity of pills consumed will take me away from my kids little league game on rain-less friday nights to participate in your drinking expedition, changing yourself would be a waste of effort. I'm unusually easygoing, I would guess in excess of 99% of "I won't be friends with you" relationships, its literally honestly nothing personal, so don't bother being anxious or take prescription pills or whatever, but from observation I think even normie or aggressive people likely are in excess of 90% solely impersonal cause of dislike. I'm kinda outspoken when I'm not laid back, if you make the 1% of people I don't like, you wouldn't have to wonder why I don't like you or what to improve, which aside from some antisocial weirdos is pretty common behavior. In summary, almost always "I won't hang out with you" cannot be cured with therapy or a pill and there's nothing wrong or requiring change.

So, with the new analysis its a numbers game. You thought you had a 90% chance of it working out because we're buddies or have something in common, but the real number is more like a 1% chance of it working out, so meet a hundred people to boost the odds to 50:50 or so. Luckily the highly interconnected world has a very large population. All made up numbers of course.

When I was young, old people advice like "be yourself and meet more people" sounded hopelessly stupid as a solution. Unfortunately based on decades of life experience the truth doesn't care if you like it or if it makes you sound old, the truth just is. So in summary, by abandoning a failing problem solving strategy and re-analyzing the problem under a new strategy, I found a solution set which seems very rational and workable and it seems to fit available data, with the caveat that its not as simple as merely popping a pill AND youngsters have been culturally conditioned to hate the advice.

As a side issue, "why I'd be a crappy friend" doesn't imply I don't have friends, LOL. Which ironically should be anxiety reducing for friendless people. You don't have to be worried you'll die alone like a monk just because your kid is sick for awhile or your work-life balance temporarily sux or whatever as implied in the article and by HN posts.

A final side issue, with the pronoun "you" in the greater sense, there's a tinge of "There's no royal road to geometry" with the insight that its even worse in that you're also not royalty. This is Hacker News after all which comes with an interesting psychological profile... sure you went to an ivy or had straight As or work in a cool job, no one cares about your wannabe royalty-ness if their Dad is sick. There really is no easier solution to the problem than putting in the effort to get out there and meet more people.