
Ask HN: How has working remotely for long periods affected your social skills? - ccajas
This question is mainly directed at people who work all their hours remotely and have no hours working in person at an office. Especially if you&#x27;ve worked this way for several months or years, how has it affected the way you interact with people? Has it made some things more difficult to you? In particular if you are living single, and aren&#x27;t living with anyone to take care of (no SO, or no children or other family).
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goodroot
My partner and I both work remotely. We are lucky to be close to downtown
Vancouver. We can take a SeaBus into town and venture to one of the many co-
working facilities if we feel we would like to work in a more bustling
environment. My partner has a dedicated desk at WeWork. I prefer the home
office because I love being around our plants and I am prone to random bouts
of meditation.

Remote working has allowed me to flourish socially. I have a recreational
hockey team, we are part of a nice Yoga community, and given that we spend
lots of time around our neighbourhood, we have met many friends, from the lady
who cleans our building to the dude who owns the coffeeshop. Soon, I will be
volunteering at the local hospice.

When you decouple social contact from work, the onus is on you to find a
healthy replacement with the extra time and flexibility that remote life
affords you. As is often the case when starting something new, you may find
the first leap into a new social scene to be a harrowing experience. But it is
rewarding! Much of this is because we live an urban life-style. I imagine
being in a sub-urban neighbourhood might be much tricker to manage, as the
people and amenities are further away. Consider how likely you are to stay
working remotely. Perhaps a more "vibrant" area of town that allows you to
walk to wonders might suit you better?

As an interim solution, my partner and I have both found that scheduling
purely social calls, or 'no agenda, just banter' group video chats to be a
fruitful means of connecting with the people with which we work.

~~~
ccajas
I am not as extroverted, so working remote has actually made me less proactive
about going out. I'm not much into athletic activities, or meeting up with
strangers, and I find solo activities/hobbies more interesting most of the
time.

To be honest I think it's done a number on my social skills. Ever since I
worked remotely I have not been able to do well on interviews as I used to.
When I started out my career, it took me 3 months to get my first job as a
programmer. Now, I've been interviewing for 3 years and counting. Seems like I
sound kinda "off" with all the people I've interviewed with since in the few
times I have gotten feedback, they say I sound nervous. 3 years of
interviewing practice (I consider every real interview to also count as
"practice") has not made much progress it seems.

I haven't put much effort in meeting new people. The only people I talk to
today are my close relatives and two of my closest friends. And no partner to
lean on socially. In fact I have never had a serious relationship in my 36
years of living. Would you consider this par on course for an introvert
working remotely, or am I taking social reclusion too far?

~~~
goodroot
I would not consider myself an extrovert. I am much more inclined to
introversion. But as @mattnewport said in response to me...

> Similar to what some others mentioned, I'm more of an introvert so I find
> remote work makes me more social if anything as I don't "use up" my social
> energy being in an office and can instead use it more selectively on
> interactions that I get more value from.

I think this is key. Offices used to make me feel exhausted. I recall coming
home from work and plummeting into a "crash nap" for an hour so that I could
salvage my evenings. I worked hard to build my life so that I can move at a
much slower pace and take things in a flow that works well for me.

But to your question: is what you are describing par for the course for an
introvert working remotely, or are you taking social reclusion too far...

There seems to be two things afoot:

* You have been interviewing for a long while without success.

* You feel lonely and, in a way, depreciating, because of your confined way of being.

As for interviewing... I would agree that actual interviews _are_ practice -
the best kind! But I am curious as to the other type of practice that you are
doing. Are you working with other people to help you or are you studying
textbooks like 'Cracking the Coding Interview'? We all feel a bit weird about
recruiters, but there are services that will help you polish your people
skills.

As for reclusiveness... It sounds like you might be taking it to an extreme.
There are studies that pop-up on HN often about the benefits of social contact
towards well-being and longevity. There is also intuitive proof; we feel much
better when we have social validation. The inverse is depressing. I empathize.
It sounds like you are having a tough time.

I would challenge a limiting belief like introversion. That is not a good
reason for making yourself suffer alone. It might be time to write a narrative
for yourself where you _are_ into athletic activities, meeting up with
strangers, and being open to healthy and fruitful relationships. When you take
care of yourself it will shine through in all that you do.

------
mprev
I worked pretty much entirely remotely for 12 years. Remote work was a trade
off. I got to live where my wife wanted while working for interesting
companies, doing interesting things.

I made friends all around the world but I know relatively few people where I
live. I’ve had to go out of my way to have social hobbies in order to meet
people. With a family and a remote job (calls to the other side of the world
do not happen in 9-5 hours), that wasn’t always possible.

Over all, I’d say my social skills did not suffer but my social life did and
my sense of connection to where I live was perhaps less than it might have
been otherwise.

Now I have my own business I’ve rented an office in town and am building a co-
located team.

There are many benefits to remote work but, after more than a decade of it, I
think I’m realistic about its downsides too.

------
twbarber
I've got a wife but no kids, and have been working entirely remote for 9
months. The 3 biggest changes I've noticed:

\- I have to remind myself to slow down when talking to people. I think this
is a result of having to think/talk through issues on my own during the day.
Pairing with team members has helped this a bit.

\- I had to make a real effort to see my friends more often, loneliness set in
heavily despite having a spouse. Picking up a social hobby, rock climbing in
my case, has also helped.

\- If living in an area without a strong software community, exchanging ideas
and "talking shop" goes away. Learning and professional growth is now done
entirely remote as well. Try and stay in an area with regular meetups or some
sort of interaction with other engineers if you growing as a technical
contributor is important to you.

I do get back to the office 3 times a year, but it's definitely changed my
normal social patterns. I still strongly prefer full time remote to having to
commute even once or twice a week, but I now use that commute time for
socializing and hobbies instead. Good trade off for the added bit of
loneliness in my opinion, although I'm not sure my answer would be the same if
I didn't have my spouse to keep me company.

* I also moved from Chicago to a town of 15k in Upstate NY

~~~
ropeadopepope
Slightly OT: I noticed from your post history you were considering moving to
NH. How did you end up in Upstate NY?

I'm NNY born and raised. I live in a small town of 500 just outside of a small
city of 25k. I love it here, but the lack of local resources does make me
wonder if I could move to a slightly larger city with a better airport so I
can have my cake and eat it too.

~~~
twbarber
Also born and raised in the Saratoga area, and that's where we live now. We
moved back here because of family, and my also one of the local colleges has
an outdoor education program my wife wanted to enroll in.

Switching from part-time to full-time remote is what allowed us to move here.
We found ourselves spending most of our vacation time back this way anyway, so
moving back here was a goal a year or two after we moved to Chicago.

If I ever lost this job, the backup plan is Boston while my wife stays with my
family and finishes her degree. There's really not many places to work up this
way, and none of them are willing to pay large city wages.

That said, we don't intend to settle down here. The risk is too high.
Portland, ME is similar culturally with more opportunity. That's on our short
list to head out to next.

------
DoreenMichele
I am not the demographic you are looking for answers from, but I will note
that if you are introverted or socially challenged in some way, being removed
from 40+ hours per week of social friction at the office can actually improve
your ability to connect socially at times and places when you want that to
happen because your internal quota for social stuff was not long ago used up
and burned to the ground, making yet one more conversation start with getting
on your very last nerve and go downhill from there.

~~~
maxxxxx
That's exactly how I feel. My "internal quota for social stuff" gets used up
by the office so there is nothing left in my free time.

------
d5ve
I've worked remotely (with a 12-hour time difference!) from a home office for
3.5 years. Initially my wife and daughter were home much of the time, but for
the past 1.5 years it's been just me, as my wife is working part-time and my
daughter is in childcare.

I wasn't a particularly social person originally, but working alone has made
me even more insular, and less inclined to join in social situations. It ended
up with me feeling lonely and unhappy. I was considering quitting my contract,
although similar work is difficult to find where I'm now living.

So two weeks ago, I started working in a shared workspace, and I will try that
for a few months to see if it helps.

My guess is that every person has a different buffer of how long they can do
without regular human company during the day, and I'd exausted mine. Having a
family helps, but may not replace professional company where you are
discussing things about your dayjob.

~~~
sibeliuss
I've been doing coworking for a few years now and can't recommend it enough!
Its the perfect balance of social interaction + freedom IMO.

------
sien
HN generally doesn't like humour - but this resonates with a lot of people who
have worked at home :

[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home)

FWIW I did it for a while and even though I had some social contact at the
time it really wasn't enough and I did get a bit weird.

------
galeforcewinds
Working remote causes you to trust people based on results not on spec. This
can impact your interactions when you expect things like followthrough,
consistency, demonstration of commitment, attentiveness to your
communications, being on-task, and work quality where these things work a bit
differently IRL and you are more prone to be exposed to intermediate work
products rather than incremental or final.

------
maxxxxx
When I worked remotely I had a better social life. I don't enjoy a lot of the
communications at a typical office and I find them very draining so I don't do
much in the evening or over the weekend. While I worked remotely I was alone
during the day but I had energy and interest in meeting people in the evening.

------
mr_tristan
I've worked remotely for 3 years, for 3 different companies, with a move to a
new city. Remote work has changed me a little bit, but moving to a new city:
massive.

With remote work, succinct written communication is critical. Don't overload
the reader with content; tends to cause people to go "oh god" and not read
what you have to say. With a lot of practice and honest work you'll see
improvements.

Moving to a new city, though, took much, much more effort to adjust, and had a
greater psychological impact. I moved with a girlfriend, and we bought a house
after a few months. Once that all settled down, we realized we didn't really
have many local "meatspace" friends. You realize every weekend you can just
"do something together" and then you never really build a network. That can
feel tremendously isolating, far more then working remotely.

Remote work offers a very compelling option to move, which can offer a
wonderful standard of living. I'll definitely stick with remote work. I love
it, now that I've really adjusted, and dedicate time to social and
professional networking. But without real time spent with others regularly, it
would be easy to turn into a hermit, addicted to social networking, for any
kind of "personal" connection.

------
osrec
I worked remotely for a year, from home and a couple of coffee shops. It
certainly made me a calmer person, and keeping myself away from mundane office
conversations (and mundane tasks) refreshed my senses and added to my
happiness. I lived alone in a flat in a nice part of London and regularly
visited the gym and played tennis, which provided enough social interaction
for me, in addition to a few weddings and birthdays dotted throughout the
year. I built [https://usebx.com](https://usebx.com) during this year, with
the help of a couple of contractors, who also worked remotely. I now do have
an office, but still work remotely most days, and encourage my employees to do
the same. I'll only go into the office if a client wants to visit. The set up
works rather well. The one thing I struggled with initially was routine - I
could easily code till 5am, and sleep till 2pm, then not be able to get into a
good sleep, work or social routine for a week. Now I force myself to finish at
a reasonable time so that I can be continually productive over time, not just
productive for that one day, while enjoying other aspects of life as well.

------
aantix
I have a great spouse with three wonderful kids. I enjoy alone time but the
isolation should be taken very seriously. The days will be reduced to animated
emojis and clever gifs. And the days blend together.

Socializing becomes this activity that you have to be proactive for otherwise
you’ll find yourself in some dark places asking a therapist how you arrived at
this low point.

~~~
landtuna
Also married with three kids. I've worked remotely for years now, and I have a
working spouse. I manage to socialize some with other parents because of kid
activities, but that's about it! And I only manage that by keeping my work
hours to about 30 per week.

If I go for a week or two without client face to face, I can feel my social
skills getting more awkward.

I don't feel right now that there is room for improvement, so I'm just
floating until life slows down again.

------
amatxn
I've been working remotely for 18 months, married with a toddler and 10 year
old daughter. I classify myself as an introvert, but vary widely from needing
to be outgoing to extremely isolating myself. The previous job I left required
me to be at the peak of personal extroversion professionally as a director of
engineering. I worked with my team, business dev, and IT. I was also involved
with sales calls and on-boarding customers. It pushed my boundaries but it
forced me to grow. I started to enjoy being more extroverted.

I went from that position to working remotely for a start-up that had only 3
remote team members. At first I enjoyed the break from interactions with
others but still had lots of communication with at least one other remote team
member. About a year ago, I was moved to a different team, one with 2 local
team members and myself. It has been a real struggle as I have gone days
without interacting with team members or anyone besides my wife and son. I do
leave the house daily to take my son to day care, but that is the extent of
daily interaction outside the home with the exception of the grocery store on
the weekends.

Limited social interactions has been and is becoming more of a problem for me
working remote. Working in the office I developed friendships existed outside
of the office as well. Those relationships are hard to maintain, and the same
level of social life no longer exists when working remotely. We've instituted
daily standup video calls and it helps a little.

I didn't have a huge social life before but it is now two extremes - either I
crave the need to chit chat and interact with others or I withdraw completely
from social situations. For example, I try to go to the coffee at least once a
week just to be around other people. However, when I travel to the office
quarterly, I cannot make it through the week of dinners and other events
without leaving early to be alone.

Going days without meaningful technical and social interactions has caused me
to be depressed and I've already considered leaving my current employer for a
remote team that has more deliberate communication. Overall I'm glad with
going 100% remote, but I have to work hard to not completely isolate myself.

------
MattLeBlanc001
I've been working remotely for >6years. I go to office/customer once a month
or less.

how has it affected the way you interact with people?

It did affect my interaction with people in general. I'm married and have a
baby, but still think I suffered from working from home. Don't get me wrong,
it certainly has a lot of pro's:

\- Don't need to commute to office

\- Don't need to iron my shirts to go to the office

\- Save at least 3-4 hours per day because I don't have to travel

\- Less likely to be interrupted by a colleague. Unless they call or email
you, they don't have a chance to come to you or meet you in the kitchen and
interest you to work with them in a new project.

Now to the con's:

\- Your communication and interaction with people will go down (unless you
invest your free time to be around people)

\- Promotion, promotion, promotion. It's difficult to be promoted if you never
show up, never had a chance to network with colleagues and managers on a daily
basis, never had face to face meetings to see and be seeing.

Has it made some things more difficult to you?

Yes and No. It made me relize that I need to invest more time interacting with
people. Both for the sake of myself and for my career. It actually made me a
bad husband and father. I'm less likely to talk and became more introvert than
I'am. I think if you don't train the communication muscle regurarely, you are
bound to become more introvert whether you are single or not. I made the
mistake of buying a PS4 and playing games right after finishing work then
going to sleep. It took me almost two years to realize that I basically didn't
talk to anyone, not even my wife unless there is something to talk about.

Moral of the story, if you don't invest your time in communicating and
interacting with people you will become more introvert and used to be not
"Interrrupted" even when you are not working.

I sold my PS4 a year ago and started going to meetups and playing soccer. It
made a big difference. For my next Job, I will be looking for a desk based job
with a few days working from home.

------
altitudinous
I left a corporate consulting career because I was burned out and started
writing iOS apps from home. 5 years later the app business has been very
successful for me but it has been the loneliest thing I have ever done. I use
co-working environments when I can but generally people keep their head down
in these too. I do relish the chance to interact socially with people now and
I appreciate how valuable it is these days. This is the main reason I am
probably done with apps, I'm looking for a more interactive role now.

------
notacoward
I've worked remotely for several years, first where it was common (Red Hat)
and now where it's very rare (Facebook).

At a gross level, not much has changed. I interact with people socially about
as much as I always did. What has changed is that my social interactions are
more conscious and deliberate. Everyone I see, I see voluntarily and
occasionally - not day after day after day whether we like it or not, as with
coworkers. As a result, I have to focus a bit more on making those times
rewarding and repeatable. I watch the ebb and flow of conversation, listening
more and even trying to create openings for those who don't seem to be finding
their own. I keep a mental list of conversational gambits for when other
topics peter out or need to be changed quickly. These are all good skills to
have anyway. but they become absolutely critical when you need to keep those
outside-of-work relationships humming along.

I also find that I engage in more chit-chat with people I meet more casually.
My mail carrier. The folks at the local convenience store. Anyone sitting next
to me at a bar or waiting near me in line. I'm an introvert, I can't stand to
interact with people _too much_ , but these little exchanges help me stay
connected and (perhaps even more importantly) stay in practice for when
conversations really matter.

So, oddly, I think working remotely has helped me _improve_ my social skills.
As they say, calm seas never made a great sailor. I know some people founder,
but for me it has been more of an opportunity to hone some generally useful
skills.

------
Steel_Phoenix
I have a wife and kids an a beautiful house out in the redwoods. We both work
from home. I put on shoes and leave home weekly. Previously, I lived in a city
and worked in a production line.

I'm not sure I had many social skills in the first place, but I've found that
I went from wishing everyone would go away to actually asking people to come
visit. I miss co-workers, but the most surprising thing I found was that my
personal bubble is about a hundred feet around. My previous antisocial nature
was less about too many personal interactions than just feeling the pressure
of humanity, even if they were just driving by outside the house. Whenever
I've been in a big city, I find myself seeking out alleyways or anywhere that
doesn't have anyone near it. I'm always surprised that no matter how I seek
out the most undesirable corner, there's always someone there. Clearly I'm not
the only one who feels this way, but I'm not sure how many come to this
realization about large personal space, since for me it took months of
isolation to really get it.

I certainly haven't lost the ability to interact positively with others, but
without recent shared history, conversations can be hard to maintain unless I
find a subject of solid mutual interest.

------
noobermin
I often work from coffeshops or other places in order to maintain some level
of social interaction, as little as it may be. I suppose when I do go into the
office for a meeting, we all sort of speak the same language and have similar
personality types so there are no issues socially; I don't have to put up a
super social extroverted front to talk physics (I'm a scientist). I don't live
with my SO but we video chat frequently, which also helps.

------
hluska
I have more experience working remote than in an office, and I'm deeply
introverted, so I may not be the best person to ask.

I wouldn't say that working remotely for long periods has affected mt social
skills. However, when I work remote, I socialize much differently than I do
when I work in an office.

When I work in an office, all of my 'new kid in town' habits kick in. So I
make a point of sitting as close to the kitchen space as possible, listen
actively to find instant common ground, and make a point to make eye contact
with as many people as possible. So, when I'm in an office, it's easy to have
quick 5-10 minute conversations to refill the old social jug and get back to
work.

When I work remote, it's harder to form those kinds of bonds with my
coworkers. I've made some wonderful friends working remotely, but it's amazing
how powerful sitting in a central space, active face-to-face listening and eye
contact are, so I don't get to form the same types of relationships. Instead,
I have to make a point to go out and do social things. If I don't actively
work to refill my social jug, I get intensely lonely.

Of the two, I prefer working remote because honestly, I get the chance to
build deeper friendships.

------
peelle
I am remote, and for the last few years did not work in a fixed location. My
SO traveled with me and managed us, but had no job.

Because of the way we lived I think my communication skills have gotten
better. Each new place we either lived with locals or other expats, or we
worked out of pubic places like cafes. During non work hours we regularly went
out and interacted with others.

For work I only need to be "in office" during certain 4 hour chunk of the day,
the other hours could be worked whenever I chose. Often my schedule would
change from day to day. This is bad for keeping regular eating and sleeping
schedules. I feel this indirectly affected my social skills at times.

When I am in Asia, that four hour chunk corresponds to when most weekday
meetups happen. This limits some of my opportunities to meet new people, and
be sociable during the weekdays. On the other hand, I can do random daytime
events that most people have to take off for anytime they come up.

I never had an extremely healthy social work life when I did work at the
office. It was an office of 1-2 other IT people, and a majority of my work
time was spent coding, not socializing. The same is true now, except when we
socialize it's via hangouts instead of in person.

------
swat535
I have been working remotely for the past few years. I am single (no SO,
children).

I dare say my social life has improved as I am less stressed, get more sleep
and above all, I have plenty of energy to go out and meet people in the
evening than when I was working in an office.

Furthermore, I never really enjoyed the social aspect of an office, it always
made me feel awkward and was more of a chore than anything as I tend to keep
those relationships strictly professional.

------
harterrt
I've worked from home for ~2 years now. Mostly in Pittsburgh, but for the last
5 months I've been working from rural Vermont. I'm not afraid that my social
skills are decaying. Actually, I think they may be improving.

The biggest change I've noticed is that I have more social energy to spend
with people I choose. Before, I'd exhaust all of my social energy at the
office. For me this is great - I feel richer for having more interaction with
people who aren't techies. Small talk isn't about the newest javascript
framework or crypto currency. I have to work harder to clearly explain what
I'm working on and why it's important and why it's interesting. Good social
exercise.

I still spend plenty of time communicating with my co-workers. I feel like I'm
less likely to fall into the office group-think now that I have a chance to
tune out and think though problems independently. I'm more likely to say what
I mean and ask for what I want. I think I speak more clearly now that I need
to pump my thoughts through a narrower conduit (email or video chat).

------
kosma
I'm a bit of an outlier (autistic and extrovert). Every attempt at remote work
or freelancing so far has been a disaster for me: I could neither build enough
structure at home to get consistent results or even consistent working hours,
nor put in enough effort to have satisfying amounts and quality of social
interactions. The lack of constant swapping of ideas was also a major pain.
YMMV.

------
humbledrone
I worked remotely full time for about 5 years for three different companies.

I am naturally inclined towards introversion, and although I really enjoy
other people's company, if left to my own devices I often don't seek out
social situations. I think for this reason it was definitely a bit isolating
for me, since working in person was a forcing function to get me to socialize
a bit.

I eventually found some social interaction at a co-working facility, but in
the end I decided to go back to working in an office in person. (That decision
was mostly motivated by other factors, but the social factor was not an
insignificant motivator.)

With that said, I have also seen people who are better than me at seeking
social situations who had no trouble working remotely. They co-worked, joined
meetups, worked in coffee shops, etc, and managed to meet new people without
any feelings of isolation.

So I guess I'd say: if you can trust yourself to be socially engaged without
having to be in the office, it's probably fine. Otherwise, it's also probably
fine but may become a bit isolating.

------
gto16108
Background: I've worked remotely for 2 1/2 years. Before that, I worked in an
office. Before that, I worked in retail. I am married and live with my wife in
a 25ft Airstream.

Personally, I find that I am more careful with who I spend time with. I try
not to read a lot of news and outside media to in order to focus on doing
things I love and work on my craft (Development, photography, and video). I
haven't found any changes with my confidence in speaking to others, and the
way I look at it, unless you're are a complete recluse, you'll always interact
with other people.

My wife and I spend a lot of time in campgrounds and in nature, so I do
cherish the time I get to talk to people, even if that time is brief. After
being on the road for almost a year, I reconnected with some old friends for a
weekend on Albuquerque and had no social issues.

~~~
lev99
> I try not to read a lot of news and outside media

I work from home and did the same for a long time. When I tried to enter
casual conversation with people I noticed I was unable to discuss world
events. In addition I was missing important local information, such as road
closures or purposed tax increases. I settled on reading the daily paper. It
covers everything I need to know, and while it has a bias, it’s much less than
what’s on a facebook feed.

------
andkon
I'm probably right in the middle on the introvert/extrovert scale, so it's
been mostly nice, but how isolated I'll feel will depend on the org I'm
working in. More video with more people? More 1 on 1s with other remote folks?
That's been great for me. But when I'm one of the only remote people, and
everyone else is in the office, it ain't great.

Remote work has also made me really value the coffee shop as a place to meet
friends, meet up with friends, and be around the noise of people being people.

Edit: it's also worth noting that I don't think remote has changed how I'm
social. It's just been a different social setting, and I'm happy to say I'm
mostly able to adapt to it. It needn't be isolating, and it can open up energy
for you to be more social in other parts of your life.

------
pilom
31, married, been working 100% remote with a 100% remote team for 5 years. My
wife works outside the home but we took 2 years when she was between jobs to
drive around the Western US in an RV
([https://therecklesschoice.com](https://therecklesschoice.com)).

Overall, I never felt obligated to be social with my co-workers because they
never had the same interests I did. I do tech because it pays well and allows
me to work remotely, not because it is my calling. So I never really found co-
workers to be the ones that I hung out with. I do other things that I enjoy
more and that is where I'm social regardless of working remotely or working in
an office.

One of the reasons we stopped the RV trip was because it was isolating. We had
social groups outside of work and the RV trip ripped us from those groups.

------
InfernalLogic
I've worked from home for about eight months now, from my bedroom, with my
wife two kids (ages four and two) at home. I've always scored about 50-50 on
any test that measures introversion vs. extroversion. I will be the center of
attention in social situations, but I don't really seek them out, so work was
really the only way I made friends before. So I see my social circle (as it
was) dwindling as I work longer from home.

I think the weirdest thing I've noticed is a decline in verbal communication
skills. It's much harder to express myself verbally, much easier in writing.
My company has only recently started doing video rather than voice-only calls,
which has helped. I also try to get people to video chat any time I help them
with something instead of trying to handle it over slack.

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graeme
I'd say it made me more outgoing. If I wasn't, I wouldn't meet anyone!
Especially when I was single I got in the habit of starting conversations with
people (both men and women).

I also make a habit of going on walks in the neighbourhood. I'd find it harder
to be self employed if I lived someplace I couldn't do that. But when I step
outside there are parks full of people.

When I _first_ moved out on my own I got terribly lonesome, until I started
going to cafes. Talking with the staff at a local cafe is actually a good way
to get a small dose of socialization each day.

I found, surprisingly, that I didn't need deep social connection on a daily
basis, but I did need _some_ social contact. In other words, for filling that
need, a 3 min chat with a barista was as effective as an hour with a close
friend.

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jaredandrews
27 single male, been working remotely for around 3 years. I would say it
affected me slightly at first. I realized after leaving my office job that a
fair amount of my social interaction was off-the-cuff activities with
coworkers. Which I obviously wouldn't be around for anymore.

I basically had to learn to take more initiative when it came to arranging to
hang out with people. I did and things have been going great since.

With remote work you definitely have the opportunity to isolate yourself on
accident. So you have to been conscious of that and take action when you
notice it.

I live alone now. But in the beginning of my remote career I had roommates.
Roommates, who are actually your friends, are a great way of avoiding social
isolation in the remote setting. And if they all have office jobs, you get the
house to yourself all day!

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wordpressdev
After working from home for a decade (own projects + freelancing), I have now
taken on a full time role mainly because I wanted to change the scenario a
bit.

My routine was very haphazard while I was working from home. Being an
introvert and with a very small circle of friends, I was lagging on social
activity - in general a pretty miserable situation.

Now, 15 days in the new routine and I already feel way disciplined as I have
to sleep early to get early for the office. Also, staying away from home for
10 hours makes me feel eager to return back to family, and they seem more
welcoming too :)

I may not continue this job (office politics, incompetent management) but I
will try to find another day job or some sort of activity where I can spend at
least 8-10 hours out of home.

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eruci
I've been working remotely for the last 13 years. Still doing it. Feels like
Robinson Crusoe sometimes, but look at it from the positive side: don't have
to deal with annoying co-workers (like I used to, long ago)

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r32a_
I find that creating a regime and structure is the only way to be able to work
remotely in a sustainable way.

I have work hours and none work hours. I have a work out routine that makes me
wake up early in the morning, which in turn makes me sleep at a reasonable
time

I give myself lunch breaks that I use to go to the grocery store buy
ingredients and cook good food.

I make plans for my after work hours to see friends, attend meetups..etc.

Working in an office setting you are forced into a structure, with working
remotely you have to create your own structure.

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m0dest
I worked from home for 2 years in the same situation (single, no dependents).
It was actually great for me socially. Commuting can be so draining. Instead
of arriving home exhausted at 7 PM, I would be ready to go out right at 5 PM.
I'd do laundry and clean up my place during breaks in the day, so I had even
more time free in the evenings and weekends.

To take advantage of it, you do have to be super proactive about filling your
social calendar in the evenings. But that's true in any situation.

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pacnard
Been a freelancer for 10 years, I got really good at socializing. I think when
you are forced to interact with others you develop passive-aggressive
patterns, build up stress, machiavellianism and so on. I can also see how
people who work fulltime often don't have the energy for anything but alcohol.
Meanwhile I do all sorts of things with other high energy people. I am not
trained in corporate socialization or other weird stuff. So, I'm great.

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bitL
Not at all (>6 years). But this is heavily dependent on your personality. You
can lead rich social life but be complete recluse at work, 100% focusing on
what you do. Or you can work remotely from some exotic place, bumping at new
interesting people whenever you walk out of your apartment for trivial stuff
like buying food or stretching yourself.

Whenever I feel lonely I can throw a party with a mix of people of various
backgrounds as well.

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nikhildaga
I have been working full time as a freelance developer at ideatostartup.org
since last 4 years.

Working remotely has neither affected the way I interact with people nor made
anything difficult for me. However, it may be because I live with my family
and they have a big social circle.

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cm2012
One year, live with my wife, no, social skills have not declined. I am as
charming as ever.

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testtestla
To be honest for me it has impacted it somewhat bad as it pertains to
conference. I use to have zero issue of going up to anyone but after four
years of working from home there is a hesitate aspect now I have notice.

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rileyphone
I talk to my cat in lieu of my coworkers, which provides roughly as
stimulating a conversation. Meowing seems to be a less valuable social skill
though, so YMMV.

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badcede
People with "affected" social skills are not likely to be conscious of how
their social skills were "affected".

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sakopov
Working remote from a new city. Couldn't have been worse socially.

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rhapsodic
I've been working remotely for a number of years and it has not affected my
social skills at all AFAICT. But that's because I have a very full life
outside of work, that involves a lot of social interaction.

