alt Hacker NewsI've been a remote engineer for about 10 years now, just over 50, enjoy programming but most of my friends have dropped off or gone crazy (trumpers) in recent years, and I never got married.
I recently took a local wheel throwing (pottery class), which was daunting at first, among a class of almost all females, younger, etc, but im 6 months in and literally just interacting with humans is one of the best parts of my week. Hobby is pretty cool too, so completely different than banging code all day.
Sometimes I don't feel like going after days of being alone and literally talking to no one, it puts you in a "zone" for sure, but then I go to the class, and you realize, at least imho, humans are social creatures. It's like food, we need that interaction or we whither and die.
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I'm the same age as you and most of my friends are remote, on the other side of the country or in different countries, etc, and I maintain contact all the time, for decades. I still have friends from elementary school, middle school, high school, university, and from most of my jobs going back 30 years. I can pick up my phone and call some of my coworkers from 25 years ago without hesitation and we will go for lunch at the next opportune time.
> most of my friends have dropped off or gone crazy
If you find yourself to be the one who is isolated, then I think you need to look inward. My best friends and I share completely polar opposite politics. We have known each other for almost 50 years now. We have had yelling matches over politics, especially during the Pandemic. We have now stopped talking... about politics. We still chat every single day throughout the day. I laugh heartily at least once a day over some extremely offensive joke that one of us sends, usually at each other's expense. But we never, ever talk about politics anymore and we are happier for it.
Maybe you need to rekindle those friendships and see if you can avoid politics. If you can't then I think it's more on you than them and you should reflect on that.
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The inability of your friends to have non-political conversations can be a big part of isolation. I follow the “no politics, no religion” rule when I go out and it’s served me well.
You can have political/religious conversations with people who disagree but often it feels like walking in a mine field.