Actually, I *am* a lonely, absolutely unathletic person, unable to lead a useful conversation with another person. But it''d be pure hybris to call myself a programmer.
No, only joking. since I started to learn how to write useful code, I got some kind of a social life outside the "geek community". What remains is the fact that it''s not easy for me to talk to other people.

---
ls -lR|rm -rf /
(Best compression everywhere. Kids, don''t try this as root.)

Crist! This topic is SICK. ;-)

Hmm, programmers. I have seen pretty weird people that spend their entire youth sitting behind a computer screen calculating PI in a million decimals or so, usually at night. But they are rare.

Personally, I am a guy with a good social life (more than 40 people attended my birthday party, and my mom hated that). I currently do not have a girlfriend, but this does not prevent me to have sex sometime. I visit pubs, disco''s, parties, computer(demo)parties , music evenements and friends. I spend my time with electronics, a drive-in show (with mostly professional quality self-built equipment), playing the amateur car mechanic, and finally, programming. I take a shower almost every day, my hair is short, and I wear normal T-shirts.

But all this does not prevent me from starting programming at midnight and stopping with it when the clock passes the 6 o''clock mark. Not everyday, but sometimes it is fun.

Well, my 2 cents.

No Indeterminatus, the only way to offend me is saying that I am a bad programmer ;-) ;-)

About your ''Social life - part 2'', make from the first statement:
"* Try to attend as much parties as possible. This will force you to get a job to earn some money. Even more people you get to know!"

heheh. I''m out.

The bad thing about partys is that most of them are during nighttime when we are supposed to get our nightly dose of electron sunburn... It''s damn hard to find a party that''s taking place during the day, and then there''s that goddamn big star that hurts my eyes!

---
ls -lR|rm -rf /
(Best compression everywhere. Kids, don''t try this as root.)

quote:
* Try to attend as much parties as possible. There''s happening so much around you! Don''t stay at home alone.

I wish; there''s no way to juggle social interaction a job, and an addiction to C.40 hours a week leaves almost no time during the week to even open ye old editor let alone meet people.

quote:
* Try to be as much of yourself as possible! Be natural, don''t deny your own personality.

Either this doesn''t work or nobody likes me.I''m just not interesting like The Croc Hunter or Homer Simpson.

quote:
* Search for a person you can absolutely rely on. Everybody needs somebody to talk about everything.

Well...its worked this far without any problems.People are overated anyway, a computer is reliable, someone who doesn''t question you, start arguments, or yap on about things that don''t matter.Every girl I''ve ever known yaps on and on and on, and never shuts up! How do you program with that going on? Sure they look nice and give you the ''feather in the stomach'' feeling, but they make it hard for you to live; I doubt I''ll ever be ready for that.

quote:
* Not the quantity of your friends is relevant, but the "quality"...a huge amount of friends is useless if you can''t rely on them...

No doubts about that.I have 1 friend and he''s powered by an athlon, most reliable person I''ve ever met.

I often wished for a more social life, or to one day talk to a member of the opposite sex, but its not working out.This is not something you can learn or fix, I believe.For all you people who always feel like your on the outside looking in (in respect to social interaction), just bite the bullet and enjoy the little time you have in this world to learn and be with your computers; don''t squander it looking for other people.