I can't square this with the fact that I have a perfect storm situation that should point me there. I am a foreigner of minority ethnicity to the United States living in a high-rise building of 600 people that has no Schelling point common-space to spend time in that's located in a city that is expensive and I have all the social contact I desire: family, close friends, more distant friends, neighbours, strangers in the building, familiar strangers in the area.

I talked about how relatively easy it is to have social contact here at all levels and so I must conclude that most people simply have better uses for their time (by their own judgment) than this. https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-10-09/Community

A lot of people are convinced of things without ever trying, which they then use to justify not trying.

"I mildly attempted doing this once and it didn't work, so I won't bother trying again" describes a shocking amount of people's experiences.

I sometimes think people fail on purpose to justify apathy or giving up.

Then if anyone says anything they scream about how their experience is valid and nobody can tell them otherwise. It's wild.

There's something important about being outside our comfort zones. We need entropy in our lives and the best way to accomplish that is being in new environments with different people/creatures. What I've found is over time my comfort zone expands as I become familiar with more stuff.

I'm a white foreigner in Asia and feel the exact same as you. But I also realize, because I'm different than everyone else, there is more interest in getting to know me.

Also, people that are different than everyone else (but same background as me) seek me out to be friends.

For example, there is a HUGE difference between a Seattle Tech event where I am literally the same as the other 60 people in the room vs Vietnamese Tech event where I am one of 3 people that speak english. Those other 2 English speakers are going to walk over and chat with me.

Fellow desi here, and I am happy for you, but I haven't had the same experience at all in the Bay. Imo, there is something in American culture which makes people very incurious about other cultures...because there are so many immigrants from all over the world, Americans find it hard to relate to anyone not American. My favorite example to illustrate this is how "where are you from" is everyone's favorite question in South Asia and often asked with good intentions, but it can be considered rude in the States.

This is precisely because you are a foreigner of minority ethnicity (the minority ethnicity points towards hailing from a more traditional culture compared to if you were white and therefore you would be from Europe which does not have a traditional culture, it has a modern culture).

To clarify the idea: you have a healthy social matrix but if you marry and settle in the US, your grandchildren won't.

All of the foreigners I know seem so healthy about this kind of thing. I don't know what's wrong with the rest of us.

About 70-75% of Americans live in single family homes. Your experience is not universal.