While I like 'socializing', I'd qualify it more as a distraction - the 'reading Hacker News' type of distraction - that takes your mind off the problems. It usually doesn't solve much, but makes you happier for a while.
It makes you happy for a while, but also overall. When I think back, the happiest moments have been those spent with good friends, not those hacking away all night.
I don't want to make the sort of assumptions about your life required to suggest this observation necessarily applies to you personally, but:
if 'socializing' is perceived as simply a 'distraction' from a litany of minor complaints about paid employment, its quite possible the root cause of unhappiness lies not in the job but in a lack of compensatory enjoyment of social and leisure situations outside the workplace.
You have not yet found the right people with whom to socialize, I think.
(It's also possible you are just very different from me and from most people I know; but I used to feel similarly; and I still don't like to socialize a lot, but with the right people, every now and then? it can be pretty great.)
Brene Brown is a researcher who believes that true happiness can only be found in establishing meaningful, deep connections that leave you vulnerable. She has a popular ted talk here:
I think I didn't expressed exactly what I meant, so to respond to all comments under the parent post:
I do love spending time with people. I'd say, I like to do it too much sometimes. However, I also found it to be a super-effective way of escaping from harder problems, not only my-job-sucks related, but general my-life-sucks related. What I meant to say in previous comment is that (for me) it has similar 'signature' as escaping problems by reading / discussing on HN. It's not a waste of time, but I know for myself that I could spend here much more time that I should. Ditto for socializing. Sometimes you actually want to solve your problems instead of complaining about them to other people.
I feel the same way but I also think we're a minority. For me, I want to connect in meaningful ways with people. I dislike bar buddies, or casual hangouts with people I know casually. I also feel if you lack any sense of purpose, or a mate, and you keep socializing casually with other guys, it makes me feel worse.
