[HN Gopher] How friendships change in adulthood
___________________________________________________________________
How friendships change in adulthood
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 256 points
Date : 2022-11-17 13:00 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| User23 wrote:
| Perhaps the main quantitative difference is that on average you
| spend considerably less time with your friends as an adult than
| you did as a child.
| Kiro wrote:
| The norm that you need friends is so hardwired in society that
| it's taboo to even suggest you can be happy without them.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Having friends in childhood/pubescence is a survival level
| necessity for most of the kids. We all know countless examples of
| awful things done to keep or gain the position in school/class
| hierarchy, to fulfill expectations, to deserve respect of peers.
|
| This urge dissolves in most of the people towards adulthood and
| maturity, when we are learning to find inner support, to form our
| own opinion about ourselves and to rely on that opinion more than
| on an external judgement.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I thought a lot about this over the pandemic.
|
| I was always shy in grade school (heck, who are we kidding, I'm
| still shy). We moved around a bunch and after we left what I
| consider the closest thing I have to a hometown, making friends
| was rough. There's only 4 people I talk to (occasionally at best)
| from childhood/adolescence. It's weird. People talk about having
| friends as adolescents and discovering themselves through their
| friend groups. Article calls out learning to be intimate as well.
| I honestly feel like I missed out on that. My self discovery was
| honestly done mostly alone for the most part as my passions
| formed a kind of constant I could depend on. I only really had
| surface level connections, mostly through video games.
|
| College was a huge breakout moment for me. I was surrounded by
| people who were interested in the same kinds of things I was! I
| ended up building a major social presence on campus through our
| computing clubs. I just liked talking shop with people and would
| help with homework and personal projects. Made a lot of good
| friends. Now here I am, in the last months of my 20s, and I'm
| rather proud that I'm still in contact with the vast majority of
| them.
|
| Being in a California school studying CS, most of them ended up
| in the Bay. Some immediately left for Seattle or Austin, others
| did later. I ended up in Irvine as I did an internship at the
| socal office of one of the tech companies.
|
| It was hard. My entire social world imploded over a few months.
| Dozens of people to talk to on campus immediately went to zero
| once I started working. I liked my coworkers and it was fun to
| talk shop with them, but there was a big age gap that made it
| hard to form personal connections. There's only one in or two
| coworkers who I became close enough to to, say, ask for a ride to
| a doctor.
|
| I'd wake up, and it'd be quiet. I'd get home from work, and it'd
| still be quiet.
|
| Thankfully a few months in, a friend suggested we put together a
| discord server of all our collective friends from school. Started
| at 10 people nearly every night playing games and talking about
| work and life. Not everyone joined, as this was fairly gaming
| focused. I swear this Discord group was the only thing that kept
| me sane over the 4 years I was down there.
|
| Then the pandemic. Work went indefinitely full-remote and I was
| still living alone (27 years old and I was still not happy enough
| with myself to try dating). I moved back in with family and
| cancelled my lease once it became apparent that it was going to
| last awhile.
|
| That saw me back up near the Bay. I didn't see anyone in 2020
| because we all took COVID seriously (discord group was our coping
| mechanism), but after the vaccines in 2021, work was still fully-
| remote so took advantage of my location to start regularly seeing
| friends I hadn't been able to see much since college.
|
| I hadn't been that happy in a long time.
|
| 2022 comes around and offices start to reopen. I'm looking at the
| logistics of moving back to Irvine. One of my friends asks why
| I'm moving back to SoCal if I was clearly so much happier in the
| Bay. I was close to friends, close to family, etc. Why not try to
| stay.
|
| Considering many at my company seemed to prefer remote work
| anyways, I figured that I should ask about making my relocation
| permanent and moving to the main office up here. Approved
| immediately with zero resistance - and I on top of that I got a
| sizeable raise for the cost of living increase.
|
| So I found an apartment in city with good access to public
| transit. I see friends multiple times a week now. We have a
| weekly movie and game night, regularly meet up for dinner in the
| week or weekend, etc. People's spouses, girl/boyfriends, etc. are
| part of the friend group.
|
| I feel like I regained something I thought I'd lost forever. It's
| been a surreal and happy six months since I've moved here.
|
| Friends are important, at least to me. No one should tell you any
| different. There's a reason some call them found family.
| varispeed wrote:
| The so called "friends" always look to take advantage of you or
| make you act against your own interest so they can feel better
| than yourself and then when there is an opportunity they'll
| backstab you.
|
| My life has become so much better when I cut all contact with all
| people I used to know - turns out they weren't friends anyway.
|
| That being said, I limit my contacts to strictly business. If
| something does not benefit me, I don't engage.
|
| No more stress, no more drama, more free time, more enjoyment.
| drbeast wrote:
| The reality is most friendships aren't healthy or worse are
| extremely limiting. People who still have friends from
| childhood into late adulthood are mostly likely insecure and
| haven't grown up at all. Exceptions to this do exist, but 9 out
| of 10 this holds steady.
| throwaway_au_1 wrote:
| I wish I could downvote you. Your comment is unsubstantiated
| nonsense.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Sorry to hear that. Do you fear being lonely
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Alcohol, or some other sort of addictive vice, seems key to adult
| friendships. Alcoholics have lots of friends, as do gamblers,
| obsessive exercisers, inveterate golfers, sex addicts, drug
| addicts, sports fanatics, gamers, etc.
|
| American society doesn't have social norms like many other
| countries which compel people to include others out of habit. I
| lived in Spain for a few years - turning down invitations was a
| legit hassle. And you've probably heard Brit comedians constantly
| complain about having to make excuses to avoid social gatherings.
| Americans don't have that problem - we assume you have your own
| things going on and don't want to bug you, and no one wants to
| presume to invite ourselves. And who knows what sort of nutjob
| your neighbor might turn out to be - you're stuck with them for
| as long as you live where you are, best to just avoid eye
| contact. The only times in my life I've gotten invited out of the
| blue to some event was to religious things. "The barbecue will be
| great - we all head over after the service..."
|
| So we need an excuse. Some irresistible reason to force ourselves
| upon each other. Alcoholics don't want to drink alone. Athletes
| need teams or opponents, druggies need their dealers, etc. It
| can't be a hobby. You have to _need_ to do whatever it is you 're
| doing, to get past the barriers of American distrust and to have
| a ready rationalization for spending time with people who aren't
| your family.
| drbeast wrote:
| Friendships? What a useless concept.
|
| Friends come and go and are as reliable as Italian sports car.
|
| People who I've thought of as good friends don't return texts or
| calls and when they do, the answer either is one party putting
| out all of the effort to spend time or worse an, "I'd love to see
| you but there are other people on tryong to see too."
|
| Last person who said that to me was met with a, "well darn sorry
| I called, go ahead and delete my number."
|
| Here's a fun challenge to test the value of your friend ships:
| stop initiating contact and see if they'll put forth effort to
| maintain the friendship. If no, then they really weren't your
| friend.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not to be mean, but maybe you don't have very good friends?
| Everyone knows some acquaintances but true friendships are
| super valuable.
| stefandesu wrote:
| > In the hierarchy of relationships, friendships are at the
| bottom.
|
| Depends where you are in life. For me as a single guy in his
| early 30s, friendships are absolutely at the top of the hierarchy
| for me.
|
| > Friendships are unique relationships because unlike family
| relationships, we choose to enter into them.
|
| And this is WHY friends are above family for me. Admittedly, if I
| had my own family (as in wife and kids), they'd be my top
| priority in life for sure.
|
| However, unfortunately I do notice that it's getting harder to
| meet up with friends as their obligations in life increase. One
| of my best friends has started university again while still
| working part-time, and so even though he lives in walking
| distance, we don't see each other very often because he's
| extremely short on time. Two other of my closest friends live in
| a different country, but somehow we're managing to meet up 3-4
| times a year for at least a week each. That might change though
| when you'll eventually have kids.
|
| To be honest, I won't read the whole article, but I just wanted
| to say that it can be different. At least I really hope that my
| friends will be a high priority for me even if my or their life
| situations inevitably change.
| newsclues wrote:
| Sorry wouldn't a single guy in his early 30s have the
| relationship with a romantic partner be on top of social
| hierarchy?
|
| I am in the same place, I while I logically understand that
| it's probably easier to find a girl friend if I had a friend or
| two first, I still have a much stronger desire to have a
| romantic partner that just a friend.
| Kye wrote:
| Friends can be the canary in the coal mine: if your partner
| hates all your friends, or worse, tries to push you away from
| them, it's a screaming red flag. Nobody goes into a
| relationship expecting it to happen. Abusers are adept at
| pulling people in deep before revealing it was a trap. It can
| happen to anyone.
| Volrath89 wrote:
| Having regular friends, including male ones, greatly
| increases your odds of meeting a romantic partner.
|
| Also not all single guys in their early 30s are eager to find
| a romantic partner. I am also in that age bracket and I am
| avoiding having another monogamous relationship for at least
| some years
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >As people enter middle age, they tend to have more demands on
| their time, many of them more pressing than friendship. After
| all, it's easier to put off catching up with a friend than it is
| to skip your kid's play or an important business trip.
|
| The sad part is that it doesn't have to be this way. The notion
| that friendship is something you make time for (to the detriment
| of your other pursuits) seems to be very modern, very Western and
| an absolutely terrible idea.
|
| Just anecdotally, the friendships where people rely on one
| another for assistance - helping one another achieve their goals
| rather than hindering them - seem to get stronger and stronger
| whereas the "let's catch up" friends seem to wither over time.
|
| Somewhat counter-intuitively, doing simple things like giving a
| friend a lift when their car breaks down, providing them with
| meals when they're unable to cook for themselves or helping them
| move house actually cause you to value the relationship more.
| CalRobert wrote:
| We went from one income households to two. A lot of dads
| discovered that mom was actually doing quite a lot of the work
| and the not-shitty ones started doing their share. Hard to meet
| up with the lads when you're consoling a sick kid.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| In spite of that, women have had larger and stronger social
| networks than men for decades/centuries (if not all of human
| history). Now, if anything, the gap is narrowing and women
| are becoming lonely at a rapid rate.
|
| Perhaps more evidence that catching up with the lads for a
| pint is less valuable than bringing over a casserole for a
| friend with a sick kid.
| CalRobert wrote:
| True, though there's a lot going on. Urban design used to
| force more chance interactions and we're more physically
| isolated now, among other things. Sit next to someone on
| the bus or walk alongside them to the well? Strike up a
| conversation (unless you're British in which case I guess
| you sit on the bus in silence). Drive alongside them on the
| way to the grocery store? Not much chance to say hi there.
| taneq wrote:
| Is the gap narrowing because womens' social networks are
| weakening or because men are forming better peer groups?
| Aeolun wrote:
| People that you invite over to your house seem naturally
| more intimate friends?
| cies wrote:
| Hence American (?, not sure if it's not British, just
| assuming) has a nice word for it:
|
| Homey. (With possible gender differentiation to homeboy
| and homegirl)
| watwut wrote:
| Citation _really_ needed for the centuries claim. Both
| friendships and family structures changed a lot more in
| time then people assume.
| greggman3 wrote:
| My close friends with kids include their kids when visiting
| friends. We all love their kids. And we get to spend them with
| our friends.
| civilized wrote:
| That must be why we find it hard to maintain friendships these
| days. We mostly just buy the goods and services we want, and
| the results are often more convenient and better quality.
| Mutual aid and dependence seems less necessary, even if it's
| maybe good for the spirit.
| ericmcer wrote:
| We like things to be "fair" and to have mutually beneficial
| relationships in our work life. On top of that we all struggle
| with being vulnerable so your idea of a friendship built on top
| of mutual reliance seems really difficult to pull off.
|
| Far more likely is you needing to accept that you will be doing
| most of the maintenance work around any of your adult
| friendships, and they might not have any "benefit" outside of
| being one of the few balms to existential dread.
| twelve40 wrote:
| > seems to be very modern, very Western
|
| I don't think this is true at all. I'm not from a Western
| culture originally, and my friends (who i love) across a whole
| slice of society (from bus drivers to tech executives) have
| sort of diverged. Some of them always make time no matter what.
| Others, despite being super helpful when they can, 100% put
| other priorities over friendship first. Pretty sure that's not
| just my case and not really limited to the West at all.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| "That is always the way with stay-at-homes. If they like
| something in their own village they take it for a thing
| universal and eternal, though perhaps it was never heard of
| five miles away; if they dislike something, they say it is a
| local, backward, provincial convention, though, in fact, it
| may be the law of nations."
| 9530jh9054ven wrote:
| >The sad part is that it doesn't have to be this way. The
| notion that friendship is something you make time for (to the
| detriment of your other pursuits) seems to be very modern, very
| Western and an absolutely terrible idea.
|
| Why wouldn't it though? Ultimately speaking time is a finite
| resource for an individual. If one's pursuits or
| responsibilities do not align with the pursuits of your friend,
| then why wouldn't one need pick between expending one's time
| with said friend vs other callings?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I guess it makes more sense when you consider reciprocity.
|
| Pouring your finite and valuable time into assisting a friend
| achieve their goals implies that they will, at least to some
| extent, help you with yours. It doesn't matter if they're
| aligned as long as you understand one another.
|
| Whereas with the "let's catch up" friends, the implicit
| agreement is that by making you sacrifice for the
| relationship, you get the right to make them sacrifice.
|
| I guess the latter is better than nothing, as it beats being
| alone, but an optimising brain leads one towards putting in
| minimum effort and letting the relationship decay to the
| point of just being alive.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| I don't think what you're saying is necessarily wrong, but
| you're simply not addressing the scarcity of time.
|
| I have friends that I would do basically anything for, and
| they would do basically anything for me, and this has been
| proven many times over throughout our friendships. But
| being there when they need you (or vice versa) isn't what
| constitutes most of the relationship, most of it just just
| normal friend activities. Additionally, the entirety of the
| time devoted to the relationship is time you cannot devote
| to something else, no matter how much benefit you derive
| from the friendship.
|
| Time devoted to relationships with my friends has certainly
| dwindled a little for me over time. I'm still there for
| them if they need me, but I devote much less time to
| socialising with them, because there are simply too many
| other things in my life that take priority over that.
| Because again, not matter how positive and beneficial your
| friendships are, hanging out with your buddies simply isn't
| going to take priority over the needs of your
| spouse/children/career very often.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I'm not sure I see the time spent with "let's catch up"
| friends as a sacrifice. I find it as a time to break out of
| my routine, get a fresh perspective on the things I'm
| doing, and offer the same to the friend I'm meeting. It's
| like a mini-vacation to go to dinner with someone I don't
| usually see.
|
| The "always there to help" friends are valuable to me as
| well, but they're a larger part of my every day life, more
| like extended family, and so usually can't get me that "get
| out of my life and look back in" sort of interaction I can
| have with friends I have to break routine to go see.
| szundi wrote:
| I think the parent commenter actually answered your question
| why wouldn't.
| popotamonga wrote:
| > "let's catch up" friends seem to wither over time
|
| In my experience, at some point there is nothing to talk about
| anymore, i have some of those long term friends but it's
| getting to the point where they come by my house, catch up in
| 10 minutes and then spent the rest of time in the couch on the
| phone.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| "The friendships where people rely on one another for
| assistance" and "'let's catch up' friends" would appear to be,
| according to Aristotle's analysis, friendships of utility and
| of pleasure, respectively. These are not bad, but there is a
| higher, more perfect, more durable form of friendship, the
| friendship of virtue [0], rooted in a common goal. Marriage is
| such a friendship, for example. It is not surprising, then,
| that friendships of pleasure or utility should more easily
| wane, while friendships of virtue are more lasting.
|
| [0] https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/06/16819/
| civilized wrote:
| Glad to see someone say something good about marriage. Elite
| media is so negative about it these days. We are stuck in
| cliches about how historically it was just a strategic play
| for money and power and it never made sense as the core
| friendship around which your life revolves.
|
| Maybe marriage is a nuisance if your life's ambition is to
| get an essay into The New Yorker, but if you have more
| pedestrian interests in family, it can be the best.
| kneebonian wrote:
| I just find it interesting how we believe we are so much more
| advanced than our ancestors and know so much more, but when
| it comes to living "The Good Life" they were still talking
| about the same problems we are struggling with in modern
| society.
|
| Maybe overall we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the wisdom
| of the ancients in favor of our modern obsession with data.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| Natural and formal sciences + resulting from them
| technology is indeed more advanced.
|
| Everything else? Not so much; we are, after all, still just
| people.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Is a friendship of virtue a friendship? That seems to violate
| the idea that friendships are low-commitment and non-binding
| relationships.
|
| I would define my wife as my wife and friend, because our
| status as friends could become shaky but she would still be
| my wife. Similarly a long time business partner could be
| someone I identify as a friend or not. Those are both
| relationships rooted in a common goal, but I think
| Aristotle's definition of friendship is a stretch here. I
| think the wisdom of "don't go into business with your
| friends" is more relevant in my life.
| gilbert_vanova wrote:
| > Is a friendship of virtue a friendship?
|
| Yes -- and it is plainly the highest form of friendship as
| it is the closest to dissolving the individual into a
| greater whole.
| flashgordon wrote:
| This is so spot on. I feel like I am such a shitty friend
| especially after having witnessed my friends go above and
| beyond for when we needed their help without even being asked
| for it.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| My wife's family has a real knack for working out what each
| other need, basically asking each other how they're going and
| really keeping a finger on the pulse when listening to the
| responses.
|
| It's an art form for sure, but working out who needs
| assistance and in what form makes it really easy to provide
| it.
| szundi wrote:
| No worries, you can always find time and opportunities
| flashgordon wrote:
| Oh totally. Coming across these friends in my life made me
| realize I had to _really_ work on my empathy and
| selflessness!
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Definitely on this. I enjoy just hanging out and having a beer,
| but also painting a room, building a porch, doing a little
| demolition, taking our kids camping together. Time doesn't have
| to be a zero sum game. (And it's the same with a lot of stuff--
| you don't have to stop parenting to cook or clean or garden, do
| that stuff _with_ the kids!)
|
| Another aspect I think is how much you plan things in advance,
| and how willing the people in your circle are to do stuff last
| minute. One of my groups is some neighborhood dads and every
| week or so they're like "hey, tonight or tomorrow?" and then
| it's a hang for whoever can make it, with no expectations or
| hurt feelings because it wasn't possible to find a weeks-away
| date that magically worked for everyone's calendars only to
| have half of them cancel at the last minute anyway. You need
| people receptive to this for it to work, but it has that
| fluidity of college dorm socializing once it gets going.
| jeff-davis wrote:
| "I enjoy just hanging out and having a beer, but also
| painting a room, building a porch, doing a little demolition"
|
| Perhaps that's the differece: specialization. More
| contractors and take-out meals mean less working with
| friends.
|
| Friends are good for unspecialized labor, but when you get
| into skilled labor it falls apart. The one plumber friend
| will get swamped with requests, and the quantum physicist may
| not find an opportunity to reciprocate.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Friends are good for unspecialized labor, but when you
| get into skilled labor it falls apart.
|
| I wonder if this alone holds a lot of explanatory power for
| why people in many increasingly developed countries tend to
| have increasingly fewer close friends in their personal
| lives. Labor gets increasingly skilled and specialized (and
| requiring facilities, supplies, and support staff owned by
| large companies) leaving fewer opportunities to directly
| help people who live next door. And skilled/specialized
| labor pays more, so people have the money to just hire out
| any help they need.
|
| Thus fewer friendships form around a natural _need_ for
| help from neighbors and the _ability_ to meet such needs --
| because both have decreased significantly. And along with
| less needing /helping, human connection and trust also
| suffer significantly.
|
| In the past, local community groups, especially churches
| and social clubs, helped significantly with fostering human
| connection; but those also are suffering significantly.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| But painting a room or mudding drywall or hacking down a
| wall? These are not really _that_ specialized, are they? Or
| like, they 're skills that can taught at the basic level
| with a few minutes of instruction and oversight.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I agree. Basic home ownership skills like plumbing,
| wiring, and painting aren't "specialized. I've bonded
| with friends and neighbors over such things.
| balaji1 wrote:
| You are right, showing up to help or at least to anything they
| invite you to (even a simple lunch) is very important to
| continuity.
|
| One of the reasons I won't read these articles - I don't want
| the content to become an excuse/prescription for me losing
| touch with friends.
|
| Also who made the writer an expert? (May not apply to the
| author of this particular article, but I am generally
| skeptical).
| revskill wrote:
| What i care: Health, sports, peace of soul, ability to learn,
| science, music, programming, mathematics.
|
| What my "friends" care: Money, more money, more money.
|
| That's why i'm still lonely.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Look for local communities in your areas of interest. To some
| extent, you also have to put yourself out there.
|
| You're the bait with which you're fishing.
| revskill wrote:
| No, it's from my childhood. All people i met don't have the
| same passion as mine. I just accepted the truth and no longer
| care what others do anymore.
|
| COnsider this as a confession, no need to up/down vote.
| redcenturion wrote:
| Hey!
|
| I got lonely/depressed in 2020 and started a hiking group. It
| was a cool experiment that failed. I was not able to monetize
| or scale it. I was bummed for awhile, but upon further
| reflection I examine the Pareto 80/20 in action. Because I
| started this group I met some amazing people that love
| adventure and plan/invite me to their adventures. I also met a
| very good friend who is focused on business/start up life. So
| my life has improved a lot even though the outcome was not what
| I was hoping for.
|
| I'm still on the journey to understand and operate in my zone
| of genius. Though I think money is important (to the extent
| that bills are paid and 9-5 can be avoided) I value experiences
| and creating impact.
|
| Let me know if you'd like to connect.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| If this is satire, this is Grade A satire.
| rayrey wrote:
| danrocks wrote:
| A-. It would be grade A if it ended with a crypto story.
| squintychino wrote:
| To use your 4x money argument - Why couldn't you care at least
| about 2x money? Or even 1x money? For the sake of being friends
| with your "friends"?
|
| Friendship isn't an all or nothing proposition. You don't have
| to be perfectly aligned with another persons' morals and values
| to be friends with them. Sometimes just having one or two
| things in common is what is needed to keep those bonds going.
| iower wrote:
| we can be friends then
| revskill wrote:
| Nice. Please give me contact !
| griffinkelly wrote:
| > "That is how friendships continue, because people are living up
| to each other's expectations. And if we have relaxed expectations
| for each other, or we've even suspended expectations, there's a
| sense in which we realize that," Rawlins says. "A summer when
| you're 10, three months is one-thirtieth of your life. When
| you're 30, what is it? It feels like the blink of an eye."
|
| I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and if it's
| possible to slow my perception of time. Life moved really fast
| during covid for me, I've tried to jump into new opportunities to
| learn things recently, and that's helped slow down my perception
| of time, and least I think for right now.
| jackconsidine wrote:
| I liked this article. I think more about friendships than any
| other philosophical topic. I moved to a new city at 22 where I
| knew almost no one. It turns out that it's orders of magnitude
| harder making friends without a few seed connections. The nuances
| of meeting people and building relationships are so arbitrary and
| idiosyncratic; some things, like sports, happen to be really
| conducive to making friends, whereas conferences and tech meetups
| for me proved less fertile. Even acquaintances often simply
| aren't looking to change their group of close friends.
|
| It was frustrating and discouraging for a long time and then
| suddenly I found myself with people to call on and spend time
| with. Half a decade later I moved and had the opportunity to try
| the experiment again. This time secondary connections made
| finding my network almost trivial. Maybe age helped too, being
| further removed from the university cliques.
|
| I was relieved to find out, albeit way after the fact, that many
| have this experience. One friend recently quit his job to start a
| company focused on this phenomenon [0]. I hope he can displace
| the zombie of Meetup.
|
| [0] https://getopenmat.com/
| Behemoth66 wrote:
| Thanks for this comment. I just moved to a new city at 25 and
| have been pessimistic about being able to meet anyone.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There's a difference between sociology (as taught in American
| universities) and cultural anthropology, and this article is a
| nice demonstration of that difference. Note that everything in
| this article only applies to a relatively small socio-economic
| grouping - i.e. relatively well-off college-educated Americans.
| This is explicitly stated, more or less, in the article:
|
| > "The saga of adult friendship starts off well enough. "I think
| young adulthood is the golden age for forming friendships,"
| Rawlins says. "Especially for people who have the privilege and
| the blessing of being able to go to college.""
|
| There are many different cultures and economic groupings,
| globally speaking, and they don't all devolve into isolated
| 'nuclear family' groupings over time, as this article implies.
| The majority of people don't actually have Facebook feeds from
| people they haven't seen in 35 years. Their friendships are based
| in the communities they live in - the people they trade with for
| food, clothing, and other necessities. There's a much greater
| sense of mutual interdependence, not so much the concept of
| isolated individual success followed by what, retreat to a gated
| community?
|
| If you attempt to take an outside perspective, it's rather
| startling how class-stratified and wealth-stratified American
| society has become, very similar to the posh/prole divide in
| imperial Britain.
| jshaqaw wrote:
| This is true. Also true that because something isn't of
| universal applicability that doesn't mean it isn't of merit for
| a specific group. I don't think the Atlantic pretends it's
| readership isn't overwhelming upper middle class+ highly
| educated center-left Americans. There is a balance isn't there
| between acknowledging differences exist and only writing things
| of universal relevance which is mostly to say nothing at all.
| sbf501 wrote:
| I've been subscribing to The Atlantic for years. It is entirely
| targeted at upperclass, liberal, college-educated whites. Which
| is exactly why I read it. Why would I read a magazine targeted
| at a culture I don't understand or am not a part of? I do
| expect The Atlantic to explain these culture groups to me in a
| language I understand, but any periodical simply targets its
| own audience for profitability reasons.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| This sounds like a nice way to keep yourself trapped in an
| information bubble. I live thousands of miles away from the
| nearest English-speaking country in a society pretty
| different to what you'd see in England or the US, yet spend
| most of my time in the English-speaking section of the
| internet precisely because of that (reading pretty much
| anything that comes by, targeted at as diverse groups as
| possible).
| [deleted]
| OJFord wrote:
| > This sounds like a nice way to keep yourself trapped in
| an information bubble.
|
| Not from a good source. As GP put it:
|
| > I do expect The Atlantic to explain these culture groups
| to me in a language I understand
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Because it's valuable to try to understand groups other than
| your own? Maybe even learn from them? Honestly I'm baffled
| that you hold this opinion with some pride.
|
| I ascended to that class from a working class family (and no
| college) and y'all have just as many problems as any other
| social group.
| sbf501 wrote:
| I don't think you understand my opinion very well.
|
| At no point did I say I do not wish to understand other
| people's opinions. But I don't speak in their culture, so I
| need it explained to me. That's literally what liberal
| humanities are all about, from the Renaissance on: trying
| to understand the world around you.
|
| Are you somehow assuming, for example, that to truly
| understand Russia I should only read Russian newspapers and
| talk to Russians and speak Russian? I shouldn't have say
| how absurd that is, but here we are.
|
| > y'all have just as many problems as any other social
| group
|
| I never said we didn't. Don't put your shit on me.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > I shouldn't have say how absurd that is, but here we
| are.
|
| You might think it's absurd, but that's precisely how you
| obtain deep knowledge of another culture - you learn the
| language or, at the very least, listen to first-hand
| accounts of people belonging to that culture who speak
| your language.
|
| Otherwise you're essentially asking to dumb it down for
| you.
|
| This is especially valid in the case of Russia.
| sbf501 wrote:
| > Otherwise you're essentially asking to dumb it down for
| you.
|
| I wonder if you are exempt from the judgment you put on
| others.
|
| While I agree that one can obtain a deeper understanding
| of a culture by exploring it thoroughly, your suggestion
| that any translation is "dumbing it down" is similarly
| absurd.
| watwut wrote:
| You will miss quite a lot about Russia that way. Namely,
| the way their believes actually plays out abroad.
|
| You will also miss large parts of Russian history,
| because it was nit sage to talk about historical stuff
| like purges in there for years.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Where do you get this impression? The article was clearly
| written for American audiences, and the sociologist Rawlins
| clearly focuses on American society.
|
| You make it sound like they are just talking out of their rear
| end, making things up based on their own privileged and
| unrepresentative personal experience, but my impression is that
| their opinion is formed by their own research, which might be a
| couple decades old, but is probably still relevant.
|
| If there's anything to complain about here, is that Americans
| tend to forget that there is a world outside of the USA.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Americans tend to forget that there is a world outside of
| the USA
|
| Reinforced by the apparent reality that mostly what people
| outside the USA want to talk about is the USA. Even on HN,
| where we have a large contingent of Europeans participating,
| we don't hear too much about Europe. It's almost always about
| the US.
| wongarsu wrote:
| There are plenty of articles about EU regulations or
| Amsterdam roads on here. But the US has the biggest single
| audience. Most websites have like 60% Americans but only
| 10% British or Germans, so anything about the US has it
| about six times easier to relate than something about
| Germany
| pessimizer wrote:
| Which makes sense, because the UK has the population of
| California + Texas, and Germany has the population of
| California + Texas + Illinois.
|
| Of course this is a US-focused site to some extent, but
| the US just has a big contiguous language community. It's
| comparable to all of Europe, not individual countries.
| Jorengarenar wrote:
| Because hardly anybody in European countries writes about
| their country using English language. Posting Polish
| article here would make no sense, since hardly anybody
| would be able to read it, thus only news which reported
| internationally get any attention. And since USA is quite
| big and eventful country English-speaking country, we
| naturally gravitate toward discussions about it.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| _> Reinforced by the apparent reality that mostly what
| people outside the USA want to talk about is the USA._
|
| I'm from Europe and sure, one of the main reasons why I
| come to this US-based site with a majority of US readership
| is to find American viewpoints on issues, and engage in
| discussions about the USA.
|
| This doesn't mean that I spend my life wanting to talk
| about the USA, though. I talk much more about my own
| country but it's on sites with readership from that country
| (and in real life, of course) so you're not aware of it.
|
| And many of my compatriots don't talk about the USA at all,
| you just don't see them because they don't hang out in
| sites like this at all.
|
| (Maybe this is already what you meant, that when an
| American interacts with someone from outside, they often
| want to talk about the USA -which is not the same as saying
| that people from outside often talk about the USA in
| general-. But it's not clear from your wording).
| Porkins67 wrote:
| programmer_dude wrote:
| Talking and hearing about the US is fun but I mainly come
| here for the tech news.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Where do you get this impression?
|
| The article itself talks of life stages in terms of how
| things change, with college life being a case study as a
| small aside in the middle of the article. It's written as
| though these insights apply to everyone, even mentioning the
| "International Association of Relationship Researchers" at
| the beginning.
|
| It's a very common problem in sociology-type sciences, where
| they study college students because they're easy access, then
| extrapolate to the entire population.
| hattmall wrote:
| Americans also tend to forget there is a world inside of the
| USA that isn't upper middle class, college educated, work all
| day, annual vacation people posting on social media.
|
| The sense of community and day to day lives are very
| different and much more enjoyable. The only problem is that
| due to exploitation by distant corporate actors that
| community is played with violence, obesity and drug
| addiction.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _much more enjoyable_
|
| ?
|
| > _played with obesity_
|
| plagued maybe. but also, no, corpos don't make people fat,
| and crime rates _per pop_ are not as us /them as one might
| expect: https://i.redd.it/zzbhmc3gd4u31.png
| User23 wrote:
| Stratification of American society is largely due to people
| fleeing violent and property crime, especially once they have
| children. There is considerable hysteresis so it's not as
| simple as lining up cost of living and crime stats, but a "nice
| neighborhood with good schools" will be considerably more
| expensive all else being equal.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > largely due to people fleeing violent and property crime,
| especially once they have children.
|
| If I have to guess, what I think you're actually talking
| about is
|
| 1) after middle-class suburban kids leave home to go to
| college, then
|
| 2) graduate and move into gentrifying areas to take
| internships/jobs in big cities, then
|
| 3) get married during that period in their 20s while their
| income is rising into six figures, and
|
| 4) they purchase their starter house in the _latest_
| gentrifying neighborhood, then
|
| 5) get pregnant and get a dog at the same time, so
|
| 6) muggings and property crimes in their new neighborhood
| turn them extremely reactionary, then
|
| 7) they move to a massive palace in the suburbs either
| shortly before or shortly after the kid pops out.
|
| i.e. the universal American experience.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >i.e. the universal American experience.
|
| How is this consistent with #3? $100k incomes are 80th
| percentile.
|
| https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
| kleinsch wrote:
| Median household is $70K, $100K is 62nd percentile. So if
| both partners are working, which is common before
| children, it's fairly likely.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Eh, I would be willing to bet the steps outlined in
| pessimizer's post are experienced by 20% of young adults
| (let's say 25 to 35 years old).
|
| All others are renting or not moving into a "massive
| place" after their initial purchase, which itself was
| probably barely affordable.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Stratification of American society is largely due to people
| fleeing violent and property crime, especially once they have
| children.
|
| Claim made without evidence, and there is plenty of evidence
| that there are other larger factors at play.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Was about to write the exact same thing. Having grown up around
| multigenerational immigrant families in a working class
| environment in a Western country that is, the article already
| sounds foreign to me, and I'm not even that far off the target
| demographic compared to some other places in the world.
|
| And still now as an adult in my early thirties who moved to
| Tokyo a few years ago, socially my environment is dominanted by
| friendships, which is true for many people my age. The article
| points to friendships being voluntary as one key distinction
| between say marriage and friends, but statistics will tell
| everyone that many of those marriages nowadays aren't that
| permanent.
|
| Article sounds a little bit like it was written by someone who
| lives in _American Beauty_ still.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| The issue I have with posts like these is that when you compare
| and contrast anglo/american culture with "other" cultures, you
| handwave away specific examples of "others".
|
| "The majority of people" is a pretty broad group here, from
| Portugal to the Russian far east, Namibia to Papua New Guinea,
| Chile to Mexico. So when you say:
|
| _The majority of people don 't actually have Facebook feeds
| from people they haven't seen in 35 years. Their friendships
| are based in the communities they live in - the people they
| trade with for food, clothing, and other necessities. There's a
| much greater sense of mutual interdependence, not so much the
| concept of isolated individual success followed by what,
| retreat to a gated community?_
|
| Does that really apply to all non-anglo/american cultures? You
| would have to be extraordinarily knowledgeable of near
| thousands of human cultures to know this.
|
| _it 's rather startling how class-stratified and wealth-
| stratified American society has become, very similar to the
| posh/prole divide in imperial Britain._
|
| It'd be a challenge to claim that the "prole/posh divide" in
| Imperial Britain was anywhere near as strong as some of its
| contemporaries - say the Qing Dynasty or Ottoman Empire.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Does that really apply to all non-anglo/american cultures?
| You would have to be extraordinarily knowledgeable of near
| thousands of human cultures to know this.
|
| Or you could find out how many users facebook has, and
| subtract it from the world population. If you're left with
| "the majority of people," you've easily proved it.
| jjfoooo6 wrote:
| The ironic thing is that, as discussed in this thread, the
| article is really focused on upwardly mobile college
| graduates who have transitioned into marriage / kids.
|
| This fits me and my friend group to a T, but the bits about
| Facebook don't land because me and all of my friends have
| abandoned that platform.
| incone123 wrote:
| Even simpler proof: majority of people in the world are
| under 35.
| dqpb wrote:
| > Especially for people who have the privilege and the blessing
| of being able to go to college
|
| There are many people for whom going to college was the direct
| result of hard work, self agency, and determination.
| Aeolun wrote:
| If my friends were all still living in the same street, or the
| same house, with all their kids (and sometimes grandkids), it'd
| be much easier to drop by unannounced.
|
| We could spontaneously decide to do the same things if we saw
| someone go out in the morning.
|
| Since my old friends are now on the other side of the world, we
| have to make do with the new friends/parents that actually live
| in our street.
|
| It helps that the houses are small, so we actually have like 10
| families on a 25 meter stretch of road.
| roguesupport wrote:
| From the same evil imbeciles who want "Pandemic Amnesty". stop
| giving them attention.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| @dang, I submitted "How Friendships Change in Adulthood" and of
| course the title posted missed the initial "how".
|
| I think it's the worst feature of HN. This is a good example of a
| title that becomes far worse when "how" is removed, IMHO.
|
| I hope this feature gets canceled.
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| Come on, the giggle when it rewrites "How I write" into "I
| write" is totally worth it.
| O__________O wrote:
| At the very least, these title edits should be opt-in where
| user use given options and supplied with the related reasoning
| -- not just automatically done without warning.
| mkmk3 wrote:
| Disagree that its far worse, I dont see an issue in this case
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| It means something _completely_ different than the author or
| submitter intended. _How_ is that not worse?
| darkerside wrote:
| FWIW, headlines are frequently not written by the author of
| the article
| password4321 wrote:
| Sometimes you can edit the submission to put things back in /
| fix capitalization (for an hour).
| Gigachad wrote:
| HN always renames the titles to be garbage. Either
| automatically or manual.
| zamfi wrote:
| (2015) -- but presumably not that much has changed?
| richardw wrote:
| We're emigrating soon, to Sydney Australia. I'm 49, she's 45. I
| love the friends we have here and am going to miss them hugely.
|
| I've found friends through work, university, cycling, kids. I'll
| need to ramp this up and be proactive because it won't just
| happen without effort, given the demands on our time. But I'll
| miss the 30-year relationships that take zero energy to be
| around, where you can take a mental snapshot of pure contentment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Reminds me of an Episode of That 70s Show, when the mom is asking
| the dad about how it seems he doesn't have any friends. He says
| he does and names someone he hasn't seen in years but would give
| him the shirt off his back.
|
| I have a couple friendships like that. Not all friendships look
| the same.
| irrational wrote:
| > there are three expectations of a close friend that I hear
| people describing and valuing across the entire life course,
| Somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.
|
| I have two close friends. All three of us are in similar life
| circumstances. Married, kids in elementary/middle/high school,
| programmers, in our 40s or early 50s, etc.
|
| But, our entire friendship revolves around boardgames. We get
| together every Thursday night to play games for 3-4 hours.
|
| Someone to talk to? Well, we don't talk outside of boardgame
| night and we don't really talk at boardgame night, other than
| about the game.
|
| Someone to depend on? Well, pretty much all we depend on is that
| we will all show up.
|
| Someone to enjoy? Well, frankly, we probably all enjoy boardgames
| more.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| I found I formed a deeper connection with my D&D group once we
| started doing non-D&D things together. It was a switch from
| consistent friends to close friends.
| codecutter wrote:
| They are probably your acquaintances (to play boardgames), not
| real friends.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| "Acquaintance" is a word many more americans should be using
| much more of the time. The over-use of "friend" to describe
| "anyone I know" has been a problem for me ever since I moved
| here (3 decades ago). It also has implications for reporting
| too, where "anyone a person of interest knew" is a "friend".
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| It sounds like your definition of a close friend differs from
| the one described.
| jdkoeck wrote:
| Sorry but I call bullshit.
|
| > Someone to talk to? Well, we don't talk outside of boardgame
| night and we don't really talk at boardgame night, other than
| about the game.
|
| So you never, ever mention any personal event at game night? I
| don't think so.
|
| > Someone to depend on? Well, pretty much all we depend on is
| that we will all show up.
|
| If one of them moved to a new house and needed help, would you
| go? Yeah, you would.
|
| > Someone to enjoy? Well, frankly, we probably all enjoy
| boardgames more.
|
| Nonsense, the secret ingredient of a good game is good company.
| So yeah, you big fluffy, you enjoy your friend's company!
| irrational wrote:
| > So you never, ever mention any personal event at game
| night? I don't think so.
|
| We really really don't. We are there to play games, we don't
| have time or brain space for small talk. We play heavy games
| that take a lot of deep thinking.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Curious: what kind of board games do you play?
|
| Also: have you considered the possibility that they might
| not be "close friends", as you describe them? What makes
| you say they are? Just interested in your answer, not
| wanting to demolish your point of view.
| Kiro wrote:
| Big disagree on that. I play boardgames for the games, not
| the people.
| specproc wrote:
| Yeah, me and 4 others and 40K, at 40.
| lemax wrote:
| As a gay adult not planning to have children, friends are the
| center of my life and probably will be for a long time. I think
| gay culture in NYC is an excellent example of the opposite of
| what this article describes - we all work hard, and many of us
| have partners, but we all maintain an evolving network of
| friends. It's not hard to stay in touch or run into someone or
| make plans on a whim. It feels kind of like we're all permanently
| adolescents. People come and go (jobs, travel, new
| opportunities), but with enough connections there's always
| someone you've known for a while who is currently around.
| Sometimes these friendships aren't very deep, sometimes they are.
| Some are brief, some are decades long.
| [deleted]
| jmyeet wrote:
| So the best advice I would give anyone is spend your college
| years making friends because in my experience your ability to
| make and maintain friendships falls off a cliff after college.
|
| The first issue is your friendships begin tracking your life
| stage. Using a normative example, single people will tend to be
| friends with single people and married people will tend to be
| friends with other married people. Likewise, people will children
| will tend to be friends with other people with children.
|
| This acts as a shared experience just by proximity. If people
| aren't in the same life stage that friendship tends to be
| trasnactional or unstable. By "transactional" I mean you might be
| friends with people in your softball league or who play
| basketball with on the weekend but mostly those friendships will
| tend to revolve around that common interest or activity. maybe
| that'll develop into a deeper friendship but the odds are against
| it.
|
| Likewise, you will develop "work friends" by virtue of spending
| so much of your time at work. For the most part however these
| aren't friends at all. If you leave that job, that shared shared
| experience ends and you will likely never see them again. Maybe
| you'll promise to catch up. Maybe it'll happen once or twice but
| again it's now in an unstable state and won't tend to last.
|
| As time goes on your friends will be replaced by family.
|
| The only way friendships in adulthood tend to survive (IME) is by
| scheduled activities. You set the expectation that that's what
| you'll be doing at a particular day and time. That's why you'll
| see sports so often here because a softball game needs to be
| played at a particular place and time. Pick-up basketball however
| is less the case for this so you'll likely see the same people
| less.
|
| It's also why parenthood tends to spell the end for many such
| friendships. If you have 2 young children at home it makes it
| harder to maintain a scheduled activity long-term. There'll be
| times your children will be sick, you'll need to go to school or
| whatever.
| Mezzie wrote:
| > The first issue is your friendships begin tracking your life
| stage. Using a normative example, single people will tend to be
| friends with single people and married people will tend to be
| friends with other married people. Likewise, people will
| children will tend to be friends with other people with
| children.
|
| This has been the hardest thing about being in my 30s as a
| single (and not particularly looking) lesbian woman. It's an
| unusual enough life choice that there just plain isn't a
| friendship pool. Most single people my age are low-key using
| their friend gatherings to look for partners. So my options for
| friends are either much older or much younger. I have more in
| common with the kids (gaming, techy stuff, etc.) but society
| says you're a creep if you do that so I'm basically alone. It
| sucks.
|
| I don't want a partner, but man I wish I wanted one.
| fleddr wrote:
| As it comes to friendships, people mistake time for priority.
|
| Yes, I get it, people are busy. But they still have time. The
| average citizen spends several hours per day passively consuming
| entertainment. You may even have spare moments at work or in a
| commute.
|
| You can call your friend. Or send a quick message to do some slow
| chat. And even in hectic schedules you can meet once a week or
| even once a month.
|
| When you haven't connected to a friend in months, you're a shitty
| friend. You don't have a time problem, you have a priority
| problem. And that's the thing that people are unwilling to admit:
| it's just less important after a certain age, where we use time
| as an excuse.
| comprev wrote:
| A method which has proven successful with friends is arranging
| for a future appointment to have a call. Usually we ask what
| the other is up to next week and book in a 1-2hr slot one
| evening for a call.
|
| I've found male friends open up much more about how they are
| when speaking and appreciate the regular monthly check-ins.
| drbeast wrote:
| This time a thousand. If so called friends don't make priority
| for you then they never were your friends.
| awillen wrote:
| > When you haven't connected to a friend in months, you're a
| shitty friend.
|
| Needlessly harsh overgeneralization, I think.
|
| I hate phone calls for the sake of catching up, and I have
| plenty of friends who are the same. We'll go months without
| talking until there's some reason to - maybe I'm going to be
| visiting their city, or I want to let them know that my wife is
| pregnant, or I just watched a new TV show that I think they'll
| love. When those things happen, I text, and we chat and maybe
| see each other, and our friendship isn't ever diminished just
| because we haven't spoken in months.
|
| I'm very happy with these friendships, and my friends are very
| happy with these friendships, and yet you're telling me that
| we're all shitty friends. Maybe you need to be contacted
| regularly by someone in order to consider them a friend, but
| not everyone shares that need. Other people aren't shitty
| friends just because they don't meet your needs.
| BigRedDog1669 wrote:
| I totally agree and was put off by that posters assertion.
| Nicely put.
| fleddr wrote:
| That's a remote acquaintance, not a friend.
| awillen wrote:
| Listen, I'm sorry that you have apparently been burned by
| friends who didn't call you enough in the past and now feel
| compelled to pass judgement upon other people's
| friendships, but you don't get to tell me, somebody you've
| never met, who my friends are.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Social apps are easy in, easy out. Physical interaction with
| friend is greater effort unless you're roommates or very
| welcoming neighbors.
| djha-skin wrote:
| I always feel like I'm outside looking in when people talk about
| making and keeping friends. I was make fun of a lot as a kid,
| moved around a lot, and then as a young adult I didn't prioritize
| making friends, thinking I'd have my whole life to make some. I
| didn't realize that people just stop making new friends after 30
| (outside work).
|
| I have a family and that's super nice, but I still never really
| experienced this. Reading about it just hurts. Sure, I had
| "friends"in college, but we don't keep in touch.
| powersnail wrote:
| > I didn't realize that people just stop making new friends
| after 30 (outside work)
|
| Nah. This is just a self-made bubble. Even without any activity
| outside work, you can still meet friends' friend and family's
| friend. There's always new people to talk to.
|
| I've made a lot of friends outside work since adulthood, from
| various sources. Just last week, I made a new friend at a
| mutual friend's party, and played a duet together. We've
| scheduled to play another next month.
|
| Another friend of mine just made 11 new friends outside of work
| last month, as he joined a baseball amateur league.
|
| Just go do what you enjoy, and talk to people. If you share a
| common interest, and have no big clash in personality, that's
| probably a budding friendship.
| rhapsodic wrote:
| satokema wrote:
| > friend has a party
|
| This doesn't help if you're trying to bootstrap from nothing.
|
| > just join a sports league
|
| I spent solid chunks of childhood being forced into sports
| programs when I at best had below-average physical abilities.
| I even tried one summer as an adult to play in a league and I
| discovered that the physical gap had just widened and widened
| and it just helped isolate me until I quit going.
|
| It's really great that people find things like sports leagues
| or meetups useful for this, but none of it overlaps with my
| mostly solo activities.
|
| Unfortunately, that's how it is if you don't share interest
| with the extroverted crowds: you're just stuck looking for
| scraps.
| powersnail wrote:
| If you bootstrap from nothing, go from coworkers. Some of
| your coworkers will have some groups of doing something
| (skiing, hiking, music playing, etc.). Show you interest
| and get invited. There will be new people there.
|
| There are also other events where you naturally meet
| people. I'm just throwing out some ideas, if case they are
| helpful.
|
| For instance, taking group classes. My girlfriend made
| quite a few friends in her Muay Thai class.
|
| Dog walking. My college friend recently adopted a dog, and
| has since known a lot of other dog keepers.
|
| You can meet other computer people at conferences, too.
|
| I myself is quite introverted, too. But being introverted
| doesn't mean you are left with scraps. There are still
| occasions where interacting with other people is both
| necessary and natural. If you put yourself in those
| situations from time to time, you'll find a few who fit
| your rhythm.
|
| Another thing is to offer a helping hand to people. Owing
| each other favors is the most effective bonding agent in my
| experience. I have a personal rule of "always be helpful",
| and I think that has earned me quite a few very earnest
| friendships, despite my being not very chatty at all.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I'm not sure you can adopt such a dismissive tone here. I
| mean, your whole premise is that you met a friend at a mutual
| friend's dinner party. You seem to have something of an
| "engine" of friends available that allow a preponderance of
| socialization. I think many of us in our 30s don't even have
| that.
| feteru wrote:
| Except almost anything you do can be the beginning of that
| engine. Joining sports team, hobbyist group for anything
| will lead you to meet people, through whom you either meet
| or hear about other events. Strong network effects once you
| get going but you do need to have time to show up
| consistently and in a good spot
| watwut wrote:
| Many sports teams don't build all that much of friendship
| outside of training and competitions. They are
| acquitances with no other investment.
|
| The moment you get injured or sick, friendship is gone.
| Same goes for hobby groups.
| powersnail wrote:
| That's not my whole premise; just the latest example.
|
| If there's currently nobody at all (outside work and
| family), go out with coworkers. Invite their friends. Go
| hiking or skiing or something. There are tons of activities
| out there.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Remote work much? At my last job, everyone on my team
| lived at least 100 miles away.
| BigRedDog1669 wrote:
| Find a meetup on meetup.com. It doesn't have to be
| something you care too much about, it can be a singles
| meetup, some sport you know how to play, book club, etc.
| A lot of people are there mostly to do social stuff.
| Think of it as a way to meet people, but you have to work
| on deepening the friendships by asking them to do other
| stuff outside of the meetup after talking to them a few
| times.
| legerdemain wrote:
| I'm a member of 102 groups on Meetup. Not sports, because
| I have never played any sport, but many tech groups,
| reading groups, and hiking groups. No singles groups,
| because I'm not looking to date and I'm not in my 20s
| anymore (and don't feel like paying membership fees).
|
| I have been methodically taking turns trying _all_ of
| their in-person events.
|
| Hiking groups are dominated by retirees who have trouble
| relating to me socially. I have not found a reading club
| that meets IRL. The "philosophy meetup" is a bunch of
| 25-year-old crypto bro edgelords. I keep going to tech
| meetups, some for over a year, but everyone at them
| either goes with coworkers or is really apathetic and
| alienated.
| powersnail wrote:
| I have to admit that I've never myself been in such a
| position. Even with work-from-home, I'm still within
| driving distance to most my coworkers. And I can see how
| living so sparsely from each other makes socialization
| difficult.
|
| A friend of mine moved to a different country last year,
| and is in a similar situation: living and working far
| away from her team; no coworkers in her vicinity. So, now
| she mainly hang out with her new neighbors, and friends
| made from dancing class.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I find I've managed to find friends incidentally just by doing
| things. Taking up tennis, I've made friends, rollerskating,
| friends, and one potential close friend, kids sports, friends.
|
| I've actually been somewhat surprised by how much random people
| desire connection upon the most tenuous of common interests.
|
| Get involved in something, anything, that you like and slowly
| reach out to others with the same interests and you'll find
| friendships. Something I've found though, build them slowly
| lest they burn out quickly upon a pyre of previously unaware
| incompatibilities of opinion.
|
| I seem to be an approachable person; being at least a
| superficially nice person, easy with a smile, seems to make a
| difference.
|
| My few 'best' friends I see ever so rarely, but when we get
| together it's like no time has passed. I think that's a true
| test of deep friendship compatibility.
| nottorp wrote:
| This. Find some group activity that's not work. Don't be shy
| to change said activity until you find one that you like.
| Then you'll have a group of people that are interested in at
| least one thing you're interested in and don't need to do
| office politics with you. Some kind of friendship with at
| least some of them will just follow.
| agumonkey wrote:
| > Reading about it just hurts
|
| says a lot about our nature, i empathize (even though unlike
| you I can blame myself a bit for failing this aspect of
| existence), good luck
| lordnacho wrote:
| I was going to write my own comment but I saw what you wrote
| and it reminded me of something that happened a few weeks ago.
|
| Basically I'm the guy who keeps in touch with everyone. I have
| a chat group with guys I met at age 4. Everyone who went to
| school with me asks me "where is X now" and I'll tell them I
| last spoke to them not long ago. I talk to my old teachers,
| across the spectrum from 1st grade to high school. People from
| various jobs I did 20 years ago, I still know.
|
| So I'm rounding up people for a high school signal group, and
| even those guys who never say anything to anyone will join it
| because it's memes and news articles we can comment on. Kinda
| nice to have all your old buddies there, even with lurkers
| bring a thing on private groups.
|
| But this one guy, I know him pretty well, been to his house
| many times growing up, visited his parents, went to each others
| weddings, etc... Doesn't want to join.
|
| It's just too painful. He feels tormented by some of the other
| guys in the group. Apparently they tried this some time ago and
| the chat descended into bullying him like we were in school,
| except now we're grown up everyone thinks it doesn't hurt
| anymore.
|
| I really wish there was a solution, but I think it won't
| happen. Sometimes relationships go off the rails and never come
| back. I'll still go see my buddy next time I'm near him, but
| he's cut off everyone else.
| dazc wrote:
| 'It's just too painful. He feels tormented by some of the
| other guys in the group. Apparently they tried this some time
| ago and the chat descended into bullying him like we were in
| school, except now we're grown up everyone thinks it doesn't
| hurt anymore.'
|
| This sounds like a similar situation with some of my family.
| Individually they are OK but as a group they revert to to
| their childhood personas and can be quite unpleasant and
| hurtful to be around.
| Thlom wrote:
| You sound both like a wonderful human being and a very
| annoying one at the same time. But I like it. I salute you
| for keeping your people connected. Wish I had someone like
| you in my life.
| [deleted]
| serverholic wrote:
| Did you say anything about the bullying when it happened?
|
| It sounds like you're prioritizing quantity of friends.
| bjord wrote:
| > Apparently they tried this some time ago...
|
| it sounds to me like OP wasn't a participant in this group
| (and is only after finding out about what happened), though
| I could be misinterpreting it
| ehnto wrote:
| Your story reminds me of how different we all are. I left my
| home town when I left school and essentially cut off everyone
| from that school and that town. I was friends with everyone
| in school, very friendly with the teachers, but that town was
| just not going to be where I excelled in any form. I am not
| even sure what I would do if an old school friend reached out
| to me!
|
| A lot of people from tiny country/rural towns I think end up
| in this situation, because we often end up fighting the
| "Crabs in a Bucket" phenomenon when trying to be better
| humans, and leaving can be easier. Whilst I do think about
| people from my childhood and that town, it feels like an
| entirely different life to me.
| 10hr wrote:
| You had a massive, untested assumption about life which ended
| up wrong.
|
| At least you got the family part
| moltar wrote:
| > I didn't realize that people just stop making new friends
| after 30 (outside work).
|
| I think this might be a self fulfilling prophecy.
|
| I'm 40 and I'm still making friends. I don't see why there must
| be some sort of magical age limit.
|
| Imagine there's another one of you. Wouldn't you want to be
| friends with them?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >Imagine there's another one of you. Wouldn't you want to be
| friends with them?
|
| Holy shit, that's a really thought-provoking question.
|
| I wonder how many others would answer "probably not".
| bbarnett wrote:
| _I wonder how many others would answer "probably not"._
|
| To me, this isn't about liking me, who wouldn't!
|
| It's more about being identical. Even if a friend shares
| the same likes, interests, hobbies, they have a different
| view on it. Their brain thinks via a different process.
|
| I don't want a mirror as a friend.
| swores wrote:
| I'm pretty sure by "another you" they meant "another
| person who reached 30 wishing they had more friends", not
| a literally identical person.
| moltar wrote:
| Yes, that's what I meant.
| taneq wrote:
| Definitely! Although if I met another one of me I'd do my
| best to turn them into a work friend too.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| 50 here, making (and losing) friends every year. We moved to
| another country, again, and we don't find it very hard to
| forge lasting friendships with people so far anywhere.
|
| Most people are just really bad at it; some people here who I
| try involve in activities always cancel or have 'better stuff
| todo' and then cry, later, that no one invites them anymore
| or they have no one to play with.
|
| It's not that hard...
|
| > Imagine there's another one of you. Wouldn't you want to be
| friends with them?
|
| Nice one and yes, I would :)
| synu wrote:
| I'm 40 and in the same boat but also moved overseas and
| travel a lot. I think that kind of forces you into not
| losing the ability to make new friends through your life.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Imagine there's another one of you. Wouldn't you want to
| be friends with them?_
|
| Yeah but finding the other ones like you is incredibly
| difficult. People in their 30's and 40's with zero friends
| looking to make new ones are basically non existent where I
| live.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Depends. For instance, I like; nature, rainforest,
| mountains, forests, programming, building startups (and
| then selling them), beer, cooking and some other stuff. So
| when I went to Scotland for instance for the first time (I
| was 43 I think), I sat in a pub drinking beer and
| programming an app, got talking with a guy who asked what I
| was doing. We talked briefly, he is a coder too and into
| elixer and haskell. Then my wife and me went hiking to the
| Lochs; it was winter and heavy snow, but I hike in any
| weather. We ran into this guy, hiking on his own. So we
| became friends and made a startup; it failed but we will do
| things in the future; he visits me and I visit him. Had
| almost exactly the same experience in Thailand a year later
| with a dutch guy (I am dutch) living there.
|
| Interests connect and these guys hardly ever meet or met
| someone that intersects as much, so they clear their
| schedules (as do I) to foster a friendship.
|
| I met most of my friends, business partners and clients
| this way. Overlapping interests and chance encounters.
|
| I meet plenty people on internet in subreddits with the
| same interests and sometimes we meet up and then it clicks
| or it doesn't.
| krisoft wrote:
| > People in their 30's and 40's with zero friends looking
| to make new ones are basically non existent where I live.
|
| Why would they need to have "zero friends". It is not like
| people have a max number of friends they can have.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Because in my experience, where I live, once people past
| 30 have at least one reliable friend in their life the
| can rely on, they don't open themselves to making new
| ones, so they invest their time and energy elsewhere.
|
| One person was really blunt with me: "you're a pretty
| cool guy, but I don't have time/space in my life for new
| people". Other people are less blunt but the same
| principle applies.
| swores wrote:
| Obviously I can't say for sure, but to me "you're a
| pretty cool guy, but I don't have time/space in my life
| for new people" sounds much more like a polite excuse to
| avoid saying "you're not somebody I want to be friends
| with" than an accurate statement about the reason they
| can't be friends with you despite honestly feeling you
| and they are compatible friends.
|
| edit: But maybe that's my British instincts wrongly
| diagnosing a statement that I have no real context to
| judge better.
| watwut wrote:
| Quite possibly not. If you have job, family, friends you
| hang out with and one hobby, then there is often zero
| time for new friendship. Cause that would require
| additional time.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. Someone I know who seemingly leads a
| normal social life turns down all my invitations to hang
| out with groups because he "doesn't need to meet new
| people." And he's not the only person I've known who has
| that attitude.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I do have to say that making friends with people you do not
| see every day for weeks on end feels different. I've spent
| more time with my friends from highschool than I will ever
| spend with any other individual whom I might eventually
| consider a friend.
| szundi wrote:
| This is very true. Only thing is that after some time people
| stop trying and the other party is also needed
| highwaylights wrote:
| Oddly, I was quite awkward as a teenager and really struggled
| to make friends then.
|
| I had friends in college, but I don't really keep in touch with
| any of them these days.
|
| My closest friends are a few I've had since childhood, but
| mostly those I've made since adulthood through work and just
| striking up conversations outside of it.
|
| Try a few new things and put yourself out there. We're none of
| us that different and we're all social creatures.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I don't know what happened but after Covid no one talks to me
| anymore.
|
| Prior to Covid I could go out to a bar, strike up a convo
| with someone (or vice versa) and just chat about stuff,
| sometimes awkward sometimes not. Now though, no one seems to
| want to talk, bot sure if something about my demeanor has
| changed or something. I hate going out now because it usually
| just involves me slamming down drinks to kill time.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > (outside work)
|
| That's a pretty big exclusion. It is like excluding friends you
| make at school when you are a kid.
|
| Obviously, to make friends you have to meet them first and
| preferably spend some time with them. And during adulthood,
| work is usually where it happens, during childhood, it is
| school.
|
| I think the reason it happens less often in adulthood is that
| many people already have an established group of friends, but
| if life changes break the group people will make friends again.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > I didn't realize that people just stop making new friends
| after 30 (outside work).
|
| I'm not sure where you got that impression. At 51 I'm still
| making new friends, mostly by seeking people out who share
| hobbies that I'm interested in. It gives me a base level of
| conversation to start out with. I recently started up a great
| relationship with the curator at a clock museum simply by going
| to his museum and talking clock with him. I go visit him at
| least once a month now, and he's begun to introduce me to other
| museum curators in the area. I also made a new set of friends
| recently by answering a Craigslist ad for a classic car in the
| area, then going to look at the car and talking to the guy for
| a couple hours. He invited me to a Sunday drive with a group of
| local classic car folks, and now I'm part of the group.
| weatherlite wrote:
| In general he's right though, people are getting loneliner
| and make less (and less deep) friendships as they get old. As
| far as I know this is all pretty much common knowledge and
| verified in surveys and research.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Pre-pandemic, I liked "meetup" or other similar groups. You can
| make a lot of friends fast at a Haskell meetup, or at a
| retrocomputing users group. I suppose they're starting to come
| back....
| legerdemain wrote:
| Can you? I've been going to a monthly language meetup for a
| year now. It's the only one in real life I've been able to
| find in SF. Basically no one comes twice, and the ones I
| reach out to after the monthly meeting are lukewarm about
| hanging out.
| 9530jh9054ven wrote:
| "Someone to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy."
|
| Perhaps this is just due to the fact that I've never had a
| friend, but I'm not sure what the difference is between what the
| professor is describing and say a sex worker or escort. So long
| as the client can afford to, all of those criteria are fulfilled.
|
| Is there something I'm missing?
| resiros wrote:
| yes. A friend is also someone that depends on you, that enjoys
| you, that is excited when they see you.
| blitzar wrote:
| That sounds like a dog.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _That sounds like a dog._
|
| Dogs are pack animals, just as humans are, and part of the
| reason we like them, is because they have and bond via
| traits we... wait for it... like!
|
| And while dogs have a very specific place in our society,
| that does not mean human friendships, built upon the same
| ideals and core fundamentals, are the same.
|
| But you knew that, I presume?
| blitzar wrote:
| They dont call dogs _mans best friend_ for no reason.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Dogs of course evolved these qualities for survival, and to
| collaborate with people. A dog must ensure their owner
| lives them.
| joenot443 wrote:
| I love my dog almost as much as I love my friends, but I'd
| feel sorry for someone who isn't able to see the difference
| between the kinds of joy those relationships can bring a
| person.
| tzs wrote:
| I agree with Cat Stevens: I love my dog
| as much as I love you But you may fade, my dog will
| always come through
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET5drt_utUY
| [deleted]
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >Is there something I'm missing?
|
| Yes, but it's difficult to describe in words.
|
| Part of it is the reassurance of knowing that there's someone
| you can depend on when times get tough. An escort wouldn't help
| you back onto your feet if you lost everything; they'd just
| move onto the next client.
|
| The "talk" you get from a paid relationship is different too.
| For starters, they're not going to risk losing your business by
| telling you a difficult truth that you need to hear. This could
| cause you to become offended, after all, and isn't their place
| to tell you.
| hotelmaz wrote:
| Yes. Bribing someone so you can rape them for an hour or so is
| very different to nurturing a relationship of trust over a
| period of months or years.
| eldenwrong wrote:
| If things on your life seem dark right now, know that its
| temporary. Getting help is always an option
|
| Bribing and rape? Explain?
| hotelmaz wrote:
| I prefer not to use the "sex worker" euphemism. Those who
| have exited this abusive industry often refer to it as paid
| rape, so I follow their lead on this.
|
| Also in fact it is often not even a bribe, in cases of sex
| slavery and human trafficking. The john is paying someone
| else to organize the rape for him.
| serverholic wrote:
| Why are people so quick to remove all agency from women?
|
| I find it hard to believe these women have no other
| options than to sell their body.
| Kye wrote:
| That seems like a biased sample. People who exit are
| obviously people who didn't want to be in the industry.
| Try talking to people in it willingly.
| [deleted]
| mxwsn wrote:
| For all the talk of how doing a PhD is terrible, friendships in a
| college-like environment after undergrad was a bright point for
| me and many others. I moved and started a 9 to 5 last year and
| it's quite a change in lifestyle, and at 30 it's striking to
| start to deeply understand this same life transition many friends
| from high school and undergrad experienced 7 years ago already.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Just wait for the transition to parenthood.
|
| If possible, try to time it with your closest friends because
| otherwise you'll rapidly run out of both 'lifestyle in common'
| and time.
|
| (Tangentially: I've been thinking a lot about the theme of
| 'lifestyle in common' ever since both my parents and in-laws
| have retired and almost instantly assume that, because they can
| schedule 100% of their day, that we can too: my mother
| organised a family gathering for a Tuesday lunch - "Mum, I'll
| be at work, in the city, and the kids are at school...". This
| extrapolates in interesting ways as well)
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| On the flip side, when you have kids suddenly every other
| person you've ever known with kids of a similar age will come
| out of the woodwork to say hello. :)
| blitzar wrote:
| doing a PhD was one of the worst experiences of my life.
|
| friendships in a college-like environment durring the PhD was a
| bright point for me and many others and one of the best
| experiences of my life.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I've genuinely consider it but after several years of trying to
| go back I've come to the conclusions schools _hate_ non
| traditional students.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| The reason why we have fewer friends now is because we have
| optimized life for economic growth, not happiness. Technology is
| the primary thing to blame here. If we didn't have technology, we
| would have to rely on each other more and we would not have
| social outlets like the internet to provide a superficial social
| bandage to our underlying social needs.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It's also the width of the economic growth mindset. We fuel the
| 'have more devices and be free-er and independent' so naturally
| people can live on their own (misery).
|
| I may be imagining things but when you live in a small place
| where you have no choice but to share the load and pleasure of
| life (granted the group is emotionally stable), you don't
| suffer from that. You're a jolly bunch making your place nicer,
| finding and cooking food, and being goofy at night around the
| fire.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > granted the group is emotionally stable
|
| No group is emotionaly stable. We just deal with all the
| problems that come up more, or less effectively.
| agumonkey wrote:
| You know what I mean, not too crazy / violent. Of course
| it's never absolute peace. But at the same time this is one
| factor that drove 'modern societies' to more and more
| isolation. It's tempting to not want to deal with others.
| But at that point it's detrimental.
| Kiro wrote:
| I don't want to rely on others and I would not want to live a
| life without technology.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Sad :(. It is scary at first but very fulfilling if you find
| reliable people.
| Kiro wrote:
| Why is it sad? I'm very happy with my life.
| seydor wrote:
| So suppose economic growth ends today. How do you optimize for
| friendship?
| lvass wrote:
| You just start caring. When you dedicate your time to it,
| you'll find out how to deal with each person uniquely as you
| should do.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| It's an interesting question but it won't stop. I think the
| question is (for the individual), how can you organize your
| life and your priorities so that friendship plays a more
| central role in your life?
| bradlys wrote:
| Technology is not to blame. Capitalism is to blame. Ignorant to
| say otherwise.
| rkagerer wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ck3Zo
| eyear wrote:
| It all depends on how friendship is defined. There are shallow
| friendship and deep friendship.
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