[HN Gopher] Live near your friends
___________________________________________________________________
Live near your friends
Author : thenobsta
Score : 319 points
Date : 2023-09-27 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
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| bluecheese452 wrote:
| Only 12% have zero friends? I would have suspected more. As an
| adult it seems you either have friends from childhood/college or
| you don't have friends.
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| You also make friends with other parents when you have
| children, especially the first intense childbirth experience,
| but then also school, sports, scouts, camping, etc. The effect
| declines as your children get older.
|
| After that, I agree, new friendships are rare, but perhaps also
| unnecessary, depending on your gender and personality (middle-
| aged autistic males probably have loner superpowers).
| tasuki wrote:
| I made plenty friends as an adult well into thirties through a
| hobby I used to pursue very seriously and now mostly for the
| social aspect. Now I have a kid and I also meet other people
| with kids.
| presentation wrote:
| I moved to Tokyo several years back and got married here, and
| have come to appreciate the effect of being in a city that isn't
| a revolving door in a country where most people intend to live in
| the same city. My spouse's friends all live here, so does her
| family across multiple generations, and the city is well
| connected so by default she has plenty of friends around all the
| time. Coming from a US flyover state where practically nobody who
| I know except for my parents still live there, it makes me not
| want to raise my future children in a place like that nor in a US
| big city where most people only intend to stay for several years
| max.
| willio58 wrote:
| While it's difficult, I fully agree with this idea. Most of my
| friends are slowly moving to one neighborhood and it's been
| fantastic. This neighborhood also happens to be one of the few
| walkable neighborhoods in my city, which helps massively with
| feeling more connected too.
|
| I think while living close to friends is important, we really
| just need to regularly see friends. It's easier to do so if you
| live close (or if your city has good public transport like metros
| or trams).
| matchbok wrote:
| Spending my 20s in city, where I could walk to a bar/friend's
| house/restaurant/ball game, was a wonderful experience. When I
| talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I can't help
| but feel depressed. And for older folks too - the isolation is
| real.
|
| It's a shame so much of our built environment reduces
| socialization.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| > When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I
| can't help but feel depressed.
|
| On the other hand, I grew up and spent about the first two-
| thirds of my life in an extremely rural area. Socializing
| happened only at school, and when your nearest friends are a
| thirty minute drive away, you learn to effectively spend time
| alone.
|
| I read, I wandered through the woods, I played video games.
| Activities I still enjoy.
|
| It was nice spending my 20s a few minutes walk from my friends,
| restaurants, my office, etc, but it certainly got overwhelming.
| People were inviting me to do stuff nearly every night. I
| frequently wondered if people just live like that and when they
| found the time to just do normal alone stuff.
| lobsterslive wrote:
| Having grown up in a rural area, I share your experience. I'm
| _very_ comfortable being by myself and get drained when I
| have to socialize. I honestly feel pretty lucky to be this
| way. Most people get incredibly stressed when they have to be
| alone. Finding joy with yourself leads to a pretty high
| quality of life imho.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| I quite enjoyed my rural upbringing, but there was a massive
| lack of specific stuff to do. Like, I wanted to do martial
| arts for ages as a kid, and I had zero options. Not a single
| club within an hours drive. That was real annoying.
|
| So I moved to London, and damn I'm glad I did.
| addicted wrote:
| > but it certainly got overwhelming. People were inviting me
| to do stuff nearly every night. I frequently wondered if
| people just live like that and when they found the time to
| just do normal alone stuff.
|
| The realization that helped me here is that people don't
| think about you as much as you think they do.
|
| So, for example, if you ignore most events, and just join
| these events once every few weeks, it's not like people will
| think any less of you.
|
| I decided to skip a lot more of these events and instead meet
| smaller groups of friends for last moment smaller hang outs
| instead. Maybe just grab a 30 min walk after work or grab a
| coffee or a couple of drinks a weekend morning.
| bombcar wrote:
| The other thing to remember is that if YOU do an event, and
| invite 10 people, that is ten invites. _Everyone_ will
| receive more invites than they can accept, it 's normal.
| esafak wrote:
| I would not go that far. If you repeatedly turn down a
| friend you won't get invited any more.
| brewdad wrote:
| If meeting up with a friend every few weeks instead of
| nightly means you no longer want anything to do with that
| person, I doubt the friendship was that strong to begin
| with.
|
| Also, there's a difference between having a friend turn
| down a one to one meetup versus turning down a party of
| 30 people, 20 of whom they don't really know.
| kansface wrote:
| I used to feel this way too, but I'm older and have literally
| moved on - my perspective has changed. SF has walkable
| neighborhoods without community, and the one doesn't flow from
| the other.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| Interesting...spent 20s in city also but now live in suburbs
| and don't feel isolated at all. We know all our neighbors, our
| kids play together etc. I didn't know any of these people
| before we lived there obviously.
|
| Would argue it's less about "where you are" and more about "how
| easy it is for you to make new friends" but that's purely
| anecdotal.
|
| I guess if it's about going to bars to make friendships then
| yes there will be less of that in suburbs (assuming U.S. here).
| But as you age going to bars is a "need" that seems to
| generally decrease for most (not all of course) people.
|
| How is a suburb inherently lonely exactly?
| bell-cot wrote:
| It varies enormously - but some 'burbs are described as being
| all 1-2 person McMansions, where everyone has a lawn service,
| to make sure they can't meet anyone else while out doing yard
| work.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| My suburb has houses crammed together so close I can see
| into my neighbors kitchen if the blinds aren't close. When
| I do go mow my lawn I have the alcoholic on the one side
| come out and complain to me about his life and an old
| retired lawn obsessed guy on the other side come tell me
| how my lawn is shit and I need to take better care of it.
|
| And I'm just thankful I'm no longer in apartments where I
| have to deal with neighbours screaming matches at 3am,
| people having parties above me every single weekend, crappy
| landlords, and all the other shit.
| hellotheretoday wrote:
| In cities things are more balanced like you've mentioned but
| our suburb design is so crushingly isolating. The suburbs that
| get built now are almost designed to be lonely: here's 100+
| houses all right next to each other so there are no real
| communal spaces for socialization. We've zoned it in a way so
| that if someone wants to open a pub or salon or whatever they
| will be refused from the start. If you want that experience you
| will almost inherently have to drive because the suburbs are
| often so large that walking is impractical. You either make
| friends with your neighbors, which most adults only do casually
| at best, or you just be lonely.
|
| This gets into the concept of "third space" or community space,
| which we often critically lack outside of cities. Living near
| friends is great if you have them but if you don't you need
| some place to make them. Culturally we are in a weird spot for
| a lot of people. There are church related communities but
| that's not helpful if you're not religious. There's the bar and
| club scene but that can be more focus on sex, can be expensive,
| and is also not for everyone (especially if you don't drink
| alcohol). There's niche interest groups like d&d and board game
| clubs, figure drawing classes, etc, but these can be hard to
| socialize in because of things like the group is already tight
| knit and not accepting of new faces, the class is focused and
| there's not much time for socializing thus requiring another
| social space (eg let's get drinks after class) which you may
| not have time for, etc
|
| It's tough, I guess. The articl is a good suggestion but an
| oversimplification that glosses over these big systemic issues
| (especially the lack of community spaces that don't constantly
| drain us of cash or expect us to be intoxicated). If you can
| live near your friends you should. But at the same time that's
| way tougher than it sounds most of the time. I'd love to live
| near my friends but we're all pushing 40 now. Everyone's
| everywhere. We were once all in the same city but work took us
| all over the place and now we live all over the country. It's
| hard enough to just stay in touch.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I
| can't help but feel depressed.
|
| I see this with the youngest workers at my company. When I was
| their age I moved to the city for $750/month and got a cheap
| apartment and lived in the thick of things, a 15 minute bike
| ride to the office and walking distance to bars and
| restaurants. For them to do the same as I did, rent would be
| $2500/m and so they've been forced into continuing to live in
| their parents basement way out in the burbs. Remote work has
| been a godsend for not burning half their day, but they're
| still resultingly isolated from the vibrant urban social life
| that I enjoyed.
|
| I'm sure there may be a few that prefer the burbs, but it's
| clear that there's no real actual choices being made here and
| it is economic conditions that are forcing their living
| conditions on them. It's really sad that we've allowed this to
| happen through our inaction and reluctance to allow new homes
| to be built.
| matchbok wrote:
| Yeah, agreed. It's a shame - we have not spent the resources
| to build more of the stuff people want, so it keeps getting
| more expensive.
| zhivota wrote:
| Absolutely. The decision gets worse and worse as you
| progress, as well. We spec'ed out living in a city, just
| about any city, and economically it is such a hit for a
| family, on top of safety concerns (not just from crime but
| also just traffic in cities is atrocious in the US), school
| quality concerns, etc.
|
| I'd love to live somewhere walkable but I just don't have the
| budget to do it without putting our family on a knife edge
| monetarily.
| olah_1 wrote:
| > Spending my 20s in city, where I could walk to a bar/friend's
| house/restaurant/ball game, was a wonderful experience.
|
| For many, living in a city like that can be just as isolating,
| if not more. Because being surrounded by so many people and not
| having any real connections is a different kind of hurt. It's
| sort of a cosmic joke at that point.
| dwmbt wrote:
| taken me a couple of years to figure this out. moved to a
| medium-large city post uni with a grand delusion that i'd
| simply make friends and find my wife due to the virtue of
| living in a denser environment.
|
| after a while, it didn't work out like i thought it would.
| surely, it had nothing to do with me and my inability to
| socialize properly? nay! i came to the naive conclusion that
| the _city_ was at fault, or that we were mismated: "it's not
| big enough and there's not enough to do, or places to meet
| people. it's really far from the things i like to do, like
| the ocean or hiking spots." so, i moved to one of the most
| dense, socially-active cities in the world.
|
| been here a while and yeah, it sucks. i think you put it
| best, feels a bit like a cosmic joke. there's only a few
| places in the world where so many people are crammed into
| such a small place. yet, i have no one.
|
| i had enough and dished out some $$$ to spend 2 months in a
| rural town. a real quiet place, one of those towns with a
| single coffee shop. no whole foods or any amazon shenanigans.
| i miss some things, but the only times i've felt this at home
| have been... at home, with my parents. i think i'll move back
| in with them and give up on the city dream.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| In my experience moving from a tiny town to London after
| graduating, is big cities take way more effort on your
| part, but reward you more for it. Like yeah, in your
| hometown you'll probably run into people more and gradually
| get to know them better. In a big city that won't happen
| nearly as much.
|
| But, a big city has _scale_. You wanna give D&D a go?
| There's probably a club within a mile or two of you. Fancy
| doing martial arts? You've got a choice of half a dozen
| with 20 minutes. You're a long-time hobbyist in an obscure
| type of Japanese figure painting? You might have to travel
| a bit, but your city has one of only three clubs for that
| hobby in the country so you win!
|
| Basically, put in the effort. It could easily take a year
| or more. But get out there, be social, take initiative, and
| you'll find your people.
| bombcar wrote:
| The people who are "naturally social" will be social
| anywhere, but in a small town you can be the most
| antisocial person ever made, and people will get to know
| you, simply because you're one of the only thousand people
| they ever see.
| notatoad wrote:
| >It's a shame so much of our built environment reduces
| socialization.
|
| i don't think you can really blame the built environment, when
| that's the whole reason people built the environment that way.
| not being forced to interact with anybody other than the people
| you specifically choose to interact with is the whole reason
| people move to the suburbs, or avoid public transit. the
| isolation is the point.
| brewdad wrote:
| And yet so many of us turn to social media to avoid feeling
| isolated. Urban, suburban, and rural life all have their pros
| and cons. Having lived in all three at various points in my
| life, I'm uncertain which lifestyle to choose as I begin to
| plan for retirement.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I
| can't help but feel depressed.
|
| It's easy to hole up in your suburban home and never socialize,
| but I know a lot of people who live in dense cities and never
| leave their house unless absolutely necessary either.
|
| Living in a suburb doesn't mean you're isolated from friends,
| as long as you live within a reasonable drive. It does mean
| everyone has to plan ahead and allocate a little more travel
| time, but that's not really a big deal when people are in their
| 30s with more obligations, work, and possibly kids.
|
| Living in the suburbs actually creates a different set of
| opportunities because now you have more space and likely a
| yard, too. Cramped parties in someone's apartment are fun when
| you're in your 20s, but in my 30s it's much nicer to head to
| someone's backyard BBQ or house that comfortably holds 40
| people inside. There's also room for kids to play, room for
| outdoor games, and other things that weren't happening at
| parties in my 20s.
|
| If you're trying to project your exact current lifestyle on to
| suburban living then it's going to be disappointing. If you
| instead look at it from the perspective of being different
| rather than worse, you start to the possible upsides.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think there's a real difference depending if you "fit"
| where you are. In a city, no matter how weird your interests,
| you'll likely find a group nearby that is also interested in
| that.
|
| In a small town or suburb if you're the "odd man out" it can
| be much harder.
|
| But when I "lived in the city" as a younger man, I was often
| traveling out to the suburbs where friends lived as they had
| the space and the things to do.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| klunger wrote:
| We bought a two-unit house together with another couple, with the
| same idea in mind. They have a kid the same age as our youngest
| (18 months) and also do not have any family nearby to help with
| childcare.
|
| It took over a year of planning and searching to find a place
| that we could all agree on. It was also hard to find a bank to
| give a loan to 4 adults because it is so unconventional.
|
| In my mind, I call it "our modern village". So far, we have only
| had a couple of group dinners, because we are all so busy with
| renovations, jobs and kids etc. Modern adult life. So, those are
| dinners that would not have happened otherwise. Its also great to
| share chores like organizing the storage shed, mowing the lawn
| etc.
|
| I am really pleased with our decision so far, although I am
| really looking forward to these renovations being done.
| baliex wrote:
| Sounds inspired by Huxley's _Island_.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)
| [deleted]
| keb_ wrote:
| I did this, but instead of friends I chose family. Moved away for
| years for work, career, and a girlfriend. Then realized my
| depression worsened, and this was exacerbated when my girlfriend
| and I broke up. The catalyst for me moving back was my uncle
| dying and realizing I had only seen him three times since I had
| moved away.
|
| I moved back, and now see my parents and siblings on a weekly
| basis. Housing is more expensive, but I find it infinitely worth
| it to be able to spend time barbequeing with my dad or taking my
| mom to the beach every week. Needless to say, my depression
| became _far_ more manageable.
| ct0 wrote:
| Be friends with your neighbors...
| esafak wrote:
| "Love the One You're With", Crosby, Stills & Nash.
| carbine wrote:
| Moving back to my hometown to be near my closest friends is one
| of the best decisions I've ever made.
| pabloarteel wrote:
| "Befriend who live near you" is another way to solve for this.
|
| As an adult it's hard, you need a hobby/interest that promotes
| socializing or has a community around it.
|
| One of my biggest hobbies is being a DJ, I get booked regularly
| locally and nationally, and that's allowed me to meet and make a
| lot of new lasting friendships in the past years.
|
| I've seen people make strong bonds over crossfit, martial arts,
| religious groups, etc.
| hinkley wrote:
| If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're
| with.
| seydor wrote:
| That is why we need the metaverse, so we can live together in our
| custom-made one-of-a-kind world. Life is all about safety and
| feeling good until death releases us.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I moved away from my friends and we lost touch over time. I
| picked the right time to move though, because all of them started
| having kids around the same time and frankly as the only single
| dude of the group I was expecting those relationships to fade
| eventually anyways.
|
| Being in my 30s with no kids is a bit isolating because it feels
| like everyone else my age is either a parent, or has a friend
| group already. Hard to convince a person to spend time with you
| over other friends or their families, which is understandable but
| lonely.
|
| I do have my wife, we're not planning to have children. But I
| don't think 100% of your social life should come from your
| partner, and she agrees. But she grew up here and has friends, I
| don't have many here.
|
| I need to get out more I suppose.
| emptybits wrote:
| Uprooting and moving with work and family is hard and expensive.
|
| So, as the Stephen Stills lyric goes... If you
| can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.
|
| My best friends may live hours away but it's all upside to still
| befriending those who are physically nearby every day when you
| walk out the door. You never know where it'll lead.
| andersa wrote:
| You guys have friends in real life? I don't even know the names
| of my neighbors.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > I don't even know the names of my neighbors.
|
| I don't either, but I have plenty of friends in real life
| (well, all of my friends are in real life). Those two things
| are not related.
| [deleted]
| eYrKEC2 wrote:
| Embrace rejection.
|
| The worst they could do is reject you and never talk to you,
| but you're mostly there with them already.
| hinkley wrote:
| Nathan Shelley: "Well, that she laughs in my face and says
| no. And that I scurry away, humiliated, never to be allowed
| in my favorite restaurant ever again. So that the next time
| we have some kind of family celebration, I'll just have to...
| you know... sit on the pavement outside eating take away fish
| and chips watching you through the window like some
| Dickensian street urchin."
| paxys wrote:
| The magic solution here isn't to get all your friends to live on
| the same block (heck housing and schools are hard enough as it
| is), but rather to connect with your local community wherever you
| happen to live. That's how people have survived since the dawn of
| civilization. You were born somewhere, and chances were that
| that's where you'd be for the rest of your life. You had no
| choice but to play nice with people around you, because your
| happiness depended on it. The very idea of having friends in
| different places across the country and the globe is a fairly
| modern invention. Regardless of how many people you know
| everywhere else, if you aren't friends with your neighbors then
| you will always be lonely.
| dheera wrote:
| The biggest problem with the way modern people live IMO is the
| way people raise kids.
|
| It used to be an entire village raising the entire village's
| kids. That was easy when everyone shared a language, culture,
| and food. You could trust the cooking of your neighbor 5 houses
| away, their standards were the same as yours. Then around the
| industrial revolution and later, that trust disappeared and it
| started to be one parent working 8 hours a day and one parent
| raising the kid (for the middle class), and households largely
| not helping each other.
|
| Today it's both parents working for 8 hours a day, instead of a
| truly fair society in which each parent working 4 hours and
| take care of kids for 4 hours. They sold it to us as gender
| equality ("women and men should both work and both take care of
| the house" -- sounds great) but instead of redistributing the
| workload of 8 hours to 4 hours each, they (the landlords, the
| corporates, the shareholders) took advantage of the situation
| to overwork both men and women to 8+ or even 10+ or 12+ hours
| per day when we should all be working 4 if we want a fair,
| gender-equal society. Add on the problem of unequal pay being
| given to men and women, the result is usually the women having
| to give up their career in the name of household income because
| neither man nor woman's company is interested in letting them
| work for 4 hours each and the man's company is giving him 3X
| the woman's salary for the same amount of work.
|
| And there's no village to help each other out when parents get
| sick or want/need to travel without the kids.
|
| This is probably the biggest reason I'm most likely not wanting
| kids. There's just not time nor community resources for it. It
| doesn't sound like fun.
| [deleted]
| peterbell_nyc wrote:
| I think the underlying challenge is that mobility, work
| connections and the internet have shown us that there are lots
| of people with deep similarities to us in the world.
|
| I moved from NYC to Boulder and then more recently to
| Westchester (just north of NYC). There are some really nice
| people in the town I live in, and we connect through having
| kids in the same schools. However, it's not nearly the same as
| my conference friends from the devrel world. We used to geek
| out over everything from carpentry to compilers, we had a
| shared community and interests, and because I got to present a
| lot and hang out with the other speakers, my "tribe" were geeky
| enough to be interesting, social enough to be an easy hang, and
| opinionated enough (they thought they were worth listening to
| on stage or they wouldn't have been presenters) that they
| usually had a hot take that was entertaining, enlightening or
| both.
|
| I'm still looking for the small town where they all live so I
| can move nearer to them, but best as I can tell they are a
| nomadic people to be found only in airport lounges, hotel
| rooms, and occasionally on the side of the stage after their
| talk concluded :(
| tiltowait wrote:
| It's hard to overstate how true this is. Even something as
| simple as a 5-minute friendly chat a week can make a big
| difference.
| slt2021 wrote:
| it is impossible to find common ground with common people, when
| your community of your people is online and you grew up in
| online communities
| presentation wrote:
| I got a dog and now find common ground with anyone else in my
| neighborhood walking their dogs. Like a parallel community of
| 20+ dog owners in my vicinity I would have never talked to (I
| live in a densely populated place)
| sneak wrote:
| I don't think I'm alone in that I find it impossible to find
| common ground with most normal people. I am a proper _weirdo_
| and my neighbors near my current home are basically randomly
| selected suburbanites.
|
| I would struggle to talk to them for 3 minutes.
|
| My friends are my friends because they have the right values,
| priorities, and culture. My culture has almost no overlap with
| that of the "community" in which I live. They don't know my
| music, my food, my memes, my values, my lifestyle. We're not
| even awake at the same time. All we share is geographic
| proximity.
|
| Pretty much every time I talk to random people in the US for
| more than a few minutes, they drop inflammatory remarks to see
| how I respond, to identify which side of the culture war I am
| on, so they can (based on my identifying responses) either
| antagonize or befriend me. I ignore these comments, as I am
| disinterested in the American culture war and its political
| sports-teamism.
|
| The article is right, and I think yours is a casual dismissal.
| Arubis wrote:
| If you're interested in finding more of an in-person
| community (and you may not be! Primarily online might be your
| preference, and there's nothing wrong with that), I'd
| recommend finding a bigger, denser city. It almost doesn't
| matter which; the more people there, the more of _your
| people_ you'll find there. This is effectively a smaller
| analogue of finding your people online, since the Internet
| has the most people--but making a compromise to be able to
| connect locally. That said, your profile suggests you're in
| Berlin, which as a complete outsider (I've never been to
| Germany at all) I would've presumed would be sufficiently
| urban.
| Tarball10 wrote:
| It might be healthy to socialize with people who _don 't_
| share your music, food, memes, and lifestyle (values perhaps
| being the exception where you'd still need to align). Living
| in a bubble and interacting only with people exactly like you
| seems pretty limiting. There's no reason you can't be
| friendly with people that live very different lives, but your
| phrasing makes it sound like you're not even giving them a
| chance. Perhaps you have more in common than you'd think!
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Sorry to drop an inflammatory remark on you, but you sound
| like an extreme version of a total snob. I call it "everyday
| fascist". Only your way of life, only your values, etc. are
| superior. No one cares about your weirdness, but also no one
| likes your holier than thou attitude.
| pwatsonwailes wrote:
| I can't be bothered to try and meet people whom I could,
| because I think they might be different to me isn't the flex
| you seem to think it is.
|
| If you want to be a misanthrope that's fine, but that's on
| you, not your local community.
| sneak wrote:
| "they might be different to me" is not the same as "they
| will be actively hostile to me when they learn more about
| how different I am".
|
| In the US I find conformity to be widely regarded as
| desirable, and being "weird" to be seen as a negative. I am
| weird. This lowers most normal people's opinions of me.
| c22 wrote:
| On the contrary I think many people desire conformance in
| themselves because they are afraid to stand out. However,
| often weirdness is admired when it is observed. This is
| why 'artists' are a thing. Granted, the specific _ways_
| in which you are weird could definitely influence this,
| no one likes a creepy person.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The interesting part of the whole discussion is whether your
| response is reasonable.
|
| 100 years ago - the blink of an eye on the timeline of
| humanity - it would have been ludicrous. Now it's become
| commonplace for the friends you make in your youth to
| experience a global diaspora out of convenience and personal
| preference, and to try to maintain a relationship using
| technology and occasional travel. It also seems reasonable
| for people to make friends with reasonable success to the
| small fraction of people geographically scattered over the
| globe who happen to share your taste in music and all your
| other hyperspecific personal preferences, connecting again
| through technology and travel.
|
| The big question is whether this is reasonable. I thought in
| 2006 that I'd maintain friendships with the friends I made
| (due to physical proximity!) in my high school classes and
| athletic teams using Facebook. Instead, Facebook decided to
| use my attention on their platform due to those friends to
| sell ads, and the relationship maintenance got harder, and
| eventually went by the wayside. The handful I still maintain
| contact with happen to have physical proximity more than
| commonality of values/priorities/culture.
|
| The friends I have on forums, Discord, Reddit, and in Rocket
| League/Minecraft due to shared interests are real people,
| probably perfectly nice, just physically located on the other
| side of the Internet connection and a screen (or microphone),
| but if I've never shared a handshake, hug, meal, or home with
| them are they the same kind of friends as my neighbors,
| members of local rec leagues and hackerspaces, workplace
| friends, and other people who live near me?
|
| The big experiment of social media is whether nonconformity
| to local community, and instead forming virtual communities
| online, performs the same function to bring a happy, healthy
| life to the humans who practice it. You may say that it's too
| early to tell, that present failings are just growing pains,
| but I think the early evidence is quite strongly pointing
| towards "no".
| sneak wrote:
| I don't use social media, so I don't think this applies. I
| also think the corporate-mediated friendship model is toxic
| and disgusting. I'm not on IG or FB and my IRL friends from
| "back home" I connected with first on interest-based email
| mailing lists before we ever met in person.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Rather than reacting with knee jerk derision, I took a moment
| to read your blog's "My Context" page, and I think I do have
| to conclude you're living in the right way for yourself.
| Someone who puts freedom from coercion first and foremost in
| their ethical thinking, to the extent that you do, is going
| to find themselves at odds with the Overton window almost
| anywhere they go.
|
| I'm not sure you're doing something in your own life that's
| much different here from what those people in the States are
| doing to you. You too are dropping hints and observing
| responses to decide whether to befriend or antagonize a given
| person. Hence the tone of some of the other comments - you've
| successfully antagonized a few people by what you've written
| here. I can't really tell whether you just dislike this
| "cultural war" you have going on (whatever that is) or
| whether you also have a distaste for this whole
| befriend/antagonize mechanism in general.
|
| In any case I'm glad you've got a group of people you can pal
| around with online. It's good to have friends.
| iteratethis wrote:
| Sounds like you're only interested in a clone of yourself.
| JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote:
| > drop inflammatory remarks to see how I respond, to identify
| which side of the culture war I am on
|
| Very real, and very hilarious. I called a tow truck recently
| in rural CO, and the driver asked where I lived. Upon hearing
| NYC, the first words out of his mouth were "I hear that's a
| real shithole. My phone's been telling me murders and
| robberies are way up." God bless America.
| sjducb wrote:
| > I would struggle to talk to them for 3 minutes
|
| Have you tried talking to them for 3 min? Your statement is
| written as if it's a hypothetical.
|
| When I talk to the parents at my kids school (5min from my
| house) I'm amazed at how much we have in common. 50% of the
| dads are computer programmers. I've found things in common
| with most of the other parents.
|
| When I talk to my neighbours the one on my right has a PhD
| from the same college as me and the one on the left went
| backpacking to the same places as me.
|
| You live where you do because of "reasons" your neighbours
| live there for similar reasons. We're all random
| suburbanites.
| sneak wrote:
| I have tried. There are a lot of career military people
| around here (the cold half of the year I live not extremely
| far from Nellis AFB) and people who moved away from SoCal
| because of rising costs and perceived political shifts.
|
| I think it would be less of an issue in a more homogenous
| place, but southern Nevada is pretty firmly "purple" and
| people seem to try to classify you as friend or foe
| immediately upon meeting.
| foobarian wrote:
| I'm on the weird spectrum and have a similar experience
| with neighbors. I suppose the more of an outlier you are,
| the less likely it is to randomly land in a compatible
| community, and therefore the harder you need to work to
| make it happen. Of all the places I've lived, high
| density residential areas near high densities of colleges
| were the best at making this possible. The problem is,
| settling in such areas tends to be expensive
| (NYC/Boston/Bay Area/etc), so you look further out, and
| wherever you can afford tends to be majority
| townies/normies.
| Tarball10 wrote:
| Referring to other people as "townies/normies" seems like
| you're already looking down on them and not wanting to
| make any effort in getting along with them.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Why do you live where you live? If you move somewhere
| where everyone is very different from you and find you
| can't get along it's hard to blame it on them. They
| probably get along with each other just fine.
| asdff wrote:
| This is why you move to somewhere without the whole culture
| war bullshit in the local lexicon. Like the "liberal hellhole
| of california," a statement that serves as a great filter
| towards a lot of ignorant people spending much time around
| you there. Not a sure thing you won't see these folk, just
| that they've been relegated into de facto containment zones
| in the more rural parts of the state.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > I would struggle to talk to them for 3 minutes.
|
| I'd suggest thinking of that as a skill to be developed.
| munk-a wrote:
| > My neighbors near my current home are basically randomly
| selected suburbanites.
|
| I think that's an understated problem right there - suburbs
| are awful for fostering good relationships. Some suburbs have
| gone out of their way to have events like block parties - but
| most have no real common every-day interaction and the
| infrequency of common tasks like shifting grocery shopping to
| a once a week task and minimizing interactions outside of PTA
| meetings is really hurting our ability to form strong social
| bonds.
|
| I live in a city so my neighbors are a metric ton of randomly
| selected folks who I pass often walking on the street and
| doing life tasks - additionally the population density is
| high enough that I have multiple different board game events
| hosted by stores and a plethora of choices for D&D groups to
| choose from. I think that density makes a very big
| difference.
| sneak wrote:
| In the summers I live in a real city with fair density
| (Berlin) and love talking to strangers, but even there the
| people directly in my building are mostly conservative
| immigrant families who give me dirty looks because I'm a
| man with hot pink hair.
|
| I am pretty against neighbor relations these days. I spend
| a lot of energy and money maintaining relationships with my
| friends from the scenes in which I inhabit, who are in many
| different cities.
| paxys wrote:
| You know what they say...if everywhere you go smells like
| shit, maybe it's time to check your own shoes.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Conformity is not the most important virtue. I've been a
| weirdo my entire life, and if people are judgmental about
| me, that's their failing, not mine. I bet most people on
| the spectrum know what I'm talking about.
| paxys wrote:
| Being friends with someone or generally getting along
| with them doesn't mean you have to "conform" with their
| views or lifestyle. That is something we seem to have
| lost as a culture in today's political environment.
|
| 99% of people out there aren't looking to get into a
| fight with you no matter how different you are. They
| aren't looking to change your views on things or have
| their own views changed. The sooner you accept that, the
| easier building new relations with them will be.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I have no problems meeting and talking to people. The
| person you insulted said that they were getting dirty
| looks because of their non-conformity. Somehow in your
| mind that became their fault.
| CalRobert wrote:
| :-( that's sad. I wish you luck in finding something that
| works for you.
|
| We're an immigrant family in the Netherlands and we could
| do with more colourful hair around here.
| irrational wrote:
| What helped my suburban neighborhood come together was
| putting in a community garden. We have apple trees,
| thornless blackberry plants, grape vines, strawberry and
| blueberry plants, and a raised garden bed for everyone.
| People talk when they come down to weed, water, plant, etc.
| It gets people out of their houses in the evenings and
| gives a gathering place where we also host the block
| parties.
|
| My opinion is every suburban neighborhood should be planed
| with a central community garden place.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| That's good for gardeners. Maybe also a communal board
| game space, a communal maker space, a communal basketball
| court, and so on? We can perhaps put them together into a
| "community centre".
| irrational wrote:
| It turned out that even people who don't want to garden
| would come out and just hang out and talk around the
| garden. Most humans just like being around green growing
| things. Probably from millions of years of evolution.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Indeed, parks are also a good idea.
| kaashif wrote:
| Yeah. For all the hate density gets, living in e.g.
| Manhattan has made it really easy for me to find like
| minded friends. I live within like 10 minutes of millions
| of people so it would be weird if I couldn't connect with
| people locally. You just have to consciously try to speak
| to the same people, it's easy to float around and never see
| the same person twice.
| CalRobert wrote:
| For what it's worth, when I lived in rural Ireland I didn't
| click with _anybody_. I live near Amsterdam now and have
| already meet two people who could grow to be good friends.
|
| "to identify which side of the culture war I am on"
|
| I _HATE_ this aspect of casual conversation with strangers in
| the US (or people in the Irish midlands trying to suss out if
| I'm Catholic or Protestant) and I do not miss it at all. Will
| the US have their own version of the Irish Troubles?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > Pretty much every time I talk to random people in the US,
| they drop inflammatory remarks to see how I respond, to
| identify which side of the culture war I am on, so they can
| antagonize or befriend me. I ignore these comments, as I am
| disinterested in the American culture war and its political
| sports-teamism.
|
| Weird. Everyone in my neighborhood avoids politics like the
| plague.
|
| I think my favorite part about where I live is my neighbors.
| The thing we have most in common with is our community, kids,
| and the troubles that come with home ownership.
|
| We invite eachother over for pool parties and BBQs. My
| neighbor, who I'm pretty sure is exactly the opposite of me
| politics-wise (I've heard him talking in the backyard
| before), nevertheless invites everyone over for labor day and
| 4th of July. We talk house and neighborhood problems. His
| kids are only slightly younger than _me_ but we still talk
| kid stuff.
|
| Another neighbor is on a fire safety council (a non-profit)
| and helps deal with some of the issues with that, and I've
| helped them with tech stuff before. You wouldn't think it,
| but he's kinda a nerd himself. This is a 60 year old retired
| firefighter with a garage full of motorcycles who could
| probably bench press me but his house is full of legos and
| star wars stuff.
|
| In general, people are very happy to help with problems and
| cordial. We have a text message thread with about 15 houses
| on it.
| stuxnet79 wrote:
| This is correct but yet a completely foreign concept to some.
| In less affluent cultures this is how people conduct their
| lives because their survival very much depends on it.
|
| But in our modern, increasingly individualistic way of life
| going through the discomfort of "getting to know" your
| neighbors carries with it more cons than pros. You likely don't
| share any common interests or goals & are way too busy from
| $DAYJOB to build common ground. That same $DAYJOB may
| eventually pull you to a different city or state causing the
| weak connection you struggled to make to fade away.
|
| Building relationships with others takes time and effort but
| the norms we've settled on in society make it very challenging
| to do so.
| jcdavis wrote:
| Cannot emphasize this enough. There has been a lot of
| discussion of the decline of the "third place", but I know a
| lot of folks who aren't really involved in anything outside of
| home/work, so their friend circles (largely built up from
| school/early working years) slowly whittle away as people move,
| while not doing anything to create new ones.
|
| Beyond just neighbors - regardless of what activity/hobby you
| like, chances are there is some group/community near you.
| Getting involved and showing up on a regular basis will do
| wonders for cultivating new friendships IME, and you're likely
| to have a lot more in common with those folks than a random
| subset of people that you happen to live next to.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I wonder if it be more effective to (re) interpret the statement
| as follows: make friends with those living near you.
| RIMR wrote:
| Okay, yeah, living near friends is good, but the philosophy
| behind this project seems broken.
|
| First of all, why would I use an app or a website for this
| specifically? I already know where my friends live, and they
| aren't all friends with each other, so I would just use existing
| resources to look for rentals near friends I would want to live
| near.
|
| And chances are that I'm only going to get to live near 1 friend,
| because my friends live all over the city, so it's just going to
| be a balancing act between which neighborhoods that my friends
| live in that I would also want to live in. Nearby amenities and
| transit are going to also play a big role, so even a cherished
| friend my not be a good match if they don't live somewhere that
| meets my needs.
|
| Ultimately, if our trend towards further loneliness is to be
| reversed, we shouldn't be focusing on moving near the friends we
| have, but making friends in our own neighborhoods, and being a
| part of our communities. There is a growing antisocial attitude
| that I think this project helps perpetuate in that people see it
| easier to remove themselves from their communities to chase
| existing social connections rather than to build new social
| connections.
| CapstanRoller wrote:
| Neither the words "housing" nor "cost" appear anywhere in this
| writeup. It reads like "just buy a house and have a community,
| bro!"
|
| It's like the author never considered that the reason people
| might be isolated is because any community ties get ripped up and
| scattered to the winds with every rent hike or eviction or job
| change. After a few cycles of this, why bother making
| connections? You'll probably never see your neighbors again 12
| months from now.
| nmca wrote:
| Are there tools, processes or organisations that could make this
| easier? For example, I could imagine:
|
| * a blog of success stories * a guide on how to do things like
| coordinate breaking leases, getting leases aligned, etc * maybe
| advice on housing searches, etc
|
| ???
| SwetDrems wrote:
| Reducing car dependency will increase social activity. Cars are
| isolating socially and geographically.
|
| Everyone should try live car-free and see how much more connected
| to your community you'll become.
| Eumenes wrote:
| My social circle activities involves hiking, camping, hunting,
| fishing. Reducing car dependency won't work for everyone.
| Mostly works in cities.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| In my city (west coast), public transport is simply not safe
| anymore (especially as a woman) due to lack of law enforcement
| or deterrents from crime. In my car - I feel safe. I am taking
| Krav Maga classes, but man, it didn't used to be this bad.
| asdff wrote:
| I think the perception of risk is what is off more than
| anything. LA metro for example saw about 180 violent crimes
| on it last year. For a system that sees almost a third of a
| billion boarding a year, the risk of violent crime happening
| is so low it doesn't make sense to consider. I expect the
| crime rate is similarly low on other transit systems.
|
| https://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/CrimeStatReports/202.
| ..
| presentation wrote:
| That said the risk of crazy people ruining your day for no
| reason is not low. Ultimately the problem isn't transit
| (rather it's part of the solution), the problem is that the
| US social fabric is messed up.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I encourage you to check the stats, driving is one of the
| most dangerous things people routinely do, and nearly always
| far more dangerous than taking public transit.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Here's a case of rationalists misinterpreting risks based
| on data. Driving is a risk I accept. Being mugged or
| assaulted by someone on fentanyl with limited police or law
| enforcement on public transport is a risk that I cannot
| account for.
| JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote:
| I strongly recommend finding a gym for Brazilian jiu jitsu,
| judo, muay thai, boxing, etc. They're constantly being
| testing and evolved through MMA fights, and they'll get you
| some full-contact, full-intensity sparring experience.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| How does this compare to Krav Maga classes?
| watwut wrote:
| I am not sure I want to travel on the bus with a scared man
| trained in multiple martial arts. All the stats say that
| criminality is pretty low, I am safe on the bus, but
| fearful scared trained dide sounds like someone who will
| make it less safe for all of us.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| You have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm glad
| you feel safe on the bus. Criminality stats are low, so
| the chances of being assaulted on our light rail or buses
| is indeed low, but it only takes one incident to lead to
| loss of life or injury. I'm not a "scared man", I'm
| trying to prepare myself for unhinged situations, which
| we've been witnessing at an increased rate after 2020,
| when our city/county reduced police and law enforcement
| presence.
|
| Here's an article about the massive rise in homicides in
| our county since 2019 [1]. Maybe the numbers are "low" to
| you, but it's 1000x higher than in countries such as
| Japan. I won't go further into the reasons why due to
| risk of being downvoted by people unwilling to accept the
| new reality of west coast urban life.
|
| [1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-
| justice/seattl...
| i_am_jl wrote:
| I'm lucky enough to have moved, but my last home was 4 miles
| from the closest store, 3.8 miles from the closest sidewalk.
| The closest bus stop was at the aforementioned store. These
| numbers weren't even that big for the area where I was living.
| If I didn't have a car I'd spend too much time coming and going
| from the places I'd need to be to engage with my community.
|
| I'd say "everyone should try living somewhere they don't need a
| car", but that's not feasible for everybody.
| wizofaus wrote:
| It's only not feasible because that's how the infrastructure
| and town planning in many urban areas has been done, and has
| somewhat succeeded because the degree to which you'll be
| dependent on a car to get everywhere isn't a super high
| priority for most when first choosing somewhere to live. The
| challenge is convincing governments and home buyers that the
| pros of less car-dependent cities massively outweigh the cons
| (which are mostly around accepting being closer to your
| neighbours and having less yard space/more stairs, plus
| governments having to focus on more than a single mode of
| transport when building roads etc).
| anthomtb wrote:
| >Reducing car dependency will increase social activity
|
| My social life (and sense of community) took off when I
| graduated from college, where I was largely living car-free,
| and started driving 45 minutes to my full-time job each day.
| How do you explain that?
|
| Living in a car-dependent community, and choosing to go car-
| free, sounds like adding another layer of social isolation to
| me.
| presentation wrote:
| I would suspect most people are far more social in college
| than after, probably your circumstance is individual.
| eschulz wrote:
| I think in the US cars can increase your time with friends and
| family. Many people are lucky to live within a 60 minute drive
| from close friends or family, but without access to a car those
| trips become an epic trek. This is especially the case for
| people as they age, have kids, have a tight schedule, etc.
|
| Furthermore, I'd venture to propose that this is not merely the
| case in the US. My family in Mexico City often use public
| transportation for work, but frequently drive to visit each
| other on weekends because that's much easier.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Pretty sure OP's comment assumed city life. In most rural and
| suburban USA towns, cars are the only thing that enables
| connection to others. If cars suddenly disappeared, half of
| America would effectively become hermits (not to mention
| starve due to lack of access to basic necessities like
| groceries).
|
| Ending Car Dependence basically means move to a denser city,
| which you're never going to convince everyone to do.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| In the Netherlands you can bike between suburbs and rural
| areas. In the US that is hard, not only because of the
| distances, but also because there are no safe roads for
| bicycles in rural areas. It's highway shoulder or nothing,
| basically.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Suburban USA towns are impossible to live in without cars
| _because_ they 're built with the assumption everyone has
| one. There's nothing _inherent_ in lower-density housing
| that prevents it from being walkable, or from having basic
| amenities zoned to be closer to residential zones.
|
| (Rural is a different matter, but they're usually left out
| of infrastructure in general)
| asdff wrote:
| Even in the city its like this. Pick an arbitrary A-B in
| any city, e.g. go test brooklyn or chicago. Unless you
| happen to pick an A-B that is within a few mins walk of the
| same single rail line (no transfers), the car is always
| faster and by a good deal. Usually its like you can drive
| 25 minutes in a car or wait around for two busses that will
| get you there in an hour and ten minutes.
| ajoseps wrote:
| this hasn't been my experience in manhattan/brooklyn
| fwiw. taking the subway is routinely faster. i can see
| the bus being slower but it's usually not by much. You
| also need to deal with parking for a car if you're not
| using a rideshare.
| ericmay wrote:
| No - car dependency isn't a problem in rural areas, it's a
| problem in metro areas. Places like Columbus, Indianapolis,
| Tampa Bay, San Diego, etc. are all completely 100% reliant
| on cars for transit.
|
| People already live in the cities, there isn't anything to
| convince them of for that. Instead we have to build transit
| that allows people to not rely on a car for their daily
| needs. Not that you can't have one, of course. But walking,
| biking, and rail infrastructure need much, much more
| funding and then we can reduce how we handicap society with
| car-only transit.
| asdff wrote:
| What is interesting is that there are pockets of car free
| living even in these examples. E.g. in Columbus you have
| 45000 undergraduates at Ohio state, the bulk of whom live
| within a half hour walk of campus and all their friends
| from college, and might only use their car to shuttle
| themselves and all their roommates to the grocery store
| once a week.
| macNchz wrote:
| I've heard it hypothesized that one of the underlying
| factors in why Americans romanticize the "college years"
| so much is that, for most, it's the only time they've
| ever lived in an environment (the campus) that's _not_
| designed primarily for cars.
| ericmay wrote:
| Many of them have cars and pay for parking or if they
| live off campus they just park their car on the street. I
| would guess that 30% to 50% of those undergraduates have
| a car somewhere close by.
|
| The best thing the university does is add a COTA
| (regional bus system) ticket as part of the tuition price
| to get students riding the bus locally instead of driving
| as they inevitably try to do.
|
| Unfortunately, the bus service once you leave campus is
| comically bad so everyone just drives, catches a ride, or
| uses ride-sharing if you ever want to actually do
| anything not physically on campus. There are a lot of
| low-hanging fruit that the city and region refuse to
| take. We could run a tram from the southside all the way
| up to Old Worthington along the same street and you'd hit
| all the most dense spots in Columbus and you'd probably
| eliminate a lot of driving, traffic, and deaths but
| instead they're spending tens of millions of dollars
| adding new highways.
| ghaff wrote:
| It depends on the activities. I'm less active in the local
| outdoors group than I was but basically everyone has a car,
| even if they live in the city which I don't, because it gets
| very old seeking out carpools for specific trips all the time.
| NoNameHaveI wrote:
| _THIS_ Earlier this year, my dad passed away. We got to spend the
| last few days together. It taught me what is MOST important in
| life: time spent with loved ones. We went back home to visit for
| a week in August. Had more fun in Chicago one week than we did in
| over a year in a "tourist mecca" (Orlando).
| standardUser wrote:
| Nice idea if you can afford it, and few can afford to live
| precisely where they want. I've made a habit of travelling to
| visit friends, which is easy for me because I'm childless and
| most of my old friends have kids. At least half of my trips are
| to see someone I know. That plus that occasional phone call,
| video chat and a WhatsApp group keeps me closer to these old
| friends now than in the past.
|
| But the idea of uprooting my life, finding a new job, finding a
| new home and then moving near _one_ friend seems excessive and
| unrealistic. It 's not like all my friends live near each other
| and are waiting for me to join.
|
| But, maybe when I'm old.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Sounds like you might not have all that much life to uproot.
| standardUser wrote:
| I have friends where I live I wouldn't want to abandon, and
| honestly my newer friends are a better fit for my lifestyle
| than my oldest, closest friends. But yeah, if I didn't have a
| social life here I could move easily. But I wouldn't do it
| just to be near one or two close friends. Maybe if my five
| favorite people all lived in the same town...
| titanomachy wrote:
| Yeah in your case might make more sense to try and convert
| your local friendships into close ones... not always easy
| for busy adults, though. All my close friendships from the
| last few years were cemented by doing trips together, even
| just short getaways like a weekend ski trip.
|
| Sorry for my earlier comment suggesting you had no life,
| reads more aggressive than I intended :)
| danenania wrote:
| Yeah, I also think that unless you are already very close
| friends or there's already a group established somewhere,
| moving somewhere with the purpose of being nearby just one
| friend could backfire and strain the friendship.
|
| Friendships often fall into a natural cadence where you see
| each other every month or so, every week or so, etc. If you
| aren't already in a near-daily rhythm with someone and move
| close to them with the expectation of establishing that, the
| other person could feel that you are coming on too strong, so
| to speak, and pull back, in which case you could feel
| frustrated that you chose where to live based on a friend
| that's not really on the same page as you in terms of what
| you're looking for in a close proximity friendship.
|
| If you do this, it's probably better to have low expectations
| and allow things to develop slowly over time (if at all). In
| the meantime you can try to recruit others to move nearby and
| establish a group so that all your eggs aren't in one basket.
| SquirrelOnFire wrote:
| While it felt awkward at first, I've been intentionally trying
| to befriend my neighbors. I've managed it with one couple and
| am working on a second. Tech helps reduce the barriers between
| distant friends, but we're wired to value eye contact and
| physical contact.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The last thing I'd want to do is to throw cold water on this.
|
| On the other hand, there are far more families than you think
| where two or more members are permanently estranged. "Overcoming
| your upbringing" is the pertinent struggle for lots more. And
| "spending more time with family" is a good way to destroy their
| mental health.
|
| Not me, of course /s
|
| But hey, if that works for you, then great.
| metadaemon wrote:
| I swear there was a study in this same vein a few years back that
| looked into the effects of having siblings in close proximity and
| the effect it had on your mental health, even if you never
| visited. I can't find it for the life of me now though.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This is a classic case of "easier said than done."
|
| I live in a transition neighborhood and I take care of my elderly
| mother, who is rather entrenched. Neighbors come and neighbors
| go. I made friends with the couple next door and then they left.
| A long-time friend used to live a scant six miles away and I
| would _walk_ there on some nights just to visit. Now, he is at a
| fifty-minute drive. Another friend is about a hundred miles off.
|
| We are all at the mercy of our situations.
| chaostheory wrote:
| I strongly feel that VR will help mitigate this problem. Location
| wouldn't matter as much, and neither would busy schedules when
| "meeting up" would be as instant as a phone call. In fact, I was
| just playing VR ping pong with one of my best childhood friends
| who moved to Canada the other day. While not perfect, the sense
| of presence is way better than FaceTime or an audio call.
|
| Prior to Apple's vision reveal, VR's largest problem is that most
| adults refused to even try it for both strange and valid reasons
| ("it's stupid" "it's too expensive" "it's too complicated"). A
| lot of those reasons have been invalidated with meta's quest.
| Standalone VR is the NES of our generation where you have a
| device that children just intrinsically understand while most
| adults either scoff at or ignore it. (This is apparent if you
| ever play an online VR game. Most of the users are children.) Of
| course, this was reality prior to Apple entering, so we'll see
| what happens in 2025-2027 once Vision has more developers
| building for it and more units available to everyday people.
| ghaff wrote:
| And yet people don't generally want phone calls from casual
| friends these days. A few people call me but very few out of
| the blue.
| chaostheory wrote:
| I'm not sure what the problem is. VR isn't limited to "casual
| friends". I don't call my acquaintances either. I only use it
| with family or good friends.
|
| You're missing the entire point
| fragmede wrote:
| Be the change you want to see in the world.
|
| I used to never talk on the phone, but with a friend's help,
| I'll now call other friends and "hang out" on the phone with
| them after work, while I'm doing my dishes or on the
| treadmill. Sometimes I call them and they're not open to
| chatting, other times we talk for hours and just catch up.
| But that didn't just happen. I had to push through some
| really uncomfortable stuff, and my friends did as well.
|
| VR is going to be another step, but Facetime is pretty great.
| ternaus wrote:
| And when you move to another country, leaving all your friends
| and family behind, it becomes even more challenging.
|
| Rays of support to all immigrants who came to SF Bay Area and are
| trying to make it a new home.
| pantulis wrote:
| It's easier to try and become friend with the people who live
| near you.
| dividefuel wrote:
| This sounds great, but it's difficult to pull off when career and
| family can pull everyone to different regions. My core group of
| close friends formed in university. The school pulled us all in
| from wherever we grew up, and unsurprisingly after graduating
| there wasn't anything to pull us all into the same area for work.
| Many left to return to their home city to be close to family,
| others went further in their schooling, and some even moved
| abroad.
|
| Even when you live near your friends, meeting up can be
| difficult. I feel like many of my friend gatherings need to be
| scheduled weeks in advance because everyone has various other
| commitments (family events, obligations for their children,
| hobbies, gathering with other friend groups, etc).
| kredd wrote:
| The way I read the article, "live near your friends" means
| "within 10 minute walk of them", not "20 minute drive". I live
| 5 minutes walk away from a very close friend of mine, and 10-20
| mins from some others. With the closest one, "hey, have you had
| dinner?" text turns into "cool, same spot, i'll see you in 10
| minutes?" at least once a week. That's on top of planned long-
| term activities.
|
| I understand I am very privileged, but we actually made effort
| to live near each other. Well, it definitely helps that it's a
| dense neighbourhood of an actual city and not a suburb. It's
| hard to plan it out, but worth it.
| slothtrop wrote:
| As a parent I foresaw that I would make acquaintances with
| others who go to the park, or live on the street. So far we
| exchange polite pleasantries but there's just nothing beyond
| that. It should be unsurprising, the prospect of any change
| in routine is more uncomfortable and daunting when you're a
| busy parent, and friendship invites more overhead. There are
| friends I made after moving to a city that I barely want to
| see now, mostly because there wasn't enough in common in the
| first place.
|
| Strategy wise if you're unattached and have free time, making
| commutes to events and planned activities is still a more
| effective way to make friends.
| kredd wrote:
| You're probably right, since both of my siblings with
| children have said the same. That being said, it's more
| about "living close to your existing friends" rather than
| "how to make friends in your area". The latter deserves its
| own discussion too, as I think it's not that easy.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| _The way I read the article, "live near your friends" means
| "within 10 minute walk of them", not "20 minute drive". I
| live 5 minutes walk away from a very close friend of mine_
|
| apologies for being pedantic, but the article literally
| starts off with a screenshot of the Live Near Friends app
| which shows that you're doing it _exactly_ right in their
| terms, because they 're talking about living a 5-minute walk
| away. likewise, that's the goal of the app:
|
| _This August, Levin launched Live Near Friends, a site that
| helps people live within a five-minute walk of a close friend
| or family member._
| ryandrake wrote:
| A 5 minute walk is only about 500 meters. I don't
| understand how that's even possible outside of a dense
| city. I've lived in places where you can't even get to the
| nearest public road in 500m, let alone to another human
| being. In a lot of the USA, living within a 5 minute walk
| of your friends means they are "1 or at most 2 next door
| neighbors down the street".
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Regular hangs are the answer to this.
|
| My friendship circles aren't at the kids stage yet, but we've
| got difference way of ensuring we stay in touch. For one of
| them we have a weekly Wednesday night boardgame hang. It's
| extremely rare everyone goes, but usually you get at least half
| a dozen. For another friend circle we have a Discord, if any of
| us finds an event we're interested in, we post it there and see
| if anyone fancies joining, usually some do.
| subpixel wrote:
| I have a group of dad-friends who I like seeing individually,
| however the 'group hangs' we have put together are no fun for
| me at all. By hour two we are one-upping each other with
| wacky stories etc. and I'm eyeing the door.
|
| It may be that we lack strong collective ties but basically
| all of my good friendships are sort of isolated from each
| other.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I have some friends of similar closeness, but they've still
| sort of fallen away after having kids. I think it is easy to
| over-estimate how robust these sorts of passive "it'll
| naturally thrive in a good environment" types of maintenance
| are. Active maintenance, stuff like scheduling around the
| availability of the folks with kids, is necessary I think.
| grecy wrote:
| > _it 's difficult to pull off when career and family can pull
| everyone to different regions_
|
| I think it comes down to if you live to work, or work to live.
|
| I moved to a small mountain town (10k people) that is bursting
| with 30-somethings who don't want to live the city grind
| anymore. People live here because skiing, mountain biking,
| hiking, camping and paddling are the life priority. Of course
| also pot lucks, dinners, parties and social events.
|
| Everyone just finds whatever job that enables them to do those
| things, and the priority is life, not work. Working online is
| so common place now you can still earn a good salary if choose.
|
| Hardly anyone works five days a week. Tons of people only work
| six months a year (ski the rest of the year!)
|
| 25 minutes from a great ski hill (that has no cell service), 5
| minute ride to world-class mountain biking, 5 minute walk to a
| stunning lake for swimming/paddling.
|
| Houses here cost 1/3 or 1/4 of what they do in a big city.
|
| Think about the kind of life you want to live, and make it a
| priority.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > Houses here cost 1/3 or 1/4 of what they do in a big city.
|
| And salaries are also lower. People don't move to the big
| city because they want to live there. They go there to study
| and then to make money so that they can afford any kind of
| real estate in their home town.
|
| > Everyone just finds whatever job that enables them to do
| those things, and the priority is life, not work.
|
| The condition of your quote above is that you already own
| real estate, which isn't true for but a few from the younger
| generations. Or that you live with your parents until you're
| 60 years old. Other than that, the deal is "get the hell out"
| and you're only welcome back if you can purchase some real
| estate.
|
| It's true what you say about working online though, but then
| suddenly the whole world is open to you.
| grecy wrote:
| > _And salaries are also lower_
|
| Yes, they are. But it's fine because we've all stepped out
| of the rat race, and the goal of our lives is not simply to
| earn more money, or as much as possible. The goal of our
| lives is to live more, so that's what we do.
|
| None of my friends has a new car, or phone, or even a TV.
| We all have used skis and duct tape on our clothes. We are
| not "rich" in the money sense.
|
| We also don't work much, and ski and mountain bike a lot.
|
| > _The condition of your quote above is that you already
| own real estate_
|
| Not at all. Of all the 30-somethings I know that live here,
| none of them lived here more than 5 years ago, they all
| bought in the last 5 years.
|
| Houses here cost a _lot_ less than bigger cities, and it is
| completely possible to buy a house on a single income. My
| partner works 4 days a week and bought a 4 bed /2 bath
| house less than 5 minutes walk from the main street. She
| saved for the deposit herself, and met the mortgage
| requirements on her single income.
|
| > _suddenly the whole world is open to you_
|
| Well, yes. That's why we choose to live in a quaint little
| mountain town where we can ski for half the year and work
| as little as possible.
| addaon wrote:
| > People don't move to the big city because they want to
| live there.
|
| A significant number certainly do.
| siquick wrote:
| > People don't move to the big city because they want to
| live there
|
| Cities are the only place that some people have a chance of
| finding like-minded people.
| lobsterslive wrote:
| Is this in Utah? I ask because most ski towns are _really_
| expensive to live in but the SLC /Ogden area is a bit of an
| exception. I'd love to only work 6 months out of the year and
| ski the rest, but that sounds like something only a wealthy
| person could do.
| grecy wrote:
| > _that sounds like something only a wealthy person could
| do_
|
| My whole point is to seek out places where non-wealthy
| people can do it. Think smaller, think out of the way,
| think less development. No cell service at the ski hill,
| dirt road to drive up there, etc. etc.
|
| Season pass is less than $1000, everyone has duct tape on
| their ski gear, etc.
| lobsterslive wrote:
| I'll buy that, there are certainly small local mountains
| out there you can find. I don't know that I'd say the
| skiing is "great" (or even worth moving for) but they do
| exist.
|
| It may not be popular to say on this site, but there is
| an issue with living in places like that though... if
| you're not white, it's going to be _really_ rough going
| for you, even in "blue" states. I say this as a non-
| white person who grew up in rural America. The racism is
| off the charts, you will experience it in every facet of
| your life, which is really unfortunate because there are
| a lot of beautiful rural locations in this country that
| would otherwise be inhabitable if it weren't for that
| major issue.
| grecy wrote:
| Go North of the border. People are extremely welcoming up
| here. (I'm an immigrant)
| ericmay wrote:
| Where is this town with all of these amenities? Any ski
| resort town I've seen usually has home prices well above $1mm
| for 2br/1.5ba or so. Unless you're just saying "well it's
| cheaper than NYC" or something.
|
| Also, cool blog!
| grecy wrote:
| I would try to avoid ones that are actually on a list like
| this, but this is a good start and the kind of place you're
| looking for.
|
| Heck, there are a TON of incredible ski resorts that are in
| a town of less than 10k just North of the border
|
| https://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/best-small-ski-
| resorts...
| ericmay wrote:
| Thanks!
| aprdm wrote:
| Yes that's also true. My core group of friends is no longer in
| my OG city as well for similar reason as me, as aren't most of
| my cousins. It's more uncles+grand+parents
| [deleted]
| hibikir wrote:
| In the US, it's part of the curse of the suburbs: When there
| are fewer people living near you, going to see anyone involves
| far more minutes.
|
| I think of where I grew up: A very dense city, where streets
| are narrow, easy to cross, and pre-teens can move around with
| not just lack of fear, but major convenience. My mother had 4
| siblings: All with their families, living in their own
| apartments. But every apartment was within a 5 minute walk: I
| could see the other buildings from our building's front door!
| So if someone needed babysitting, or just had to run random
| errand, children could be dropped off easily: Cousins almost
| become brothers when you see them every couple of days anyway.
|
| This was also great for organizing activities with classmates.
| Not only we got to see each other on the street at random, as
| we did different errands, but organizing to meet in some bench
| was trivial. RPGs in the weekend? No problem, as a 15 minute
| walk catches most of the high school's families.
|
| Now, in the US suburbs, socialization is more about online
| gaming, because the number of classmates a 14 year old can
| reach conveniently is pretty low: You could fit an apartment
| building with 16-20 families in the space that my suburb
| dedicates to 2. Access to 10 times the people sure makes living
| next to a friend much more likely! And since drivers aren't
| needed to get anything done, a lot of things that are
| commitments in the suburbs just disappear or are easy to move,
| as another neighbor can take Timmy to the soccer game, as they
| also have another kid going to the game anyway, and Timmy can
| walk himself to the neighbor's door with no hassle.
|
| Transit time, and the total dependence of children, are a curse
| that can be avoided, but we have to do a lot of urban
| rebuilding for that.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| This reminds me of a documentary I saw about Italian
| immigrant familes in the 1930's? coming to the US and living
| in tenements in Newark NJ and NYC. The younger generations
| grew up, went to college, and moved all over the country.
| When interviewed, they all said the same things: "We didn't
| know we were poor at the time," "we miss having the whole
| family together," "there was always someone around to watch
| the kids," etc.
| klipt wrote:
| And that's probably another reason the fertility rate is
| falling so much.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| It's so compelling selling the picket house with all the land
| around it - who doesn't see that as idyllic? But then the
| hidden costs to community can't really be quantified, and the
| housing developers are hardly going to think of that.
|
| I don't live in the US, but I do wonder what that has done to
| your social fabric. As well as making much of downtown
| flattened and made into parking lots for businesses. It is
| the first thing I notice jumping into any random US town in
| Street View; such wide spaces between every business on Main
| St. Who would ever walk there and chance upon a friend when
| you just dump the car outside and go into the shop or
| restaurant.
| twic wrote:
| I suspect that something similar is happening with the
| shift to remote work. You can live in a big house in the
| beautiful countryside! But now doing anything other than
| being in the house or the countryside is considerably more
| effort.
| mrweiner wrote:
| My partner and I struggle with this. They'd like to live
| a bit further out of the city, have some land and some
| goats, and I'd love having a creek nearby, but the
| reality is that we like going out to music and vegan
| restaurants, and living out of the city would make this
| much more difficult.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Even when you live near your friends, meeting up can be
| difficult.
|
| I think this depends on your definition of "near." If it's less
| than a 10 minute walk to your friend, you can meet to hang out
| for 15 minutes just because your free time happened to line up.
| Heck, you can do yard work together and chat while doing it!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| People also spend their time on a lot of "commitments" that
| aren't really important. The things you listed are stuff that
| can be skipped every once in a while if you don't want to go.
| Children shouldn't have any obligations, that's just something
| weird, but I know what you're talking about.
|
| What most people do is have a lot of "commitments" hanging in
| the air in their future calendars, so that they can pick what
| pleases them in the moment. If they're expected at another
| event, they can blame the full schedule. Not meeting an "old
| friend" because you have to go do your hobby or celebrate your
| cousin's kid's birthday usually just means you didn't want to
| meet that person. When there's a will there's a way. You can
| always slot in some time if you really want. People spend huge
| amounts of time watching Netflix, scrolling social media and
| such. Everybody has time, unless they're a sailor on a nuclear
| submarine.
| jzb wrote:
| This is a reason we should hang onto remote work as a first
| option. Life is too short to have to choose career over family
| and friends. We work to live. Having to sacrifice proximity to
| our people is not something we should accept lightly. If a job
| can be remote it should be.
| vonnik wrote:
| One key piece of this that I think it overlooked is how our
| socio-economy has sold most of us on our difference, we've been
| very actively individuating and seeking signs of distinction
| that happen to be items and services we can buy.
|
| Adam Curtis made a great documentary that explores this:
| Century of the Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
|
| All that may make it harder to just "bond with the neighbors",
| as some in these comments suggest.
| LeanderK wrote:
| The thing about living close to friends is that it's not as
| much work to meet. Having to travel for half an hour is already
| a lot since it might not be worth it to meet spontaneously, it
| is easier to develop friendships to someone close by.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the real key. You might choose to live near a
| particular friend-for-life, but you need to work on becoming
| _at a bare minimum_ friendly with the people you 're near.
| tspike wrote:
| Sigh.
|
| I found my dream house: incredible view, 20 minutes to
| skiing (a lifelong passion), warm enough and with enough
| space to garden sustainably, quiet, close enough to the
| city, great price and interest rate.
|
| Unfortunately nearly EVERYONE on the street is 20-30 years
| older than us, with very different lifestyles and
| interests. We're "friendly" with them, but there's no real
| community there. Housing costs have skyrocketed and
| inventory is nonexistent, so even the people who have
| expressed interest in moving closer are prevented from
| doing so.
|
| Not really sure what to do. This is the only thing missing
| from the life we want.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, it can be hard, especially in an area like that.
|
| So you either learn Bridge and become the favored "kid"
| around and suddenly have opinions about AARP, or you
| socialize online, or you move.
| anthomtb wrote:
| Its surprising that a neighborhood 20 minutes from skiing
| isn't heavily populated by skiers. But maybe your
| neighbors are hitting groomers at 10:00 AM on Tuesday
| while you are seeking out backcountry steeps on the
| weekend.
| cgriswald wrote:
| I moved into a similar situation. Rising housing costs
| plus neighbors 20-30 years older meant a lot of them were
| retiring elsewhere, and my neighbors are much younger
| now.
| xwdv wrote:
| This is why I specifically choose communities that are
| predominantly two or multistory story homes. Old people
| hate stairs, and the likelihood of being around younger
| more spry families is greater.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Couples who are 20-30 years older are also likely to move
| out in the next decade, with young families coming in.
| Depending on the build of the houses. Often there comes
| an age they don't want to deal with stairs, extra space
| to regularly clean, etc, or they are physically
| incapable. Of course if the area has no sense of
| community (i.e. rec centers, parks) then it might not
| appeal to younger people who want to start a family.
| bombcar wrote:
| It can happen, but I've also seen areas that have been
| consistently "newly wed or nearly dead" for 50+ years.
| Try1275 wrote:
| I am in the process of a breakup (scare) right now and realizing
| how much of my social support system is gone when it's attached
| to your spouse and obviously loyal. Not totally on topic but I
| have learned my lesson to actively pursue friendships from now on
| and cultivate them - and the place where you live obviously
| affects this in a great way.
| LeanderK wrote:
| I see this happening again and again, sometimes repeatedly to
| the same persons. A friend of mine is currently going through
| this, but his solution to the problem is immediately trying to
| go into the next relationship, as fast as possible. I am very
| much looking forward to the next breakup. Another friend of
| mine just never got in touch with me after her new
| relationship, funnily we got to know each other from the last
| relationship to a friend of mine where I know she neglected her
| older friends to favour her new circle.
|
| To be honest, I am not interested in being friends with a
| person when I get sidelined the moment someone goes into the
| next relationship. I have better things to do than to revolve
| around someone else life. I have my own friends. It's a very
| frustrating experience because you try to stay in touch and you
| don't know what's going on. It's not your fault.
|
| I try to balance my relationship and my own, personal life.
| Breakups happened and rougher times in a relationship happen
| and it's essential to have your own friends. It is very
| important to me to not give up my identity and my social life.
| But it has to be said I also don't really accept too much
| inference into my own life and I don't think I could be in a
| relationship where each one doesn't have their own space. I
| know relationship that wouldn't really work for me because you
| have to negotiate stuff that is not negotiable for me.
| nevi-me wrote:
| I (M) once got into a relationship with someone (F) who was
| oddly unfond of my friendships, esp female friends. She in a
| way isolated me from close friends. When we broke up, it was
| because she accepted a marriage proposal from her 'friend' whom
| I kept asking her about.
|
| Anyways, it took me time to mend some friendships, some never
| recovered.
|
| > Not totally on topic but I have learned my lesson to actively
| pursue friendships from now on and cultivate them
|
| Yes, spousal relationships can sometimes drain us of other
| friends because of the exclusivity it comes with. We sometimes
| have to be very deliberate in keeping that balance. That
| includes taking on new interests, getting to know our kids'
| parents, etc.
|
| I encourage my wife to meet new people, as she relocated across
| our country, doesn't have a lot of friends around, and stopped
| working shortly before kids.
| lezojeda wrote:
| [dead]
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Opposite sex friendships just don't make sense. There's
| always the potential for a mixed signal.
|
| My wife would never allow me to hang out with another woman
| solo, unless it was someone's wife and we were waiting for
| everyone to arrive or something. She doesn't have guy
| friends, and I don't have girl friends.
|
| It's just the most sensible thing to do.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| At first I was gonna say "I don't think this is normal,"
| but I'm not straight and so may not be the best judge of
| what is or isn't normal in heterosexual marriages.
|
| In any case, I don't think this is _healthy_.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I think it's very normal, and also very problematic.
| banannaise wrote:
| Yeah, queer existence blows all kind of holes in the
| basic premise behind the logic.
|
| There's a lot that's fundamentally problematic about it,
| not least of which is the implication that _everyone
| except your spouse should be kept at arm 's length, and
| this is the morally correct thing to do_.
| burkaman wrote:
| I don't think it's normal at all. My only guess is that
| it's more common in very religious communities.
| profunctor wrote:
| As a straight person I also think it's strange. I've had
| mixed gender friends my whole life and I've never had an
| issue.
| qbit42 wrote:
| Ah yes, bisexual people should have no friends.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Bisexual people can't have friends at all; gay people
| can't have same-gender gay friends, but they can't have
| same-gender straight friends either (because you might be
| attracted to them!), nor can they have opposite-gender
| straight friends (because _they_ might be attracted to
| _you!_ ).
|
| It's a little ridiculous. If you don't trust your partner
| to behave themselves around someone of their preferred
| gender(s), there's larger problems at play.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > but they can't have same-gender straight friends either
| (because you might be attracted to them!)
|
| This actually can become a major issue with friendships.
| Obviously you can't act on the attraction and it can
| become very frustrating very quickly. I know from
| experience and I wish I didn't.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Ha, no kidding! That was every crush I had in high school
| :P
| dragonwriter wrote:
| But gay people can have opposite gender gay friends, but
| this only works for dyads not friend groups, because X is
| friends with Y and X is friends with Z implies Y cannot
| be friends with Z.
| banannaise wrote:
| A lot of people have very unhealthy mindsets about sex
| and general emotional closeness. Most people in modern
| Western society never really unpack their feelings around
| jealousy, nor do they endeavor to understand their own
| emotional needs and figure out how to fulfill them in
| healthy ways.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I can't imagine living like that. But if it works for you,
| I guess it works.
|
| Out of curiosity, how old are you, and how long have you
| been married?
| drukenemo wrote:
| Counterpoint, I have healthy good friendships with women,
| and my wife doesn't care. I also don't cheat on her.
| Believe me, it can be done.
|
| Friendship with the opposite sex allows for a different
| perspective.
| wizofaus wrote:
| "Safest", I'll grant. But "sensible " to me means actual
| trust between partners that such friendships are purely
| platonic - unless of course there's hard evidence that they
| aren't. It's admittedly rare to see (assuming all involved
| are heterosexual) but it can and does work.
| [deleted]
| sillyfluke wrote:
| I call this the Mike Pence rule. Because as I recall at one
| point he was in the news due to his alleged behavior of not
| meeting with other women without his wife present.
|
| I don't adhere to it, but I'm not judging or downvoting you
| and don't know why others are. I'm surprised other
| commenters are surprised to be honest.
|
| Surely I'm not the only one who has been subjected to a
| seemingly endless stream of rom-coms where the protag
| ditches their SO for their good/best/work friend my entire
| life? So it shouldn't be surprising that some people are
| wary after being subjected to such propaganda.
|
| It can be an issue when one person in the relationship has
| way more opposite sex friends than the other. It's hard for
| some to admit their insecurities in that situation, so they
| silently accept it instead of having a fight over it (which
| probably would have been healthier).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Surely I'm not the only one who has been subjected to a
| seemingly endless stream of rom-coms where the protag
| ditches their SO for their good/best/work friend my
| entire life?
|
| No, you aren't, nor are you the only one to give
| inappropriate weight to common tropes of some genre of
| fiction that exist because it is a convenient narrative
| framework given the genre in deciding how to deal with
| real life.
|
| Not being alone in that does not, however, make it a good
| idea.
| footy wrote:
| > Surely I'm not the only one who has been subjected to a
| seemingly endless stream of rom-coms where the protag
| ditches their SO for their good/best/work friend my
| entire life? So it shouldn't be surprising that some
| people are wary after being subjected to such propaganda.
|
| this exists of course, but surely we can tell the
| difference between fact and fiction? I just watched
| Midsommar last year but I am not afraid of Swedish people
| or the countryside.
|
| One would hope that having a modicum of life experience
| would be enough to counter such propaganda, and I don't
| think it's surprising that people are surprised to
| encounter this viewpoint in real life.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| >this exists of course, but surely we can tell the
| difference between fact and fiction?
|
| I'm not sure we can? From what I understand, the person
| was responding to someone who literally had this happen
| to them after all. Life mimics art. Art mimics life. When
| you're told you're being left for someone that is a
| friend they have been frequently hanging out with one-on-
| one with your full knowledge, it takes a considerable
| amount of willpower to not introduce distrust to your
| psyche in your future relationships.
|
| Like you, such a rule would be a dealbreaker for me. But
| I know people who requested this rule because they didn't
| either trust themselves or trust their friends for not
| misinterperting the situation. Why is it ok to say you're
| tempted by alcohol but not ok to say you may be tempted
| by the people you may be normally attracted to given
| enough time, the right circumstances, interactions,
| conversations etc.?
| burkaman wrote:
| It's ok to say that about yourself, but it's not ok to
| force that requirement on a partner ("My wife would never
| allow me to hang out with another woman solo"). It's also
| not reasonable to say that since it works for you, it's
| the most "sensible" thing for everyone.
| bryceacc wrote:
| >Opposite sex friendships just don't make sense
|
| that's an extremely poor judgment right off the bat, so i
| am not surprised by the downvotes. The second paragraph
| then sounds like they would rather sit in silence with
| another woman than have the _chance_ of an interaction
| being interpreted incorrectly
| burkaman wrote:
| > I'm surprised other commenters are surprised to be
| honest.
|
| I'm surprised because I've never met anybody like this,
| and while I've heard about Mike Pence I'm not sure I
| really believed it. Thinking about it more, since I don't
| hang out in any male-only spaces (where would I find such
| a thing?), almost by definition I'm never going to meet
| anybody socially who follows this rule.
|
| Also, as other commenters have pointed out, this
| philosophy completely falls apart unless you genuinely
| believe that everyone is heterosexual, or you refuse to
| be friends with anyone who is not.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| >Also, as other commenters have pointed out, this
| philosophy completely falls apart unless you genuinely
| believe that everyone is heterosexual
|
| To be fair, the post he was responding to specified the
| context of the relationship as between a "(M)" and "(F)".
| burkaman wrote:
| But the relationship isn't relevant, this is a philosophy
| for how to treat everyone outside the relationship. Many
| of those people are the same gender as you but might
| still be attracted to you (oh no!), or a different gender
| but have no interest in you so there's no potential for
| mixed signals. So the rule a) does not protect you from
| accidentally leading someone on, and b) does cut off a
| bunch of potential friends for no reason.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| >But the relationship isn't relevant, this is a
| philosophy for how to treat everyone outside the
| relationship.
|
| I think the relationship is very relevant. For example,
| the comment would not make any sense either if you don't
| assume they're talking about about a strictly monogamous
| relationship. Worrying about giving "mixed signals" to
| people when you're in an open relationship would be way
| less of an issue understandably.
|
| From the context of their post and the post they were
| replying to, the comment is about how to interact with
| people you may potentially be attracted to given the
| right circumstances (or who may be attracted to you) when
| you are in a strictly monogamous relationship.
| [deleted]
| epidemian wrote:
| I think the downvotes you're receiving are misjudged. It's
| a personal opinion to have, and as long as you're not
| harming or forcing that opinion onto others, i respect it.
|
| I don't share it though. And it's interesting to think what
| assumptions lie beneath it. If you were bi, would your wife
| not allow you to hang out with men too? And if she were bi,
| what would you think of her having woman friends? Do you
| think this arrangement would also be "the most sensible
| thing to do" for a non-monogamous person, or for someone
| who's monogamous and completely at peace with their
| partner?
| dTal wrote:
| Gender isn't the only aspect of someone's 'type'. What if
| she has an inflexible sexual preference for men over 6ft?
| Is she then allowed short male friends?
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| This is really sad to read and indicates a learned lack of
| trust in intimate relationships and/or with one's own
| behavior.
| digging wrote:
| This sounds miserable and pointless to me. I would without
| question prefer to live alone forever than in such a
| constricting, untrusting situation.
| footy wrote:
| by that logic, bisexual people can't have any friends?
|
| I'm a lesbian, am I supposed to not be friends with men? Or
| with women?
|
| Also, idk about you, but I'm an adult. If my wife didn't
| _allow_ me to do things, she wouldn 't be my wife.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I think, based on that logic, bisexual people could not
| be friends with people attracted to the bisexual person's
| gender.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The problem of potential mixed messages and confusion is
| two-sided, so if the rule made sense at all, it would
| require avoiding both people who were either known to be
| attracted to your gender _or_ of a gender you were
| attracted to.
|
| The universal heterosexuality assumption makes those two
| equivalent which is convenient because it makes the rule
| seem marginally workable
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Opposite sex friendships just don't make sense.
|
| Yes. They do.
|
| > There's always the potential for a mixed signal.
|
| That's also true in same sex friendships; bisexuality and
| homosexuality do actually exist.
|
| The solution to this is communication, not avoiding
| friendships.
|
| > My wife would never allow me to hang out with another
| woman solo
|
| I'm sorry your wife doesn't trust you, and I'm glad that
| neither my wife nor I have that problem with each other.
|
| > unless it was someone's wife
|
| If them being someone's wife negates any risk, than surely
| you being someone's husband should, too?
| Daishiman wrote:
| I am truly sorry that you were raised that way.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've been taught that lesson many times. But it's just too easy
| for an introvert to be in a relationship and not have to
| socialise any more.
|
| Over years I've given up on trying to be a social person and I
| just need to be honest about it: I hate socialising and will
| only do it when there's a clear and direct reason for doing so.
| The biggest reason is sex. Once that's not needed the reasons
| for doing so are very few and far between.
| artyom wrote:
| I can relate with this. I only socialize for sex and/or money
| (e.g. networking). I have zero interest in anything else.
|
| From my point of view everyone does the same, but can't deal
| with the isolating nature of it all and need to decorate it
| with friendships and similar unwritten rules and then act
| surprised when they don't work
| throwaway3618 wrote:
| "can't deal with the isolating nature" sounds like other
| people do feel a different need/reason to socialise no?
| People can pretend to socialise for one reason when really
| it's another, but people need to be interested in meeting
| this third need at least occasionally for the pretense to
| be worth trying.
| artyom wrote:
| Kind of, but most human relationships are somewhat
| regulated (marriage, parenthood, etc) so everyone has a
| framework on what to expect, do's and dont's.
|
| Friendship is when everyone comes with a random set of
| expectations, all of them differing from person to
| person, and get disappointed when it doesn't translates
| to reality.
| danenania wrote:
| Another way to approach it rather than trying to socialize or
| make friends directly is to find one or two weekly activities
| you enjoy that involve a group or collaboration of some kind.
| Sports, exercise, and boardgames are common ones but it could
| be anything.
|
| People tend to make friends naturally this way over time, but
| even if you don't, at least you are doing something fun and
| developing a life independent of your partner.
| throwaway5217 wrote:
| [dead]
| hutzlibu wrote:
| If you are only into sex, I guess it will be way easier to
| just pay for it, or go to places (online or offline) where
| casual sex is common. Otherwise friendship is about way more
| for most people. And if you cannot stand the ordinary
| (awkward) socialising, which I can relate to, I recommend
| finding a group that is more to your liking. Then socialising
| might be fun.. Usually when it is not about socialising, but
| the activities.
| tneely wrote:
| I feel like this should be inverted: make friends with those who
| live near you. I understand we can't be friends with everyone,
| but chances are there's 3-4 people in your immediate area that
| you'd get along great with. I think it's a failing of community
| that we aren't closer to our neighbors. Sure living close to high
| school / university friends would be great, but as many posters
| have noted, circumstance isn't always that convenient. We need
| more events that promote socialization amongst neighbors in the
| hopes that some of those interactions will result in meaningful
| friendships.
| KerryJones wrote:
| It intrigues but doesn't surprise me that most comments are
| "here's why this is hard/not possible/unfeasible". I think that
| part is obvious, the reason this article needs to be said is
| because it makes a _significant_ difference. Prioritize it
| higher. That won 't make the difficulties going away, but as you
| might prioritize being close to your work, a school for your
| children, other activities, being close to friends or community
| is important.
|
| I've done both, living alone for long periods of time and living
| with community houses (which weren't really friends) and living
| near to close friends. Living nearby to close friends has been
| vastly more rewarding than any other option.
| slenocchio wrote:
| My team and I are building an app to help guys make friends.
| Right now it's basically a bumble BFF clone but we're working on
| adding a new feature that will put people into small, local
| groups based on your interests (climbing, chess, board games, you
| get the idea).
|
| FYI the network isn't super big right now, a few hundred
| scattered across the world. Currently trying to focus on building
| a network in NYC.
|
| Anyway if anyone's interested you can go to our landing page
| here: https://www.olleyapp.io/ (it's in progress)
|
| or go directly to iOS/Android app store and search for "Olley".
|
| Any feedback is much appreciated. Muchas gracias amigos.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| I'm glad to see someone is working on this. I spent a good
| amount of time prototyping a similar idea a while back and
| decided I wasn't the right one to solve this problem, but I
| think it is a very important one. I was going into it with a
| group-only approach, as the 1:1 connections make things feel
| more serious versus being one person in a group. Though with
| groups you don't want to feel like you're the stranger in a
| group of existing friends, so having it create "fresh" groups
| is ideal (unlike Meetup).
|
| Good luck building this, I'll have to keep an eye on it.
| wwarner wrote:
| A damn good idea!
| mattbruv wrote:
| Some feedback, but not the kind you want. It's "Muchas" because
| gracias is feminine :')
| slenocchio wrote:
| Woops, muchas gracias!
| pchristensen wrote:
| Other than targeting ("for men"), how does this differ from
| Meetup?
| reidjs wrote:
| If meetup is the bar they will probably do fine. I'm not sure
| if you used it recently but meetup has become an absolute
| spam fest/useless for actually organizing events (in my
| experience). At one point it was great but I think it's lost
| it's community.
| fragmede wrote:
| The friction with Meetup, is that I'm not "a whiskey guy", or
| a hiker, or a rock climber. I have hobbies, but I'm not
| defined by them, so meeting up just on that hobby doesn't
| work. The app needs to detoxify a man going on a date with
| another man for non-romantic, non-sexual purposes.
| slenocchio wrote:
| Right now like I mentioned our app is basically a clone of
| bumble BFF, i.e. you create a profile and you swipe to match
| with people you want to connect to.
|
| But we think swiping _might_ be a bit of a weird way to make
| friends so the next major feature we 're releasing will help
| guys find small groups (like 4-6 people) who share a similar
| interest and live close to each other.
|
| Meetup seems like it _could_ do something like this but in my
| own experience it seems generally catered to groups that are
| larger and more formal. Also as someone else mentioned it
| seems like the quality of the network has degraded a lot.
| drukenemo wrote:
| That's cool! Before even seeing it, my feedback is to make sure
| no sexual/romance kind of encounters can take place via the
| app. All other people meetings apps seem to be sexually
| oriented.
| isykt wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of the fugitive group from the movie
| "The Lobster" (2015).
|
| Anyway, it's not clear to me why these should be prevented or
| how. Let people do what they want.
| drukenemo wrote:
| To avoid ambiguity. What does this married person I see
| here in the is really looking for?
| Kiro wrote:
| I really don't mind living far from my friends and I'm content
| with only meeting them a couple of times a year. More than that
| and it becomes exhausting. Surely I can't be the only one who
| gets completely drained from hanging out with people.
|
| With that said, I speak with them every day online.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I can definitely attest to this, when I was in my late 20's, my
| best friend that I met in grad school bought a house, I was still
| living in an apartment when she called and said the place next
| door went up for sale, I put in a full price offer immediately.
| It was the best investment I ever made. For the next 5 or 6 years
| we had so much fun, her boyfriend knew me and my girlfriend from
| school and we all just hung out and did everything together. We
| had the key to each other's front door and would watch out for
| each other. We had dual house parties and all kinds of things. It
| was one of the best times of my life. But they got married we got
| married, jobs, moving to new houses, life happened. You focus
| shifts over time to work and family. It gets harder. I wish I
| could live next door to my BFF again. Maybe someday.
| nthngtshr wrote:
| Similar story here. Me and my partner befriended another couple
| through grad school in our early 20s and the next few years
| were just the best -- we would go to bars, movies, horse races,
| parties, shows -- everything together. And we had so much fun.
| When I look back on that time it almost feels like I'm
| remembering a movie.
|
| Then covid happened, they had to move. Most of my other friends
| moved away as well. I switched jobs and the new job is 100%
| remote. My life is hell right now in terms of human
| interactions and I don't really know how to fix it. I feel like
| in order to establish new relationships I'd have to spend a lot
| of time with other people doing something together. But between
| my job and my family I feel like I just don't have time for
| that.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| This is why I love living in the city. I hang out with my
| current roommate, my old roommate from college, and my
| sister's current and previous roommates, mostly at or around
| a local coffee shop.
| chronofar wrote:
| > But they got married we got married, jobs, moving to new
| houses, life happened. You focus shifts over time to work and
| family. It gets harder.
|
| Life didn't "happen" here, you designed divergent paths. This
| is I know largely a semantic nitpick, but I think this kind of
| phrasing belies the most common sort of problem that keeps
| people from doing things like what the OP suggests. In a way it
| often feels like "life happens" to us, and certainly in some
| cases that's largely true (unforeseen health complications or
| accidents for instance), but marriages and jobs and houses and
| friends really shouldn't feel like that. And if they do, it
| probably bears a bit of introspection and deliberation to
| ensure you're not just hurtling through milestones that seem
| age appropriate and are instead deliberately moving towards the
| best life you can imagine designing.
|
| Note none of this is commentary on your specifics, of course I
| know next to nothing about you. I'm only attempting to focus on
| the phrasing there, and how I think it is indicative of a very
| common trap we can fall into wherein we can tend to relinquish
| agency and thus without thinking slide away from the things we
| cherish (such as friends close enough to be a kind of soul
| mate).
| om154 wrote:
| How about the inverse - making friends where you live?
| karaterobot wrote:
| It's slightly funny to me that this is presented like something
| that needed to be discovered, and something for which people have
| to make apps. This is just a basic thing about being alive,
| people have known this life hack for about a million years. Maybe
| some people forgot, or were told something else and believed it,
| I don't know. Maybe not funny, maybe sad.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Very few adults I know can say that they have some of their
| closest friends within a five-minute walk. I think it's quite
| rare in North America, at least outside of a few dense urban
| neighborhoods.
| karaterobot wrote:
| What I'm saying is that people have been living close to
| their friends and relatives since there have been human
| societies, as a rule. That has been the default for humans.
| It's the last hundred and fifty years or so in which that
| changed, and maybe especially the last few decades. It'd be
| like if people started sleeping during the daylight, and then
| somebody said "hey, I just realized there are benefits to
| sleeping at night, so I built an app to help you do that."
| digging wrote:
| This comes off like a really arrogant brag that you, the
| freethinker, have lived in such perfect community and locality
| that you're surprised to learn there are others who do not.
| That you can pretend not to know western society was designed
| to isolate us from birth to death, because you've so
| effortlessly flaunted it.
| karaterobot wrote:
| That's not how I intended it.
| digging wrote:
| I've had a frustrating day, so that way only my
| perspective. How did you intend it though?
| tootie wrote:
| I wonder if this isn't "gaming the system" a bit. I think a lot
| of the findings are seeing the outputs of being happy people, not
| inputs. Living near people I know doesn't make me closer to them
| any more than maintaining friendships make me happier. Being
| happy makes closer friendships and closer friendships make living
| close more valuable. A lot of my friendships faded not because I
| wasn't working on them but because I wasn't enjoying them
| anymore.
| atemerev wrote:
| Not happening, I moved out from Russia many years ago and have
| absolutely no desire to go back, as you might imagine.
|
| Making close friends in completely different culture speaking
| different language is hard, but I'm surviving somehow.
| rconti wrote:
| I used to live near friends, and commuted by car 20-30 minutes
| each way to work. I actually enjoy driving and enjoyed the
| commute, generally, but recognized it was a chunk of time out of
| my day. (Granted, once I lived closer to work, I bike commuted
| instead, so while it was a shorter-distance commute that was
| healthier for myself and the environment and my wallet, it didn't
| really save me a ton of time)
|
| So, I reasoned, why not live closer to work and only "commute" on
| those occasional times when I gather for dinner or other social
| events with friends? After all, it's far less frequent, and
| happens off-hours sometimes.
|
| Of course, what actually happened was socializing and maintaining
| those connections felt like a LOT more of a chore. (You want me
| to drive WHERE? At rush hour? Just for dinner?)
|
| Turns out, the obvious incentives tied to one's livelihood are
| stronger than the obvious incentives of friendship/socializing.
| xrd wrote:
| The world can be divided into people who care about friends, and
| those that don't. Be careful who you marry.
| Arubis wrote:
| You can flip the ordering: live somewhere sufficiently dense and
| walkable, then make friends there. I'm not sure if this works for
| especially transient cities (SF, DC), but it's my story in
| Denver, and I gather works well in a lot of mid-tier cities (or
| anywhere you could conceivably buy housing where it's dense
| instead of rent forever, always moving).
|
| (Caveat: this is in retrospect and certainly wasn't my original
| intention. I thought I'd be here two or three years tops and then
| leave the states again.)
| legerdemain wrote:
| Has anyone tried the apps that the author mentions (Saturday,
| Geneva, BFF)? Are there other ones you had a good experience
| with?
| camillomiller wrote:
| >> Why not live closer to your pals?
|
| Oh well easy. In a city like Berlin, because even if you are a
| high income professional the housing market is so Fubar that you
| cannot decide where you end up living in the city. You take what
| comes your way and be done with it. This is true for most other
| big cities in the world. I guess the answer is don't live in
| cities?
| danmostudco wrote:
| Tim Urban has a similar post on this called "The Tail End",
| noting that by the time we get to adulthood we often have used up
| the vast majority of time spent with loved ones - particularly
| with parents and siblings.
|
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
|
| My brother and I read this and were touched by it; we lived on
| opposite coasts and since we were kids always loved hanging out
| with one another. The idea that in our current arrangement we had
| already depleted MOST of our time together was a bitter pill to
| swallow.
|
| For years we batted around the idea of living closer to each
| other. One day we just pulled the trigger and did it. It was
| enormously inconvenient, took a ton of logistical planning for
| our respective families, jobs and so on; but we ended up with
| houses within walking distance of one another and went from
| seeing each other and our immediate families maybe 10 days a year
| to 300+. We have accepted going forward it may limit our career
| options relative to when we lived in top tier American cities but
| the happiness we gained in the process is more than worth it.
|
| I'm still not 100% sure the experiment will work out, but making
| the adjustment to live closer to family has substantially
| increased my mental health and emotional well-being. If you have
| close friendships and have ever talked about this seriously, I'd
| encourage you to consider what you might be gaining or losing in
| your current setup. It's not for everyone but worth exploring!
| HeckFeck wrote:
| I like this idea.
|
| I am far from most of my friends and live in a city for work
| reasons. There are more activities and everything is a lot more
| accessible. Definitely more promise in the air. That said, I am
| living alone and feel it. It's not healthy.
|
| I do want to be nearer friends and (some) family but ironically
| I think there are fewer relationship opportunities back in the
| sticks, plus there are attitudes and people in my home town I
| really don't miss.
|
| I agree with your conclusion - but when younger and single it
| is difficult to know exactly what to do. Being single being a
| big problem, and the day to day work from home isolation the
| other.
| MrFantastic wrote:
| My experience is that in a big city you can meet people that
| better fit into your "tribe", the downside is that they leave
| town for the higher pay job after about 4 years.
|
| The only solution is to always be adding new friends, at
| least that the theory. The implementation is tougher.
| aprdm wrote:
| Very nice! I've thought about something similar. Of course that
| a challenge is when you marry someone from yet-another
| nationality. Our plan right now is to try to get key members of
| the family that want to be together to where we're at even if
| we help them financially to migrate/move, since we have very
| good financial situation and the people we're targetting are
| mostly empty nesters or work in similar field.
| aftergibson wrote:
| I wish I could somehow evaluate what you're suggesting and
| understand if the outcome would be worth the effort. It would
| be SO, SO, SO much effort. I feel good being nearer my family
| but would that sour if I spent more time than the occasional
| holiday? Would the support my family might provide be worth the
| effort of selling our home, changing jobs, changing so how much
| of our lives work?
|
| Sometimes I long for it but the effort makes it...
| unjustifiable.
| e-master wrote:
| We pulled a similar move last year - moved back to Europe from
| North America after living there for 10+ years. It was a very
| expensive and risky move, and just like you, I'm also unsure if
| it will work out great in the long term, but I can tell you I
| feel great, I am finally in the same time zone as my brother
| and parents, they can visit pretty much any time, and heck even
| when my in-laws are in town, and I see them having breakfast
| with the kids on a Sunday morning, I feel like my life is
| finally complete.
| basisword wrote:
| Curious about the kids. I know kids will generally make
| friends wherever they go, especially when young, but my
| closest friends have been with me since I started school. 30
| years later we're still very close despite being a bit
| further apart. I think any significant move after approx age
| 13 and I wouldn't have been able to develop those
| relationships starting somewhere new.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Why do feel uncertainly about it's working out?
| granshaw wrote:
| Would just like to say kudos for pulling the very complicated
| trigger on this
|
| This is exactly the kind of thing where 99% of people would
| like to do but revert to not doing cause the benefits are hard
| to justify in "traditional" ways (ie financial, career, etc)
|
| Again, kudos!
|
| EDIT: hoping remote work sticks around and makes this much
| easier going forward
| sargun wrote:
| Why did you both move to non-top tier cities? Wouldn't both
| living in a top-tier city make sense?
| coldtea wrote:
| For most regular foks "tier" is a budget consideration. And
| of course usually roots (e.g. being from an area) also plays
| a big role in their personal "tier" ranking of a city.
| lazide wrote:
| Probably expense and lack of options - housing a single
| family is already expensive (and often difficult to find),
| two right next to each other?
|
| Nearly impossible, and definitely prohibitively expensive in
| any top tier city. Zuck got a lot of pushback and significant
| difficulty when buying a couple of adjacent lots in Palo
| Alto.
| cmarschner wrote:
| I don't get it. The two of you now live closer together, but
| what about your spouses? What about the friends of your kids?
| abathur wrote:
| If everyone they are close to also moved to where this guy
| and his brother live--and so on--they could have quite the 1
| easy trick to found a new megacity.
| kshacker wrote:
| Unicity? Because this will be the only city in the world :)
|
| Or not "the City", but "THE city". I am failing to come up
| with more ideas, maybe we need help from some crack
| marketing teams
| tuukkah wrote:
| One solution is to spend all holidays (as opposed to half of
| them) at the other city.
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| It depends. If (big if) previously both were far from their
| family, now one of them is not. Net positive.
|
| We live very close to my in-laws, and there are lots of
| benefits from that, even if my parent and brothers live far
| away. But some months ago my brother moved close to my home
| and now we see each other every weekend, we both have small
| children that now have the time to play together and form new
| bonds. It's really great.
|
| My friends are now in different cities or distant
| neighborhoods, we make plans every now and then, but it is
| really complex to maintain closeness when physical distance
| gets in the way.
| basisword wrote:
| I'm curious about this too. My partner and I are both from
| different cities and live in a third city. We have friends
| and family in the original two cities and friends in the
| third city. There's no way to make it work for both of us,
| and in fact the neutral third city is probably the most fair
| option despite being far from the best for either of us.
| addaon wrote:
| The implicit definition of "fair" as "equal suffering" is
| always a bit concerning to me.
| basisword wrote:
| I get your point but the compromise isn't "suffering".
| We're perfectly happy in the third city. It's the moving
| to the original cities that could cause one persons
| suffering for another maximisation of their happiness.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Due to unrelated and unexpected events, my mother, my sister,
| my sister's husband, and my wife's sister have all moved to
| within a few miles of my family within the past year.
| Previously they were all living in a different state from us.
| My father is dead, but having the rest of my close family
| nearby has made me so much happier. I wasn't unhappy before,
| but this much better yet.
|
| I realize it's not a happiness booster in every circumstance.
| My wife moved a thousand miles specifically so she never had to
| suffer her mother again.
| hinkley wrote:
| When I left college I moved a quarter of the way around the
| globe. Now I'm a mere 2000 miles away.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > and my sister's sister
|
| Is this a step or half sister's step or half sister?
| Otherwise I cannot make sense of the relationship.
| philipkglass wrote:
| That was a mistake. It should have been "my wife's sister."
| (Now fixed, thanks!)
| nine_zeros wrote:
| I loved your post because I have been living away from my
| younger brother (and parents) for over 10 years. We meet about
| once every 2 years.
|
| Every time we meet each other, I feel - great. Just amazing. We
| just sit and shoot the shit like nothing changed. We care for
| each other's lives. Just sitting with beers or staying over at
| each other's place makes me feel belonged. Our spouses love
| hanging out with us. We all go on trips together. We explore
| restaurants, we bash our bosses, we make food/snacks for each
| other. When we are bored, we just go over to the other's home
| and watch TV with them. And all this is so much more fulfilling
| than grinding my life away at work.
|
| I keep wondering if this rat race life in a big city is worth
| more than the pleasure I get by just living close to my
| brother. Who knows if we will be able to do all this tomorrow.
| j7ake wrote:
| This implies your spouses all had to accommodate your side of
| the family, presumably the spouses parents don't live near
| you guys. Seems to unfair.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Klonoar wrote:
| Uhh, I don't know if they're doing that?
|
| This is a very real phenomenon that my wife has noted
| experiencing as well. It's a kink in the whole thing
| that's worth acknowledging.
| dang wrote:
| Of course it's a real phenomenon, but it needs to be
| brought up without jumping to negative conclusions about
| the person one is talking to.
|
| Fortunately nine_zeros gave a nice answer and
| clarification, but often what happens is that the
| original commenter feels smacked by the mean
| interpretation, hits back twice as hard, and we end up
| with an unfortunate flamewar.
|
| This dynamic is in fact one of the main ways we get
| flamewars, and HN has that guideline to remind us all to
| consciously avoid it.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Interesting you bring this up because spouses families
| don't live nearby either. I would certainly consider my
| spouse's requirements before we move. That said, spouse and
| I talk a lot about this and we both seem to miss our times
| with my brother+spouse because they are of our generation.
| It just makes us all friendly to each other.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| Alternatively: make friends with everyone nearby.
|
| I've been traveling full- or part-time for the last 10+ years,
| and I've adopted the strategy of rapidly developing friendships.
| The person who sells bread, the person I see on walk after walk,
| the person I'm meeting for the first or 4th time... I'm just
| open-minded and open-hearted, genuinely curious, generous with my
| time and attention... and it's awesome. With just a few
| interactions, I feel like I am with my people, that I am valued,
| that I am around people I appreciate.
|
| Occasionally I'm met with suspicion (some people don't believe
| that I am seriously that curious/excited about XYZ that we are
| doing together), but overall most people seem to appreciate the
| ready camaraderie. Occasionally I get burned by forming too deep
| of a connection too quickly with someone who turns out to be
| untrustworthy, but time has proven that that is a worthwhile risk
| to take on.
|
| I think of community as a pyramid - there are infrequent
| acquaintances at the base, and best friends and family at the
| top. All of it matters. My strategy is basically to respect the
| entire pyramid, showing up as fully as possible for everyone.
|
| Forming friendships rapidly is not easy - it has taken me many
| years to learn to soften myself and open the mind, but I do keep
| getting better at it, for everyone's benefit. It greatly helps to
| share projects (in my case, mostly rock climbing).
|
| Note that walking (to the grocery store, when bored, when the sun
| is setting) is a phenomenal way to feel connected with nearby
| people.
| calderwoodra wrote:
| Totally agree with this - almost everyone in my apartment with
| a dog goes to the same nearby dog park. It's really pleasant to
| see and talk to them everyday.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| Sounds amazing! Would love to hear about your stories and
| learnings should you ever choose to write about them :)
| athenot wrote:
| Since moving is not an easy proposition, taking the problem from
| the opposite end can be useful too:
|
| Make friends with people who live near you.
|
| Even though neighbors (or people in the neighborhood) may not be
| the "perfect friends" meeting all the common interests, I'm often
| surprised by really nice people in the area, people who I
| overlooked because I judged them too fast; cultivating those
| connections eventually creates new friends.
|
| If you had a say in where you're living (as opposed to be forced
| to live there out of hardship), there are probaly at least _some_
| commonality with people nearby. Cultivate the common aspects and
| look past the differences as much as feasible. Human connections
| are rich and highly multi-dimensional.
| aprdm wrote:
| Yes totally. Join Tennis clubs, Soccer clubs, (other clubs)..
| have a coffee regularly w/ the ones you get along with.. it's
| incredible easy to make connections if you put the effort IMO.
| [deleted]
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