As someone who has been an expat in several locations and also divorced, I have found that it's not really due to age but down to where the people around you find themselves in their life and where you find yourself in life. When young people go to college a significant portion of them are in a situation where they would need to seek and develop new friendships. The same happens if you move to a location which has a large expatriate population. It's when you don't have your old friends around and surrounded by people who are in the same situation. That means the people you work or take classes with are also open to making friends with people they work or take classes with. Everyone also live, work and socialise as close to each other as possible, for this purpose. This is in contrast to, say, if you move to a new country or a city where the majority of the people already have established friendships and families where they live and work. These people don't live close to where they work, they live close to where it's convenient for their established friends and family. They don't feel the need to make friends at work. This makes it hard for you, as an outsider, to make friends where most people you deal with don't have that need. This changes again if you have children who go to school and you find yourself with other parents in the same situation. The same when people move when they retire somewhere.
Fellow expat here. This problem had been on my mind for years. Like you said, the main challenge is how to spot the most compatible people in a sea of strangers that are in a similar phase in life.
I built We3 to try to make this easier (and it looks like it's working!). We launched recently and matched around 30k people already.
It's a mobile app where profiles are private. And it connects people in groups of 3, but not only based on interests, but personality, lifestyle, values, etc. It would be awesome if we could connect a bunch of this crowd IRL. What do you think? https://we3.app.link/
Looks like a cool tool, but I just wanted to add that I'm a man with at least 50% female friends, so restricting me to only making friends with men is a shame.
I think we've moved past the whole "not being able to be friends with someone of the same gender" thing (nevermind the fact that people of the same gender can date!). There are probably better ways to tackle people using the app for dating.
>I think we've moved past the whole "not being able to be friends with someone of the same gender"
I think you meant to say "of the opposite gender".
I find it difficult to make friends with people of both genders, but my hobbies and interests seem partitioned strongly to one gender, virtually making the other gender seem alien and extra hard to make friends with. I don't know why that's the case, and it seems to be one of the great questions of our time along with others like what dark matter is. :0 Indeed, some of them seem to FEIGN interest for the purposes of mate seeking, but questioning each and every person's motives would devolve us into some kind of McCarthyist wasteland of jade, toxic cynicism.
One possible solution is to keep gender secret in interaction. Another would be to segregate interactions by gender. We3 chose the latter. I whine at the strangeness and unfashionable nature of humanity, but I can't whine at We3's decision. It seems to keep everything pretty--
>(nevermind the fact that people of the same gender can date!)
> I find it difficult to make friends with people of both genders, but my hobbies and interests seem partitioned strongly to one gender, virtually making the other gender seem alien and extra hard to make friends with.
I don't think the fact that you find it hard to do so should be a reason to restrict your user-base. I see a case for single-gender outings and understand that some people would prefer such outings, but I think co-ed outings could add to the app.
EDIT: Just saw your link on why tribes are single gendered. I didn't really take the creep-factor into account. Maybe a 2 on 2 female/male ratio would help reduce it, best of luck with figuring it out, it's a tough nut to crack!
Yeah, it was a tough call tbh. The thing is that most other apps slide into dating territory because that's where the money is. And it ends up ruining the experience for everyone who's not there to find a mate. Wrote up a longer post on the reasoning here [1]. It's definitely in the roadmap, we're just two guys working on this, so it'll take a bit of time to manage that transition carefully.
I think you guys made a great decision as it definitely sets your app apart. It made it very clear that it's about finding friends, rather than a potential mate.
As another fellow expat, my main issue is trying to make friends with locals or other people that are outside the "expat bubble."
From my experience, those who stay in expat bubble too long become really toxic (both the expats and the locals that hang around them).
I've been learning the local language and have made a lot of progress by just getting involved in specific hobby groups like hiking and birding.
Yeah. Going to be replacing that soon. Thought it would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone: have an explainer video that was also worthy of press coverage. And it kinda worked, but it made some important people distance themselves because of the politics. Thanks for the note.
Is there any reason why this is a mobile only app?
I have a strong preferences not to use apps that are mobile only. And I firmly believe that communicating on mobile has a hard time turning into something more substantial. People nowadays are used to quick status updates while on mobile. Look at the popularity of Snapchat. Why bother writing something when I could just post a picture on Instagram?
It is difficult to make friends when you are over 30, and I think with society stuck on the internet and mobile, it will be even more difficult. At least break free from mobile.
Yeah, totally get what you're saying, but unfortunately people's behavior and perception of the product is different when something is on mobile, especially with an online matching service. Tinder was able to break down the stigma of online dating because they were on mobile only. I'm hoping We3 will be able to break that stigma for friendship matching.
I had the same experience, but also expat, love traveling.
For me making new friends is easy, probably because I am used to it. It is not that hard unless you are desperate.
It is like money, when you don't need it, it way easier to make money than when you need it.
The best way to make friends it to find an indirect way of being in close contact with other people, an help them.
For example I have made incredible friends helping people on drugs. After months or years of pain, when those people get out of drugs they are your friends for all your life, because you were there when very few people were.
I also made lots of friends volunteering teaching(poor) kids 3d printing and engineering in general. When those kids become men or women they surprise you.
From my point of view, you make friends when you don't need to make friends, because you have more important things to do than focusing in yourself.
Also, it's hard but not impossible. I'm in that situation right now, where I work in a new location but most of my colleagues have established lifes here. However there are also a small number of colleagues in similar situations, and also there's some movement going on all the time. So yes, my friendships don't grow as quickly as I'd like, but they grow.
One thing to note though is that one needs to pursue it proactively. Don't be ashamed to ask people to add you to their whatsapp group. Don't be afraid to supply other people with food they like, so they will remember you when they want to relax. And take off some time from your hobbies and work schedule so you can participate in meetups.
>Don't be ashamed to ask people to add you to their whatsapp group
That is rude and looks desperate. If a group actually likes you, then they would invite you first. As a general rule, never invite yourself to anything social. You can invite others to your place or to have dinner, but not to something else somebody already planned
Only if you already have especially likable personality, otherwise you do have to be proactive. For me, if I waiting for people to invite me first I end up with 0 friend. It does seem rude and desperate in the beginning but I have to learn to not think it that way.
I agree. I started developing adult friendships when I decided not to worry about this and start dropping “strong hints” that I was interested in social events that I overheard people discussing.
I tend to appear standoffish and several friends have told me that they initially believed that I disliked them. I have to tell people explicitly that I am interested in spending time with them to overcome this.
It might just be that they don't even think about you as someone who is interesting in interacting. That they basically dont register that you exists. It is not necessary that they hate you.
if you joined their whatsapp group out of self-invite and they begrudgingly obliged, then you will see all their invites and still be self-inviting yourself to their other events unless they personally asked you
I'm way too straight-forward of a person in a sense that I rarely keep anything I'm thinking to myself, to a fault. But that also means I'm not afraid to be rejected and people can always expect honesty from me. Charisma goes along way with people like me, because without it, we're just assholes.
Also an expat here who has lived in multiple locations. I discovered (accidentally) that meetup.com is a great way to make friends in a new place that have a common interest. Try to find a group (or start one) that is about something you're interested in and that meets weekly. Go every week! You'll make friends in no time. I've done this in a number of cities now.
Starting a group is the best strategy to know people. The organizer has some bonus standing. Attending to many meetups of other groups is the second best strategy. I mix them. My focus is on business relationships but I knew many people for sure.
This also works well in reverse, coming from someone who isn't an expat but has many, many expat friends. (living in a city like Berlin helps, of course).
People are a sum of their life experiences. People who are older, have more that goes into that equation. More often equates to complexity and intricacy, like a complicated key, that becomes harder and harder to find a lock for.
In my early 20's, I was more open to hanging around people I know I didn't like, or wasn't compatible with, because I didn't want to be alone or without friends, craved attention, and saw every social encounter as a stepping stone and potentially valuable.
Now, I know better. When you get older you realize you don't need to surround yourself with people whom you don't like, no longer crave as much attention, and already stepped along many of life's stones. You also put on less of a pretense to others and care less about being liked. It's more important to be authentic and true, even if that means having less friends, than a phony with a lot of fake friends. All this has the result of making it more difficult to randomly find real friends.
It's common I'll meet many new people but the ones who I stay in contact with are few and far between, and that's okay. People come into your life and go out of it, it's just the way things work. I'm thankful for everyone I've had in my life and know that there are many more great people who I have yet to meet.
At 47 it is a bit of the explore/exploit paradox for me - an optimal stopping problem.
As an introvert social interaction drains my mental energy so at some point you start investing more energy into enjoying your best friends than into making new friends.
1. I only ever heard of this as a dilemma and not a paradox
2. There is this recruiting problem where you have to decide which secretary to hire before having seen all of them. The optimal solution is to see the first 37% (1/e) and then hire the first that is better than the previously seen best.
Putting that into lifespan of ~75 ys and assuming we don't really start sampling until we are 15, we end up with an optimal stopping (= exploitation) age of 32.07.
It's the optimal solution if you wan to optimize the probability of hiring the one best secretary out of all the candidates. When hiring you usually care more about maximizing the expected "goodness", hiring someone in the top X%, or anyone who meets a certain bar.
As an extrovert, social interaction still drains my mental energy. If anything I find myself even more obligated than you do to hold up my end of the conversation because that's the social expectation. This can be horribly exhausting when I'm simply not in the mood.
The extroverts I’ve known all thrive and get energy in social situations. I use this now as my deciding factor for introversion and extroversion. Are you sure you aren’t an introvert with extrovert skills. That’s what I am. I can talk to anyone easily but it drains me.
Yeah, I had some leadership training last year that involved multiple personality tests. I'm absolutely an extrovert. It wasn't even an "on the fence" kind of result.
I'm not an expert on psychological motivations, so I can't speak to the feelings or motivations of others, just myself.
Most of the time these results are things I find during introspection after social events are over. I can spend 4 hours in a social situation and be one of the drivers that keeps things going. It's later, when I'm alone and meditating, that I discover just how exhausted I was.
As an extrovert, my experience is that I pick up on another people's emotions and that colors my mood. If everyone is sort of uncomfortable and struggling through and eyeing the door, then I pick up on that and it saps my energy. If I find myself talking to a half dozen people who are in great moods and having an exciting conversation, I can get so carried away that I will feel a sort of buzzing high. Whether I go home tired or go home buzzing with energy very much depends on the event.
My wife is an introvert and is highly skilled at chit chat. She can work a room better than anyone but the most gregarious salesman types. She will remember the names of people that she met 10 years ago, details about their careers, their children's names and what their children studied in college. Doesn't matter if it's a professional event, a wedding, or a funeral, she is always on her game. BUT, she always goes home exhausted.
People take me by an extrovert all the time. I learned to look less nerdy by mimicking my extrovert twin brother. I was the weirdest guy of the school and he was the most popular.
Have you ever wondered if deep inside you are an introvert that just got very good at pretending to be an extrovert at early age due to social pressure? Western society rewards extroverts.
I was simply pointing out that what you had typed in the comment that I replied to, is exactly what the dude who came up with those 'types' wrote down as definitions.
If this were the case, it would be harder to find a romantic relationship as we age. Adjusting for life circumtance and type of relationship sought, I don't see evidence of this. What do you think?
Older man dating a younger woman is still culturally accepted but not vice versa. Statistically, this means that the dating pool for older men just keeps increasing.
For older women, the situation is the exact opposite. Their dating pool, which consists of (say) all older men keeps decreasing with age.
That might explain why your older female friends find relationships harder as they age, rather than a decrease in their physical attractiveness. The latter is what many women attribute their situation to, but IMO its just statistics and preferences.
But what's also true is women tend to want to settle down in their early-mid 30s (at least in large American cities, among professional types) and now they become simultaneously more selective. In a sense, women are always the 'choosers' with rare exceptions. Men tend to have wider nets, on average.
>It's more important to be authentic and true, even if that means having less friends, than a phony with a lot of fake friends. All this has the result of making it more difficult to randomly find real friends.
And this is where Facebook tries to seduce you. I'm going to go ahead and say that 90% of your Facebook friends aren't friends but rather they are acquaintances. Being friends means actually doing something together. Rather than liking your Facebook friends' vacation pictures, why not go on a vacation with them?
This was something that was discussed recently in one of the Pokemon Go FB Messenger groups I'm in. The group is mostly people in their 30's and 40's, and some of the people don't have any friends outside of the group. The game has basically brought them a network of friends that they didn't have before. And because "raids" (in-game battles of giant Pokemon) require multiple people and for you to physically go somewhere, you end up seeing your Pokemon friends a lot. You may even spend an afternoon driving around town, chasing raid battles. Sometimes it's just saying hello and battling, but other times you strike up a convo, laugh, etc. Lots of people feel the game is dead, or think I'm weird when they find out I still play it, but there's still an active player base, and it's methods of trying to get people (usually anti-social people) out and being social, have definitely hit upon something.
I'm not surprised at all... because the same thing happened with Ingress - the previous game from people behind Pokémon Go!
I was only part of the local community of players (green team in my city) briefly, but it was enough to learn that people in it talk to each other all the time (via Hangouts at that time), they see each other every evening, play together and then hang out together. That's one of the strongest friendship-making activities I've ever seen.
Unfortunately, once you stop playing, there's a big chance that all of this goes away.
Side note: I'm surprised how in both Ingress & Pokemon GO, friendships cross team boundaries; you can be adversaries and friends, like in any respectable sport.
When I unexpectedly found myself single after a long-term relationship imploded last year, I did the Tinder/OKCupid thing for a bit. One of the more amusing experiences was when I had planned a date with a girl and was telling a friend about it. At one point after describing the girl's profile, my friend stopped me and asked about some detail before pausing and telling me "she's a smurf! I know her!"
(For those unfamiliar, Ingress players have tongue-in-cheek epithets for the opposing team. Green team are "frogs" and blue team are "smurfs".)
The date didn't lead to anything as I don't think she had any romantic interest in me, but it was definitely a funny point when during a lull in conversation I paused and gravely asked if it was OK for her to be on a date with a "filthy frog" and she busted out laughing.
Was going to post something similar here. I've got plenty of friends from prior to playing PoGo, but I see my PoGo friends more frequently because PoGo provides a common reason to meet up with them / be in the same physical location.
It's definitely a somewhat unique phenomenon, and I like both the effect (seeing friends more regularly) and being able to experience it from the inside.
It does, however, give me the feeling that I should put more effort into getting together with my other friends. But life provides any number of excuses to delay it.
The unique part, for me, is having to physically be in a specific place to engage in parts of the game, and the places are 'anywhere around the world'.
Reading the sentence I just wrote it still just sounds like sport, where you have to go to an oval or arena or whatever. But with Pokemon Go it's sort of 'anywhere' and yet specific at the same time. It's a particular place at a particular time. The difference may just be that it's a virtual / digital game rather than a physical one.
You forge friendship through common struggle. You need to offer one another something or you just introduce yourselves and let one another drift off in opposite directions without any bond forged.
You form your first friendships really early on with an extremely strong commonality - the hugeness of the world and your lack of information about it. Literally everything is in common with your peers circa age 2-4 because nothing is established yet. If it weren't for how our society has a habit of breaking these kids up constantly throughout their childhoods I would think those relationships would form the most iron clad friendships you can get if they survive to adulthood. Too bad about 90% of the kids you meet in daycare you never see again after you start school.
School is the next big one, where for most kids they will struggle alongside each other for 13 years straight. The mixing up of classes year to year again hurts the likelihood of strong friendships forming, but you can also just have kids your age in your neighborhood as a strong peer group. You have massive amounts of commonality at that point - you are taking the same classes, you live in the same area, you know the same people, you are subject to the "same" pop culture of your school.
That is where those high school clicks emerge from. The most bonded peer groups of before specialize as they age.
The same hold true into college, but I definitely don't see the same commonality and uniformity there. Going through puberty is really the cutting off point where divergent personalities specialize your interests enough that finding commonality becomes much harder, and you start having much less to offer your peers over their cumulative experiences and engagements.
It only gets worse from there. The more years into life you are, the more interests and specialties you have as a person that makes finding compatibility all that harder. People force themselves into relationships and marriage out of societal pressure. Nobody forces you into friendship nearly as much, so over that hump the lack of compatible people drops to near zero. Its why I think most marriages fail - they are trying to force the highest degree of friendship, when the older you get the harder it is.
Pokemon Go, and video games in general, are extremely effective ways to get people a commonality to force them together and interacting in ways that can build meaningful bonds. A common challenge is essential to bonding. The more passionate you can be about it the more likely it works.
But even then the 30 year old comes with baggage. They already have their favorite movies and musicians. Likes and dislikes. Hobbies and things they want to avoid. Because they have experienced so much more a fraction than they would have as children they are that much more set in stone. The adage of how you can't change a person applies here - even children demonstrate dramatically declining malleability as they gain experience in life. As you gain magnitudes more life experience your flexibility personality wise declines by similar magnitudes. It is trying to fit together puzzle pieces - if the pieces are made of clay you can mold them to fit. If they are tried out and set in stone they are rigid and it is much harder to find a match, and those matches are much easier to fracture and break.
The commonality and struggle are the prongs of a puzzle piece. The more impactful on your life, the happier it makes you, the more passion you can have for it the more pronounced those prongs can be. Early on you only need the simplest commonality as being the same age or living near one another to forge bonds - as you get old and your piece gets more defined and nuanced, it takes larger struggles and stronger forces to bind pieces together.
There's a beautiful passage in All The King's Men that makes, to me, a similar point:
"The friend of your youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you...and perhaps he never saw you. What he saw was simply part of the furniture of the wonderful opening world. Friendship was something he suddenly discovered and had to give away as a recognition of and payment for the breathlessly opening world which momently divulged itself like a moon flower. It didn’t matter a damn to whom he gave it, for the fact of giving was what mattered, and if you happened to be handy you were automatically endowed with all the appropriate attributes of a friend and forever after your reality is irrelevant.”
>There's a beautiful passage in All The King's Men that makes, to me, a similar point:
"The friend of your youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you...and perhaps he never saw you. What he saw was simply part of the furniture of the wonderful opening world. Friendship was something he suddenly discovered and had to give away as a recognition of and payment for the breathlessly opening world which momently divulged itself like a moon flower. It didn’t matter a damn to whom he gave it, for the fact of giving was what mattered, and if you happened to be handy you were automatically endowed with all the appropriate attributes of a friend and forever after your reality is irrelevant.”
Great answer. I would just add: the bigger the struggle, the stronger the friendship. Military friendships are the extreme example of this. I've seen war comrades crying like children after decades without contact.
Great friends don't need to talk constantly to remain close friends. For various reasons, I lost contact with my best childhood friend for a while. It was 10 years, but it felt like nothing, we instantly clicked again.
I think you're definitely right in your observations, it is so much easier to kids to make friends, because they're still so open and malleable, and not set in their ways yet.
>You form your first friendships really early on with an extremely strong commonality - the hugeness of the world and your lack of information about it. Literally everything is in common with your peers circa age 2-4 because nothing is established yet. If it weren't for how our society has a habit of breaking these kids up constantly throughout their childhoods I would think those relationships would form the most iron clad friendships you can get if they survive to adulthood. Too bad about 90% of the kids you meet in daycare you never see again after you start school.
This is exactly my experience as well. My best friend and I originally met before we can even remember, we must have been 3 or 4 years old. There are pictures of us running around in pajamas and bowler hats, play fighting with plastic pirate swords, stuff that I can't really remember now.
We actually didn't really get to see each other more than once or twice a year, because we lived so far apart, so I guess we bonded even more intensely for the couple of weeks we had every summer. We lost touch around the 6th or 7th grade, and didn't really see each other for 10 years or so, apart from sporadic chats on Facebook and such.
But we finally got back together in 2014, and it was almost as if no time had passed. We had burgers and a few beers, and talked for 6 hours straight. Completely separately from each other, we've both become huge metalheads, so now we go to concerts and festivals all the time, and he invited me to join his music quiz team. We're annual champions for three years running now, and the guys have become my closest friends.
They've also gotten me into pen'n'paper roleplaying games, and introduced me to further new friends through that.
It is definitely harder to make friends as you get older, you have to hit just the right shared interests to make it work.
I think this is pretty nail on the head. It also implies that the answer is to just be really open minded about what you like and don't like, and why the people you're meeting like x, y, or z, and you'll end up making a lot of friends you wouldn't have expected before.
I agree with your overall point, but wanted to point out that most marriages don't end in divorce—that's a myth. The highest rate was 41%, and it's been declining ever since.
I wonder, however, whether that's a positive improvement or reflects a reluctance to marry in the first place.
If two people living together for years split up without being married in the first place, it improves the divorce statistics but doesn't really change the underlying reality.
> Pokemon Go, and video games in general, are extremely effective ways to get people a commonality to force them together and interacting in ways that can build meaningful bonds
Isn't this also true when you join any group of people who sharing the same goal?
For example: A soccer or football team or gym? Or maybe a book club even.
I think it comes down to psychology more than anything, albeit I'm not a psychologist. Games are designed for immersion. When you play the best kinds of video games that can get you really invested in them most people can express the feelings of struggle, victory, and defeat they can project through their narratives and interactivity. So psychologically if you "save the world" or "catch / slay a monster" with complete engagement with others your brain can really impress that in your brain with that degree of impact. Personally I will never forget the first time my guild beat Ragnaros in World of Warcraft back in 2006, and I still keep in touch with a lot of the members of that guild despite substantial divergence of interests and lives since then because it was such a well articulated accomplishment at the time.
Sports and books respectively are missing an element of that formula. Sports aren't immersive. The obstacle is always just a game, for fun. Except when it isn't. There is a reason major sports professionals form lifelong bonds amongst each other while a volleyball club doesn't have as profound an impact. Your brain doesn't create a mountain of importance out of the sport.
For books, there is no common enemy to struggle and persevere against. You can get really immersed, but that makes the book memorable, not the people you talk about it with. In the same sense it is better than nothing and can produce friendship, but its not nearly as effective.
The trick is that none of it can be forced. You can't "make" yourself care, and nobody else can. It has to be a legitimate struggle with legitimate engagement and sense of comradery. Kids in school can feel that sense. Immersed gamers can feel it. If you are passionate about game development you can feel that with your codevs. But you need both pieces for the magical result.
This is realistic for the 'life narrative' ™, but I find it cynical and lacking in the free will department. If you want to make friends, truly, at any age, work at it and you'll figure it out!
I met a lot of acquaintances playing Tekken, so I can absolutely believe in the idea that a game would bring people together, even though Pokemon Go is not my thing at all.
I've also similarly made many friends through playing Tekken offline. I believe the local aspect of fighting games (as opposed to most online games nowadays), and the depth of its mechanics is very conducive to making a wide variety of close friends (old and young). I recommend people check out fighting games or games that require person to person contact to make more friends.
do you have a resource (blog, youtube video, etc) where one can get a quick overview of Pokemon Go? When I played it there was not much you could do, so I dropped it completely. I may still have the app installed though.
I'll list some sites below. Though the new main focus of the game is "raids". When you open the game you'll encounter gyms at various locations. 2-3 times a day a gym will have a Raid Boss (you'll know a Raid Boss when you see it, because you have to use a raid pass to fight it - you get 1 pass a day, though you can get more by using coins, which you get by taking and staying in gyms, or by paying for them). The boss will be rated from 1 to 5 stars (1 being easy - a single player can take it down; 5 being the hardest, requiring several players, though defeating a level 5 Raid will earn you the possibility of catching a legendary Pokemon).
The hardest part of the game is getting enough players to take down a high level boss, which is why people have taken to joining chats to coordinate raids. Though this may be different for highly populated areas, and it's still possible to just randomly show up at a raid and find people waiting for it to start.
I'm 42, and I wish someone told me in my 20's it would be harder to make new friends as I got older. I would have done things differently. I would have put more effort into making friends then.
I am able to make new friends, but they end up being more like acquaintances most of the time. Currently I am in grad school, and that's working out well for me. There's something about the shared camaraderie and shared suffering from the workload that builds real friendships.
I'm 22, and I think I have one or two capital-t true friends. I do have so-called friends, but they are at their respective colleges and are doing their own thing, and we do hang out when they are back in town, but then again, I don't consider them capital-t true friends (though I would in earlier years). After graduating high school in 2014 till now, I have spent a great deal of time alone (I argue it is partly because I attended a community college, I still do). While I don't want to be 42 and think I wish "I would have put more into making friends then", I don't think I will (or maybe I will). The aloneness I have had all these years has been so important to my inner self, where all things stem from, that I can't say I would have had it otherwise.
I suppose that's why I tend to gift Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet to friends, i.e. "But your solitude will be a hold and home for you even amid very unfamiliar conditions and from there you will find all your ways." Or maybe that's why I admire Tarkovsky, i.e. "I don’t know… I think I’d like to say only that they should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view."
Though sometimes I think about what side is greener, I suppose it's a matter of perspective.
I hate to give advice about this specific matter, but I kinda had the same experience as you and feel like I should share my experience. I'm 28 and I still value my alone time and solitude very very much. But I also have a group of friends and date a lot which keeps me engaged socially as well and I like having both worlds. What I would suggest is to value solitude and alone time but also be open to opportunities to hang out with other people. If I have to make a choice between going to someones birthday party and playing on the PlayStation, I've learned to choose the former, even if I may not know the person all that much.
I met most of my current friends in my 30s. I think it's possible, you just have to prioritize it and put yourself out there in situations where you'll encounter the same people over and over again and can grow something over time because of it. Either sports, or games (board games has been pretty darn effective for me), or exercise (like going on hikes together), or volunteer work, or something.
Like you said, grad school has been useful because you're all going through the same situation and spending repeated time with each other.
For me, it was picking a handful of Meetup.com groups that interested me and going to meetups over and over and over again, until I became one of the regulars that knew pretty much everyone and they knew me. And then we started inviting each other to private events, and friendships grew from there.
I also met most of my friends in my late 20s and early 30s, after moving across the country multiple times when I was younger, severing friendships in the process.
What really helped me was getting into a bunch of hobbies and putting myself out there, starting kickboxing and crossfit, volunteering at a local historic motor race, going to concerts and festivals, music quizzes. Just a bunch of stuff that interestes me, and presumably interest people with a similar mindset as mine.
Really? Interesting. I can do that. How would be the best way to go about that on HN? I'm new here and haven't seen any posts like that. Just start a thread with some info and answer questions?
Very well. I'll do that this weekend when I have more time to read and reply. Should be an interesting discussion, especially since I left a career in finance to go to grad school to do something totally different. It is a big move but I've never been happier.
This. I realized too late that student life (college, university) is not about studying but for making life-long friends, building the base for your network.
As I have grown older I realised that my university friends were mainly a bunch of snobby middle class boring people. They had a careers, while I explored life a fair bit more (and still manage to have a career after taking a few years out).
The guys who I have met through kayaking - an activity where we have quite literally saved each others lives on occasion - are far more interesting and fun and more real friendships.
What other struggles are there that we can take on to facilitate bonding?
It occurs to me that raising children is a struggle and can help someone bond with their spouse. That doesn't help single people (like me) though. Work can be a struggle, but not always a positive one, and switching jobs can end it. I imagine firefighters and EMT workers face a deeper struggle than corporate jobs and form deeper friendships.
I made tons of friends in my 20s and early 30s. Many of them moved away to other cities with time, so I have fewer friends now, but that's also partly due to being in a long term relationship, so I have less time, and I'm still friends with some of the people I became friends with in my 20s, and between work, relationship, life and those other friends there isn't much time left for anything else. That's without kids in the mix!
However none of the friends I made in my 20s were friends borne of a shared struggle. Most of them were people I met through going to social events specifically organised for people to meet each other. The city I moved to had a lot of transient worker types moving through them so there were lots of events organised by and for expats (perhaps I should call us migrants, as that's what we were). People would turn up to a bar and know nothing about anyone except that we all wanted to make friends, and maybe even hook up. Everyone arrived alone and was trying to make new friends all the time, so if you got a few friends that way, they'd also have a few friends, and everyone would start going to similar events so you'd see each other a lot, and that branched out into events organised just in our groups - mostly very simple events like "let's all meet in the park and drink and barbecue today". It was all quite straightforward and struggle-free. As people came and went I found myself going round that loop several times in my 20s, developing new groups of friends as old ones slowly dissipated.
The only slightly tough part of it was learning how to be sociable with total strangers. Most people are a bit shy and it's not really natural to make fun conversation with someone you just met and know nothing about, but it's like anything, it comes with practice.
I wouldn't describe most work as a struggle. There has to be some higher purpose than just getting through the day. Startup life can achieve that in some way, if you're a very early employee or founder as that way the hard decisions and unexpected events are shared in your group. I'm like that right now - not a founder but a senior executive at a startup firm, and I'm lucky enough to be (by coincidence) working with someone who was in the same class as me at university, someone who I had stayed friends with throughout our 20s. And yeah, building a company is tough work, it's definitely a struggle that I feel enhances our friendship, certainly we see a lot more of each other these days!
>none of the friends I made in my 20s were friends borne of a shared struggle. [...] The city I moved to had a lot of transient worker types moving through them so there were lots of events organised by and for expats (perhaps I should call us migrants, as that's what we were). People would turn up to a bar and know nothing about anyone except that we all wanted to make friends, and maybe even hook up.
I think this is, in its own way, a kind of shared struggle: meeting with groups of expats provided you with a group that you could bond with over the shared experiences and modern "hardships" of adapting to life in a new city.
>What other struggles are there that we can take on to facilitate bonding?
I've found that competitive gaming has been pretty good for this, with the stipulation that it mainly applies to 1v1 games which are usually played at live events (such as fighting games like Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros Melee, or card games like Magic: The Gathering), rather than games which tend to have more of an online presence (MOBAs like League of Legends and digital card games like Hearthstone are less good for this). Pretty much any game that has an active local scene will have at least one local business (usually a game store or an arcade) that runs weekly events for a nominal entry fee.
The immediate benefit to playing a competitive game that has an active local scene is that you'll find yourself in the same space and spending time with the same group of people for several hours at a time on a weekly basis, so at the very least you'll become acquainted with most of the locals. Attend enough of these weekly events and it's usually pretty easy to get plugged in with people who run smaller, less-official events on the other days of the week. One of the things I like about Magic: The Gathering is that I can move to any major city, go to a Friday Night Magic event, and quickly get plugged into a local network of people who share my interests.
If you ever take your game beyond the local level, then you'll also probably end up forming more social connections with people in the local scene, as traveling to events becomes much more economical when you do it with a group of people to split the cost of hotel room and gas. When you travel to an event with a group, you end up spending a lot of time with the same group of 3-4 people over a period of a weekend, which can be a great bonding experience. There's also the fact that traveling to events like this has the effect of making you feel like you're competing together as a "team," even if you're all competing individually; it's fun to root for people from your own city, and it's these sorts of experiences that really offer the kind of "struggle" that I think is good for facilitating bonding. Part of the benefit of traveling to an event as a group is having people to commiserate with after you get knocked out of the tournament.
The "commiserate with and/or root for people I recognize from my own city" can also apply to people you didn't travel with, and in fact having serendipitous encounters with people you know but didn't travel with can also be a great bonding experience. When you drive four hours to an event and then see someone you recognize from home, it can make for a great, "Hey, good to see us!" moment, and even if it's not someone you know really well, you always have "so how's your tournament run going?" as an icebreaker. These moments can often end in making dinner plans where you get all of the dozen or so people from your home city to meet up at a bar or diner, and a lot of the most memorable experiences I have from competitive gaming come from those late-night dinners.
I've found that any hobby that offers "casual regular events on a weekly basis, plus occasional group trips for the people who take it more seriously" is a great recipe for bonding; I played competitive Pokemon for several years despite not enjoying the game particularly simply because of the great social experiences that I had with playing it. I have friends who are into cosplay and anime conventions who have had analogous experiences. Competitive gaming is the main one that I engage in that I consider "strictly recreational," but I've also had some similar experiences with the local game dev scene and with local writing groups, which are adjacent to my professional life. Some of my favorite experiences in game development have come from going to a big event like PAX and just having friends (both from internet and from back home) stop by my booth to chat. There's just something great about traveling across the country to an unfamiliar city and seeing a familiar face that I find really special, and events like these can also be a great chance to turn "internet friends" into "real friends."
> I've found that any hobby that offers "casual regular events on a weekly basis, plus occasional group trips for the people who take it more seriously" is a great recipe for bonding
I used to be active in a ski club that would plan weekly trips to mountains. Made a lot of friends through that. I need to find another organization like that.
Fraternity hazing was originally and still is intended to do this (though it is sometimes taken out of hand), force bonding in an expedited process through shared misery. A lot of the tools were derived from boot-camp and military training, where I believe there is some of that intention, as well.
Have made an effort to add new friendships, the effort is a conclusive prerequisite to strong, valuable ones. Emails in profile, if you drop me a line I'm happy to invest 30 mins/week toward shared camaraderie w an internet stranger ;-)
As a gay man who is almost 30, I think making friends is relatively easy for gay people thanks to dating apps. Perhaps, you cannot same gender friends in Tinder (if I'm wrong, please correct me), but a lot of gay people are using dating apps not only to find relationships but also to find friends.
I also think social isolation around gay people makes friendship among gay people special. I don't know much about Western countries like U.S., but here in Tokyo, most of the gay are still in the closet. They have to pretend to be straight outside gay communities. It is really stressful. They cannot talk much about their lovers or their gay friends. A lot of gay people around me say drinking with straight people is just boring because of those reasons. That drives us to make gay friends.
It is quite anecdotal, but I didn't have single friends a year ago, and now I've got 4, 5 close gay friends since I started using a dating app. I am actually very satisfied with my current life.
Also gay, I think it is much more to do with our "delayed adolescence" and childless-ness. Or at least in the US that's what I see. The older I get, the more blessed I feel to be gay. I can move to any medium to large sized city tomorrow and probably find tons of guys in my age range that are looking for friends and shared-activity partners.
I have many child-free gay friends in their late 30's-50's and their social lives are often 5x those of their straight counterparts.
Off topic, but I'm freshly out of the closest and terrified of the future of my social life without the typical social framework I observe in older couples. Really heartening to know you feel this way.
What are those of us gays who don't have the ability to move to a medium to large city tomorrow to do? (I am not trying to be contrarian, but am genuinely curious.)
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We've had similar experiences in the swinging lifestyle (not to compare the two in any way, it just seemed like a good place to add our experience). We moved to a new area 2500 miles away, tried our best to make friends, had kids a few years later, tried again to make new friends with other parents (had a few successes), and then later on got into swinging.
WOW. You will never find a friendlier bunch of people who are always looking for new friends, even when there isn't attraction present (a common mistake in the vanilla world is that lifestylers have sex with anything that moves). It is the most welcoming community we've ever been a part of.
As a straight man, I did that with Tinder and made a number of friends, but they were always women. I never had any luck with guys I met on Tinder, not really sure why.
Ahhh ... Just want to ask, does that feel awkward trying to meet a new buddy on app such like Tinder ...?
I mean, if I have a Tinder profile, I will expecting people who tapped me are all womans. So when I found out it's actually a guy, I will be surprised and feel wired.
There isn't actually a friends feature, but there are enough like-minded men (or it seems like there are) that are straight but want to meet other guys, so you can just have "looking for men or women" enabled.
I do have a friend that swears by couchsurfing.com[1] for finding new friends, but I personally haven't tried it.
I find this interesting. Here in the US, the gay social apps, still tend to be more focused on hooking up(in my experience). I have been using some of these apps since the beginning of college, and am now in my late 20's, and haven't developed a single friendship that was of any real quality.
Granted, I am sure some of that has more to do with myself and my personality, but any time I meet someone from "the apps", there's always some sexual tension, even if we establish beforehand that we're not looking for sex. It's an odd dynamic which I've tried to breakdown before meeting by adamantly establishing that I'm just looking for friends. Maybe it's where I live, maybe it's the kind of people I end up meeting, or maybe it's me. I know it's partially me because I am in a very different place in my life at my age than most people I know or have meet through these apps. But I sure do wish it was easier to make friend's via the gay social apps.
I think you can make good friends at any age, but you need the right environment for that. When you're young you spend a lot of time with the same people, like in school, which is the environment you need to build a close friendship. When you're older you tend to meet a lot of new people, but you don't have many opportunities to spend a lot of time together. Except at work, which is why many people make close friends at work, but it's not the best environment since people don't like to mix their private and professional life together.
I agree entirely. Friendship requires repetition. When you are older, your time gets spread across more activities, leaving less opportunity for repetitive time spent together.
I'll add that the workplace can be problematic for friendship as there is extra room for undue hostility. If someone makes a mistake, for instance, that mistake may fall directly on your shoulders and friendships predicated on that type of situation usually do not end well. People do not want to feel like they are being taken advantage of in friendship.
Compare that with a scholastic environment and mistakes generally only affect the one who made it (or perhaps faculty, who students usually do not befriend), thereby not affecting friendships. If your own grades were dependent entirely on your friends' performance in school, you just might not be able to maintain those friendships quite so well.
I know that most people agree with you but strangely I consider the workplace a good place to make friends and get to know people. You are testing them all the time and you are able to see how they react in stressful situations. If someone is not compatible you'll know it within a short time.
Add to that heterogeneity that not everyone will have the same openness to friendship at the same time as another. Maybe you pulled an all nighter the night before going to your weekly Saturday spin class. You probably won’t feel social, but the people around you might.
Some of my oldest, closest friends today are people I worked with at a startup in the ‘90’s. But I always keep my current workplace and social life distinct.
I’ve had the most success with active groups that are organized around sports, hobbies, or volunteering. It’s much easier than looking for a bestie who has everything in common with you, or a group that just hangs about chatting. Having a topic that everyone in the group is focused on is easier for introverted me.
Regular, serindipitous interactions with people with whom you share an interest is a great facilitator. Basically, "a place of congregation" for your activity
The base ingredients for making friends seem to be the same as for committing crime: motive and opportunity. Both motive and opportunity decrease as you get older.
I have tried to make guy friends and the main problem seems to be that they're boring. We just run out of stuff to talk about unless we have some business related stuff to talk about. I prefer lady friends ( AS IN FRIENDS WHO ARE FEMALE WHO I DO NOT HAVE A SEXUAL OR WORK RELATION WITH AND WHO I AM NOT TRYING TO DATE ) as there's always the flirty subtext to play around with and they are just pleasant to be around and they probably think I'm trying to date them, even though I'm not.
I just find them pleasant to be around and to talk about trivial day to day stuff with.
Maybe I'm really strange here, but do guys even have lady friends who are not their relatives, who are not their co-workers, and who they are not trying to date?
Edit: Downvotes? Is there something controversial about being friends with women to just have enjoyable conversation and platonic interaction without some sort of ulterior motive?
I'm not a downvoter but I think your very first premise is really flawed. A blanket statement saying men (or at least the ones you meet) are boring is kind of not recognizing the massive diversity of people. But it sort of gets clearer when you say next that you like the flirty subtext of talking with women, and then that starts sounding a bit creepy, especially when you are adding in the over emphasized insisitence its not about dating/sex.
I find it harder to make friends with males because it's often hard to find a good connection. I'm 47. But I have made good friends with other males once we find a groove (often based around humour)
I've often been surprised about the things other males think about once they open up. Initially some males can seem quite one dimensional.
My spouse is similar - he finds women easier to be friends with. I'm the opposite - I tend to get along better with men than women. (We are an opposite-gendered couple, btw).
To answer your last question: Yes, for some reason there is something controversial about men and women being just friends and I wish folks would stop worrying about it.
I got a lot of crap when I was younger because of my friend choices. Teenage years? My parents wouldn't trust my friends. Didn't like me hanging out with them. Folks assumed I was having sex with this group of guys, which was really weird as I didn't generally date within our core group. In many areas, it simply isn't socially acceptable. Yet it is completely socially acceptable to be somewhat possessive of your romantic interest, up to and including forbidding them to have opposite-gendered friends. For men stuck in a "macho" society, it can signal that they might be gay and made fun of for it (and I don't actually understand why). It sucks, and I'm quite happy my spouse isn't one of those people.
I’m actually pretty scared of working with women. To give context I’m about to retire from the USMC. I was also in infantry so I was never exposed to working with the opposite sex. I think I will have to change almost everything about how I interact with people when I retire because I don’t think anyone can or will understand the darker humor that the infantry has.
Not strange at all. I’d really like to have more friends who are women, but social norms make that hard to do. Most women I hang out with are my wife’s friends or friends’ wives/girlfriends, but I feel like getting any closer than an acquaintance is culturally taboo.
A lot of guys are boring, especially for people who have studied and focused in their specialties for years and years. You have to find common ground, and that can become increasingly difficult unless your friends share parts of your core interests.
I work pretty hard to maintain some normal interests, enough that I can chat with pretty much anyone. I do find deeper relationships difficult though, as there are fewer people who share my real interests in my area (or even in my cohort of long term friends). Finding those people is difficult.
Dunno, I am women and always had both male and female friends. Except the flirty part, but we have other pointless joking things.
Long term relationship is easier when you can talk about trivial day to day stuff, because is not enough serious stuff to talk about normally - after a while you just said it all.
I happen to be very much like you (except I'm a cis woman, and my friends are usually not cis women), but my impression is that people like us are the exception, not the norm.
Being a hetrosexual male, being titillated by women is not really a choice I have a lot of control over. I do have control over my behavior and what I do and say. I actually find extremely attractive women somewhat difficult to have relationships with as sometimes it's difficult to look at them without cracking a suspiciously wide grin.
I agree, we guys are quite boring and run out of stuff to talk about! And we interrupt each other, try to add our 2 cents all the time, dominating conversations. Women actually listens and are polite, and that enables deeper and more meaningful conversation. Much more pleasant to be friends with.
In the past month three men, (one 45ish, another 55ish, another 74) two of whom I was barely acquainted with, have poured their souls out to me over their relationship and business troubles. I'd argue that it isn't hard to make friends, it's just hard to meet people in the first place. Men in particular get into a habit of focusing on business and family. More than once I've heard older men voice a complaint if their wives weren't the ones to build social relationships, as they expected them to fulfill that role. Below 30, people have more opportunities -- school, sports, activities -- through which they simple meet more people. Above 30, the number of opportunities to meet other people declines unless one makes a concerted effort to seek out their tribe.
"it's just hard to meet people in the first place"
If it's hard, it's usually a psychological difficulty rather than a lack of opportunity.
Unless you live somewhere exceptionally remote, you're usually surrounded by people and opportunities for meeting them are quite frequent. You could strike up conversations most anywhere: from streets to bus stops to parks to bars to dance and social clubs to special interest groups, work, cafes, parties, conferences, and so on.
Usually, though, most people don't make the effort, for a variety of reasons ranging from fear to awkwardness and lack of social skills.
Once you meet people, though, you have to go further and cultivate acquaintances in to friends, and lots of people fail to do that as well. Even after a friend is made, however, it's still a challenge to get closer and then to maintain the friendship, which again people often fail to do.
I don't think "striking up conversations from anywhere" is the way to go to find long-term friendship. Friendships work best when the lives of both parties (assuming over 30 years old) are in sync: this can be either similar situations, or common life threads to talk about. Outside that, the energy required to maintain friendship goes up dramatically.
For people over 30+ some common threads are same-aged children, similar pets, common hobbies, etc. It's just easier, and let's assume that my life is busy enough that I don't have the energy to work in new relationships that don't have a certain flow to it. It's not about fear or lack of social skills, because at some point we are ALL going to be awkward in a conversation and this is easily forgiven, especially since by the time we hit 30+ we are a bit more patient.
Personally, I've found that creating a small group is the best way to find new friends and the energy to cultivate it is spread out amongst the group. Inviting new people into the common circle is MUCH easier. It's easier to keep interesting conversation with 3 people than 2. But with more people comes the problems of scheduling and opportunities become slimmer.
Similar-minded people looking for friendship is easier than doing it alone.
How do you find out if you're "in sync" with someone? Conversations. How do you start that common circle, how do you pick people to invite to it? Fresh blood requires that someone talk to the strangers. And "anywhere" you've got at least one thread in common: You're in the same place, at the same time, for some reason. Often similar reasons.
Now sure, not every conversation with a stranger will turn into a life long connection between soulmates. Some of them you'll never talk to again. And sure, sharing the work between a circle of like-minded friends can help once you've gotten that like-minded circle of friends established.
But I have to say - some my best friendships have formed when a relative stranger struck up a conversation with me over a game. Or a job. Or a shared technical interest. Or, yes, by just being in the same damn place at the same damn time.
As I noted later in my comment "unless one makes a concerted effort to seek out their tribe," which agrees with your point. That stated, this being a technical forum, many of us are Myers-Briggs (if you believe in it) INTJ types -- so yes, we do potentially lack the social skills. Moreover, I reflect upon my own adulthood, where for much of it I have risen before dawn to work, skipped lunches, returned home somewhere in the evenings, by and large have been unable to take vacations, and find my weekends and downtime dedicated to family activities. I don't believe this to be outside the norm, and in fact I'd say in the details, that I have it better than most. So I stand by my assertion that while it is possible to meet plenty of people, most of us adult types are constrained by expectations and obligations, leaving us by and large, lonely and aloof.
I actually do live in a fairly remote place, pmoriarty, but your comment has me reflecting on culture. Seattle, where I regularly visit, is known for the "Seattle Freeze," whereby people are insular and guarded. I spent a lot of years there in the tech world and have no relationships to show from it; just business. Perhaps you are in a locale where the culture is more open and welcoming, where people are more willing to engage in conversations with strangers?
I moved to Seattle from the east coast about a year ago. I'm heading back because I don't fit in here. It's me, not the city.
I spent a lot of time working remotely. Bouncing up and down the northeastern corridor. I found a way to get acclimated to a city rather quickly. Find your tribe, friend the service staff, and it generally grows from there. Make yourself that you're a regular, and a good person.
I'm not an outdoorsy person, I'm not a "chill" person. What I enjoy wasn't common fare. That's not meant as a knock. The closest I found here, was the LGBTQ community. But there was a bit of trepidation with me being a software developer, i.e. causing problems for the city.
There is the Seattle freeze. But it's also we're busy and there is not that much in common. It's important to try and not be negative. Blaming the city is not beneficial. Maybe the city just isn't right for you. What do you want from your city, where you live?
I will say I did find it's more insular. My usual fare of trying to join a conversation at a bar didn't work. Saying hi, was not well received. I also think I had a cloud of negativity, from heavy job dissatisfaction that limited a positive response. My few friends here. Were gained from bartenders a bouncer, and someone I met at a mixer.
One other thing I'd note. Is I try and perform outside of work, event hosting, dj'ing, etc. I tried talking to promoters but got stood up a lot. Make an appointment to meet up and no show.
"for much of it I have risen before dawn to work, skipped lunches, returned home somewhere in the evenings, by and large have been unable to take vacations"
This is certainly nowhere close to the norm in europe. I only know a couple of people who work more than 40 hours a week (37.5 is standard in the UK), and they definitely take vacations.
Completely true, take everything I said and reverse it for Europe. But I'm referring to life in These United States, where we don't have health care, we don't have vacation, we don't have maternity leave, we have very little public transportation... ok, I'll just stop before I get out of control.
It's actually the exact opposite. You have more of a "my neighbors should pay for it" view. That's why you object to paying taxes so much. You want all the benefits of living in an advanced society, but you want someone else to pay for it.
This is simply observed by noting that most people, in both countries, actually work and pay taxes. Therefore, in Europe, most people are paying for both their own services and for those of people who can't afford it. That's an attitude of "I'll pay for my neighbor" not "my neighbor should pay".
Yes in the strictest sense of the word "we" have it. If my neighbor can't pay for it and everyone else refuses to pay for it, my neighbor doesn't have it. If my neighbors have health insurance but can't afford the copay so they have to let smaller problems become life threatening, they effectively don't have it.
It's like you are celebrating a system that didn't take much out of you to give seriously dehydrated people water while conveniently neglecting the result that giving them a bottle of water either made them destitute or prolonged their lives by a small amount. You also conveniently neglect that many first world nations manage to have universal healthcare and spend less per person than us. I will say this though, if you are rich there are very few better places to be for healthcare than America. Hoorah, what a great system; what a great quality of life for everyone!
It's not entirely clear that American healthcare is much better, even if you can afford it, unless you're talking about, like, stratospheric levels of wealth.
Frankly, I am also by nature an introverted and guarded person, but I have found my life really enriched by consciously working past that to talk to people.
I live in Seattle, and I’d say that your crazy lifestyle is why you didn’t make friends here - and that it’s probably the same cause for most people who complain about the Seattle Freeze. You worked all day and hung out with family all weekend and an amazing friendship didn’t climb down your chimney? How baffling, must be the city culture to blame. (I moved here for work out of college, and made plenty of friends - by socializing in the evenings).
I've lived in six different US States (in the South, East, Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, and Northwest) and Washington State definitely stands out as having the largest proportion of socially inept people. The general pattern seems to be that they don't know how to make polite casual conversation with strangers and are either just rude or completely overshare.
I'm an introvert and am an NF type, and I'd generally agree with you. It's not the city, it's how you approach it. If you don't have friends find something to do and they will come. But you have to have the courage to make the first move. If you don't, who will?
I agree with your sarcasm, particularly as it pertains to Seattle. However, my vibe of Vancouver is different. Having lived in Vancouver and visited Seattle many times for concerts and so on, I can say that Vancouver maintains a sort of freeze even with a well above average intent to expand socially. I think because such a large percentage of people (out of necessity or not) meat some of the criteria in the parent comment, it's hard to strengthen. Getting anyone (except in certain niches) out to do something is like trying to pass pro-choice laws. When you do get it to happen, they'll bail (colloquially called the BC bail) at the last second.
^This!
Seattle is overflowing with welcoming spirits like newfoundglory. It's your friendless, self-deserving, crazy lifestyle that's the problem. Got your own opinion? You can GTFO! /s
Disclaimer: My two Seattle visits were both welcoming and pleasant, and I've never met newfoundglory. Had I, I likely would have found them to be quite friendly.
Yup, it's just modern astrology. A bunch of stuff that is mostly kinda true about almost everybody or things that people want to believe about themselves. A lot of it is honestly just ego stroking. "You're usually not a risk taker, except when it's important." It's embarrassing how many people fall for it.
I don't know about that. You just shouldn't strap more meaning onto it than that it's a survey that gives you a qualitative description of the answers you gave to it -- people have some innate attraction to such things and I find it hard to criticize them for it. I just don't think it's appropriate to use for career counseling, etc.
Educational Testing Service got interested in it long ago and then dumped it. The National Academy of Sciences did a huge project on improving human performance for the US military back in the 1980's, and they put it in the not useful category. What would you expect for an assessment developed by a team of two with no background in assessment?
I would extend your evaluation to say that it is not appropriate for use on others, but if you think that it helps you assess yourself, knock yourself out.
@mathperson - pureGuano covers my view of it too, which is why I added that caveat to my message. It's certainly indicative of personality, but not all encompassing. It's pseudo-science, but interesting and a starting place to understand someone.
I think mathperson is referring to the fact that 'big 5' is the new personality type test that psychology researchers seem to take more seriously.
My understanding is that it's a lot more, I forget the word. reliable or repeatable? I mean, two different big5 tests are more likely to give you the same answer than two different MBTI tests.
Meh, it's a lens. The older I get, the more I appreciate different lenses and how subjective everything ultimately is. A lot of STEM-types chafe at this, and cling to empiricism as a bedrock in the tumult of human experience, but at the end of the day whether an idea has value to me is entirely orthogonal to its scientific basis or lack thereof.
You know, if you are going to assert something contrary to common belief, you really should include some arguments.
Until you do, I am going to simply assume you're mistaken.
This jumps out at me on airplanes. You used to strike up conversations with the people next to you, unless they were sleeping or obviously working on something. Now they're wearing headphones, and it feels intrusive to talk to them.
Being crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers in a capsule is stressful for most people. Some deal with the stress by chit-chattering with others to distract themselves. Others just want to escape into their own heads and block out the uncomfortable surroundings.
I don't think much has changed, except now more people use headphones and cell phones to signal that they're in the latter group. Previously they would have nodded and said "mm-hmm, oh wow" a lot.
This is my experience as well. People in Seattle even when not on devices are very anti-social. When I was in the midwest, random people invited me to BBQ's and social events all the time.
So I go up to the pharmacist. He's an older gent about my dad's age. We know each other since I pick up my script for sleep issues every month.
"How you doing today?"
"Oh, you know how it is." He gives me a weak smile. I can tell he feels worn down from the daily grind.
I pick up my script, then think of a way to keep chatting.
"Hey, this is going to sound weird, but I also have <foo> medical condition. Do you have any advice on getting that treated?"
I have no idea why this made sense to me, but it was something like "Pharmacists fill scripts, and they also see prescriptions daily, so they know which illnesses are treated by which medicines, so therefore this is totally not a weird thing to do."
He gives me this super surprised look and stays mostly quiet. I say "I should see a doctor huh?" and he says yeah. I walk away feeling like a dummy.
I didn't mind at all, and I'm not afraid to try to make new friends. But now instead of this random person thinking of me as a neighbor (he always called me by name) I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm weird. And I am.
The point is, I don't really care about being weird. I don't think I'm alone in this. But I stay quiet because it damages social relationships to express myself in odd ways. It's better to be on a cordial first-name basis than have an arms-length-but-personal experience with them.
The opportunities you mention for meeting people are really not as frequent as you make it seem. And it's unclear what to say to force a conversation. Yes, some people have this skill. Some are also naturally good looking. But seeing as this is Hacker News, I think the audience might be closer to my side of things.
The reason I wrote this was that you mention there are all these opportunities. But going over in my mind, I can't see a single way to talk to that guy that isn't socially weird. He's at work. He just wants to get his job done and move on to the next customer. I don't know anything that could make him laugh. Asking about his day or asking him to tell me what it's like to be a pharmacist would be seen as yet another frustrating thing to deal with at work. And there are other people in line behind me, so this is an imposition on everyone else.
But those people are opportunities too, right? I could just turn around and start chatting them up. Except not really. It's the same for everyone else in life: We're all busy, all dealing with our own things. And the older you are the busier you get.
All of this is to say, you can live in one of the biggest cities in the country and still feel completely isolated and alone. I know. And maybe this comment will put it into context that it's not really their fault. It's just the shape of the situation.
I usually hack on my projects at the mall on a couch, and end up meeting quite a lot of people. But only if they happen to be hacking away on something too, and eventually I ask them about it. But that seems rather an uncommon situation. So I'm wondering "Outside of work and family, where would other hackers have excuses to meet people in daily life?"
Even now, the smart thing is to stay quiet and not post this. You're told to stay quiet in a thousand ways by the society around you.
I'm self-employed and I have a rented desk at the local WeWork coworking space. I go there when I feel like getting out of the house to get some work done.
Using the coworking space is a surprisingly good way to meet people. Obviously the guy locked in an office, headphones on, hammering out code should be left alone -- but there will be many people sitting in the common areas, chatting with their buddies. They might be drinking the free beer on tap. They probably have a startup, open source project, etc. that they're passionate about and would be happy to tell you about.
I co-own/run a co-working space and always enjoy opportunities to talk with the others here about our work and life outside of work. I've been in a shared/open office my entire working life and many of my friends have come through these environments.
I think consistently seeing each other daily for whatever period gives you a good chance to find common interests, incorporate social outings, etc.
attempting to start a friendship (or more) with someone who is serving you is one of the more risky avenues. if you're both on the same page, it can be totally fine and work out. unfortunately, most of the time you are just another customer to them and you just put them in a situation where they have to figure out how to gracefully decline while still doing the deferential customer service dance.
It doesn't sound especially weird to me, I'm sure a lot of people ask pharmacists such things to avoid seeing a doctor. I've done it myself. Pharmacist advice is even a thing I've seen advertised. It's possible these things are just different where I am.
In any case, I don't see that asking a pharmacist about a medical-related topic would be interpreted as a friend request.
Great post. So many things you wrote are so correct about human interaction in a city.
The point is that you are actually meeting the pharmacist. You're there every week. That's an opportunity.
Say you wanted to talk to him more, I would not be trying to act like more of a customer by talking about medical conditions, I would be talking about things he might be interested in, or mention something else that I'm interested in, or something that anybody might be interested in (weather/current news/sporting event), or something related to the current situation. Or even just throw something out there - "you look like you might know about <certain thing>, my mom has one and was just asking me about it". Even if you're wrong they'll be interested in why you might think that about them which can move onto other subjects. "You remind me of <such-and-such person>". "Hey, you remind me of my dad, what's a good present to get someone like you?". Use your imagination and you can come up with a million of these.
You could even just volunteer something about your life. "Nice day today, I'm in a good mood because I'm going on a trip away soon". If he's interested in talking he'll continue. Most people who are working boring jobs will want to chat with a customer that isn't annoying.
I think it depends on what you want to happen in the end. Do you want to meet this pharmacist out as a friend or more, or do you just want more small talk?
Small talk is, by definition, impersonal. If you want the relationship to be personal, you need to transition from small talk. Either find a common interest or show interest in his interests.
TBH I find small talk pretty irritating and mostly enjoy being impersonal in the city. There's too many people to be friends with everyone, and I don't have time for many friends as it is. "How are you?" - "I'm good thanks"!
Mostly when I do make the effort to chat, people are receptive.
OT: FWIW, in UK (and France, Spain, Kenya as I recall from visits) pharmacists do prescribe to a limited degree. All the local pharmacies to me [except supermarket pharmacies] have small consulting areas with a closed door where you can chat about your ailments.
NHS I think are keen to encourage use of pharmacists for minor ailments.
Slightly OT: where is it so weird to ask a pharmacist for advice? In places I've lived in it's either reasonably typical or not typical but within the realm of expected things.
You’re basically describing the whole field of small talk. It’s perfect for stuff like this. And then if he’s interested you gradually progress the conversation.
> So I'm wondering "Outside of work and family, where would other hackers have excuses to meet people in daily life?"
Play! Or, well, hobbies in general.
I've met people online through games and technical social forums, some of whom I later grabbed drinks with after we found out we were in the same area, and later still ended up working with several.
Nowadays I'm into boardgames - if you plopped me in a random city with no other contacts and a need to socialize, I'd maybe check online for boardgame bars. Maybe try to strike up a conversation about a boardgame another group's playing that looks interesting, or invite someone who's just grabbing food to join in. Or look up shops that might host the occasional MTG tournament - I don't generally play MTG, but it's a common enough game there's been a circle that plays it at every job I've had, and a tournament settings by it's very nature is going to force at least a minimal amount of interaction between complete strangers.
One of my friends is into drones - building them, racing them, the works. So there's racing events he goes to and meets people at, socializing during the downtime. More interactions of "oh, I recognized XYZ that you did online!" (common forums, videos, etc.) Also hosts a monthly movie night - a relatively easy excuse to get to know people better that he might only kind-of barely know at work.
Paintball seems like another option I should try picking up sometime. I bet paintball fields have some kind of open-to-all events to try and drum up business.
> But I stay quiet because it damages social relationships to express myself in odd ways. It's better to be on a cordial first-name basis than have an arms-length-but-personal experience with them.
Does it, and even if it does, is it really better? Extensive online socializing has made me very comfortable with being frenemies or worse with trolls etc. - worst case scenario, me and whomever I'm conversing with both find out we have better things to do than talk to the other party - and best case scenario, you've found something to bind over for a lifetime. Win/win.
(I realize this can be much easier to say than to internalize, but I wanted to plant this idea.)
> Even now, the smart thing is to stay quiet and not post this.
Then intelligence is overrated.
> You're told to stay quiet in a thousand ways by the society around you.
Then those parts of society are also overrated. Fuck 'em. Keep talking - how else are the other weirdos who also don't know when to shut up going to find you? :P
>If it's hard, it's usually a psychological difficulty rather than a lack of opportunity.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it's easier. In my experience, it's the other way around, really. I am rather good at operating tools, and tools to deal with the physical barriers to socialization are usually pretty easy to operate.
The psychological side of that, though, is... more difficult. There are tools there, too, but in my experience, those tools are much less well understood.
> I'd argue that it isn't hard to make friends, it's just hard to meet people in the first place.
I strongly disagree; I think it's the opposite. Friendship takes time. You need to invest the time into conversation, building trust, building a relationship. You won't have a good friend after a week together.
Exactly this. The tough part about making friends in your 30s and above is that many people don't have the time to spend together to truly grow a friendship. It's tough to hang out with a potential new friend at least once per week unless you live in a dense area or city. At least that's been my experience.
It's also why quite a lot of my close friends are ~10 years younger than me—I move a lot and each new city I hit I have to make new friends. Many times that means people in their 20s that can spend leisure time like that. Probably not the best for my renal system though.
I had the same problem. And for the meeting part if solved this problem by creating drop!in, a nearby event happening now app. An example from the other day, I was walking home from work, refreshed the app and realized there is a free Accenture-led API workshop just a few hundred meters nearby. Walked over had free Pizza and beers and had a nice chat with the local MD of the Accenture Digital Lab. This week we will meetup for lunch. So in my opinion, it's not a problem of meeting people, it's a problem of following up.
So at least for me the "meeting" people got solved.
I grabbed your app because I've been looking for something like this for a while (there's tons of useless ones that claim to do this) however it's crashing on my Note 5 every time I start it after I signed in.
I disagree. There are plenty of places to meet people. Instead its hard for most people to be compatible to hang out regularly. Most lonely people have plenty of acquaintances, but no close friends to regularly hang out.
They don't sound like very American men. Like the song goes, "I'm afraid of Americans... They don't need anyone, they don't even just pretend." I realized I have no friends at age 19. I've been fine with that for decades. I won't make any such generalizations about women. I know where I'm at. But I will say the younger guys seem weaker these days. They don't have the same general tough, friendless demeanor the Gen Xers had.
Bowie meant that as a criticism. It's not, and is not intended to be, a good thing. And it reflects all the way through the fuck-you-I've-got-mine, pull-up-the-ladder-behind-me baseline society we have inculcated, both within and without tech.
This post is, and I am not using the term to be hyperbolic or insulting, pathological. If we need songs to prove the point, Hank Williams, undoubtedly an American man, wrote "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" in 1949.
Alcoholic, died age 29, sings about how he is lonely, like other alcoholics do.
British singer describes how he's afraid of Americans.
You see the difference, right? The current generation, the weak ones, they like to sing about how tough they are. "Heathens" or "Royals" is the typical sort of chest puffing bragging about their own prowess.
That's a lot different from outsiders describing their fear of your kind in song.
If everyone started out identical, however unlikely that is, and hobby interests compounded like interest, increasing the balance of ... warhammer 40K, for the sake of example, by 1% every year, then at age 18 you'd have identical interests and experiences and therefore make shallow friends with all kinds of randos who will diverge dramatically in the future, and by age 50, 1% compound hobby interest per year means you'll all be very diverse and therefore unlike to friend up except with people like you.
There's actually a pretty good financial analogy with... finances. At uni "all of us" lived the same lives in the dorms. We had all the same financial life, which was "student poor". Rapidly the ultra rich kids moved to the ultra high rent apartments, we had lives that diverged, etc. Decades later rather than all of us having the same financial condition and experiences, there are likely very few people exactly like me financially.
Finally there's a lot of hand wringing that I'm not hanging out with people who have nothing in common with me other than drinking the same beer or cheering for the same sportsball team. A lot of people grow up and see that as the waste of time that it is. At 18 you can be fooled into thinking a shared enjoyment of "Miller Lite Ice" is a deep personal connection, but many people can't be fooled that way at age 50. Not really a problem.
When I was younger I thought sports were stupid, but as I've grown older I've come to enjoy watching football a lot and to especially enjoy watching it with other people. Yeah, it's not going to go on my tombstone when I die, but how many things are? It's a common thing to watch, speculate about, emote over, etc., and the game itself has grown more interesting to me as I've come to understand it more.
I also think the importance of having a common lifestyle or a lot of shared interests can be overstated. I don't share that many hobbies with my wife but I enjoy talking to her and spending time with her regardless. I enjoy meeting up with old friends from school even when they're at totally different career stages than I am. You don't have to do the most expensive thing you can afford every night.
I think it helps to have played a sport before to appreciate watching it.
For example, when I was younger I used to play some football (soccer). I don't play at the moment, but when I watch a game there's a lot more for me to pick up on because of that past experience. I get that to someone who's never played before the game might look uninteresting as it's a relatively low point scoring game (compared to something like basketball or tennis), but to people who are into it there's much more going on than just the goals, it's the dynamics of the game as a whole that captures their attention. Having past experience playing makes it easier to see when a team is attacking well and defending well, easier to pick up on individual displays of skill, easier to pick up on new opportunities and how these could change the game, easier to pick up on the state of the game (chances of a win, loss or draw) and the ways the players respond to this.
If the only part of the game that mattered was when the ball was kicked in the net then it would be a boring game as it doesn't happen very often, but there's a whole lot more going on if you know where to look. You might still find the game boring, but hopefully this helps to explain how people get into it.
I don't doubt that that really deepens your appreciation, but I think even through repeated watching you can come to appreciate the game more. To give the most obvious example, someone without a lot of familiarity with football would probably be confused about why they were go back five yards behind where they were after the last play instead of the last place they got to because the penalty system isn't obvious to a neophyte (in soccer terms, consider how many people are baffled by off-side calls if they only ever watch a few games during the World Cup every four years).
I'm not even sure if your references to football and soccer are the same sport, or two different sports. I think they usually mean the same thing, except in certain countries where other sports (such as rugby) are called football instead.
I'm from the UK, we call soccer "football" here. The sport that people in the US call "football" we call "American Football". Many countries call soccer "football" (or variations thereof, depending on their native language). I've never heard anyone use the term "football" to describe rugby, though rugby (union) was supposedly a spinoff from football (rugby league came later). To add to the confusion, there are two other sports that have the name football, namely Gaelic Football and Aussie Rules Football, both of which are popular in their home countries.
I originated in New Zealand, and football generally meant rugby. Maybe things have changed since then or maybe I don't remember correctly.
I didn't realise American football could be abbreviated to football. We also knew it as gridiron, and it always seemed like the very definition of boring, repetitive sport. Guy takes the ball, runs at the opposition, is taken down, everybody stands around chatting for ~10 minutes, repeat :)
That circularizes the problem in that we use the same word to describe someone who happened to separately watch the same TV program as to describe something like a non-romantic life long soulmate. I think the article is talking about the latter, although the former is an open question, may or may not be an issue.
You can't build a deep friendship without first having a shallow acquaintance. Getting together every weekend to watch football is a good start to making a closer friendship that transcends the activity. Really any activity you repeatedly engage in together would be. Most close friends I have are people who I initially started hanging out with because we both enjoyed watching football, or playing pool, or playing a video game, etc.
It works well the other way too. Go to a bookclub about a topic you're interested and you might be surprised to find how much in common you have with people who you otherwise might have thought were completely different (different career, family, gender, nationality). I haven't made any friends that way but often the talks we have feel like everyone is old friends in the moment.
I can’t seem to read this right now since I’m over my limit of free articles but I’ll say that Meetup.com has been really helpful to find interesting people in the same boat.
My recommendation to people is to find a meetup (doesn’t have to be from Meetup, could be a sports league, religious group, volunteering...) that meets frequently so that you have a chance to slowly get to know the same group of people over a course of time. I find meeting up once per month is a little too infrequent for growing bonds and prefer weekly/biweekly meetups but sometimes you end up meeting someone who you gel with and it’s easy to meetup many times over beyond the meetup interval.
+1 - for anyone in the tech field (or even if you're not) that likes to meet some new people, join a few Meetup.com groups in your area and talk to random people inbetween the meetup sessions. 9/10 people will be a dud but I've ended up finding som really good friends via Meetup.
Incognito holds onto cookies too (in a separate instance of course). Did you find a way to conveniently overcome that without causing the NYTimes not to work?
One anecdatum: I simply lost most interest in having friends by 25. I lost the rest when I had a kid. Now my friends are my daughter’s friends parents. I don’t really like them, I just end up chit chatting with them while our daughters play.
Are you male? I don't want to assume. But as a woman this is something that really concerns me about the guys I and my friends date. I see my father doing the same thing. Once they get into a stable relationship they seem to think that there's no need for a social life beyond their girlfriend, coworkers, and maybe one or two very close old friends... but those old friends tend to drift away.
The reason it bothers me is because these men end up overrelying on their girlfriend or wife for both emotional support and to manage their social life. Without the woman doing it for them, they get angry, misanthropic, and antisocial due to not having an outlet - and they don't see it as a problem at all. But their families get to watch them become more unpleasant and withdrawn as time goes by.
This is something I find really hard to talk about with the men I see doing it, especially when it's my own partner. Obviously it's not all men. But my dad DEFINITELY does it, and the result is that he's gone from being a fairly open-minded, liberal, and environmental kind of person to someone who can't seem to talk about anything other than guns, American politics (we're not even American), and the "idiotic" policies of our local politicians. He recites stuff he's heard on TV as if it's gospel truth. It seems impossible to have normal, non-political conversations with him anymore, he just doesn't have any knowledge or interest that doesn't come from TV.
He's my dad and I love him, but needless to say, when I see my partners going down the same path, it freaks me out. Sorry, I know that's a lot to extrapolate from your very short comment, but maybe it's just something to think about.
Wow, you know that certainly made ME think and also made me flash back to the face my wife pulled when I remarked how my lack of friends doesn't bother me.
Perhaps it should.
I'm an immigrant too, although no language issues, so I have lots of friends in my home country and not many here, a lot of those were expats or work connected and the rest are via my wife and her work - she didn't grow up around here either but is American.
I'd hate to go down that road you talked about and I've seen people do so. We've not been able to have kids either so don't have that path of getting out of our bubble.
Inverted for me, I have more friends than my partner (via tech meetups and chess club), she's a home bod by nature and only really seems to like going out with me.
I've suggested a few times (gently) that she take her work mates up on their offer of going for a meal (I gather one of the women at work is in a similar boat), I'm introverted by nature so I only socialize in settings where there is a distraction (tech and chess as mentioned) but it's enough social life for me.
I don't really need anyone to bare my soul too, I've always handled that stuff myself.
This is one of my fastest upvoted comments ever. I think it struck a chord. There's no way of knowing whether it was men or women upvoting, but I have a feeling I'm not the only who has had these thoughts.
I upvoted and while I’m a woman I don’t feel the same at all. I just thought it was an interesting point of view that certainly explains a few behaviors (although not my grumpy dad’s!)
my guess is a fair amount of the upvotes were from men. deep down i think men do realize that we have gaps in our coping skills, but don't fully understand the cause.
The cause is that “society” expects that to “grow up” a man must give up his hobbies and his friends and “settle down” (provide for a family as sole purpose in life).
Someone will say “that’s how the patriarchy harms men too!” But I don’t think I believe that; I don’t think men say “hey bro, we should totally just give up all that cool stuff we do, for no reason”.
> Once they get into a stable relationship they seem to think that there's no need for a social life beyond their girlfriend
Or is it that they seek a stable relationship because their social life was already starting to dwindle? And they fall back to letting their partner manage their social life because they simply wouldn't have one at all without that help.
I see it a lot in people I know. They didn't care one bit about having a stable relationship. That is until their friends started becoming busier in life, maybe some moved away for other commitments, and they started to feel lonelier and wanted someone who was going to be there for them.
All this becomes a vicious cycle as each time someone feels the group of friends is no longer able to satisfy their needs and they seek a partner, the group is fragmented even further, making it even more difficult to provide what the group needs. Eventually you reach the point where there isn't a group anymore.
While I don't know if I speak for many men, in my experience the best male friendships are comprised of multiple people. If you don't have that group, it is difficult to have the best kind of male friendship. That is not to say one-on-one friendships are bad or impossible, but it's just not quite the same.
I'm not being snarky, but the converse is that I tend to see a lot of women over-relying on their girlfriends and groups of acquaintances for emotional support and their social life. The concern is this has a big impact on some couples relationships for the worse.
I think that women tend to be better at creating and maintaining relationships (I'm not necessarily talking about romantic relationships here).
I also think that women tend to get more emotional support from their relationships. Men don't really get this (at least explicitly) from their friends. They do get it from their intimate partners. For a lot of men, their partner is the only person they ever 'open up to'.
In general, I think there are strong cultural (and possibly even biological) reasons for the different approach to and amount of emphasis men and women put on socialising. In some circumstances, being a bit of a social recluse can be advantageous (e.g. extreme dedication to particular pursuits such as a career), but in total I think that men as a group suffer for this tendency. They are much more likely to end up alone and lonely in later life (discounting the fact that women live longer). I think this probably plays a large part in the high suicide rates amongst older men.
I think that something that could be done to address this issue - and something that would benefit both men and women in a variety of ways - would be to focus on removing cultural and financial barriers that keep men away from their families and in the workplace. For example, we shouldn't talk about maternity or paternity leave, but instead parental leave. The financial security of families should not be seen as a man's responsibility, but a shared responsibility (this goes back to the seemingly intractable issue of the relationship between financial status and attractiveness of men). These are really ingrained cultural attitudes but we can chip away at them.
Focussing on some of these sorts of issues would be good for men's mental health and a much more productive means of levelling the earnings gap between men and women than focussing almost exclusively on sexist discrimination in the workplace - a red herring in many (but certainly not all) cases. As most people are aware, a significant part of the earnings gap is down to the responsibilities women take on outside of the workplace, such as caring for children and elderly relatives or supporting the local school. We should be looking at what it is that is holding men back from participating more fully in their community. I think by not doing this, many men are missing out on one of the fundamental aspects of being human.
> Are you male? I don't want to assume. But as a woman this is something that really concerns me about the guys I and my friends date. I see my father doing the same thing. Once they get into a stable relationship they seem to think that there's no need for a social life beyond their girlfriend, coworkers, and maybe one or two very close old friends... but those old friends tend to drift away.
Sounds like me!
I don't want more than a couple of good friends. Anything more than that isn't friends, it's acquaintances with delusions of grandeur. That ends up leaving most of the pushing for socialization on my wife's plate, because ... I don't.
That said, I find that women maintaining the social relationships is a bit more stereotype than truth. I know more than a few women that are also pretty shit at it, and they're doubly embarrassed because they don't feel like they're fulfilling their gender role.
Your comment is super important, I don't think everyone who read it realizes how elusive its warning is.
I'm young and already excuse myself by saying that I don't mind having just one or two close friends. But this is how it starts: we tend to think we can handle being mostly friendless, and yet, as we age, it seems that many of us can't.
Not sure what the solution is, but you've definitely underscored a big problem that I've (till now) underestimated. And I'm sure others have too.
I kind of identify with your father. I am in my 40's and about to retire from the military. I do not have any "friends" that are not part of work even though I work with them every day. I don't know if I was ever liberal when I was younger but I have gone more right-wing so to speak. Although I have cut almost all news and TV. I mostly read the headlines and that is about it because just about everything is B.S. and nothing is going to change anyway.
I might even be suffering from some kind of ptsd or social anxiety or something, who knows. Just the thought of going out shopping or driving around makes me not want to even leave the house.
Oh, and I like guns to. But guns are part of my job.
I hope you think about it. You don't have to change your whole life. Just making a small change to be a little more social will probably help. Like, super, super small.
> I mostly read the headlines and that is about it because just about everything is B.S. and nothing is going to change anyway.
Feeling like that is a strong sign that your emotional resources are close to being overwhelmed. If you're a vet, hopefully you have access to counselling services. I hope you try going at least once or twice. Most people can use a few sessions of counselling, even if they're totally healthy.
I’ll be alright. I’m about to make a pretty big change retiring and all. It will either go really good or really bad.
Off topic but I will say that it is almost criminal how many drugs that the military gives you for problems. Went in for sleep issues and came out with about 8 different meds.
Worst case I’ll just move to Alaska and become a mountain man like Jeremiah Johnson. Just kidding...sort of.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."
I am male but I don’t actually over emotionally depend on my wife, I am just a loner (I lost my interest in friends before I met my wife). My preference for time with my wife is about 30 minutes a day and my daughter about 2 hours a day. I’ll happily spend more than that but my preference would be a book or software project. The problem is that I won’t have a good support network in my old age though.
I fit into your group of males in a stable relationship with no friends beyond that. But I'm an introspective sort of person and I find it more interesting to interact with random strangers on the Internet than I ever would with a friend who I already knew everything about. I'd probably run out of anything to say to any particular person after a while that isn't repetitive.
That doesn't mean I'm going to get sucked into to some kind of tribe like a political party or a religion. Or maybe it's just as accurate to say I already got sucked into a scientific outlook and scepticism at a young age and now find it impossible to escape.
I agree with everything you wrote except that you seem to be implying this is a male thing, when it is equally common for a woman to drop her friends once she is in a stable relationship and to become dependent on her partner for all social interaction (the suddenly codependent girlfriend is something almost all men experience at some point when dating). Later in life it sometimes manifests as an obsession with ones children at the expense of everything else. Suddenly all conversations are about the kids, etc. The phenomenon definitely applies equally to men and women.
It is not at all equally common, it is a known health risk for men that they are likely to have less social support than women, and it is one of the contributors to the very elevated mortality risk of becoming a widower compared to becoming a widow. Here’s a reference to a few older studies if you like - https://books.google.com/books?id=J3-78PdF83kC&pg=PA201&lpg=...
Social support and codependency are two different things. A codependent person will transfer their dependency to someone else. I was pointing out that codependent women drop their female friends just like some married men do.
Did your mum take a break from paid work for raising you? I think this is a large (not sole) contributor to the effect (certainly in the past) - that women would often be raising children at home and naturally fall in to socialising amongst each other through their shared situation. Men, then will often focus on work to make up for not being at home, and to ensure a good household income -- which can lead to being too tired to socialise, which quickly leads to losing friends.
Would be interesting to see some stats to see if this narrative hypothesis is born out; do married/monogamously partnered men who become sole breadwinner lose more friends than those in other situations.
You just made me take a long look at my current trajectory. Very thought provoking. Indeed, I can see a distinct split in the people in my life who are in group A (closed off, social life is family dependent) and those in group B.
What precisely bothers you? That he changed his politics or that he's lost his friends? I'm not sure these are that related. I moved when I married and though I see fewer friends now and have fewer locally, those I would have here are far closer to the political spectrum you don't seem to like, as it is the case for many city dwellers who move out to the burbs for more space and cheaper housing.
In your father's case it might be because he has no other emotional outlet. But as a male with a decent social life I still don't feel comfortable making my friends an emotional outlet. I'd rather not talk to them about things that are frustrating me or making me feel stressed. So my significant other still gets the brunt of that.
In fact most of my male friends also don't get too deep in discussing their feelings. So it might not just be a lack of friendship, but a deeper problem which is men having a hard time discussing their emotions with others.
There is talking about being angry primary with wife and then there is not talking much except seemingly random outburst of anger or other unpleasantness. I think that parent talked about the latter, when you are annoying and mean without talking about why, but expect other people to be nice to you because you feel bad.
> I think that parent talked about the latter, when you are annoying and mean without talking about why, but expect other people to be nice to you because you feel bad.
Correct. My dad is not angry with my mom or any particular person. He just gets cranky and grumpy if my mom doesn't socialize him.
My suggested antidote is involvement in civic groups. Neighborhood associations, block watch/civilian patrols, volunteer fire dept., Lion's club, Rotary club, Library board, school board, etc. These are very productive channels for adult male socializing, because they provide a healthy pretense to satisfy the masculine desire to be useful and important to the community, without ostensibly showing the need social bonds which many men might feel shows weakness.
What emotions, though? He just sounds like an angry person. I am sure dealing with that is a burden on your mom, but an angry person is going to be a burden no matter how many friends they have.
Few people are simply angry. There’s usually some strong emotional attachment to something. All emotions have a root cause. Having a way to process and ultimately let go of such negative attachments is crucial to overcoming things like chronic anger. Therapy/meds are valid options.
I would like to do activities and meet new people and have social life, but what will you choose - spending time with your kids or social life? I can't go for beer or travel or whatever while holding hand of toddler.
But people without children really have no excuse.
edit: to make things even worse if i go somewhere by myself with child, all i see are groups/cults of mothers discussing parenting stuff, it's very rare to see men, they are too busy working and it's very unlikely to make non romantic female friend
I don't know where you live, but in my town it's very common to bring children to have a beer. The local brewery even has complimentary diapers in the mens bathroom. I count myself lucky to have that as an option, but even if I didn't I would see if friends wanted to go down to the waterfront to have a beer and let my kiddo run around happy as can be.
Travel is certainly more difficult than it used to be, but I've found that the types of trips I used to turn my nose up at (all-inclusive resort-ish) are appealing in a completely new way. We can put the toddler down to bed, set up a baby monitor, and go down and enjoy ourselves like we're actually adults, often meeting new folks.
i think it's completely unheard in many European countries, you have family restaurants but that's not place to hang out with other and man looking after children it's still very rare
Society gives adults little time to themselves. Most of your adult, waking hours are at work. But it’s imperative to keep some distance between work and personal life. So a large majority of your adult life is blocked out from genuine social connections.
Our days and hours are very scarce resources...almost all taken from us. I think the Spanish accommodated this by decreasing their daily work hours. If the US did that the US would employ more people, more meaningfully, and benefit from increased social “health”.
I barely hang out with friends anymore; I do see it as a problem, but the punchline of the article rings true to me (first night both men are available is in 3 months).
For a while I would make friends with people in their early 20s, as that was the age group that would be randomly free after my kids were in bed. I'm approaching 40 now though and am not sure how socially acceptable this still is...
I'm male and in a long term stable relationship and my true friends are just as important to me as they ever were. They are like family to me.
On the flip side my girlfriend has decided she suddenly no longer has much interest in hanging out with her friends, which is concerning. I have solitary hobbies I enjoy, and I can't fill the gap that her friends have left.
I don't think that's gender related, though I don't have data to confirm this, only an anecdote. In my relationship it's the other way round - I'm usually the one responsible for organizing dinner with friends, nights out, trips etc. and my girlfriend can happily spend weeks at home without going out.
This is obviously a concern, but I think personality has a lot to do with it.
I haven't made new 'friends' because I just don't want more of a social life. I am a pretty strong introvert; I am loud and friendly and boisterous, but spending time with people tires me out.
During the week, I get up at 6am, spend time with my daughter while I get her ready for daycare. Then, I go to work, where I am talking and laughing and having fun with coworkers all day while I work. Then, I come home, picking up my daughter on the way home. We go for a walk, she tells me all sorts of stuff, and then I make dinner while my wife watches her. We eat, get our daughter to bed, and by then it is around 8pm or so. At this point I am tired, and just want to relax, maybe read or watch TV a bit, chat with my wife, and go to sleep. There is no way I would have the energy or time to socialize on weeknights; I am all socialed out from work. The few times we do have plans during the week, I dread it because I know how tired and unsocial I am going to feel.
On the weekends, I am spending time with my daughter and wife. In the morning, I will make us breakfast and we will either play outside or go for a hike. We then take her home for a nap, and we do chores around the house. I always feel like there is not enough time on the weekend to get everything done.
I have a few close friends who live far away; we all play video games together once a week. I chat with my family, and between my nieces and nephews on both sides, there are a lot of video chats to have.
How is this a bad thing? Why do I NEED more friends than what I have? I am not sure what more 'emotional support' I need; I am a super happy person, always optimistic, and my wife is there for me when I need her (which isn't super often). I also can talk to my parents and sister if I needed more emotional support, or my two close friends if they weren't around.
I don't think your dad's issue is lack of relationships, he just sounds like he is an angry person. Is he retired? Being retired is a WHOLE different dynamic.
In fact, the biggest thing I feel I am lacking is ALONE time to work on hobbies. Before I got married and had a kid, I had all sorts of fun hobbies I did; I built airplanes and helicopters, I built robots, programmed games for fun. I like building and designing stuff, alone in my workshop, but I don't have enough time now to do it very often. This is a fine sacrifice to make, because I love my family and want to spend time with them, but it isn't like I am sitting somewhere lonely.
I am curious, however, if there is something you think I am missing by not having more friends. I certainly can't see it, because the idea of having more friends that I have to visit and see just makes me feel tired even thinking about it.
That sounds like a really nice life honestly, and it sounds like if you need any emotional support you get it from your family or your few close friends. Some people need more than that, whether they realize it or not, though.
I can't say what you need, I don't know you. Maybe you could ask your wife if she thinks you need more friends? If she says something like "eh? Why?" then you're probably fine. But if you get a long pause and then, "Well, it wouldn't hurt..." then maybe you should ask her more questions.
I’d suggest you’re doing fine as you are. But I would also suggest making the time to talk to a therapist once a quarter or year, at least. Just so you’re not tempted to rely on your daughter or wife for emotional support that would be easier handled by a friend or therapist. Outside viewpoints help infinitely more than very close associations for many sorts of issues.
Lots of supportive replies to this post, but I'm going to take a different tack - I think you may have pretty badly mis-diagnosed what's going on there.
Firstly, getting more conservative as you get older is normal. And having fewer friends as you get older is normal. There are even jokes about it. You are trying to link the changes in your fathers politics to not having many friends, but you haven't argued why there's a causation vs just being a correlation.
I strongly suspect from your wording that this is because you can't accept that your fathers new politics might have any substance to it. You certainly don't sound like you try to understand why he's angry: you described him as changing from "open minded" (good, positive, liberal) to "recites stuff he heard on TV" (bad, closed minded, conservative). Maybe he feels angry because when he tries to explain how he sees the world and what concerns him, his daughter dismisses him and looks down on him? That'd make any parent kind of upset.
Secondly, you seem to be implying that men over-rely on women for emotional support. Perhaps that's been your experience. As a man, in every relationship I've ever been in, the woman has heavily relied on me for emotional support. This is especially true when in a stable relationship. If anything, girlfriends seem to cause more emotional needs than they solve - a non-trivial amount of emotional support needs that come my way seem to boil down to dramas or blowups between girlfriends.
Finally, I'm not sure men see "no need for a social life" once they get in a relationship. That's a very odd belief. One sad reality is that once a man gets in a stable relationship, women tend to make it hard to sustain relationships with anyone else, whether men or women. This is a pattern I've seen over and over again. I don't think it's really planned or deliberate but it happens. The first to go are obviously any female friends. Many women can't handle their man having close female friends especially if they're single or might become so. But it's pretty common for women to disapprove of male friends too, or to get upset if the man spends too much time out drinking with his buddies instead of spending it with her. The inevitable result is that the man has to pick: friends or girlfriend.
Anyway. If you really want to rebuild your relationship with your father, I suggest a two pronged approach:
1) LISTEN to him when he talks about politics and even engage with him. Don't attack him or make it clear that you feel your own politics are morally and intellectually superior. Ask him why he feels guns are so important, try to see the world from his perspective. If he's always talking about things he heard on TV that implies those are the things that vex and concern him the most. You don't have to agree, but if he feels you're at least trying and can make peace with that, it'll help.
2) Stop trying to find explanations for the way he's changing, especially dubious correlation/causation mixups that boil down to sexist generalisations. People do change as they get older. Moreover the world changes, and young people who have a less fixed identity are often more willing to bend to fit whatever way the wind seems to be blowing. If someone's personality or beliefs don't change with time, that can look to a younger person as if the person's personality has changed when from their perspective it's actually the world that's changing and they stayed the same i.e. what you see as "open mindedness" is in reality just a willingness to accept whatever odd new modern idea comes along, even ideas that seem self-evidently nonsensical to your father.
Is it possible to have a discussion about anything without someone bringing politics to it?
> He's my dad and I love him, but needless to say, when I see my partners going down the same path, it freaks me out.
Your dad is your partner?
> It seems impossible to have normal, non-political conversations with him anymore, he just doesn't have any knowledge or interest that doesn't come from TV.
And here you are doing the same thing. How about not making everything political? Things are toxic as it is. Do you need to bring toxic politics to HN?
Yeah, by 30 you probably have a partner, kids, and a high pressure job that you started after you got the kids (so you've never spent much time socializing with your current peers). You have no energy left for socialising and building/maintaining friendships.
Same. I had friends, but I don't have time for them and frankly my quality of life isn't suffering yet. I suppose this is something I might regret when I'm 60, but for now I can't be bothered.
You probably will regret it much earlier than that but from the sound of it you made up your mind for now. Many friends fell into such a deep pit when their kids moved out or something else disturbed their life. Old friends aint coming back and new real friends are hard to make for most after 30. Then again, everyone is different so maybe you will not have that issue.
I have never had a particularly hard time making friends. Then again most of my close friends are in their 60s or 70s now, so they won't be there for me in my 60s no matter how much energy I devote to maintaining the friendship.
That's interesting. I'm a parent of 3yrs old boy, and can't force myself to start chit-chatting with other parents during e.g. parent-teacher meetings at his kindergarten. Maybe that's because I've decided to setup a family earlier than my colleagues and now I'm surrounded by parents who are ~ 5 years (at least) older than me.
Anecdotal but, I'm 36 and I made the most friends I have ever made in my life in the last two years. From doing the conference/retreat circuit to, surprisingly, the festival circuit (Burning Man, Gratitude Migration, etc.) I've made a lot of close, real, amazing friends
Similar reality (most of my friends since 30, I'm 35 now), very different origins.
I changed a lot as a person after 30 - I moved to the bay area for one thing. I also transitioned... which let me meet other women in more feminine contexts (IE, fans of a clothing brand).
I also met a lot of people who became friends through dating.
Almost all of my friends that I see regularly I met in the last 5 years or so.
Yeah, I don't think this is exactly rocket science. I'm a pretty introverted and socially anxious person normally (so I don't like hanging out at random parties or talking to complete strangers or whatever) but I've made quite a lot of new friends consistently year over year. All it takes is putting in a bit of effort to do it. Engage in a few activities now and then, keep in touch with people, organize a thing once in a while. It turns out you can make lots of friends via friends of friends, coworkers, people you meet through various activities, etc.
If you put no effort into it of course nobody is just going to randomly insert themselves into your life. And as you get older you don't have those common experiences of intermingling with lots of other people of similar ages or demographic backgrounds due to school, growing up, and so on. So put a little effort into it.
I feel like I'm in the same boat. I got a holiday work visa and lived in Australia when I was 29, and New Zealand until I was 32. For the past decade, I've never lived in the same city for more than three years.
Meetup.com, swing dancing, reddit meetups, board game nights, spoken word poetry, comedy open mics, theater, contra dancing are just a couple of the things I try to get involved in (I get burnt out on a few and rotate hobbies; dropping in and out of scenes).
It usually takes me about a year to a year and a half to make a solid group of friends in a city, but the friends I've made, I've kept in touch with all around the world. Going back to my home town was amazing too, even though so many people I knew had moved on. I wrote some blog posts about being nomadic:
I an 43 and met my current best friend circle after 30 and 2 of them after 40. My highschool friends just did not click anymore and I do like long conversations about tech, so I find people that like that as well and make quite deep friendships that last a long time.
Right. I feel like I changed into a whole new person, and all my old friends decided to stay the same. Which is fine, but they aren't people I want to spend lots of time with anymore.
I know a bunch of people who don't make many new friends and this has many reasons.
People get families. They have time for other people after the kids are done. Depending on the time they got the kids this can take till they are mid 40.
People met a whole bunch of people till they got 30 and decided that they only need the 2-5 best who are left in the end.
People have a career that eats most of their time and they want to invest the rest of this time into their relationship and not general friendships.
In general I have the feeling many people are more focused after 30. Mostly on romantic relationships.
Most new people I added to my "friends" in the last 3 years were love interests. Since I'm polyamorous, this isn't much of an issue for me, but I can imagine this to be an issue for monogamous people. They get a partner and that's it. The people they meet after 30 who are willing to share much of their time are singles searching for a partner, so if you already got one, you're not of interest.
I've "lost" double digit friends in the last 5 years alone (they are still my friends technically, just don't talk or hang out nearly as often anymore). Looking back I notice that my parents also had a dramatic decline in friends after a certain age so it may be a common thing.
A theory of mine is that big families were once a thing because it was a way to have built in friends well after 30. When you have 5 adult kids and many grand kids I imagine you never feel like you don't have a lot of friends as the large family serves as a proxy for that kind of companionship.
That being said I wonder how social media will impact this. The majority of my ex friends still follow me, and I talk to many of them multiple times a week via group text.
I've had the problem at a few different times in my life that, whenever I actually suggested to guy friends that we hang out, they interpreted it as a pass and thought I was gay. I'm not making this up at all. I think part of the problem is not just the way that priorities change as we get older but the fact that the US seems to have an extremely closed-off and anxiety-ridden culture to begin with. Maybe, in a sense, people here have too much personal space and just aren't good at being around each other?
I think this is a uniquely Anglo cultural thing, in the backdrop of a stricter gender norms formed out of industrialization. Everybody is so afraid of being seen as gay while maintaining a front of being politically correct about it (I suppose there is genuine fear of being publicly labelled a homophobe or a racist).
In almost all parts of the world, there's nothing wrong with grown men hanging out or grabbing drinks to share trial and tribulations of life.
Perversely, in some very homophobic cultures, men hold hands with men because they are so homophobic that there is not even an insinuation that they might be willing to publicly show homosexual inclinations, so handholding is assumed platonic.
Yes, this is common for Arab men -- when I was in Sudan men (even middle aged and older men) held hands walking down the street. To a westerner it just looks very odd, but it's normal for them.
However, I think your (gowld's) comment transfers a lot of cultural baggage and sexual-orientation lingo from western culture in a way that I think is quite rude. Those Sudanese guys weren't holding hands "peversely, because they're so homophobic", they're doing that because that's how they've grown up and it's a totally normal thing for male friends to do over there.
I've noticed this when traveling in other countries or when dealing with people from outside of the US. I think that's why the majority of my friends in college were exchange students.
I didn't want to be the first to say it, but it does feel very inappropriate and gay to ask another straight man that I barely know to hang out one-on-one.
Which means that you need to meet potential friends through and with a group which makes it a lot more difficult.
That's a common form of homo-phobia (phobia as in fear, not as in hate). It's the attitude I see in people insecure about their own sexuality, who see a problem where there is none.
Giving it another name ("homophobia", "insecure about their own sexuality") does not make the issue go away for the people who suffer from it.
You don't magically grow more confident about your sexuality (or your whatever) by hearing that you are insecure about it. Or at least, I don't know how.
I can also relate to the awkwardness of asking someone to hang out one-on-one. It isn't necessarily borne out of sexual insecurity, but rather out of social awkwardness.
Well, I wouldn't invite a woman I barely knew to meet with me one-on-one unless I was trying to signal sexual interest to her. So I guess my brain is somehow trying to be consistent?
I can see "hey, let's hang out" in the generic form might be considered a bit odd and like a pass.
"Man, today was rough." ... "Yeah, same here. Want to grab a drink at the Kings Head this evening?"
I don't know anyone who would interpret the latter form as a pass. Because there's some justification, no matter how thin, and it's a concrete proposal to do something specific.
One of the guys I met in a bar at a language exchange (good places to meet other hetero guys btw) even joked about this when one of my other friends came over ("Hey we just met each other but both agree she's really hot (pointing to a girl) so we're going to hang out, and go find girls."). It was cool because we ended up with a group of decent guys to hit the town with.
Someone else mentions homophobia. It's not homophobia, just making sure you're on the same page.
Actually, I've got to say, while there are guys to steer clear of, I made a few decent male friends gaming (as in "the game"). It's worth checking out (if you're prepared to work on yourself if you need to) since you'll meet a lot of guys working on themselves or with decent attitudes (just avoid the ones you don't like).
I have never be able to make [close] friends, especially same-sex friends. It bothered me when I was younger, but not much anymore (I'm 35 now). I get enough social interaction at work, my spouse is very close friend of mine, and kids and hobbies keep me busy.
Only on occasions like wedding, name giving parties etc. having no friends bothers me little but I've three siblings.
It's interesting that the recommendation to make friends in hobbies haven't worked for me neither. I guess there's something in my personality which makes it hard, regardless of the situation. It's relatively easy for me to get along with people, but really difficult to convert the relationship from acquaintance to true friendship.
It took a long time for me as well. Kickboxing/crossfit didn't work. Volunteering at a local historic motor racing event every summer since 2010 didn't work (I like the guys, but they're acquaintances, not friends). It wasn't until I got hardcore into going to metal/rock concerts and festivals, and got into pen'n'paper roleplaying that it finally clicked for me, and I started making friends again.
>I have never be able to make [close] friends, especially same-sex friends
I hear this a lot from women and their inability to make friends with other women. More commonly, most of their males friends were just "hovering" around them as nice guys hoping to eventually score a chance with them. But when these token women try making friends with the same gender, those other women are naturally less attentive because they don't have the same romantic inclination as those "nice guys"
I've just recently moved countries, and I've found that it's really difficult to actually meet people and make new friends, regardless of age. All my friends are also expats/immigrants.
I don't like spending too much time around tech people, since I do that for 8 hours a day, so tech meetups are out of the question. I went to the hiking club, but the average age is like 50. Nightclubs just aren't the place to find friends.
Generally, after school or university, people's circle of friends is fairly set.
The problem is that after university, we have a lot less free time, and there's a lot less opportunity to meet people from different backgrounds and walks of life. Clubs are meetups are great for meeting people with similar interests, but not so great for broadening your horizons. A lot of the things I'm interested in now I never would've done if it wasn't for meeting random people at university.
I guess immigrants have it bit harder because you come from a different culture/language/race so connecting with natives is a bit hard and then you end up connecting with other immigrants.
I'd advise people to join a Crossfit gym. Besides (in my opinion) being a physically and by extension mentally healthy endeavor, you easily meet and spend time with a group of adults of various ages going through the same challenge of the group workouts along side you on a daily basis.
Often times you partner up on workouts, or at the very least talk over what the day's workout is. Many gyms organize both competitive (friendly) workout competitions (with other nearby gyms also) as well as social events with members.
The nature of group physical exertion (high physical stress) provides a low social stress environment to make casual acquaintances many of which can become close friends.
I see many in the comments lamenting the practical inability to strike up random conversations with strangers they encounter throughout the day. In the gym setting it is very easy to ease into these types of interactions when desired.. Over time without even trying you become pretty close with the trainers and members just by nature of being around them often, working together so to speak towards a common goal.
This is also a great way as a couple to make friends. You join together, and right from the start you're not on your own.. and often times there are other couples attending classes as well.
I've always thought it'd be a great thing to have an app or service that acts as a "lobby" of sorts to pair you with like-skilled folks for workouts, pickup sports, runs, etc. For instance, if I run an 11 minute 30 second mile, I'd love to be paired with someone who also runs that time, so I can enjoy the activity with someone without them getting mad that I can't run a 7 minute mile. It's a feature of online gaming matchmaking that I think could work well in the real world.
It doesn't have to be just Crossfit. Earnestly asking for advice from gym veterans (regular gyms, no programs involved) can also open you up to new friendships.
Coming from a mediterranean country, many of the points that other comments raise as problems for meeting people past 30 are not so pronounce.
Is not that it isn't harder to meet people and make strong bonds, but its common for men in their 40s and 50s to play Football, hang out with their colleagues for a drink after work, meeting friends of friends, etc.
Generally speaking I feel like social ties are much stronger there, so it may be worth to take a look at how people behave in other places when addressing these topics.
When you were younger you probably made friends because you were all in school/college/university together. Some people make friends at work for the same reason (I've never really understood this though. After seeing them for 8 hours or so the last thing I want to do is spend time with them outside of work.) Where else can you go where people are gathered where friendships are likely to be created? Church/mosque/synagoge/temple/etc. was the typical answer for thousands of years. Maybe a service club like Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary? Though I typically think of those belonging to those kinds of clubs as being old men. Maybe there is somewhere else you could volunteer where you might meet like-minded people?
I realized profound joy when I realized that an above-average number of the parents at the [non-mainstream sport] studio to which I take one of my kids were people who shared a _lot_ of my nerdy-interests. It was one of those rare "I've found my people!" moments.
And? What ARE you interested in? Books, board games, video games, anime? There are about a zillion conventions, regularly meeting local groups (basically everywhere), and other ways to interact for enthusiasts of those things.
Meetup.com often covers this as an activity, though your results may vary. Best to find someone likeminded over a niche meetup, befriend them then have drinks after that.
therapists/psychiatrists can't really "cure" depression in most cases; they can only blunt some of the worst symptoms with drugs or teach coping skills. this often plays out over the course of years. in the mean time, depressed people might want to make friendships that they can realistically maintain. this probably does not include friendships that depend on mutual participation in activities for which the person has no genuine interest.
That’s not true, not entirely. There is a variety of approaches here, but one typical approach is for psychiatrist to blunt the symptoms with drugs, just enough so that you can get yourself together and commit to seeing a psychotherapist.
Read the first two chapters from the “Feeling good” book by David Burns to get an idea of what a competent (!) therapist can do.
I've always found that being in a serious/stable relationship tends to slowly cut people off over time. I honestly like being single in my mid-30's because there's always a little kick in the pants to get out and socialize that my married friends don't have.
Every time I end up in a stable live-in relationship (and I've seen this happen to a lot of my friends as well), the idea of going out and seeing/making friends more than once a week feels more and more unnecessary over time. It's so much easier to cook dinner and watch Netflix rather than get dressed and be on the prowl (both for romantic relationships and interesting people to hang out with).
On one hand I share your feeling about being on the prowl for new people, on the other hand when I go out alone, my favorite thing is to meet and get a taste of people’s life. And then everyone reminds me how much I can’t wait to come home to my partner who is just better than everyone else in this world. I wonder if I’ll be able to make new close friends and not just superficially socialize now that I have someone that just gets me.
I also really wish I could meet older people (I’m in my mid twenties and think 40 to 60) but I don’t know how to proceed. I do from time to time with my in laws friends but how to find people that age genuinely on my own ...
I had the opposite problem using meetup.com in the suburbs to meet young people like myself. For example, I would go to salsa or swing dancing meet-ups and all of the people would be couples in your 40 to 60 range. So maybe try that?
Just curious, why exactly do you want to meet people twice your age?
For many reasons I often hung out with people much older than me. I am the only one of my age range in my family so I guess I was always surrounded by adults. I am appalled by calm diners more than bars. Also I like questioning people's experience, and I'm currently in a place where I have many questions about later life and I don't have a sufficient sample of people similar to me, just older, to talk about that sort of stuff.
I just really enjoy the interactions I have with older adults...
As a married guy I have to say: That “prowl” sucks! I’m so glad to be in a long-term relationship because the time and money commitment of going out and putting foot to pavement was a huge drain—something I won’t miss ever.
I wonder how much the current concept of a "friend" is the by product of 20th century media. Much like adolescence was not what we know it as before mid-20th century, I can't help but feel that the role of friend (especially adult friend) was largely shaped by sitcoms. I think the expectation that you would have adult friends ala Friends (the show) is largely manufactured and giving people false expectations.
My shot: Once I had a family with wonderful little kids I understood what 'quality time' really is. As much I enjoyed being with my friends or even ex-girl-friends: If I think back of what we did together (getting wasted, so-so vacations, mediocre dinner parties, boring talks at coffee shops) it's so much better now.
It's funny: I am very often invited to dinner parties (private and business ones). Every single time, I just don't want to go. Not because I am anti-social, not at all, it's just that I enjoy time with my family so much more—they are my friends.
Activity friends are key, but that requires activities.
The traditional networks around things like churches, rotary, clubs, chambers of commerce, masonry, hunt camps, golf, sailing, and political parties still exist and are open to members. They do require a level of sincerity and self acceptance that is perhaps outside the comfort zones of many younger people, but arguably so do friendships.
Friendships for men in particular are fraught in the best of circumstances, but it's an extra challenge to live in a city and become someone other men respect enough to keep around over the long term.
Maybe it helps, but I've built compatipal.com for exactly this reason. Describe yourself with short attributes (tags), say "JustinBieber" and "Slipknot"... then find others with an interesting combination of tags in your proximity and contact them, or let others find you. You have to think a little about what tag combination describes you best.
The main problems I faced were: Where do you find people when you spend 95% of your time at home/work? And: I believe part of the reason, why I don't want to talk to just anybody I meet on the street is not because I'm an introvert, but rather because it's highly inefficient to talk to hundreds of people and spend hours of awkward conversation just to maybe find one that I can get along with.
If you want, you can enter your mail and 2 tags, it's free (just use your spam email adress if you don't trust me... just make sure, that somebody interested can contact you). The vision is to someday find your true soulmate(s) with a few clicks.
I'd probably just add to all the good answers here that there also might be a lacking of knowledge around friendship. What good friendship is and takes.
I'm just speculating that abundance, city life plus the internet has taken a toll on social skills in recent times.
And another point, as someone has said somewhere else in here, "friendship" could have just been perpetuated by sitcoms. Probably what is more important is just a community where you see the same faces more often and friendship would generally just be a natural byproduct of that given enough time.
I've been amazed at how unfriendly neighbours are in the same building with multiple rented apartments. Literally the only interactions I've had with neighbours over the last 3 years is when they finally overcome their disinclination to interact to come, furious, to the door to ask that some music or TV program be turned down. I always smile and say hello to the people living in the same building, and at least 70% of the time that is met with looking in the other direction. (East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area).
I noticed this behavior as well here in vancouver. It's like an unwritten rule that you need to not interact with your apartment neighbors.
I always suspected being house poor has to do something with it. One time I overheard a neighbor who was complaining on the phone about how debt ridden she was. I guess when you are barely scraping you don't have any emotional space to acknowledge people.
I suspect it's worse for senior citizens as well...
I found it is a middle class thing. Most poor areas i lived in, neighbors banded together. Similar with the affluent crowd. The middle are usually more busy and stressed and take their stress out on those around them. Family, coworkers, neighbors.
I think the idea is that people don't always want personal connections with other people they're going to be forced to see on a regular basis (and live next to). Your anecdote about neighbors angrily banging on your door to tell you to turn down the tv is an example of that. If they were your friends they may have been socially obligated to either suffer through the noise or come over and hang out. After a long day of work you may feel like neither of those things. It's sort of similar to why a lot of people don't like dating co-workers. If it goes south, you'll still have to see and work with this person every day. A lot of people would probably prefer to compartmentalize those they live next to and those they hang out with.
It's just odd to me as I grew up on a street (privately owned houses) in which everyone knew everyone else and many pairs of house owners would be on terms which would involve random conversations in the street, helping out when people are away (pets, plants, burglary precautions), maybe even dinner invitations and babysitting. And yet these people also saw each other every day, indeed since they were house owners, they were much more shackled together than people in rented accomodation.
So it doesn't seem like it's the shackled-together aspect that causes the unfriendliness. On the contrary, a model which fits better is that people are inherently antisocial and unfriendly, and find that with rented accommodation they can get away with it.
Different era. I grew up in a similar environment: everyone on my street was as white as me, had simular socioeconomic backgrounds and interests, and like my family lived there forever. Much easier to bond with and know your neighbors.
Contrast with today: Until a recent move to the suburbs, I have had very little in common with my any of my neighbors except for the fact that we are all seemingly perpetually transient. I still don’t have much in common with my current neighbors but living here for a whopping 3 years straight has given me the chance to reach out and get to know them.
> On the contrary, a model which fits better is that people are inherently antisocial and unfriendly, and find that with rented accommodation they can get away with it.
I think you’re right. The homeowners are probably aware that they’re locked into their neighbors for a very long time so building relationships makes more sense than the more transient renters.
Weird, here in Indianapolis it can be rude not to say hello to neighbors & strangers and acknowledgment is about 100%. Still can't wait to leave though.
I think headlines like this are very dangerous. You are either a socially outgoing person or you're not.
For people who aren't, this confirms their lack of social life as 'a problem'. This isn't helpful to them on so many levels.
You make friends and grow your social circle by having a common interest with people. This could be knitting, cars, pacman...it doesn't matter, it's just a common bond and a language you speak. Meeting in real life is essential though. Online acquaintances aren't 'friends'....
I think life just gets more complicated. Folks spread out. Work responsibilities grow. You have to prioritize time with your spouse. You have kids and their schedules to work around.
My friends aren't the only thing I don't have time for. There are seemingly a million things I once was enthusiastic about that don't make the cut.
One thing I noticed in the alumni base of a club I was involved in university is that participation drops to near-zero for the folks who are in their mid-30s through early-50s. Then it starts to pick up again. It's that time of having pre-adolescent kids where life seems to really detach people from their old social circles, but some reemerge once their last kid becomes a teenager.
I just had my first kid and moved to the suburbs, and I can already tell my physical connections with folks have dropped considerably.
Nobody has said amygdala yet so I will. There. It's out there. If you're under 25, you don't have a fully formed amygdala, and you're open and receptive to rash ideas. Diving off the roof of a house into the pool. riding on the back of utility trucks with no seat. Drinking scotch from the bottle. Forming friends. Then you grow up.
Yeah there's something that happens to our brains once we enter an age where we are supposed to be rearing offsprings.
But I also suspect a strong socioeconomic factor as well. When you are no longer in university and in the work force or even a family of your own it changes priorities a lot.
... once we enter an age where we are supposed to be rearing offsprings.
That's the idea, evolutionarily? Do you have sources for that? Not that it wouldn't make sense, but if our ancestors had kids as soon as they could then their offspring would have already been teenagers by the time their amygdala matured. I'd like to learn more.
There is going to be the personality type in here (see: me), that almost goes about friendships (subconsciously) like they do hobbies / new interests. You enjoy time with them, and then maybe after some time you sorta burn out.
But also.. there are people you meet (in the past ~4 years it's been IRC buddies) and it connects extra well. Maybe they're people you really respect (I'm introspecting), and maybe you realize your _other_ friends were just filling some loneliness-void without a real foundation in what could be a nice friendship.
Or maybe you're just bad at maintaining most friendships.
I would be interested in hearing what other's think about this from an economic theory viewpoint. As others mentioned in this discussion
friendship = time x struggle
Time, for everyone, is the ultimate "limited resource". As a kid, time seems an unlimited resource. As you get older it becomes more and more limited - both daily and in absolute quantity.
My situation. At 50 with my daughter off at school, and my wife working/living a thousand miles away, I realized that many of my "new" friends were coupled to my daughter and my wife. I didn't have my own friends locally - most were concentrated in my hometown. I was lonely but really didn't know it.
I go to the gym every day and often take group fitness classes. At some point a woman showed up in the class who had just moved back after being away a couple years. She and I became close friends and she introduced me to several of her close friends. Now I find myself with a very intimate social network and feel blessed beyond measure. Our is very much a "time x struggle" closeness - much time together and much of it working out and, when not working out, sharing our personal struggles.
My advice to anyone who suspects at some level that they are lonely is that you're probably right. But the world is full of kind, loving, trusting people - seek them out!
I find myself in this boat as we speak, and I'm not even 30. I certainly have plenty of acquaintances at work and at the hobbies and activities I participate in, and we do some group things every few months. I also have several close friends who I chat with every day online who don't live near me anymore. However, I have 0 real friends who I interact with IRL. If you asked me who I would call if I was having an emergency and needed help, who I could share sensitive things with IRL, or who I could call up and ask randomly to grab a beer with me, I would have no names to give you. That includes the person I'm in "a relationship" with who also feels more like an acquaintance to me as we hang out once every few weeks for a few hours and otherwise barely talk. As a result, I spend most of my weekends just sitting alone working or trying to entertain myself with content.
I'm not really sure how to proceed, as every time I expend a bunch of effort and push myself out of the acquaintance stage, that person leaves town for work and I am stuck right back where I was. It's a large enough problem as to where I've considered moving to places less advantageous career wise just because they are less transient.
Have you thought about joining a gym? Are you actively seeking out friendships or befriending people in there 20's? Have you tried connecting with people in there 40's, 50's?
Personally I think that the world `friend` have been de-valued to the point used interchangeably with acquaintance. Also the modern social `self help` book's that mostly recommend venting people from ones life that are too needy or selfish and to surround yourself with only positive people who only want you to succeed have accumulated in a situation where people to people contact is very limtted and when it is its normally criticized and scrutinized for its merit.
The other end of the stick that I do like waggling is why do you think you need a friend? Are you soo focused on `friend` that you're not looking after yourself first? Maybe you're focused on friend because it takes the spotlight off yourself as the arbiter of your own life? Hell you may have not been successful because you didn't have a friend!
Focus on yourself, put boundaries around your life. Get a good night sleep, and focus on being better than you used to be yesterday. Expand your social/business circles and Friends will follow in a healthy productive way.
I too am in this position. I do not have one friend in this world I can count on, only family members. And the way things are going, this is how it may be forever.
And if I didn’t have family, and was just some orphan in the world, who knows what I might do. Probably turn to a life of white collar crime at some point.
Might be the new reality that everyone needs to be nomadic to survive. My parents had lots of friends, likely because they were financially able to put their roots down in a community. I’ve pretty much been unable to live in the same city for more than 3-4 years or so, at least not since better economic times. From jobs disappearing/moving to cost of living forcing a move, us younger folks don’t have the security of knowing where we will be in 5 years, which makes it harder to make friends and acquaintances.
Eh, you and I are probably in the same boat (semi-regular job hopping for raises) and I think at some point you just stop caring as much about maximizing salary. I know my parents could have made more if they lived elsewhere when I was growing up, but they chose to stay because they had family and (later) because they wanted me/siblings to have a stable childhood. Personally I'm hoping to find a "good enough" job in a city with a largish tech community once I have kids, even if I might be able to make 30% more elsewhere after a few years
Going through my own such experience, at the ripe age of 32.
Throughout life I had a strong core group of friends. Moved to the city to get a proper job, and grew my social circle. Between my late 20s and today, I've seen my friends move away for various reasons (growing family, can't afford the city, relationships, etc.), and myself having my days taken over by having a baby boy -- which I enjoy every last bit.
It's been an adjustment. Getting used to the idea of having to sit at home most nights because your partner is out (and thus, you need to watch the baby), or simply being too exhausted from work/parenting/life to get back out of the house after you've put the little one down.
Having my own child, combined with my friends growing in various ways as seen my social circle crumble. All in a mere two years. It's actually been a bit shell-shocking!
There's light at the end of the tunnel. I've grown adjusted to my "new normal", and am finding new ways to create new relationships, or re-connect with the old ones. I'm setting up board game nights with the dads I've met in the area, getting out a bit more now that the little one is a bit saner to manage (although we're thinking of a second .. !), and keeping in touch with old friends through online games and scheduling time to see them every few months.
I would implore anyone in a similar situation to not fall into the trap of thinking it's OK to be without friends. Short term, that seems reasonable ("I'm too busy with my kids and work .."), but long term, I can see that having serious effects on your personal life, and family.
I turn 36 in a week. I find it easy to make friends, but I've never been good at making the kind of friends I'd die for. There's a handful - less than five. Even that category, though, fades with time and distance.
This doesn't really bother me. I think relationships are probably more ephemeral than the zeitgeist would have you believe.
That's not a bad thing, or a good thing. Just an observation based on anecdotal experience.
"Your application is super interesting, but we don't have any openings right now" seems to be one factor. People have only so much "slots" for friends, and most people fill those slots in their teens and 20s.
36, recently moved to London and struggling to find friends, especially other techies.
I know people often recommend meetups, and I have attended a variety of those over the last year. The pattern I've noticed, especially on tech meetups, is that people show up in small groups with their existing friends or colleagues. If you come up and start a conversation, they mostly don't engage (bring up new topics, respond at length) - they just respond in a passive way to keep the minimum level of politeness, and wait until you realise they want to go back to talking with their friends. Starting a conversation with a stranger seems to be a rude thing to do, since you're making them uncomfortable.
The ones that do engage turn out to be non-tech (recruiters, marketers, people who want to start a tech career but don't know how), or people desperately looking for a job and thus checking if you can get them into anything.
What success I've had was:
- making friends at work (but for some reason it's always non-tech people - probably for the competition reason mentioned in the article - and it falls apart because they already have better friends they prioritise)
- starting a gaming group (but that had no followup - if I don't run a game, people don't invite me to their other things)
- making friends with a neighbour (an old lady open to friendship with anyone, that seems to have held up since she's retired and has lots of time)
At this point, I'm lost for ideas.
Google "London friends" or something, and you'll find people talking about how they're lonely and they'd like more friends. Seriously, where do those mythical lonely people exist?
I have found Randi Zuckerberg's quip that of [family, sleep, fitness, friends and work] you can focus on three at a time.
For me, it's family, work and fitness. If I have extra time, I use it for sleep.
Friends are critically important. They just aren't as important as family, work, fitness and sleep.
If I had more free time, I'd invest more in sleep than finding relationships.
It is hard to make friends. In some ways, we turn to online communities. Take for example HN. A great resource of intelligent knowledgeable people. But because the focus here is on high signal to noise postings, relationship building is not exactly encouraged. If there is one thing I'd like in a site like this, is a dual-mode. e.g. High-quality posts in the thread, but a side mode for chat.
I remember reading and commenting on this same article when it was posted a few years ago.
I agree with most of the comments posted here.
In a certain sense making friends is really very simple.
But, to paraphrase one of my favorite quotes, that does not mean that it is EASY.
It just requires CONSISTENTLY spending A LOT of time in a collegial atmosphere with someone. If you do that, assuming you have a few things in common and don't annoy the heck out of each other, you will inevitably become friends.
This is why people make such good friends in college or in the army.
But consistently spending a lot of time with someone you just met is not easy for most adults outside of a romantic relationship or a work thing.
It's the paradox of choice, we have so many activities going on and different options on ways to spend our time that we have a hard time being consistent with developing any one specific relationship.
Insisting on rapid emotional investment (in either direction) with new acquaintances, while not "wrong" per se, is equivalent to saying you'll only date people for whom you feel instant infatuation/"love at first sight".
It massively reduces your options. These things take work, practice, and time.
It is very interesting to read all these comments: I am trying to see why the 'social' networks aren't able to fill this gap of camaraderie (assuming that's what people are looking for when they say friendships).
What are we worried about? The public nature of discussions? Worry about putting yourself out there and getting digitally recorded for ever? Why aren't we able to have a tinder for friends as a successful service? Yeah I can build yet another one but I am trying to see where my employer and other competitors are failing. Is there a giant gap of being able to discover like minded people / enable rich experiences that these aren't filling?
FWIW from my side, I have had pretty deep / enriching discussions here / on reddit / stackoverflow etc. which have always been good enough. So I am probably not the right sample set to answer these :\
I don't know if anyone cares at this point, but I did google around and found an app called Patook that's for this: I didn't dig further than play around, but it is something others might want to check out! FYI.
I moved country when I was 21 for my first job, it was a complete culture shock to me and I didn't know anybody.
It is really hard to make friends even when you are young.
Living in shared apartment, playing sport you love, going for dance classes, etc. These activities definitely helps. It took me 1 year to finally crack the code.
I have somewhat similar experience. I shifted from a small town to a metro city for pursuing my undergraduate programme. I was alienated from the whole class for not being 'cool' or 'hip' enough to hangout with them. External biases made it really hard for me to make friends.
It took me time to get comfortable with who I am and what are my values. But still, I have an inferiority complex which hinders me to get along with anybody as the college experience still loops in my mind saying I am not enough.
I agree it takes consistent effort to develop new friendships well into adulthood (like any worthwhile relationship). For most, during childhood/adolescence/young adulthood it takes consistent effort to NOT develop friendships, the opportunities are often forced upon you.
Advise: If you are an adult who is struggling to find friendship and find yourself pushing away opportunities bc of (percieved) unequal interest: Resist your ego's crusade of misery.
If you've ever flaked on someone for a reason other than: you secretly hate them, or malicous disrespect... try calling an 11th time, maybe even a 15th(...apply discression here, and of course not in a row).
Relationships are not a zero sum game, don't wait for hubris to rationalize loneliness.
It is a relationship and like any relationships, it takes a ton of time and energy to nurture and grow. It won't be fair to the other person if I don't have one or other.
I have a family, a heavy cycling habit and a demanding job: I don't really have time to make and maintain serious friendships outside these activities. What friendships I have right now are from my single days - they hangout with us during various vacations/dinners etc. But new friendships are pretty much impossible because of a lack of time. If these old friends move away etc., then it is pretty much going to be hermit style after that :)
Boardgames are an excellent gateway drug into friendships. Some people you already know or meet love to play them once you get your initial party together, get enthusiastic about them, invite other people they know and before you know it you have a thriving community of people around you.
All that for not more than US$200 in games annually which is way less I spend in beer and much more effective. And boardgamers tend to be (but not exclusively are) on the geekier side of life so I have an easier connection to most people, shared interests or people do things that I think are really cool but never did etcetera.
I play in a regular board game night in SF (south of market), where I've met plenty of people. Being involved in various types of gaming for most of my life, and that has lead to multiple friendships in my life, and with online or networks of games/gaming clubs, I've travelled across the country and was able to see people I know in basically every city.
And I'm really not that good at being social. I'm rather introverted, really, but having a shared activity makes getting together a lot easier. If I click with someone friend wise I can always suggest we get lunch sometime.
I always associated friendship with the things we were doing togheter. E.g. in college my mates were friends because we could work on projects togheter while having some fun doing it. Without that they are just random nice people that I happened to know... There was never an urge to do more with them like drinking a beer or so. Am I weird?
One of the reasons it is hard to make friends as an adult is because the associate between sincerity and naivety grows stronger over time. The more you get burned or see people get burned, the more closed off you become to real interpersonal connection. This is the default behavior. Once you realize this though you can do something about it. Ultimately you have to be willing to be vulnerable, to stick your neck out in order to cross that barrier from 'associate' to friend
Friendships need presence and presence can be supported by hanging out and/or commitment. Ideally both but commonly by only one or the other.
Phases in life make hanging out easier in the early life and harder in midlife, then easier again when you're old. In turn, commitment usually depends on the particular individuals and not so much from the age.
The relationship between some friends you were hanging out with in your twenties might lack commitment and they tend to disappear as you grow older. Things were easy as long as you kept seeing each other anyway. Then again, some people you might see less frequently but you somehow know they'll always be there somehow when needed; that is commitment.
When you're middle-aged you don't generally have time to hang out. So you need to build on commitment instead: find people you actually care about and who actually care about you, and who can be relied on even if you can't see every month. Unfortunately, finding these people is a rarity. It's only slightly easier than finding a life-long spouse, and you probably can't expect to find more than a small handful during your life.
Friendships need to be intentionally nurtured but also sufficiently balanced. It's easy to find "friends" who you will listen to but who never have the time or patience to listen to you. Or "friends" who need you as an entertainer: they aren't interested in you in particular, they just long for company, any company. In this case you're giving more than your "friend", and you'll eventually grow grumpy about seeing the person. Averaged over the years, you should be getting back about as much as you put in the relationship yourself for a fruitful companionship. If it's always you who has to call and suggest something, you'll just be annoyed at some point. Both need to nurture, support, and invest in the relationship in roughly equal amounts on some, probably slightly relative, scale.
It's also harder to find friends in midlife because your bar has gone higher up. You've learned the value of just friends and good friends in all the rough seas of life, and you just won't bother with everyone who's nice. You realise that life is finite and it's often more valuable to do things on your own rather than in a company where you only connect on some levels.
The older you get, the clearer you see the end of the tunnel. You've heard the quip 'Life is too short'. Well, the work of making friends , of defining how much committment there is to a relationship, etc...is not worth it. Happiness is something only you can allow yourself to have. And once you realize this, who needs the risk of having an emotional downside through a new relationship when you might not have enough time to right yourself??
I didnt say it wasnt worth it. I just said that the value of a relationship requires a certain amount of time. As you approach the end of your life, the equilibrium of a friendship will not be attained and interpersonal relationships may be terminated (due to death of one of the participants) in disequilibrium - basically, you try to make a friend but that effort fails and you are emotionally drained at the end of your life. It would have been better to spend your time with people you know doing things you like.
I would like to take a moment and say how invaluable I have found online tools to maintaining a modern friendships. I met people in ventrillo playing counter strike in my early college days right after getting out of the Marine Corps who still show up on our various mumble servers on the reg, over 10 years later. Some of them live across in the world. Germany. Sweden. GB. Thousands of miles are nothing for online friendships.
The puzzle is unsolvable if you ask why can't I find friends. Probably nothing wrong with you.
The puzzle is instantly solvable if you ask why can't I be a good friend to others. Lets see, at age 19 I was juggling part time school, Army Reserves service, a grunt manual labor job, and an internship fake job, I was kinda busy. At age 22 I was working a semi-challenging full time programming job while still going to school just under the full time tuition credit limit to finally get my CS degree, so MTWR all night lectures and saturday morning class lectures until noon, so if someone said "hey lets have some beers" I'd be like LOL no. Starting around age 31 I was busy for a couple years with my father's obscure diagnosis terminal liver cancer which appeared out of the blue for no reason and couldn't be correctly diagnosed for months, which means not just the illness but helping mom move to apartment and sell the old house after fixing it up a bit, honestly I don't think I had a minute off from age 31 to about 33 or so when things started settling down. From age 29 until, well, frankly now, I have been busy raising two kids, and "daddy please come to my soccer game" trumps "hey lets have some beers" every time. And I spent most of age 30 talking to gastroENT doctors and dietitians and pediatricians about what ended up being Celliac disease for my older son, which ironically is very relaxing once you emerge from the medical industrial complex with a diagnosis, but until then its endless hell. At age 44 my MiL is slowing down and its time to move her from her house full of stuff requiring some repairs and cleanup to an apartment or "assisted living" or whatever, so I'm guessing this will consume about a year or two of my life. Around age 26 I got married, must have done it right still married to her, but doing a standard big spending American style marriage meant we consumed pretty much a year of our spare time, and I was merely the groom (tux fitting is like 15 minutes one time for guys whereas custom handmade wedding gown fitting is like five two hour trips to the gown maker for a dress she only wore a couple hours on the big day, for example)!
So yeah I have no idea why some dude can't find friends, but I could write for pages why I would be a terrible friend to someone who needed time. Lets face it, some rando from a hobby or work is pretty low on the totem pole which is crammed with family members.
nice life story, but the fact that you wrote this long story and explanation shows that perhaps you would want somebody to confide in but can't find that in real life. Otherwise, you wouldn't spill your life story to a bunch of strangers where your comment is a tangent from the mainpoint of OP.
Oh My. The article is a self centered rant on "why is it hard to make friends over 30?" and ALL the HN comments at the time I wrote my screed were self centered in the sense of the article is correct nobody will hang out with me and I don't know how to change myself. That problem solving strategy seems very lacking in success over time and practical concrete action items. I've found that when a problem solving strategy fails to work, its time to try another strategy which is to step back and re-evaluate the problem.
I posted all my details because I have a lot of data about them, but more importantly I don't think I'm unusually busy or unusually bored so the list should resonate well with others. Also all the I / We pronouns are more of a generic "Everyman" on both sides of the situation for the sake of this discussion to keep discussion out of the weeds.
Unlike the self-focused discussion in the article, my new problem solving technique actually provides action items fairly obviously to most readers. Based on an analysis of my performance as a friend I can observe some general trends. First of all, most of my unavailable time was medium term, so yes its illegal under sex harassment laws to ask a girl out on a date more than once, I get it, but in the course of normal human events you should ask a potential non-sex partner friend to hang out more than once over at least a moderate period of time, because "life happens". Secondly virtually all of the posts at the time I posted assumed something was wrong with them not the people unwilling to hang out with them; do they need psychiatric treatment or drugs, counseling, advice. However no quantity of pills consumed will take me away from my kids little league game on rain-less friday nights to participate in your drinking expedition, changing yourself would be a waste of effort. I'm unusually easygoing, I would guess in excess of 99% of "I won't be friends with you" relationships, its literally honestly nothing personal, so don't bother being anxious or take prescription pills or whatever, but from observation I think even normie or aggressive people likely are in excess of 90% solely impersonal cause of dislike. I'm kinda outspoken when I'm not laid back, if you make the 1% of people I don't like, you wouldn't have to wonder why I don't like you or what to improve, which aside from some antisocial weirdos is pretty common behavior. In summary, almost always "I won't hang out with you" cannot be cured with therapy or a pill and there's nothing wrong or requiring change.
So, with the new analysis its a numbers game. You thought you had a 90% chance of it working out because we're buddies or have something in common, but the real number is more like a 1% chance of it working out, so meet a hundred people to boost the odds to 50:50 or so. Luckily the highly interconnected world has a very large population. All made up numbers of course.
When I was young, old people advice like "be yourself and meet more people" sounded hopelessly stupid as a solution. Unfortunately based on decades of life experience the truth doesn't care if you like it or if it makes you sound old, the truth just is. So in summary, by abandoning a failing problem solving strategy and re-analyzing the problem under a new strategy, I found a solution set which seems very rational and workable and it seems to fit available data, with the caveat that its not as simple as merely popping a pill AND youngsters have been culturally conditioned to hate the advice.
As a side issue, "why I'd be a crappy friend" doesn't imply I don't have friends, LOL. Which ironically should be anxiety reducing for friendless people. You don't have to be worried you'll die alone like a monk just because your kid is sick for awhile or your work-life balance temporarily sux or whatever as implied in the article and by HN posts.
A final side issue, with the pronoun "you" in the greater sense, there's a tinge of "There's no royal road to geometry" with the insight that its even worse in that you're also not royalty. This is Hacker News after all which comes with an interesting psychological profile... sure you went to an ivy or had straight As or work in a cool job, no one cares about your wannabe royalty-ness if their Dad is sick. There really is no easier solution to the problem than putting in the effort to get out there and meet more people.
> but I could write for pages why I would be a terrible friend to someone who needed time
And in the time it took you to write those pages you could have instead started the basis of a friendship with someone. Yes, you are terribly busy, but I guarantee you that there are people who are much busier than you who still maintain friendships.
It sounds like you have already given up on making friends, but I hope that's not the case. It really is worth it, but it means making an effort, and maybe a slight shift in priorities.
I think you also overestimate how much time friends require. I average maybe an hour a week and that is more than enough to maintain multiple friendships.
For me it's not the time to make a friend that's a problem, it's the time required to find someone worth being friends with. In fact in many ways I think posting on the internet is more enjoyable (in the short term) than trying to make a new friend because you can have good, yet ephemeral, conversations
> And in the time it took you to write those pages you could have instead started the basis of a friendship with someone. Yes, you are terribly busy, but I guarantee you that there are people who are much busier than you who still maintain friendships.
No he could not. He could start chit-chat or maybe find acquaintance. Building friendship require more investment and work.
If you want to meet people with a common interest, try improv. Going through a series of improv classes with the same group gets you well acquainted.
One thing I like about improv is that I am forced to interact with others, something I was not good at. Now I am better. Not great, but definitely better.
Plug: In Los Angeles, I recommend the Westside Comedy Theater (westsidecomedy.com) just off the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade. Very welcoming to all.
> Thayer Prime, a 32-year-old strategy consultant who lives in London, has even developed a playful 100-point scale (100 being “best friend forever”). In her mind, she starts to dock new friend candidates as they begin to display annoying or disloyal behavior. Nine times out of 10, she said, her new friends end up from 30 to 60, or little more than an acquaintance.
> “You meet someone really nice, but if they don’t return a call, drop to 90, if they don’t return two calls, that’s an immediate 50,” she said. “If they’re late to something in the first month, that’s another 10 off.” (But people can move up the scale with nice behavior, too, she added.)
OK, here is one case where the lack of friends is not mystifying at all.
Besides the obvious craziness of keeping track of these things...
It's worth noting that some people are just completely shit at timeliness, no matter how important the thing is.
I am and so are my a lot of my friends "I'm running 30 minutes late!" often meets a "No worries, I might be an hour". A punctuality obsessed person would hate me.
As someone who regularly is late, I disagree. It's all a matter of consequences. I'm never late for a flight because I know it will cost me money. But I run late to work often because I know it the worse I'll get is some jokes. Unless I miss an important meeting, and then I make effort to be on time for.
Fashionably late only makes sense if the others can continue without you.
* 2 hours late to happy hour? glad you can make it, get a drink. (But don't expect me to stay another 2 hours)
* An hour late for D&D game? I guess we can start now. grumble-grumble wasted an hour of everyone elses time.
* 15 minutes late to carpool? You better have a good reason.
> I'm never late for a flight because I know it will cost me money.
You might plan a 2-3 hour buffer and only arrive 1-2h before the flight. You're still late.
A 2-3h buffer is just not feasible for everything as the day only has 24h.
It's very simple, if somebody is 1h late to the D&D game you start without them. I'm not sure about the game dynamics, but they can probably enter your storyline after 1h if you're creative.
> It's very simple, if somebody is 1h late to the D&D game you start without them. I'm not sure about the game dynamics, but they can probably enter your storyline after 1h if you're creative.
I have also been late for a flight. And often very nearly late despite giving myself huge margins. Some people, like me, just have minds that have too much going on to keep track of. There is no dead space to organise things, its always moving, analysing roving. It just will not stfu. And so there is no breathing space to consider what is going on in the outside world. It's like trying to drive a car while eating pizza. You cant not eat pizza because its the most delicious thing in the world (thinking about stuff) but you must also drive (operate in the real world). Its bloody difficult being absent minded and we dont need you guys who have an easier time of things making us feel bad. Now your probably thinking, well I manage it, everyone else manages it. You are just lazy or self absorbed or both. No. Brains are different. I have a different brain that finds some things very difficult.
If you are running 30 minutes late, you are saying that whatever you did in those 30 minutes is significantly more important than the fact that the other person loses 30 minutes.
Occasionally, that is true. Most often, it is simply a sign that you disrespect the other person.
It's not about being "obsessed with punctuality", it's about realizing that the other person has a schedule that you are impacting as well. And then choosing to not give a damn, in the case of perpetual lateness.
It's very possible to have every intent and desire to be on time, and still fail at it. Some people have problem with things like attention and executive function that make planning in time very difficult.
For you it might be an issue of not caring. IT's not for everyone.
This reminds me of all these obese people who a are obese because of "health issues", to cover their horrific lifestyle. 98% of the cases, probably (I am being generous).
Same with the timekeeping : some feel that they are so unique and mentally impaired that keeping time is beyond them. But they just do not give a shit about others.
I was 30 kg overweight and had all kind of excuses (including a medical condition). I then moved out of this comfort zone and lost the extra weight.
Some peopke will not be able to do that, this is their choice. I will not pity them and certainly not allow for any specific arrangements if I see this is their fault. And yes, when you see someone drinking coke after coke and inguritating mountains of food you are not at risk of hitting the unfortunate 2%.
So get a watch, leave an hour early. If an hour is not enough, two hours.
Yes, this is impacting but then you choose which time is more important for you.
I apologize if you are in the 2% of people who cannot afford a watch or read the time with understanding.
I'm one of those perpetually late people. There was a time when I was slightly overweight. I changed my diet, started lifting weights and running, and ended up running a marathon 18 months later. But I couldn't fix my lateness. Pretty sure I had to run to the marathon starting area to be able to start with my group.
I've found that exercising control over my body is easy. The body is stupid. It does what I tell it to do. It complains, but it will only fight back when it absolutely cannot physically perform the task.
Not so much with my brain. The brain is smart. It fights back. I can look directly at a (digital) clock, and my brain can refuse to process the time on it.
I can dig around and produce piles of evidence of all the different ways I tried to fix this, all the different treatments I sought, how much sincere effort I put in, and a complete lack of results. Don't take executive function for granted.
Also, our lateness usually hurts us far more than others around us. Nothing is "too important" to be late for. And the things that usually make us late aren't generally important. Most of the time, they're complete wastes of time that didn't need to be done at all in the first place.
I was like this, and so is most of my old friends still to this day. I still snooze and never come in to work at a regular time, but I've never missed a morning meeting when one is planned.
I just scope out my getting ready, the drive in, account for extra traffic and finding parking, and then add an extra 5-10 minutes on top of the worst case time.
I can't remember the last time I was late to anything now, so it's rare enough that it has to be because of a car breakdown or anything else extraordinary.
Everything that involves more people than you are "too important" to be late for if there is a fixed time set.
I'm atrocious at time scoping. I view the time to get to a place to be the time on a vehicle in the best case, for instance. I ignore elevators, parking, traffic/transit delays, all of it. In particular the almost inevitable time spent searching for all my things to get out the door.
Getting ready in the morning is a particular challenge because it varies tremendously. Some days I might fuss around with my outfit and makeup for an hour, other days I can get out the door in 15 minutes.
It's not just the time I "feel like" spending, it's time looking for things, time getting distracted... and time just badly planned (I think I am so early, when I'm not, because I plan these things badly).
I‘m exactly like this. The only way that helps is to get ready 30-60m ahead of the time I had originally planned to, and then wait it out. But since I hate to wait on other people, I don’t do this as often.
So you’re saying that your 30 minutes is more valuable than mine? And that your hatred of waiting on other people is more important than whatever you were supposed to do? I don’t care if you’re 30 minutes late once or twice and you tell me, but if you tell me “oh sorry I’m late, I saw that I could have left on time but I’d rather have you wait on me than be on time” then that’s an instant way to piss anyone off.
I didn’t mean to say that it’s good that I‘m behaving this way. And I‘m not responsible for every emotion I have, you know. Some things need working on before you can get in control of them.
Please don't assume everyone's brain is like yours.
Being perpetually late is a psychological problem. Telling people to "just be on time" is like telling depressed people to "just be happy".
Yes, depression can be remedied, as can perpetual lateness. No, it's not as easy for people who suffer from these. Please assume that if it's easy for you to either not be depressed or be on time, then it's hard for you to understand the people who exhibit these behaviors.
Your article summarizes it well. It highlights the main point I am making:
Group 1) Those who don’t feel bad or wrong about it. These people are assholes.
Group 2) Those who feel terrible and self-loathing about it. These people have problems.
Group 1 is 98% of the population. This is why we perceive people who are late as [from impolite to assholes]
Group 2 suffers because of that.
Thus my analogy with weight: 98% of people eat like starving hippos and then claim all kind of bullshit about how they are biologically|mentally|genetically|any-other-y impacted and that being fat is not their fault. And "no fat shaming because we are so special". Yes - aggressive fat shaming so that you put your shit together and stop being a (now or future) problem for the population.
The remaining 2% suffers because of that.
I mentioned this a few times in my comments
--- extra story ---
I also remember a friend of mine who was overweight and had two medical conditions (ans possibly a mild psychological one) which made him what he was.
I saw him fighting back - by eating healthy, moving a lot (I was lightly sparring kung-fu with him) and I was super proud. There are some happy ends - he is still far from being a model but he met a super girl (thin and sporty by the way) who realized after going past the physical aspect that he was a super guy. Their children (now teens) tease him about that.
It feels like you're ignoring the biological realities behind some mental health conditions. In this case, ADHD. You can't just dismiss deficits in executive function as "not caring". This lecture is a great one on the subject:
The reality is that the circuits in the brain that manage things like impulse control and attention don't work as well in some people.
One of the primary treatments for ADHD is stimulant medications... and yes, as a coping strategy, getting panicked to the point of adrenaline spiking. Both of them activate norepinephrine. But it has limits. I cannot be a panic about leaving for work every morning, or every time I meet with friends.
Medication helps tremendously; planning things in the morning before the medication has kicked in leads to problems.
When I have worked at a job that requires me to be in at 9:30AM every morning, the result was a ton of stress and constant friction. The solution is to schedule that meeting some other time; when I've worked at places that didn't have that requirement everybody has been happier.
I can assure you that I never say to myself, what's more important: being at this meeting on time or spending 10 minutes searching for my phone? Or responding to this reddit comment? My understanding of time is not nearly good enough to make those kind of choices. Watch the video I linked; it's not intention that is the problem.
Knowing the current time is not the problem, but being reasonable about how long things will take is extremely difficult.
A lot of my life is organized around the knowledge that I am this way. I simply can't have friends who are going to think I don't care about them every time I'm 15 minutes late. For some people, that might be the case, but it's not for me.
FWIW, my BMI is 21; appetite was never a problem for me. But I know a thing or two about excuses and getting out of my comfort zone; I'm trans.
If you read my other comments you will notice that I do not ignore the real problem. You seem to be in the minority who actually has a medical condition and being late is probably one of the many impacts and maybe not the worst.
I am arguing with all the special flowers who "just cannot be in time", because this is fashionable, a mark of superiority or basic assholness.
It's quite possibly the worst. It has burned me plenty of times, and almost burned me badly a lot more. There were numerous classes and tests I should have failed because of my tardiness that I was able to talk my way out of, etc.
A lot of times I can "smart" my way out of the worst problems. For instance I missed a flight that was taking me to a cruise the next morning. The airport staff were unhelpful; there weren't really any more flights that night.
But I figured out on my phone that I could switch both source and destination airports and make a new flight. So for the "small" price of a $350 last minute ticket and $60 cab ride, I "solved" my problem. I literally booked the flight on my phone while in the cab between the airports.
A large price to pay for being 15 minutes late, but I saved myself from missing the entire cruise at a cost of thousands.
I really wish more people understood that being late for people like you (and me, and the blog author) isn't the same as it is for them, and can't be fixed simply. I need a support group, dammit!
I can't see why you've brought this analogy into the discussion, because the two things are not very similar. Refraining from being late to one appointment does not activate any bodily instinct that you need to be late to the next one.
This is the "I am so special so you should understand that I am late" (and wait for me), an analogy to "I am so special, so you should understand why I am overweight" (and I am taking your space in the plane, or your health tax later)
This comment is perpetuating many falsehoods about obesity. For most people with chronic obesity, it is not really a matter of willpower. Just because the direct cause of their condition is too high food intake, it does not mean that it’s a “choice”. Their bodies are programmed to require large amounts of food. Losing weight by willpower in the short term just increases the signals to eat, and may cause weight gain in the long run.
The only effective treatment in the long run is gastric bypass.
This comment comes from me travelling all the time between Asia, Europe and the US.
And comparing the volume of people in different countries, usually US or wealthy China vs. France (my country) or Italy or Japan.
The difference is striking. It doesn't come from the fact that Americans or wealthy Chinese have some physiological problem: they just eat TONS of food and drink pure sugar (last one is for the US).
One should not look for fancy explanations when the evidence is there: people are more and more obese because they eat shitty food and drink sugar.
And do not talk me about "the poors who cannot afford anything else". We have poverty in France as well, and these people are not horrifically obese.
Chronic obesity means chronic overeating. Except for the infinitesimal minority wich was obese 100 years ago as well because of the weird gene. When they become obese, they are programmed to be even more obese. Or "big boned".
And like with everything in life, willpower moves you ahead in most cases. There is one genius for every 100 hard working people (with willpower) and 100 slackers (in the same demographics).
I cut by 1/3 to 1/2 what I was eating. I eat the same things, just less. And more fruit, and almost no sugar.
Was it hard? Yes, to a point. Was it excruciating? No - I was just salivating while looking at a nice cake and my brain decided to say "no".
I still have a hamburger from time to time (say, every two weeks). It is European size.
My kid made a cake, I had two parts (even if it was awful, way too sugary).
I bike to the office because I love it, and play sports again. Just because I WANT TO.
I’m not saying that obesity does not come from eating too much and/or eating the wrong type of food. I’m talking about the mechanisms that drive this behavior, and what it takes to beat them. Willpower is not enough to beat actual, chronic/morbid obesity. The only known solution is surgery.
Your comments are bordering on fat-shaming, which I find completely unacceptable.
I "love" this stuff about how fat people need ridicule to snap out of it and stop being fat. Trust me, anybody who is fat is acutely aware of it without your advice.
As for your other ideas, by the time you're trying to sort out worthies you don't actually have a social state in any meaningful sense. You can find some fault with most people. "Why did you work in a mine when you knew it could cause black lung? Why did you spend so much time at the computer if you didn't want RSI? You wouldn't have rabies if you'd avoided rabid animals." You get the idea.
I am not ridiculing anyone, I just do not want any special treatment for someone who willingly gets into that state. Try to spend a intercontinental flight next to this poor 170 kg guy as I did once and you may agree that - because they decided to be fat - they should pay two places in order to accommodate everyone.
BTW, I was 30 kg overweight. Then decided not to be anymore.
"Why did you work in a mine when you knew it could cause black lung?" - because I had to in order to bring money for my family. I have in very high esteem such people. As you say, you get the idea.
"Why did you willingly eat nasty stuff knowing what will happen, and you absolutely did not have to because you live in a country where you can get healthy (= normal, not some bio stuff) food?" - that's harder to explain. But still - this is a choice, we are free people, just do not come later stating that "you should understand, I have all these reasons not to be on time". Sorry, overweight, to get back to the main thread.
It might be a little harder to explain why it was necessary that you play Starcraft until you get tendonitis; should we also deny treatment to that guy? Maybe we should deny treatment for venereal disease because nobody "needs" to have sex with multiple partners.
As an American person, I feel it is likely I have encountered at least as many fat people as you have, if not more, so appeals to your personal experience aren't that convincing.
First off: "Require" means what your body needs to sustain itself, which I would say is your TDEE. This changes when you gain weight or lose weight, or recomp.
Secondly: You can definitely "reprogram" when you get hungry, it only takes a few weeks.
> Losing weight by willpower in the short term just increases the signals to eat, and may cause weight gain in the long run.
This depends entirely on how you lose weight. As obesity (for the vast majority part, excluding thyroid and other physical problems) is a matter of habit, if you starve yourself from your usual diet for a few weeks in an attempt to reset your weight, of course you are going to relapse.
Temporary dieting can by definition never work. A diet is the habit of what you eat.
If you create the habit of eating like someone who weighs 50 kg less than you, you will start losing weight, fast at first, and then slower until it plateaus. I agree that not everyone is exactly the same, so basal metabolism between two similar people can vary a few hundred or so kcal/day.
Gastric bypass can in rare cases be necessary, but it's definitely a last resort, and unneeded in most cases.
God. This "free will trumps all things. You are in total control of your destiny. All things that happen to you are your own doing" needs to die. Slowly and painfully.
You are a tiny sliver of consciousness on top of a vast, powerful machine. That machine gives you ideas, manages your body, and dictates your desires. Using conscious will power to try to overcome innate points of equilibrium in the system that is you, is extremely difficult in most cases. And in some cases it is impossible.
I never once said it was easy, and I'm not saying that everyone has the will power for it. I'm merely stating that barring physical ailments, everyone can technically do it.
Neither of my parents worked out a day in their life, and neither did I until my late 20s. So I definitely understand the point of view of never learning good habits, but bad habits and not making choices are also a habit, even if you haven't realized an alternative.
It's always possible, but much harder for some people. It's in many ways like alcoholism or other addictions: it's not useful to pontificate to alcoholics and blame them for a lack of of will power when dealing with a serious mental impairment. Yet, willpower remains the single best cure against addiction, encouraging people to leave themselves at the hands of impulse is not healthy advice. People do lose weight and keep it off by willpower, addicts change their lives by willpower.
Gastric bypass is not a silver bullet, it's a major surgery with a significant mortality rate and is always a last resort for the most severe cases who have at least made an effort.
The other guy is right though. Other than gastric bypass, all methods of weight loss have like a 2% success rate over the long term. Given numbers like that, I don't see it as useful to cast it as a problem of willpower.
The existence of large national trends also, to my mind, points away from individual failings. I find it hard to believe that the willpower of the average person has simply dropped off steeply over a few decades.
> Other than gastric bypass, all methods of weight loss have like a 2% success rate over the long term.
That's not at all correct. Success rates of weight loss by dieting are around 20%. That's still low, but you have to ask yourself: is it because people really can't control their diet long term, or is it because the majority of the population prefers the self serving narative of obesity genes and viruses, addiction engineered by the food industry, "the calorie myth", the intractable failure of willpower over body impulse, and so on? Because that sounds a lot like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Mind you, I'm grossly overweight (peak BMI 34, current 30), and I know full well the power of my body for mind control. A skinny person can't even imagine the fight every chubby faces on a daily basis. Yet, due to wining most battles, I've managed to lose some and not turn into the 500 Kg monster by body "demands" - I could easily eat 4-5000 calories on a daily basis, to great satisfaction.
> In reality, 97 percent of dieters regain everything they lost and then some within three years. Obesity research fails to reflect this truth because it rarely follows people for more than 18 months. This makes most weight-loss studies disingenuous at best and downright deceptive at worst.
I also think this article is interesting because it includes some personal testimony from a successful long-term dieter that I think illustrates why most people are not successful:
> Debra Sapp-Yarwood, a fiftysomething from Kansas City, Missouri, who’s studying to be a hospital chaplain, is one of the three percenters, the select few who have lost a chunk of weight and kept it off. She dropped 55 pounds 11 years ago, and maintains her new weight with a diet and exercise routine most people would find unsustainable: She eats 1,800 calories a day—no more than 200 in carbs—and has learned to put up with what she describes as “intrusive thoughts and food preoccupations.” She used to run for an hour a day, but after foot surgery she switched to her current routine: a 50-minute exercise video performed at twice the speed of the instructor, while wearing ankle weights and a weighted vest that add between 25 or 30 pounds to her small frame.
> “Maintaining weight loss is not a lifestyle,” she says. “It’s a job.” It’s a job that requires not just time, self-discipline, and energy—it also takes up a lot of mental real estate. People who maintain weight loss over the long term typically make it their top priority in life.
It's also important to point out a strong self selection bias in such studies: we mostly deal with those who were overweight and needed to start a diet, so they probably had low impulse control to begin with. An important part of population with better control and similar cravings might have started their willpower exercise after gaining the first few pounds, it's disingenuous to discourage everybody using statistics applied to those who have a trackrecord of failure. If you gained weight by simply not caring about your weight (depression, cultural norms etc.) then you might stand a much better chance of success when you start to care.
The testimonial sounds like a clasic case of artificially lowered basal metabolic rate by crash dieting and associated loss of lean body mass. Such people need high resistance, mass building exercises, not catabolism-inducing aerobic. She might live a very long life tho.
> It's also important to point out a strong self selection bias in such studies: we mostly deal with those who were overweight and needed to start a diet, so they probably had low impulse control to begin with.
That's why I mentioned cultural norms, I really don't know how many of those Americans really want to lose weight, but it's clearly not a reflection of typical human capacity for self control.
There are many other nations that reached comparable prosperity and food abundance at similar times, yet don't have even comparable obesity rates. An extreme case is Japan, at 3.5% obesity rate maintained largely though willpower and cultural norms, by literally firing those that are too fat, or in any case applying strong social pressure and mandatory counseling.
You are right in your description, but I disagree with your conclusion.
Yes, the statistics of people in weight loss programs keeping their weight off is really low, but this could have many explanations:
* Are they included because they wanted a one-time solution to a permanent problem?
* Did they initially get coaching that they later lost?
* Did the changes they made temporarily not work for them personally in the long term?
Even if this is statistics of everyone that has ever tried losing weight, does it matter? Humans haven't evolved in the 50-100 years that obesity has exploded. This makes it conclusive that it can't be physiological, does it not?
So it could be culturally behavioral, as a society, or individual, and it's looking like the former, but does it matter?
What is more likely, that we as a culture fixes the obesity problem against any market forces pushing it, or that you die of obesity before that happens, unless you individually go against the grain of what is pushed upon you?
The only way to lose weight is to make changes you can see yourself living with for the rest of your life. This sounds heavy, but none of your reflex habits seem heavy to you, but might to someone else. That's exactly why thin people seem to have it so easy (which they do). They have had a healthy habit of exercise and limited portion sizes their entire life, so they don't even have to think about it.
You don't need exercise to lose weight, but you definitely need it to feel healthy. You need to find something you can either bare to do for the rest of your life, or best case enjoy doing. Soon enough it will be a habit you don't consider anyways.
Same goes for food. There is no trick to it, and not one diet that works for everyone (in terms of psychology). Some can do it by counting everything they put in their mouth. Some can do it by forcing them to sit down everytime they put something in their mouth (so you don't walk around and snack without realizing). Some just cut out any drink that isn't water. Some cut out any snacks that isn't their one absolute favorite. Some just eat once a day without regards to portion size. Etc etc etc. It is harsh, but no one else will do it for you. You don't have to do anything about it if you don't want to, but it's not productive to hide behind lies as to why you can't.
So essentially you agree that we live in an environment that encourages obesity but in the end you think individuals should just "suck it up" and try harder. I think this is unlikely to ever see success for a large percentage of people and I don't think it's fair to fault people for not succeeding.
No, I'm saying if someone wants to live longer they should, because the environment around them is much less likely to change. It isn't fair, but it works and is the path with least resistance, not low resistance.
Impulse over powers free will in the long term. Try starving yourself to death. Unless you are exceptional your will power will fail you. Ultimately you are not the master of desire. Desire is the master of you.
I disagree. “Bodies programmed to require large amount of foods” only makes sense if someone is diabetic.
Otherwise it’s pure willpower (well technically being able to delay gratification) combined with healthy food. E.g start a meal with a raw brocoli and it’ll be physically difficult to put other things in your stomach after.
Yes it’s very hard but I did it myself, you always have to think I’m suffering now but I’ll be good looking one day (and yes it takes years)
Edit: though I understand that all people may not have the same capacity to delay gratification
If they were to be sent to a desert island, they would lose weight
Have them exercise, switch sugary soft drinks on refill with water and not eat the one pizza per day or something "they must have", replace that with filling but low calorie food if needed and see what happens
This excuse sounds like the excuses for why the US has more school shootings than every other country.
'It's very possible to have every intent and desire to be on time, and still fail at it.'
The people who try to arrive 'just in time' are the ones this usually applies to though.
If you've ever worked at a place where you have a long commute you'll likely have noticed that the people who are consistently late are those who live closest.
People who really struggle with time management and planning, yup. The lack of an ability to reason about time - to, fundamentally, exercise executive function - leads to these problems where the time estimates are always short.
For some people, it's hard to see all the pieces ("take a shower, brush teeth, put on clothes, pack your bag, take the elevator...) that go into one larger task ("getting to work") and reason about them. It's fundamentally a working memory/executive function deficit.
It's also shocking to me how every intent of leaving well and truly earlier than I thought can also fall apart. The lack of adrenaline in such situations allows a million distractions to creep in. "Oh, I can spend a few minutes to fix my makeup". "Oh, I haven't watered the plants in a while!" I can try to wall some of them off (I will NOT use the computer or look at my phone), but there's real limits.
There's a question of cost. Maybe you can be on time for a flight once in a while, but it costs you so much X (time, mental energy, money, whatever) that the same strategies would not help in day-to-day schedules. Ask someone with DSPS, for example.
You completely misunderstand how executive functioning deficiency works, it appears. While this was written by a person with chronic pain issues (you might not be aware of!), it applies to many other (often also invisible) disabilities: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine....
"Just leave earlier" is about as useful an advice as "grow a new hand."
I am also sometimes early. I once arrived 24 hours early for a flight. On two occasions recently I arrived at a doctor's appointment the day before. The first time they thought it was quirky, the second time they looked at me as though there might be more wrong with me than they'd thought.
No, whenever I'm running 30 minutes late, whatever I did in those 30 minutes was nowhere near as important as the other person's time. It was probably something that didn't deserve my time at all that day, or sometimes even any other day.
Those of us who are deficient in executive function aren't "choosing to not give a damn". It's not a "choice". If you're a person who always has complete control over their actions, please consider the fact that some of us don't have that luxury, and our own lives suffer even more from it than the lives of the people who we subject to our tardiness.
You make yourself sound so powerless and victimized. Surely a self-fulfilling prophecy. You do have a choice—many of them. But it sounds like you’ve made them all in advance.
Your comment might come across a bit condescending, coming from someone who perhaps has better executive function (do you?), but I agree that victimization is a BIG problem. Eg every drug addict counselor will tell you that you cannot get better without taking ownership (not blame; that’s separate things!).
The problem with low exec function is that you do not realize WHEN you have choices to make; you get sucked into an activity and forget to stop and reflect the situation. In the process you overlook chances to decide, so you get the impression that you cannot decide anything (thus the victimization). Coding does this a lot to me btw, while other activities don’t; might have to do with the amount of energy required for the task as hand.
BUT you can choose to train yourself to stop in regular intervals and contemplate the current situation. Over time this will improve. I‘m also experimenting with near infrared light shone on the forehead, which for some reason does wonders for this (increasing energy available to the frontal lobe maybe?).
Surely. Surely not something I've battled with great effort for a very long time. Surely not something I've sought and received treatment for. Surely it's just a choice I made.
Maybe people walking around with a cast and crutches are just making themselves look "powerless and victimised". Surely.
Work on your health and nutritional status. One of my sons had terrible executive function. With getting healthier, he is slowly getting his act together.
> If you are running 30 minutes late, you are saying that whatever you did in those 30 minutes is significantly more important than the fact that the other person loses 30 minutes.
This is only true if the circumstances knowingly make the person stuck waiting for 30 minutes.
That's fairly exceptional, but some people do voluntarily wait for others doing nothing, when the participation of others is entirely optional for the activity - something I don't quite understand. But I have noticed people who do this often aren't really capable of being happy or content independently in general, which I consider a sign of immaturity. That's a different problem, and being punctual for them doesn't fix it.
I’m perfectly content to entertain myself, and to be in my own company. But if I make plans with you and you’re 30 minutes late, being pissed at you doesn’t make me immature. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes things go wrong, that’s ok. But to be that guy who’s 30 mins late for a group dinner, or to go bowling or to the cinema, and to always have an excuse, that’s _you_ being immature because you’re clearly saying whatever You’re doing is more important than whatever we have planned. Set a reminder on your phone to beep 15 minutes before you need to get ready, and if you ignore it repeatedly, you’re the immature one.
Both bowling and cinema are activities that are essentially still done alone even when done as a group. One person bowls at a time per lane, and watching movies in a theatre is pretty much a silent solitary experience unless you're being a nuisance.
If someone's late to go bowling we/I start bowling without them. When they show up, they wait and join in at the next game, or get their own lane.
If someone doesn't make it to the cinema before the show starts, I'm watching the movie I wanted to see without them. It's their loss, not mine, and I'm not waiting for them or upset - I'm seeing the movie I wanted to see.
It makes relatively little difference to me if they're present for those activities. It's the activity that I'm principally interested in. Sure it's more fun to bowl with others, but only marginally. The last film I went out of my way to see with a friend, afterwards I didn't even understand why I bothered when the experience was largely unchanged from seeing it alone yet I drove across town to watch it sitting next to someone I knew, useful that.
Surely you could come up with better examples than those for when to justifiably be upset with a person being late...
I'm not even one of those people who's chronically late, I just don't see it as an issue worth fussing over in the vast majority of social circumstances.
I don't see why it would have to correlate with age. When I was younger I used to get annoyed at late people more easily. As the years have passed I've developed my philosophy. I still think it's often a sign of selfishness but we all have our flaws.
Early on in any relationship I learn which style of timekeeping a person has. You get the people who will warn in advance and apologise profusely if they are going to be 2 minutes late, then at the other end of the scale you have the people who say "I'm just around the corner I'll be there in 5 minutes" and you know they might turn up some time that day/night, if they're having a particularly switched-on day.
Once I have my expectations set correctly I don't get annoyed. It does mean that any arrangement with the 'very late' style of friends always has a status of 'tentative'. And I make it clear to them that I may be doing something else by the time they arrive and that they'd better be able to handle that as it's a cost of their style of being. I've never known a late person to have any problem with that arrangement, they generally seem to quite like it as then they know they can do their thing and not worry about putting me out.
I've not read the linked article but I've been pretty constant with my level of making new friends throughout my adult life (am in my forties now). I've moved around a bit and lived in a few different towns/cities, had a few career paths, maybe that's relevant. I think some people narrow their worldview as they get older and perhaps this makes them more choosy about who is 'worth it'. I've always been a weirdo/outlier. I'm fine with loads of people around me and making parties etc., but also more than happy in my own company. I noticed quite early in life that I could be accepted in most social groups and drift between them and developed a distaste for cliques and the negative behaviour they encourage (exclusivity, "our love for each other is based on our hatred of everyone else" etc).
A 30 minute buffer can easily be eaten up by looking for my keys that I KNOW I JUST HAD YESTERDAY WHAT THE HELL, and then having to go back to my apartment after leaving because I forgot my wallet.
I have missed flights, and the reason I usually don't is because I plan to arrive at the airport ~3h before departure.
Believe me, it's making me way more miserable than the person I'm stressing to meet. It's neither disrespect nor prioritization.
This is why people get organized- put in the keys always in the same spot so you do not have to bother thinking about where your keys are.
Or Check if they have the fundamentals on your person before leaving- wallet, phone, keys...
It's quite arrogant for one to think that just because someone is late, they are late out of a lack of respect for one's time. The early person upset their time was wasted is being equally if not more selfish by expecting everyone to move to their whims.
Because it assumes that their desire for an inviolable mutual meeting time is the only factor in the world that matters. It places their own plans on a pedestal above all other factors that might influence the plans of others.
Not that many will be reading this thread at this point, but for the record I'll add that punctuality is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Those who obsess over punctuality are inconsiderate, at best, of every other means, end, demand, and desire.
“Punctuality obsessed” or person that takes the effort to make time to hang out with a friend, offered them the respect of showing up on time just to have their time wasted by you not showing up on time.
Speaking personally, I'm frequently running late for events, but it has nothing to do with being inconsiderate, as I tend to be reasonably considerate in other ways. It's also a family trait, which is something we joke about, and my family includes some of the most considerate people I've ever met.
I get that waiting around doing nothing is annoying, but it doesn't have to be that way. For example, if I'm meeting up with some friends to go out, I'd much rather meet them in a pub rather than meet them at a bus or train station. That way their evening can start without me.
I'd also happily live somewhere with other people that don't put a high value on punctuality. As an example, I've heard in Costa Rica they have cultural trait of running on "tico time". I've only ever met a couple of people from Costa Rica before, so I can't say how common this is, but what I can say is that I'd not be offended by it, and I'd hope it was something we would all be a bit more laid back about than where I currently live.
> "But then why set a meeting time? Tell them you'll meet them in the evening maybe, but no promises. Then everyone has the same expectation."
If people accepted that answer, that'd be fine, but by and large they don't/won't.
> "It just seems stupid to make an agreement that you know you won't keep."
You don't always know ahead of time. If you arrange to meet at 7pm and arrive at 7:05pm, predicting that far in advance is quite tricky. Perhaps you fully intended to be on time, but underestimated some part of the journey getting there.
I lived in Roatan and there is a notion of “island time” you hear flying out of every lazy white mouth who is trying to sound hyper-local, but most people I met that grew up there, that work there and make plans with friends there - they tend to be pretty respectfully on-time.
Quoting the article (note this was said by a Greek person, not an expat):
"Retired doctor Christodoulos Xenakis has another theory about how Ikarians avoid unnecessary anxiety. We met briefly during my first hour on the island and we had agreed to meet again, though tracking him down wasn’t easy.
“No-one really sets appointments here,” he shrugged when I greeted the 81 year old – who is considered a young man by Ikaria standards – a few days later in the village. Time is an important part of life on Ikaria, Xenakis explained, but not the way most people think. “It’s more like ‘see you in the morning, afternoon or evening’. We don’t stress.”"
My family are chronically late for things, and yet I manage to be on time. By saying that you should meet at a pub/are vefore you get a train, you’re saying “why don’t you all meet an hour earlier than we need to so I can be late”. Sure sometimes it’s fine, but having to accommodate one person in a group being chronically late is selfish on their part.
> "having to accommodate one person in a group being chronically late is selfish on their part"
That's not what's happening. If I'm running late I'm supposedly missing out too, by missing out on spending time with friends. What part of that is selfish? If I arrange to meet somewhere where they can start enjoying their evening, the only person that misses out is me.
Have you considered that we may be incapable, rather than inconsiderate? Especially if it's "all the time"?
Do you think that those of us without adequate executive function are on time for things we deem truly important? If you do, then you might want to challenge that notion, and see if that affects your viewpoint.
Are you also incapable of telling people that you won't be on time? You seem to articulate it fine here.
If you tell me that you'll pick me up at 5pm, but show up at 7pm... I'll be upset most likely. But if you tell me that you'll pick me up at 5pm, but will probably be late, maybe even hours late... I'll get it... And will adjust accordingly (most likely I'll get a ride with someone else if at all time critical).
Whatever time estimate I give you, I will usually be later than that. Telling you I might be hours late for a 5pm meeting will probably end in me arriving at 9pm.
That's why I find it best to have a reasonable time to aim for, and the people that know me know they will need to be able to accommodate my late arrival. And every once in a while, I might even be on time, though I do consider "5 minutes late" as "on time".
Yes, the people that know me are nice and patient people. That's probably a major reason why I know them in the first place.
Simply tell your friends “I’m afraid I can’t commit to meeting you at any time due to my inadequate executive function”. It should help them change their viewpoint.
> I've missed at least 8 flights in the past decade, have seen only the last 80-90% of many of the films I watched in the cinema, have had to stand in the back for the first act of many stage productions, etc. Seeing me walk, rather than run, through train stations and airports is a rare sight. I don't recall a single multi-day bushwalk I've been on, where I pitched my tent before sunset, or even within 2 hours after it.
I feel your pain. A close relative has the same problem; she's only getting somewhat better now at 55+ years old. She's one of the most selfless people I know; she simply has a real problem managing her time. And that inability harms herself way more than others.
I find it just as difficult to be on time for flights as I do for get-togethers with friends, or anything else, for that matter.
I've missed at least 8 flights in the past decade, have seen only the last 80-90% of many of the films I watched in the cinema, have had to stand in the back for the first act of many stage productions, etc. Seeing me walk, rather than run, through train stations and airports is a rare sight. I don't recall a single multi-day bushwalk I've been on, where I pitched my tent before sunset, or even within 2 hours after it.
Some of us simply don't have the time awareness and executive function to be on time. I have a clock always visible in my line of sight at my desk, but many times, I can't get myself to actually read the time off it, even though it's right there (and it's digital).
If my friends didn't know not to take my lateness personally, I wouldn't have any friends.
> I have a clock always visible in my line of sight at my desk, but many times, I can't get myself to actually read the time off it, even though it's right there (and it's digital).
Some clocks can be programmed to make noise nowadays at a certain time.
That's not the issue. The issue is that for whatever reason, my brain is refusing to allow me to become aware of the time. The presentation format of the time doesn't matter.
It's tough to fight this, because the person you're fighting is yourself, and you're just as smart as you are, so you can't outsmart or trick yourself.
Sometimes, some technique will work for a day or two, but the brain adapts very quickly and learns how to get around it.
You don't need to be aware of the time to use an alarm clock. On a phone, you can set it to an appropriate time with a message. When it rings, start doing whatever the message tells you to do.
I'm very absent-minded and frequently forget things like eating and cleaning, but out of respect for other people, I frequently take notes and set alarms, which at least helps me stick to agreed schedules.
Another useful way to manage it is to schedule things loosely when possible. Agree to meet at some point in the span of an hour under circumstances where neither party will be bored waiting. For example, invite the other party over an hour before going to a see a film.
Friends are important in a different way, but one of the qualities they don't often share with flights is that they get you somewhere where it's important you'll be at a specific time and place in pursuit of your material needs or obligations. Or rather you're not expecting something out of them other than their company, which you still get to enjoy later (if you're really friends, and if not, then you're just not).
It's good that friends aren't like that. I'm happy to acknowledge that someone may have a family or other circumstance that is more pressing than a ruminative chat, and not count it against them. And I expect they will give me the same consideration. The score doesn't get kept the same way.
If someone is always 30 minutes late and there’s always an excuse that it’s not their fault, the they’re the problem. Everyone has problems. If you tell me “hey I’m running 30 minutes late, because I had to take a shower” the odd time (in advance) that’s totally fine. But to leave me sitting on my own (when I could have plans with someone else later, or could have stopped whatever I was doing before to be on time to meet you) is just selfish and inconsiderate. If you can’t show up at 5, don’t say you’ll be there at 5, say you’ll be there at 7 so at least I can use the time too.
I have friends who are late often while being generally considerate people, it is zero problem at all. I just dont expect them be on time anymore. As far as disrespect goes, this is pretty low. I know enough punctual jerks to not care all that much about this.
If you are late, but after comming in treat people politely, are willing to compromise, dont assume they are stupid in each of your responses and dont go out of your way to insult them and respect them dont act like alpha-king-of-galaxy that needs everything your way, then it is much better then punctual opposite.
There may be some people who genuinely have trouble keeping track of time or planning ahead, but 99% of people who are habitually late (myself included at times) are just rude and inconsiderate.
Come on, in your own example you provide a white lie to the person and tell them it'll be 30 mins, when you know that it could likely be longer. Why not just say you're running an hour late instead?
I suffer from this myself, so don't feel like I'm picking on you, but I realized a long time ago that it's just me being dishonest with myself and others, and I should cut it out.
So yes, that's not what I was saying, but it's true I also suffer from RIDICULOUS time-optimism. When I say I'll be there in 30 minutes, that's what I honestly think.
But I forget about the time to find my always-lost cell phone, the time to ride the elevator - basically everything except the actual time on the road/bus/etc... 30 minutes being that magical time every light was green and everything went perfectly, etc.
This impacts all areas of my life. It's a reason I'm reluctant to carpool or take caltrain, heck, I'm always late to my Therapist... and I pay a lot for that.
Point is that I really try to avoid things where I have to be EXACTLY ON TIME.
For instance, if I'm going to a theater show, I'll plan to meet my friends for dinner beforehand. I might not be able to eat (they will), but at least I'll make the show on time.
Incidentally "I'll plan to be 30 minutes early, so I won't stress the entire time"... doesn't work somehow.
I think you misread the example. Person A says they will be 30 mins late. Person B responds they are running late too, probably by an hour, so person A doesn't need to worry about being a mere 30 minutes late.
I don't think "rude and inconsiderate" are the problem for most people. My wife, for example, is often late to social things. But she's also one of the most thoughtful people I know. In a lot of cases, her thoughtfulness is what makes her late, because we can't show up without a gift or something like that.
That's just her situation, but I think there's generally something larger at play. Something more like people feeling the need to squeeze the most time out of whatever they're doing right now, even knowing in the back of their mind that they're stealing from the next thing. I think it takes a certain amount of unnatural discipline to think of the current thing and the next thing as time-equal.
Well, alternatively, we can use our brains and think about questions like "if I am late to this event, will other people be waiting for me/disturbed?" to determine how serious a violation of etiquette it would be to be late.
Works almost equally well. Etiquette is nothing but a way to codify the answers, a shared agreement on the rules. (I say "almost" because like any set of rules, it makes it harder to get judgment calls wrong.)
I didn't mean to imply it's a magic cure-all, just that it's a pre-shared context that makes it easy to make those decisions.
Humans are really bad at estimating time. So it may just be consistently bad time estimation born out of optimism. The solution is still to double the amount of time you expect things to take so that you're closer to the mark.
Humans are really, really bad at lots of things, but we usually learn ways to compensate, particularly if it's important. Someone like myself who struggles with being late (due to optimism, exactly as you said) absolutely knows that they have this weakness, because it happens constantly and causes all manner of friction and problems. If you don't make any serious attempts to compensate and be better, you're just demonstrating that you don't care that much.
I’m always late to things because of optimism and I compensate by considering anything up to 10 minutes late as on time. My friends have learned to just assume I’ll be late.
Does that count?
What I think is worse than being late are thr monsters that show up on time to a party. Like wtf who does that.
But it’s far more better to time everything just right so that one arrives at said meeting right on time, no later nor sooner.
I think living in Finland has conditioned this type of attitude of not being too early(for fear of wasting time waiting) or too late (fear of being rude). One thing that helps significantly is to know travel times(by bus,car, etc) and allocate rough estimate to them. Luckily most Euro countries have good public transport to make planning ahead less stressful.
> But it’s far more better to time everything just right so that one arrives at said meeting right on time,
This is really really not true for parties. The polite thing to do for a party, as long as it is not a dinner party, is to be at least 1 hour late. Nobody expects guests earlier than that. It’s the unspoken rule.
For dinner parties the usual 15 minutes late is on time.
Ah, perhaps in the other corners of the world, but in Finland we do not play such "games". That is, if you invite someone over by 17 pm, it might mean by 18 pm, or might not. Here, if you invite someone at 17 pm, whatever the cause, that is the target one should be aiming for. Some think of our culture as too direct or blunt, but in my mind ambiguity and misunderstandings are a root cause of much misery. :)
Traffic means I'll arrive to my bimonthly boardgames night somewhere between 15 minutes early and 30 minutes late. And that's before my forgetfulness and insufficiently alarming alarm practices kick in!
You routinely have 45 minute swings in amounts of traffic, and you can’t know in advance what the traffic is going to be like? That seems insane to me. Sure every now and agai there’s an accident or road works, but for it to often take 30 minutes longer, or 15 minutes less seems bizzare to me. Or is it a case of you can leave and be there 15 minutes early, or you can wait 30 mins and be 30 mins late due to traffic? In that case, you’re making he decision that you’d rather be late.
> Besides the obvious craziness of keeping track of these things...
It's not necessarily an actual scorecard or anything like that, but more like a subconscious intolerance for bullshit that you don't HAVE to put with anymore.
If I meet someone that doesn't bring any positivity, and worse, requires me to put an effort into finding them companionable (e.g. trying to discover their good qualities), I decide I'm too old for that shit and have other things to worry about.
Lateness in my case is a consequence of trying to get as much out of my time as possible. I generally find that most of the people I interact with are equally afflicted by this, so also have a tendency to be late and are fairly understanding (within reasonable limits). On the flip side, I find that people that are always there on the dot tend not to have very much going on in their lives. Their timelines defines their personality more than what they do!
> I find that people that are always there on the dot tend not to have very much going on in their lives
Counter anecdote. I strive to be on time especially when I know being late will waste the other person's time because I want to be respectful of their time. Many times I've sacrificed my own productivity to be on time. Also, for me, it's a matter of integrity. If I tell someone I'm going to be there at a certain time, I've given them my word. Barring extenuating circumstances (e.g. car accident) I do my best to do what I said I would do.
The people that have the most going on in their lives tend to be punctual, because being really productive requires good time management in the first place.
Do you cram in those extra small tasks knowing you will be late? Or do you still think you can make it, but it turns out you just failed to plan properly? The former is rude, while the latter is 'merely' inconsiderate.
I'm reminded of a song by Cake; Tougher Than It Is. [1]
Some people are so high-strung and high-maintenance, I don't know why they do it to themselves. Perhaps their career path rewards this behavior, and they become so obsessed with success as defined by their career, whatever that means, that it becomes their entire identity. Because the way Thayer is approaching life sounds a whole lot like the way people behave in corporate america. Thayer Prime would probably benefit from eating some mushrooms in the forest.
I would just think, "this person didn't arrive on time and it pisses me off", then if they did it again, I'd be like, "I don't even want to meet this person that much - I'll just never make another meeting".
Sounds like she's just put a number scale on what most people do intuitively.
I don't think it's too high-strung or high-maintenance to expect people to be reasonably on-time.
Disclaimer: I haven't read the article. The real good stuff is in the comments. -10 points for not reading the article for me.
I can see that, but it greatly depends on the context.
The thing is, my date or friend being late for something like a dinner or cafe meetup is of little consequence. I'm not going to be sitting there twiddling my thumbs stewing in anger bored out of my mind because of it, because I presume we were doing something I genuinely wanted to do wether they were a participant or not. Their presence was just to enhance the experience, we were going to share an experience as a means to enhance it and get to know one another. There is zero urgency for this to have happened precisely that way at that time, and the cost of it not happening exactly as planned is insignificant.
If we were supposed to be pouring a cement foundation and they showed up an hour late and I couldn't get it all poured and finished before it started setting in their absence? Ok, that friend is getting taken down a notch if it were clear they were needed and they had committed.
From what little I know, Thayer Prime strikes me as someone who is not particularly aware of the importance of context with expectations, and is applying the same level of obsessive anal retentiveness she uses professionally uniformly throughout her life.
If my friends are late for social activities, I just pull out a book and hang out wherever we wanted to go - because I wanted to go there. Maybe they'll show up, and that'll be great. If not, well at least we spend time at places I like to be anyways!
Sometimes it seems like some people date just to force others to fulfill their expectations, and their whole world is shattered when those expectations aren't met in the slightest way. Life is so much more than that, it's absurd to me. shrug
I'd argue that obsessing about timeliness is of itself evidence of being high-strung or high-maintenance.
On-time is... sometime that day. Or perhaps tomorrow. Later than that is significantly late, but why worry about an hour or two? It really is a very, very particular western culture thing to be time-obsessed: it's not specifically something that all humans do intuitively.
That would be fine, and honestly I'd be much happier if my work was like that.
But my free time is limited and I have to be at work at 9am on Monday, no matter how long I wait for a selfish person to turn up. So I'm not going to sit there waiting for long...
A friend of mine moved from the East Coast to teach college in Idaho, and he made the comment that punctuality just wasn't a thing out that way. He's a historian, and he surmised that it was because Idaho never had its society fundamentally altered by industrialization and the time-keeping it required.
But yeah, I try not to get hung up on other folks' timeliness, unless there's going to be a knock-on effect. I know shit happens. I bring a book so I can put my time to good use if I have to wait. An obsession with punctuality in and of itself might be a sign that a person is optimizing what's measured rather than what's actually important.
Depends on the individual. If you’re using it for entheogenic purposes, then the forest is a great place to enjoy it. I’m reminded of the image of a Buddhist monk meditating under a waterfall in quiet contemplation.
What I mean is sometimes you find out you're the Buddha and sometimes you find out you're a lonely, pudgy 35 year old doing drugs in the woods and wondering how you're going to come down in time to get to the office in the morning. You imagine you're going to go out and meditate in a garden full of friendly animals, but the nature of tripping is that the non-tripping mind cannot predict the experience with any kind of fidelity. Especially if you're 35 and haven't found a free day to go do it since you were 25, due to mortgages and whatnot.
It's just a useful way to transport your mind into a somewhat arbitrary perspective. Often that leads to forced introspection looking back on the perspective you've come to live normally in, and that might help make some productive changes if you don't quite like or appreciate what you see.
> Thayer Prime, a 32-year-old strategy consultant who lives in London, has even developed a playful 100-point scale (100 being “best friend forever”). In her mind, she starts to dock new friend candidates as they begin to display annoying or disloyal behavior. Nine times out of 10, she said, her new friends end up from 30 to 60, or little more than an acquaintance.
This is like that terrible "The Rules" dating book. How about we treat each other as human beings and not as instrumentalities? We have instincts and biases, but we also have minds and self determination.
Well, I think most people have friend systems. Just not quite as brutal.
If you invite someone and they bail 10 times, maybe you stop inviting them.
I am pretty sure certain events I’ve been invited to was only because I was good friends with someone else. And once they stopped going my invites stopped as well.
Some people you’re close to may have other things going on in their lives, but you loop them in anyway for when their situation changes.
No, it’s being realistic: if somebody doesn’t take you seriously enough to call you back or they disrespect you and devalue your time by being late several times, it’s time to ditch them: life is too short and precious for wasting it on masturbators and jokers.
My guess is that I’m not interested in people at all, and so are my remaining friends. From time to time you meet a person who has a potential to be friends with, but all the potential activities you’ve already seen and got bored of. I don’t get drunk, high, do not do crazy things or sharp discussions anymore. Common interests are just that - common interests. What makes you friends with someone is not just spending time together, but doing something you’ll never do with random people (though few people think they are your friends because they spent some time with you). Now most of ‘still friends’ that I have simply offload their problems to someone’s ears when we meet, or endlessly discuss material matters like property prices, car options and female parameters.
I don’t think you can make true friends in 30s unless you’re taking part in a war-like activity.
There are a lot of worthy causes that are great places to make “warlike” effort in. Therefore friendships happen when each individual chooses to go fight the war worth fighting. Your friends are the people who meet you there on the battlefield.
Whether it’s equality or justice or art or freedom or inclusion or community, those are all things worth fighting for.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the pick up community, AKA gaming (as in "The Game"). It's a good way for hetero guys to meet other hetero guys. A lot of people who stick with it are the type who want to better themselves in some way, which is quite inspiring. Plus, you'll learn skills to meet loads of girls as well, and it's up to you whether you choose to put in the time to have them as friends.
I know a lot of people who it's helped, and I've made some good friends through it as well. The social skills can also be translated to business/events so even if you're not interested in a stream of conquests, it can be valuable. It's the one thing I wish I'd found when I was at university.
For me, and especially because I work remotely, it's because there's no central gathering place. Schools and colleges make it easy to find friends. Work a little less so, but I still managed to have a lot of friends there as well.
Sounds like you need a 'third place' - I had one for a while, then it closed down (and I moved). But when you find one, they're great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
Genealogy can be interesting. My ancestors "third places" have mostly closed down. I'm the first in my male lineage in an unknown but large number of generations to not be a Freemason. On the other side of the family, Church is not politically cool today.
I've found my local hackerspace to be an awesome "third place", and we're hoping to figure out a way to market it as such to boost our dwindling membership.
My best friends came from a local (now defunct hackerspace) which spun into a lock picking group (of which some people from hacker space were members, which spun into some of my best friendships and a recent career move.
I can recommend the book Anatomy of Friendship [1] by Reisman. It's an old book but dispels the myth that things are more difficult now than in days gone by, since he quotes ancient Greeks/Romans lamenting the difficulties of friendship.
It really made me understand friendship, how to make friends, and how friendship varies throughout our lives. Definitely worth digging up a copy. It's a shame it's no longer in print.
I found this particular quote to resonate with me: "We keep trying to get over the hump, but life gets in the way." This continued to happen to me over and over again and I couldn't find any personal tools that helped me get over that hump. As a direct result of my frustration, I am building a solution for this problem called Considerit (considerit.co). Check us out if this sounds like something you would be interested in and sign up for our Beta. Our goal is to help you achieve the outcomes you want with your relationships.
I don't really believe it is harder across the board after 30. I think it can be difficult in certain situations. But overall I believe it to actually be easier after 30. You're no longer trying to fit in or trying to be with a person/s for reasons other than pure friendship. You're most likely settled a bit in your life at this stage. Thus not competing for things. Probably planted roots in the area you're residing for various reasons. I think these things make it easier later in life.
Yeah, but you also have a job you can't just blow off like you can your college classes and maybe a family or other obligations, and then on top of that you aren't constantly being more or less forced to socialize the way you are in school. When you combine that with the waning of institutions (really everything from religious groups to voluntary associations to bowling leagues) you have a recipe for lonely people.
I've organized my life around career and family. Forging relationships at work hasn't transcended employment in that I lose touch shortly after leaving an organization. I've found that professional communities, from executive mba program to various tech communities, as having the potential to create new relationships but it requires time and tending to, and so now I am in my late 30s affirming the challenges of making friends. Acquaintances, however, are far easier to achieve.
speaking as 33 year old, i can tell you why people don't make friends with me - because i don't want any friends. my wife and children + colleagues are more than enough
I'm the guy people want to ne friends with. Im very friendly. I don't want friends. Most end the same way: we connect, share & remember things, then i turn cold and act less interested. Then we become good acquaintances. This pattern existed way back in high schoolHi
Having friends is not on my list of success
Or even a positive achievement. Being friendly is at the top of the list.
I say to people i meet and to others now, make sure the potential friend really wants the job.
I'm 24 I'm already finding it hard to make new good friends. To me a good friend is someone whom I can reach out to without thinking twice, it could be for discussing that shower thought, ranting about the work, asking for suggestions when I'm in trouble, talking about the book I just read. I made quite a few friends since college in the sense that I hang out with them from time to time, but not any good friends.
there are definitely different dynamics. IRL a person will get back to right away; online, your comments can be ignored. IRL, you have the context of the person's personality to supplement the content of what they're saying (for better or for worse, but definitely different).
human communication is also hardly only based on just speaking words, with body language and gestures and facial expressions working to convey full meaning. it is hard to feel warmth in online discussions, or at least harder.
furthermore, online discussion seems much more targeted, and less exploratory in terms of subject matter (this is neutral, not saying better or worse) whereas IRL you can flow from topic to topic. also, i'd say discussing personal topics in person is more rewarding due to a combination of all the above.
Situational Proximity - Beside the obvious compatibilities...If you are continually around someone in your youth and hang out, you tend to make long lasting friends. If you are partially and sporadically around someone because of logistics (spouse, work, location) you will not make long lasting bonds at the level you would compared to the first example. The other parts of the discussion are not significant to those points IMO.
The article makes it pretty clear that relationships and marriage take the place of friends, especially for men. 30 is also that sort of point where women who haven't had kids already think "uh oh, better soon than never". I can see the downvotes coming already for speaking on behalf of women, but I have more female friends than male ones and the number 30 is universally dreaded for the reason I describe. Well, then there's the looks factor which, take it how you will, but society generally views that age as "the wall". So by that point, you'd better have found your partner in life. If that's one's goal, and it is for most people, are you going to expend your energy finding more friends or are you going to expend it towards finding a "life-long" mate?
I'm nearing 30, and I'd say over 90% of my friends have significant others. Long-term relationships significantly changes a person's behavior; the concept of friendship gradually shifts towards "How can I include my SO in this?" If we go to the movies, it's gotta be a film that he/she is going to like, and they don't like scary movies so that's out of the question now. Maybe your existing friends you've still got around will tolerate this, but new friends aren't going to do everything that your SO wants to do. With my guy friends especially, everything now revolves around what their SO wants to do even when their SO actually permits us to go off and do guy things. I think this happens to most people, though, and I would be no exception if I was in a relationship. As the article states, good luck if you are trying to make friends with another couple. Chances are at least one person in that party isn't really interested in the friendship.
Putting aside that constraint, however, I haven't had that much difficulty making friends at my age. I think a lot of people figure out that most people aren't worth their time, thus friends really don't provide all that much. As long as you've got a couple good friends who have your back even if you haven't talked in months, you're golden. If you're in a relationship with someone, the even less you need the company of others.
People also get dull by the time they're in their 30s. They spent so much time working and relationshipping that they lost a lot of imagination and didn't really expand their horizons as much as their Instagrams would suggest. I'm not saying this is a permanent state, but a doldrum that happens after a person has spent so much time ticking off the boxes of things they're supposed to accomplish. That's what tunnelvision can do to a person. It's definitely possible to get out of it, which is probably why my few real friends are either in their early-to-mid 20s or past 40.
30 universally dreaded, and people dull over 30? That's unfortunate. You only get to spend 10 years as a 20-30 year-old, which is only 1/8th or so of a typical human lifespan.
I lost a good chunk of my friends when I had kids, they just stopped talking to me or stopped inviting me to things because they figured, I'm a family man now. That's true to an extent, but I'm not a family man when I'm at work, I'm not in Dad mode when I hang out. I since made new friends, some married, some not, some with kids, some not. Various ages and career ranges.
They also got married, and fell into that spouse politics trap (if our wife or significant other don't like each other or click), we can't hang out, ever. I most of my friends I don't even try to make our spouses meet, except through happenstance, and even then, it doesn't matter since 95% of the time we're doing something, its out with friends, and we only have a few friends where we'll do something with their spouse.
Some tried to get in contact when they had kids but quite frankly, I've moved on.
> As long as you've got a couple good friends who have your back even if you haven't talked in months, you're golden
This is very true. I had a longterm, and at the time I thought "rest of life", relationship break down in my early thirties and looking back it has been a change for the very best. I 100% agree about the "wall" at the year 30 mark (she was also around that age and I can't help but think she had a crisis of thought about "is this 'it'?"). I was very much feeling that and it was creating a combined sense of excitement and sheer terror. Throughout all of this was a handful of my own friends, of which I see one regularly and the rest sporadically (from months to years even) - but I never once felt "lacking" in friendship.
I've definitely seen the pattern you describe many times.
The couple that manages this best is one where Sun--Wed is single friends time and Thurs--Sat is couples friends time. Probably not for everyone but this seems to work remarkably well for them.
I'm 33, and my experience has basically been the same as the GP.
Past a certain point, you never see your friends again unless they're accompanied by their SO, and once they have kids, their lives revolve around their kids and nothing else.
And I'll always remember the culture shock when I a new job where my coworkers were mostly in their 30s while my coworkers at my last job were all in their 20s. Office conversations at the new company mostly centered on the logistics of taking out a second mortgage, debates over what kind of grass to put in their yards, and talk of what their children are up to. I was 30 at the time, and I decided then and there that these were people I had nothing whatsoever in common with, and if this is what I have to look forward to as I get older, I don't really want a social life anymore.
That does not sound like they don't have friends, that sounds like they talk about what is current or important for them with their friends in the office.
Oh no, that's not what I meant. I'm sorry if I worded my post poorly.
I meant that the kinds of conversations that typical 30-somethings have are conversations that starkly remind me that people my age and older by and large aren't people I identify with.
Yes. People lose their luster over time. What has changed is the self and ones perspective. What does it say about yourself when you notice peoples faults instead of what you admire in them? The faults were there all along.
Chances are, older people have been deceived more. This is a reason to be a bit more sceptical upon meeting a new person. While this may be subtle in itself, the very assumption that your peer may also be sceptical about you can make the situation even harder. I'm afraid it takes two naive individuals, blindly disregarding the risks, to start a meaningful friendship.
I am soon to be 28 and do not have many friends. However, it is by choice. Partly because I have moved around a lot and partly because there is no need for me to have a lot of friends.
But I have also noticed that is very hard and very much so for me that works remotely, not attending any sports events or similar and spend way too much time either gaming or working of side projects.
I had a lot of friends when I was in college. I think I hung out with like four different groups of people, and I'd often introduce people in different groups to each other.
After I graduated, everything slowly fell apart. As the years went by, we all slowly but surely drifted away. I'm at the point where I hang out with very few people in real life anymore. I have one very close friend from college who I still go out drinking with every few weeks, but he's it. Facebook has been a life saver here: I still talk with old friends all the time on Facebook, but our friendships are mostly confined to Facebook. Every once in a while, someone will say to me "We should totally hang out again sometime!", and I'd be like "Sure, that sounds awesome!", and nothing ever comes of it. I don't think there's anything malicious involved; I just think that both of us are too socially awkward to actually schedule a time and a place to meet up. There have been a couple of exceptions, where "We should totally hang out again sometime!" turns into concrete plans, but those are few and far between.
And it's worse if they're married and doubly so if they have kids. I think, before I go any farther, I should point out that I have no interest in ever having children, and I'm aromantic, which means that I am mentally incapable of feeling romantic attraction for another person. Though I'm technically a lesbian, I'm functionally asexual just because I have no interest in being part of a couple.
Take the guy I used to call my best friend, for example. As soon as he met the person who eventually became his wife, I never saw him alone again. This was a guy who was like a brother to me; we'd often stay up late at night and talk to each other about anything and everything, and we'd often confide things in each other that we'd never tell anyone else (for example, he was the first person I ever came out to). But as soon as he met her, I couldn't hang out with him without his girlfriend/fiancee/wife tagging along. Hell, when he got engaged, I invited him out to a bar so I could buy him a glass of scotch to congratulate him on his engagement, and he brought her along there! It got to the point where I couldn't have a serious conversation with him. It also really annoyed me, whenever we'd hang out at a bar, she'd decide she was tired and wanted to go back. They'd tab out ASAP and leave as soon as their credit card came back. I am, by the way, talking about a bar that's literally right across the street from their apartment. They'd disappear before I could even finish my last drink... before he met her, when one of us would get tired and decide to end the night, we'd at least both stick around until we finished our last drinks and then go home at the same time.
Or, for some of people I know who have kids, their kids are all they talk about. I've had to unfollow a lot of people on Facebook because their Facebook feeds just become constant streams of pictures of their kids and updates on their kids' lives (the only person I make an exception for on this is my cousin, and that's only because her kids are my family too). I've heard from a lot of people my age that they make most of their new friends by befriending the parents of their children's friends, so being childfree that completely cuts off the main avenue of making new friends for people my age (and honestly, it sounds like a terrible way of making new friends, where the only thing you have in common is that your kids like each other).
Making new friends at my age sounds more like pretending than anything else. I dread the idea of joining someone's existing friend group and struggling to understand all their little in-jokes. And even when I do understand them, they won't have any emotional impact on me because I wasn't there when the joke started. And if they're my age, they're going to be spending a lot of time reminiscing over the good old days, and that will always make me feel left out because I'm the newbie who didn't share the good old days with them. I'll always be the fifth wheel.
And then there's the fact that some of my former friends have become genuinely shitty people. Take my former best friend who I was talking about two paragraphs ago. Over the last few years, he's gone down an extreme alt-right rabbit hole. He'd always been a libertarian and a Christian, but he was always one of the good ones, and now he's gone full blown religious right extremist. His Facebook feed has largely consisted of memes with transphobic slurs, Nigel Farage videos, videos about how gay people can't get into heaven, screeds about how Jimmy Fallon's son deserved to die, the "piece of shit" meme about single mothers, etc. He went from being one of the most caring and compassionate people I knew to an utter monster. And, yes, his wife is partially responsible for this. She's an extreme tradcon who believes that a woman's highest calling is to be a 1950s housewife, and she's brought out the absolute worst in him. Eventually, after realizing he's too far gone to ever come back, I started ghosting both of them. I haven't spoken to him in over a year, and I actively avoid going to places where I know they like to hang out. I do, however, take a perverse pleasure in watching my count of mutual friends with him on Facebook drop like a rock. And they're all from people unfriending him. One of those people was a groomsman at his wedding, who publicly told him to "fuck off" after he posted something really heinous. The only good thing to come out of this though is that him going off the deep end has rekindled my friendships with his exes. The last two times "We should totally hang out again sometime!" actually resulted in something concrete happening have been with two of his exes, and we bonded over how he's turned into a horrible person. One of them even said that meeting me was the best thing that came out of dating him (and she's one of my friends who has a kid, but she's one of the few people I know who has kids where I can have a conversation with her about something other than her kid).
But, honestly, losing the man who was at one time the closest thing I had to a brother fucked me up really badly. I don't have anyone who I could talk to the way I talked to him back in the day. We'd been through so much together, and he'd been right there with me for every single important milestone in my life since I was 19. We got each other into music, TV shows, hobbies, etc. He got me into goth music, and I got him into Doctor Who. I took up photography for a time because I wanted to be like him. I can't replace that. There is nobody I can meet tomorrow who I will ever have that kind of deep friendship with, because all these important milestones in my life have already passed, and I'll never get to go back in time and experience those milestones with someone else. I have one close friend left (the guy I still go drinking with every few weeks) who I went through a lot of these milestones with, but I never spent nearly as much time with him as I did with he-who-shall-not-be-named, and our relationship wasn't quite as deep. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's deeper than most other friendships I've had, and he's far more than just another drinking buddy, but not to the extent of thinking of him as my brother. I'm just not going to find another brother (or sister) at my age, as it's the kind of relationship you have to start cultivating when you're very young. The way I see it, I have another 30-40 years left in me before my body gives out, and I'm going to spend all of them without having the kind of friend I had from 19 to 31. I don't really know how I'm going to deal with that.
> The way I see it, I have another 30-40 years left in me before my body gives out, and I'm going to spend all of them without having the kind of friend I had from 19 to 31. I don't really know how I'm going to deal with that.
Most people try to find this sort of friend in a relationship.
is that how it actually ends up going down though? a romantic relationship has so many other variables to consider, and the dynamic is far different: you live with this person; eventually, in most cases, you pledge to live with them forever; you are sexually involved with this person; they are your "ONE" person designated as most important (this doesn't really happen with friends, at least not officially); you might raise a child together, a massive responsibility to which mutual responsibilities undertaken with friends hardly compare.
i think that our innate evolutionary heuristic for finding a romantic partner is quite different from that which is used to find friends and this difference definitely impacts who we select. it seems naive to assume that the majority of romantic relationships are simply opposite-sex friends who are roommates that have sex. at least when we look at romantic relationships that last a while.
i want to believe it's that simple, but i have a hard time doing so.
Now there's something noticeable by its presence in a 2012 article - a Louis CK quote.
Anyway the article names various and sundry complicated and small manifestations of this phenomenon, but what's the big picture? Maybe making friends past a certain age is hard because it's unnatural and somewhat irrelevant? Maybe making friends is just another naturally- and reproductively-selected trait that helps with mating and is much less relevant otherwise. Meaning that wanting friends, results in having more friends, which means more hunting/foraging helpers and teachers of same, which makes you more likely to survive long enough to mate, and more likely to find a mate (since all your friends will have siblings etc., and the ones from outside your tribe are particularly valuable statistically/genetically speaking) and successfully pass that friendly tendency on to the next generation.
Or heck maybe wanting friends is an indirect and sublimated sexual urge in and of itself. It's not like homosexuality comes outta nowhere. And/or maybe being with one person is psychologically a surrogate or substitute for (or practice for later) being with your mate, just like owning a dog is to having children.
Anyway, once all the mating stuff is over with, maybe you're immune to it all. I don't have much to go on here, other than 1) my tendency to look to evolution and the Ape for explanations of human behavior, and 2) the fact that I noticed I lost interest in friends as soon as I found a mate I was happy with. And interestingly, being with the previous one, whom I wasn't happy with, didn't put a damper on my social tendencies at all. (But I was younger then too, so there's at least one confounding variable.)
Regardless, I suddenly notice there are large swathes of life that seem to be there only to trick you into mating. (That is, the ones that aren't there to trick you into giving someone money.)
(Some people use the one to accomplish the other.)
(And vice versa.)
But then you reach a point where you're immune to all that, and it's a relief. You can finally get on with it, whatever the "it" is in your life. We flatter ourselves that life is complicated, important and purposeful, but actually it's pretty simple and probably random. Life just wants us to mate & raise kids, and then after that, it could give a shit what we do. (As long as we keep out of the way of other people mating & raising kids, of course.) That semen/those eggs are just your genes heading for the lifeboats of a sinking ship. But that also means once you're freed from "life's plan for you," you can stop giving a shit right back, and finally do whatever you want!
this seems far too reductionist. friends can help us grow and become better, happier, more fulfilled people at any age. to claim that 1 person is able to fulfill this instead seems like a stretch to me. surely some diversity of thought / conversation is helpful.
When you're young the criteria for making friends include shared interests in the opposite sex, academics, partying and so on. People are rarely judgemental. Later in life a huge component of relationships is based on comparison of status and material acquisitions.
As another commenter posted, I wished someone had told me this when I was younger.
I never had a lot of friends in high school. I was a nerd when and where being a nerd was bad. I never really got the dynamic that mirrororing helps a lot with this and that I contributed to this by unwittingly coming across as aloof. What friends I had weren't... great. Frankly, after high school I never saw them again and honestly don't feel like I was missing much.
What compounds this is I have severe myopia. Always have, always will. It's not the kind of thing that surgery can fix. This meant, say, playing team sports just wasn't possible. It's also a limiting factor in so many things. Not being able to drive a massive handicap. It impacts the ability to even watch sports so that's not something I ever developed an interest in.
I also have anxiety issues. Not major. Not "I can't leave the house" type issues but... issues. In high school I never had to try so it wasn't an issue. In college I did, although I didn't realize it at the time. But it kept me from going to classes in part because I just didn't want to have to deal with not being able to see/read the board from that distance.
So I was pretty much a no-show and ended up dropping out. This also meant that I just didn't make a circle of friends in college like so many seem to.
There's been some interesting research done on people who appear trustworthy. This is a hard thing to measure but it seems to hold almost universally true. I think the study was about people who appear "untrustworthy" were more likely to be given the death sentence out of a pool of people who were all later exonerated with DNA evidence.
I feel like I'm one of those people that people just react negatively to. Even if they don't I don't think it matters because I pretty much believe it to be true. Combine that with some low-grade anxiety and you get a bad mix of trust issues and keeping one's distance from people.
I only ever really had one serious relationship and it didn't work out in a fairly gut-wrenching way that's stayed with me for years, in part from the self-flagellation for the choices I made that contributed to that ending.
So here I am, years later in my 40s. I have acquaintances but not much in the way of true friends. Honestly I can't even remember the last time I had a deep conversation with somebody. I'm reminded of Kevin Spacey's character in American Beauty when asked "how are you?" and he replied that it'd been a long time since anyone had asked. That's how I feel.
How people form relationships mystifies me so unlike some whose friends fall away but they still have their families, I don't even have that.
So here I am still wondering, how do people make friends?
Axiom: People want to have fun, relax, feel safe and be valued.
1. Availability
Many people have what they want in terms of love and friendships. Do not focus on befriending them, it will likely peter out, with the best will in the world. Do not aim to befriend some big extrovert: if they want your friendship they will walk up to you and befriend you. You need to find situations where people are likely to be looking to form friendships. That means putting yourself out there and does take courage: meetups, clubs (chess? books? guns!), volunteering, activism, hiking, community activities etc...
2. Humility
Open yourself up to friendship with any kind of person. Remove barriers: age, sex, race, religion, culture, politics, height, weight...whatever it is, leave it behind. Stop being judgemental: you find someone boring? Give them a chance. How exciting are you at first glance? It may be nerves. Most people have significant depths. Every human being is an amazing animal, full of potential. Accept that fact and you will be much more open to every opportunity. Re-evaluate your acquaintances based on that too.
3. Engagement
Imagine you're someone else meeting yourself. How can you give them one of those axiomatic things they're seeking? The easiest thing to start with is make people feel valued. This is as simple as listening to what they say and paying attention to what they do. This means turning your attention away from what is happening in your own head. After a time, observe and mention positive things about the other person. Nobody will reject a compliment [1]. Patience is essential. Unless you're going to meet someone several times, then forget it. You are very unlikely to befriend someone you will only see once. That is why context matters. Accept that many encounters won't turn into friendship: interact with multiple people over time. Never reject a positive move towards you: an invitation, being included in a group, someone sitting next to you. Accept all of these positively. Make people feel safe: don't be pushy, clingy or discuss controversial or intimate topics (that's for when you're friends). People want to relax: you're an intense person (it appears to me)...but people don't know what's in your mind. Don't start sharing troubles or telling people what you think of yourself. Keep it vanilla and/or abstract - i.e. talk about topics or other people. They can learn about your intense nature later like when they care.
4. Grace
I'm borrowing a religious term to describe moments in life when you have an opportunity to help people or change the understanding between yourself and another person. These are the moments that turn acquaintances into friends. These are not usually heroic in scale! Watch out for small opportunities to do something positive unasked for. Notice if an acquaintance suddenly reveals something about themselves - your reaction may change the nature of that relationship into a friendship.
You may have heard this kind of thing before. You may think it all sounds superficial and like hard bloody work. Humble yourself to it, if you really want friendship.
[1] Don't compliment people on their body, clothes or appearance until you know them well.
I don't think it has to do with age I think it has to do with the end of the 40 hour work week, the always connected work culture doesn't leave much room these days for people of any age to form old fashioned friendships outside of work
Who has time for friends ? All relations are about spending time with someone. You can get a good relations with anyone by just spending time with them. Most people are actually not that bad when you get to know them.
Because there are no good generic (read: not gyms) areas for repeatedly mixing people at that age since you're no longer in any kind of educational institution.
The childeren thing goes both ways. I know tons of people I wouldnt ever say hello to due to events around children. Lots of bored loney parents standing around while johnny picks grass in the outfield makes for a great way to meet people.
Because love takes time, and money is time in this society. Takes a lot of money to have friends, and most men are actually to poor to afford friends. That's included in the price society pays for loving wealth first. You cannot serve two masters. You can of course fake it, drinking buddies ect... it's like most things in a money first group, the real thing is continually cheapened until everyone looses interest and then we blame them for having too high of standards.
life just got too busy and you no longer stay together for friendship long enough(unlike you have a few years for that during childhood, school, college, etc).
We've lost the families and social institutions that once developed those relationships, and in general the ability to put up with people outside our comfort zone. If you've read CS Lewis' Great Divorce, it is his vision of hell, everyone living in their own isolated, make believe houses, ever moving farther away from each other because they cannot stand anyone else.
Which is caused by high land costs. Now we must maximize our employability, and to hell with friends, family and community. The land costs, set by loose credit from banks, must be met.
Get a hobby. Start going to a place where people practice it. I'm over 30 and board games work well for me. Most people I play with are younger. The oldest of us, resembling the one from French Connection, is a former programmer(?) and regularly mops the floor with other players, often at games he's playing for the first time. I heard he attends dancing lessons too.
I think it's a matter of getting your priorities right and not neglecting work/life balance. My brother is a devops rather obsessed with career, progress, income, has wife and kids. If he sends you a message it's usually because he's about to follow up with something he needs of you. If he calls it's usually past 20:00 and he's not interesting in listening to you... then when he finishes talking he says he no longer has time. He regularly takes his work home. If he has a single friend, I'm not aware of that. He doesn't read, doesn't watch movies, no longer plays games. Doesn't appear to be interested in anything but work.
My simple principle is work to live, not live to work. Work should enable decent living and a lifestyle where I can occasionally travel at my own will, buy some fancy items and eat well. If the workplace regularly organizes parties or sends people on delegations, I'll look for another one. My brother says I could stockpile money much faster abroad. Stockpile... for what? Time is the resource you can't replace.
It seems you might be rationalizing your lower-income a bit. Let me try to explain why. I agree about the work-life balance, but at 30 you're in the best shape you'll ever be: physically & mentally. In my opinion there is some sense in sacrificing a bit of the present in order to make the future more palatable. Especially at the age of 30. A bit of extra effort at this age can save a lot of trouble down the road. Granted you can take this to the extreme and be like your brother. But I've seen so many miserable people in their 50s at my workplace, living paycheck to paycheck, buy all kinds of useless trinkets and always talking about their next 'adventure' - a holiday to some expensive resort on the other side of the globe or something.
I don't want to live like that at 50. I am willing to sacrifice some of my present time & enjoyment to avoid that.
There are some things you can't do (or are much more difficult) once you reach retirement, such as some physically demanding activities. You can either live life while life is worth living, or you can waste your prime accumulating wealth you can't take with you at the end and aren't healthy enough to enjoy to the fullest.
Not everyone measures their happiness by the balance in their bank account. These "miserable people" might be genuinely enjoying their "useless" trinkets and adventures. If it's not for you - OK, but don't judge other people like that. Contrary, I know plenty of older, rich people that worked hard their whole life and are still miserable, because they are missing the time they could have spent with the loved ones (especially when they pass away) or didn't do things they enjoy.
What they're trying to say is, if you work in a job you don't like and pace through work from one holiday to the next, you're basically missing out on life.
I mean, how much holidays do you have? In Germany for every holiday week you work five weeks.
What makes you think that they are missing life? They might as well work in a position they are not overly enthusiastic about, but earn enough to meet their lifestyle and enjoy their life after 5pm back at home with loving family or working in a garden. How that's worse than working your ass off 80h per week, earn a lot of money, but then be a rich 50 year old with no family and no friends? I mean, how can you even objectively compare such things? Choose whichever way and lifestyle works for you and brings most happiness, but don't judge people that choice other ways.
> But I've seen so many miserable people in their 50s at my workplace, living paycheck to paycheck, buy all kinds of useless trinkets and always talking about their next 'adventure' - a holiday to some expensive resort on the other side of the globe or something.
I'm not sure why you were downvoted. I disagree with this viewpoint on life, but it's an interesting perspective.
There's some evidence that spending money on experiences over things leads to greater happiness in the long term (think building memories rather than wealth):
It's possible that the people you think are miserable are not, or maybe are just miserable at work and actually have a happy life overall.
The other problem with sacrificing too much of the present for the future is that you can't predict the future very easily. For example, my father died about two weeks after retiring.
My short term goal: be financially independent so I can pull my own weight, and can spend part of free time doing silly stuff.
My long term goal: advance in a job that is neither too stressful nor too boring, which pays well until my retirement. I think programmers can do that, as long as they keep learning. This is so I can keep repeating my short term goal in future, including saved up money for emergencies.
letsgetphysITal pretty much nailed it. Why, yes, low income is even an understatement. I'm unemployed and actively looking for work. Contrary to what some of my associates believe, I'm not lazy, I'm unemployed mostly due to depression and some past traumas. It's surprisingly hard to find motivation in such situation, but I don't want to bother you with my mental health. I'm pretty sure I'm going to find work soon, considering I'm getting lots of job interviews and have a very cynical book about interview questions.
In best shape... for what ? To produce value to my company ? Certainly. But my employer is not the most important thing in the world. I only spend one evening (4 hours) per week playing board games. We also have extra meetings - one saturday per month. But I skipped this saturday because I felt obligated to spend the time preparing for 2 job interviews. It's my conscience kicking in, my worries about uncertain future. I want to earn enough so I have the peace of mind to meet people more often, read books, shoot bow, travel on (some)weekends and holidays.
Besides, who am I going to hang around with when I'm 50? Old curmudgeons ? People who don't work out ? Ladies well past their prime ? People afraid to try new things, afraid of change ? People like that often don't have much energy left. When their knees are creaking, eyes don't see as well, memory fails. I want to be in a very good shape and with lots of developed hobbies when I reach that point. I want to have cultivated friendships at that point. Invariably some of them will marry, have kids and decide friends are a waste of time. My point is not to buy friends now and save them for later, but to learn the skill of making friends.
I understand my brother is very well off financially. He has a nice car (he likes to emphasize), nice flat, earns a lot and recently got a raise. His kids have lots of toys, are sent to camping trips, chess tournaments for juniors, swimming contests. Yet when we have a family gathering, he spends most of his time at his laptop, monitoring stuff and watching for alerts. His kids don't care when they are given something, but are very eager to play with someone. Simple kid stuff, like playing tag, chasing, hide&seek. Parents, at least the father, want kids to read... but my nephews see they don't read. The boy has some emotional issues, he can play computer games for days if you don't stop him, will install games on other peoples' smartphones and overlook their passwords so he can have one more fix. He's positioned to become another out of shape, antisocial nerd like I used to be.
Naturally, because I'm unemployed, he won't even let me even open my mouth, much less consider what I say. I don't even try anymore.
When I hear him talking about kids, it's almost invariably that they misbehave. Not that they're visiting X or Y with kids or had a funny talk or something. And the kids seem a bit too eager to play with anyone, as if no one spends much time with them. Does my brother only work late on holidays? To me it sounds they're managing their kids, not raising them. Maybe I'm bad at judging people, but I don't see much joy in that family.
Anyway I think this is a bit sad. Ancient Greeks valued friendship more than love. Friends are often for life, while lovers are all too happy to switch when someone more attractive shows up.
It definitely sounds like you have something against your brother by the way you have portrayed him in a negative light. It sounds like you are competitive against him by constantly comparing his lifestyle versus yours.
He would just yack, and yack. Some times I would put the phone down, and come back in 5 minutes, and he would still be talking. He was eccentric, had a horrid childhood, but genuinely nice.
I thought he was nuts, but nice.
We ended up becoming best friends. They used to call us the odd couple.
I ended up trusted him more than family. We just included each other in everthing without even thinking. My girlfriends were put off by him at first, but he would wear them down talking, and before I knew it, he was calling them daily. And when he missed a day, they would ask me if he is ok. He never crossed the line either.
He died a few years ago, but his friendship technique was something I thought was brilliant. Just wear the person down.
I can pass this along, I once heard a therapist say something like, make friends with people your own age, or younger. Her rationale was they will die before you.
When I was in my tewenties, I just didn't have much in common with my peers. I wasen't more mature, but didn't like my generation that much. My friends were just older. I really loved all of them.
If I had a do-over, I might have really tried to make friends with people my own age. I'm all alone now. It does suck.
Anyways, my eccentric friend knew how to make friends. I haven't tried his technique, but might?
I think you can make very good friends at any age. But
1. I have very old friends with a lot of, let's call it "weaknesses". Our friendship is "grandfathered" but if I meet new people I don't tolerate such things anymore.
2. Sometimes you meet an interesting person and would like to hang out more but things don't develop. This person never has time etc. You can also maintain only a limited amount of friends.
Looking at the small town where I grew up, people in the generations before mine had the luxury that the friends they made in kindergarten pretty much lived next door to them their entire lives. They went to school together, they worked together, they saw each other all the time around town, they played softball and pickup basketball together on town teams, they married into large extended families, and their kids went to school together. For my generation, that's broken down, ultimately because that local economy has faltered and died. We had to go out into the world and make our way in a mass of strangers, without that deeply ingrained commonality to fall back on. And that's hard.
My assumption is that with 30 age really becomes visible. It was at this age, people- the same sort of people i would hang around with and goof with- started to refer to me as "Mr." - as if by having the first grey hair- you somehow become some authoritative figure to be afraid of.
Which is ridiculosis - but you cant change what people think when they see you for the first time.
By this time people have suffered a lot. Faced economic hardships. I used to make friends regardless of their socioeconomic background but the ones who were poor, always made me feel as if they are poor because of people like me. I am rich. They could justify every worse thing they did to me, just because they thought I had it easy and they had to struggle much. I never got to understand how these guys can justify scamming me. Couple of them screwed me over lots of money and made my life hell but nvm I recovered and still thriving.
You met shitty poor people.
Being poor doesn't make you screw people over, but if you're rich, you may not have notice or appreciated how your wealth was interacting with these people.
Great example was in the show Friends. There was this episode when Febie? and Joey were broke as f--k and they got all bent out a joint having to be in situations with the others where they were spending more money than they could afford just to keep up appearances. And then they got even more hurt because of then the others pivoted to pity and charity.
Anyway, you're still thriving to it's all a wash in the end.
I've have helped lots of people and I am a firm believer of "If you can help, you must". Heck, my wife was also poor but she is the best person I've ever met. She is the only one who can set millions of dollars on fire for me.
But over the time, my inability to act indifferent to people's struggle has burned me over a countless number of times. Examples include places where I gave out few hundred thousands in help and got scammed out of millions. These days I am living under the rock so that I do not see others' struggle and jump there to help.
In a similar, but opposite direction, I've found (in my mid, now late 40's) that I really enjoy the company of my Dad's friends. They have interesting life stories, are brilliant, and I've got a wide enough range of interests that it is easy to find common ground.
Oh dear God, no. 20-somethings... have a bit of living to do before they're interesting.
Don't get me wrong, being 20 is awesome. When you're 20. Because you suddenly have so much freedom. But when you're in your 40s, that's not that exciting any more. Well, at least it isn't for me. I've done the crazy things, I know how they end. I like friends with a bit more perspective.
Honestly, what I want is someone like me to muddle through life with.
And simply put, most people over 30 aren't going to be "like me" in the least. Most of them are family-minded, career-minded, or both. I'm just not going to have much in common with someone who's married and either has kids or is trying to have kids, nor am I going to have anything in common with someone who's trying to aggressively climb the career ladder.
The people I have the most in common with and see as peers are by and large slackers in their 20s, not people my age. I'm 33, and the disconnect between me and most people my age is really jarring... I see most people my age as having more in common with my parents than me (this was especially noticeable the last time I saw my cousins in person... they're only a few years older than me, but they act just like my mom did at their age, while I'm still a big kid... I really feel like most people of my generation are effectively of an older generation).
My conversations with folks of that “era” always seem to be more diverse, interesting and surprising. You never know what direction the conversation will go when you meet someone new. I have a few hobbies where the practitioners tend toward older and through these activities met exceptional people. I love hearing about the the war, Woodstock, actual political change, the drug fueled 70s, etc. Interesting careers that you never knew even existed. I met a ferry pilot who flew private airplanes people just bought internationally to their new owners! I could listen to that guy’s stories for hours.
Contrast that with my interactions with people my own age and younger: Topics inevitably fall to vapid TV shows and sports, celebrity gossip, This Gadget I Bought, where I partied last week, my office co-workers suck, etc. Wake me up when it’s over!
The thing though is that I want a peer. I want someone with a similar outlook on life who I can muddle through life with. The people you describe all sound like fascinating characters, but they're not peers.
I'm 33, and I don't even see people my age as peers. I'm still a big kid at heart, and when I see people my age who are getting married, having kids, climbing the career ladder, it just reinforces that people my age just aren't my peers. I have no interest in ever getting married or having kids, and I have no career ambition. I identify more with people who are a decade younger than me than anyone else. Most people I've seen who are my age come off as more peers to my parents than as peers to me (this was especially jarring the last time I visited my cousins; they're only a few years older than me, but they have three kids each now, they reminded me so much of my mom, while I still see myself as an overgrown kid... by the time their children are old enough to have conversations with I'll probably have more in common with them than with any family members of my generation).
I'm a child-free man. My best friend of 12 years is a mother of 2, and 10 years older than me. We're extremely similar people, with extremely similar interests. We just have completely different daily lives. I'd really struggle to think of her as not a peer. But my identification goes in the opposite direction - I identify more more older people. So it's possible you could find peers among 20-somethings?
For the record, it's not that I see _every_ person who has kids as "not a peer", just most of them. The few I do see as peers are by and large the people who had kids by accident and didn't spend their whole lives dreaming of being a parent.
Another +1. You just can't beat that collected wisdom. I've complained about something that seemed so menial, only for my friend to make a really insightful quip about a pattern he's seen in my work life that, although didn't map 100%, reflected more deeply paid attention than almost all of my friends in my 20-something age group.
Because you aren't a kid anymore? You are older and have a wife, children, nephews, nieces and responsibilities? Not only that you have friends from childhood, high school, college, work, etc and there are only 24 hours in a day?
It's called growing up. Are we supposed to stay naive children forever without responsibilities forever?
