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Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?

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Re: Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?

#81
post #2

Friendships form when you repeatedly interact with the same person. This is not likely to happen at a random bar, but it most definitely can happen in a cooking class, when volunteering, playing music with people in a band, routinely getting together every Thursday night with others in your local makerspace and so on. Especially if you have to actually work together: perhaps offer your help to a local cause you suppo…

Maybe not an explicit 'I hereby declare a ban on all friendships', but in my experience, I find it hard to draw close to someone simply by virtue of the fact that we did not form our friendship early in life. No matter how much I hang out with someone, his childhood friends whom he grew up with will always take 'precedence' - I will never be that 'close friend who people can be comfortable sharing their personal lives with'.

Re: Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?

#82

> How do I overcome this sense of loneliness and dismality? You are actually asking several different questions. But I suspect if you can overcome this one, you'll find that you won't really yearn for deep friendships as much. There are several things you should probably ask yourself: - Are upset that you are alone, or are that you are lonely? Remember, there's two are not necessarily the same. - What is making you f…

Maybe I will expand a little bit more on my original post.

A colleague of mind left a little earlier before work ended because he had an appointment with some of his highschool friends. From what he told us they don't live in the same area any more but make it a point to meet up once a month.

After work I made a detour to get some stuff, and I happened to walk past the cafe where said colleague was hanging out with his friends. I was walking opposite the street but could see them through the glass windows laughing and having a good time, and in that moment I felt a visceral pang of emptiness / loneliness.

I am unable to forge a deep level of friendship with people that I meet in Meetup groups - simply because they already have their own cliques and social circle. Even if they do form a new one, it will never be as close-knit as the ones they have formed throughout highschool simply by virtue of the fact that one has been ongoing for a longer time.

If you can visualize it like a spider web, where you are in the centre and the 'webs' that branch out are your friends - the more friends you make and the stronger connections you form (usually happens throughout high school and college) - the larger your spider web grows exponentially. The closer a person is to you, the nearer he is to the 'centre' of the web. Think of it this way - the larger the spider web people have, the harder it is for someone to get as close to the centre of the net as possible. At this stage of life - almost everyone already has established their 'spider web'.

I know this because I actually do have such a clique since highschool. We still maintain contact over Whatsapp but since I am the only one that is overseas, I am unable to meet up with them frequently. And within that circle I do have a couple of close friends who I message on a weekly basis, and who I would call lifelong buddies. No way will the new friends I make over volunteering/hobbies/meetup groups ever become closer to me than these lifelong buddies I have - so how how can I expect the same for them?

Re: Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?

#83

I suspect it's very difficult. Later in life most people have coupled up and had a family, and that's where all their emotional investment goes. Before coupling and family, in late teens and twenty something adulthood, singletons have the bandwidth for the kind of deep friendship you describe. I know I did. So I think your ultimate solution to the problem of loneliness is the same as that of most other adults - a rom…

I don't know much about Buddhism, but your suggestion about joining a Christian or Muslim church is likely to backfire. If you're joining out of purely a desire for social connection, you may find some difficulty if you discover the philosophical requirements are too much for you to bear.

In other words, you might make friends, then realize you're not on board with the theology, then end up with a very rough break up. This happened to me in college at least. Led to the worst time of my life.

Re: Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?

#84

> How do I overcome this sense of loneliness and dismality? You are actually asking several different questions. But I suspect if you can overcome this one, you'll find that you won't really yearn for deep friendships as much. There are several things you should probably ask yourself: - Are upset that you are alone, or are that you are lonely? Remember, there's two are not necessarily the same. - What is making you f…

Maybe I will expand a little bit more on my original post. A colleague of mind left a little earlier before work ended because he had an appointment with some of his highschool friends. From what he told us they don't live in the same area any more but make it a point to meet up once a month. After work I made a detour to get some stuff, and I happened to walk past the cafe where said colleague was hanging out with h…

I'm sorry to hear this is such a painful experience for you. Perhaps some of us are just so accustomed to moving around that the depth of friendship you seek is a foreign concept. Some of this is just an aspect of modern society -- we lack strong ties to our place of birth and we don't all share similar values.

The only concrete advice I can provide is to try finding a romantic partner. You would be less lonely, any sexual frustration you're experiencing would be relieved, and you may develop friendships through your significant other. In many cases, finding such a partner would be easier than happening upon a person who is looking for the kind of friendship you seek. Dating is common, setting out to develop friendships not so much.

Re: Ask HN: How to form deep friendships later in life?

#85
There are ways to make deeper relationships faster. The key is to become an irreplaceable existence in each others' lives. People fall in love and become closer than any childhood friends (in several aspects at least) even if they meet late in life, right? You basically need to create that kind of relationship with whoever you choose to cultivate a deep friendship with.

You can certainly overcome the time condition with practice on getting closer faster. I spent 2 years as a nomad traveling through and living in ~8 vastly different cultures where I didn't even speak the language and had no local friends before I got there. Before that, I was born in India, grew up in the Middle East, studied on the East Coast, and worked in California. During all these transitions I went through lots of periods of incredible loneliness and missing out on the long-standing relationships others had, which is I guess how I learned most of this. Some general tips based on that experience.

- Cut the chitchat. Skip the "where do you work? where did you grow up? what's your favorite color?" bullshit when you meet someone. It isn't enriching, and it's more often than not forgettable for both people. You will learn these things about each other over time if you become closer, so save it for later. Don't initiate these questions, and find ways to segway out of this into the other stuff (see below) if the other person initiates it.

- Forge a mentor/padawan relationship. If you know more about something they're interested in, or vice versa, go for this, and do it in a respectful manner whichever side you're on, but also be willing to treat them as a peer. This instantly makes you irreplaceable as a friend they can and want to learn from (or teach to), when it's something they're embarrassed to do with their other friends.

- Be a good conversationalist. Listen to what they're saying, ask interesting questions, always prioritizing making them feel comfortable telling you more stuff and think more, rather than just making smalltalk. Try to relate to what they're saying but with as little talking about yourself. Direct the conversation towards interesting aspects of the topic rather than mundane superficial details. E.g.

Them: Ugh rough day at work

You: Good challenges or stuff you wish you didn't have to deal with? (rather than "tell me about it")

Them: I guess good challenges, but I wouldn't want to face this too often. We were having a crisis deciding which one the core feature of our new product is, and I and the director of product had somewhat conflicting opinions. (rather than what he would have said "oh, argument with my boss")

This provokes thought, and they associate talking to you with having more meaningful conversations, rather than just regurgitating the same words they'd used with their mom or the bartender who said they looked down.

- Practice under semi-artificial constraints. As someone else suggested, couchsurfing (or living in dorm-style AirBnBs). You will meet other solo travelers or hosts who would like to get to know you. Practice these with them. The time-limit on when you'll depart will encourage everyone to have more fun with you before you go.

- Break down your walls. Be open. Talk about deep topics and expose your flaws and vulnerabilities and things you care about. Talk about things like this, your loneliness and jealousy over other people having deeper friendships. You make yourself vulnerable, but it'll appeal to human empathy, and people will want to help [NOTE: Don't get needy or whiny. Just explore your internal workings together with people]. This draws them in faster and they will want to understand you at a deeper level. They don't see you as that guy who's sitting across the table from them, but as a fellow human being who is in need of their company. People love feeling needed.

- Live together, travel together. Don't live alone. When traveling, don't get a hotel room, go dorm-style. When renting, get a house with a shared kitchen and living room. Carpool. Do a sport with your housemates, work on home decor together (furniture shopping, etc). Go hang out in their room.

- Play games. Sports are not always easy to coordinate, but football/basketball/tennis with colleagues or other friends is a great way to get closer. If those aren't feasible, play video games together. Have a video game party evening now and then for console people, or just play online while voice chatting in a Hangout/Skype call. Make non-game-related conversation when between games. Or if you want to be away from the computer, play board games. With your housemates, a nearby board game meetup, coworkers, etc. Gaming brings out a lot of personality aspects of people, and they don't waste energy on chitchat.

- The above can be summarized as don't just talk to people, but have experiences together. Suffer something together (sport/school/gym), build something together (work/cooking/housekeeping), enjoy something together (concert/games).

The part I didn't talk about much is how to meet people. I'll leave that to you. I hope this gives you an idea on what aspects of your human interaction to improve upon so that you can make the most of the pool of people you do get to meet, and get deeper and closer friendships overcoming the aspect of duration.

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