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The Science of Making Friends

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Re: The Science of Making Friends

#171

Post by morgante »

haberman wrote: post #92
stegosaurus wrote: post #40

WRT the decline with age, I've always felt like a lot of it is 'ego based', for lack of better terms. I've found that as time goes on, people are far more concerned with doing things by the book, projecting an image, etc. rather than just 'being', enjoying life in the moment, doing things just because. I've certainly been guilty of this to some extent because it seems impossible to avoid. Personal anecdote: At age 16…

FWIW, my life isn't like this at all. I'm 34 and my friends and I are all professionals. It was gorgeous in Seattle this week. Monday night I went to a BBQ with 7 of my closest friends. We spent hours on the rooftop deck of their apt building relaxing and shooting the shit. The rest of the deck was shockingly empty for such a nice day. Tuesday night I went to a different BBQ hosted by other super close friends in the…

> I'm finding meaningful connection into my 30s, which I'm thankful for because it's really important to me.

How? I'm genuinely interested. I have basically no idea how people make friends outside of forced closeness, something which is regretfully lacking in the adult world.

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#172

Post by solotronics »

ethanbond wrote: post #71
elorant wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because we’re all possessed with the idea of changing the world. We focus so much on the big picture that we lose track of what’s important in life. We also think that once you get past forties and haven’t done anything important you’re doomed for the rest of your life. We can’t go back to the park again because we take life (and ourselves) too fucking seriously.

That's giving people too much credit. 99% of the people here aren't heads down in their study for months trying to complete a masterpiece. People are simply asocial and lazy.

Hey some people just want to watch youtube in their underwear and read hacker news. Not everyone is wired to be Mark Zuckerberg, although if they were the world would be totally hilarious.

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#173

Post by personlurking »

hodwik wrote: post #4

> "People with higher I.Q.s were less content when they spent more time with friends. Psychologists theorize that these folks keep themselves intellectually stimulated without a lot of social interaction, and often have a long-term goal they are pursuing." Therein lies the rub. Having friends makes you happier, as long as your friends are intellectually stimulating. I've been trying desperately for years to make some…

I could have written this comment above. One of the problems lies in the fact that "smart" means different things to different people. Firstly, it usually seems to take on the meaning of hard-science smart and, with that, one often finds specialists. I live in a city where every other person I meet literaly has a PhD (or two) but what am I going to talk about with them regarding particle physics or string theory?

If I were to call myself smart, I'd say I'm humanities smart, ie a generalist, ie utterly and insatiably curious. How many others in life have I met like me? Maybe one. That's it, and he's a DN so I don't get to see him much.

We also have to factor in lifestyle. I'm a VA and thus I've moved many times in my life so this doesn't help with the situation. For the last decade, I've accepted way less pay and less hours so that I can have the free time necessary to learn all the things I want to learn - long-term goals, if you will. As a trade-off (and I gladly do it), I live abroad because that's when quality of life goes way up and cost of living goes way down (most of the non-native English speaking world already lives this way, IMO).

In the end, I'm curious enough to take up my own free time, but since I'm also not a shut-in, I seek out ways to socialize with interesting people. The kicker is that most of them are travelers/expats, so they move too.

Recently I met a guy who is both nice and available (even though he moved away the other day), so we'd hang out quite a lot. He didn't have to share my interests or be a generalist or anything. He just had to be agreeable and available, and this surprised me a bit, though I'm not sure why. Not be an a-hole and say "I'm free, let's do something" can be a powerful motivator.

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#174

Post by tomp »

trevyn wrote: post #18
hodwik wrote: post #4

> "People with higher I.Q.s were less content when they spent more time with friends. Psychologists theorize that these folks keep themselves intellectually stimulated without a lot of social interaction, and often have a long-term goal they are pursuing." Therein lies the rub. Having friends makes you happier, as long as your friends are intellectually stimulating. I've been trying desperately for years to make some…

The journal article cited for this indicates not that smart people are happier with smart friends, but that "More intelligent individuals actually experienced higher life satisfaction with lower frequency of contact with friends." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26847844 A lot of the meta-articles seem to be hypothesizing that intelligence could be an evolutionary adaptation for dealing with novel circumstances, a…

> More intelligent individuals actually experienced higher life satisfaction with lower frequency of contact with friends

Does the article imply causation or just correlation? If the latter, I would assume the causation is the opposite - happier people need other people less, because they're happier even by themselves.

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#175

Post by tomp »

pmarreck wrote: post #163
BatFastard wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have inspired me to fill in more profile information.

Don't forget contact info, which I just realized I neglected to insert in my own lol

You could also add your location, for people interested in meeting you in real life.

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#176

Post by dempseye »

jfim wrote: post #72
stegosaurus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ, in some ways, this thread makes me want to just like, teleport some people from HN into the local park with some beers. I think we'd have a great time. No vi vs emacs, mind.

It's definitely doable. Anyone in SF wants to meet in the golden gate park today around 3pm? Edit: Since this got a few upvotes but not many replies, feel free to come at 37°46'08.4"N 122°29'08.8"W ( https://goo.gl/maps/Vvyctgz4CAQ2 ). Will have a Linkedin tshirt/backpack.

Did anyone come?

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#179

Post by premasagar »

nostrademons wrote: post #129
stegosaurus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're absolutely spot on with this. I'm going through a period of change in my personal life at the moment, and I'm definitely going to keep this in mind, so thank you. One thing I would take issue with is conflating an app with societal change, though. The latter is much much harder. I think that in developed countries we have lost our way a bit. Work-life balance, to me, would mean that I work hard, and pl…

Oh, I think we absolutely are individually choosing this state. It's just that we're responding to incentives that are basically emergent behavior resulting from the choices of everyone else. You always have the choice to ignore incentives; that's why they are incentives and not compulsion . But ignoring an incentive means that you accept not getting the benefits that are offered by that incentive. A lot of people fo…

I agree. There is always a choice, although the shift may be difficult or unsettling, and some people will feel freer to make a change than others. I think one huge component of this is location.

A little while back, I moved with my family from the city to the countryside (the foothills of central Portugal), where there is a growing community of migrants from western cities, living around and alongside the local villagers, who are mostly small-scale subsistence farmers. People call us the Neo Rurals.

Land and living costs are way less than where we came from, which means I can afford to work three days a week, rather than the 5 out of 7 days I was working before. I am fortunate to be able to work remotely (I'm a freelance JavaScript programmer) and to have come from an existing network (the wonderful Brighton, UK). Somehow projects arrive when I just need them (get in touch if you're looking for someone). But people here to do all sorts of work, and often grow food and generate their electricity to lower the base costs.

The door is open. Neighbours' children come by because they want to play. Many people home-educate / unschool. And we do pretty well as a community amusing ourselves, learning from and helping each other.

Uprooting is difficult, but I have never looked back. And it does come with some "hardships", but most of those are really joys.

Re: The Science of Making Friends

#180

Post by dcposch »

WalterBright wrote: post #137
WalterBright wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it tiresome that it becomes hard to just have friends over. Have to negotiate a time, clean the house, get food, and if you're going to a friend's house you're expected to "bring something", etc. Sigh.

Back in college, the rule in the dorms was if your door was open, you were welcoming anyone who wanted to drop in and hang out. 40 years later, I still miss that.

I miss this as well! Stanford still has this and calls it the open door policy

I really hope something like Campus Housing works out. They had a great idea but didnt execute. With the right group of people I'd be super down to live in something like a dorm again.

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