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Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

nytimes.com

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Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#211

Post by 77pt77 »

hx2a wrote: post #26

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 suffer…

> I'm 42

> Currently I am in grad school

A post about being in grad school at 42 would be something I'd read.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#212

Post by JimboOmega »

emodendroket wrote: post #117

> 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 r…

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.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#213

Post by pwaai »

Myrmornis wrote: post #42

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…

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...

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#214

Post by emodendroket »

koolba wrote: post #197
emodendroket wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thayer Prime would probably benefit from eating some mushrooms in the forest. Well, now, I wouldn't go so far as to wish death upon her.

I think GP means the psychedelic kind.

I mean, foraging for mushrooms is a really dangerous hobby that's really easy to screw up and kill yourself doing, is what I was getting at it.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#215

Post by rxhernandez »

ams6110 wrote: post #179
poulsbohemian wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We have all of those things. We just have less of a "my neighbors should pay for it" viewpoint.

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!

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#216

Post by emodendroket »

rxhernandez wrote: post #215
ams6110 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have all of those things. We just have less of a "my neighbors should pay for it" viewpoint.

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 peopl…

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.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#217

Post by aianus »

davesque wrote: post #72

American here: 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. May…

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.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#218

Post by cableshaft »

hx2a wrote: post #26

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 suffer…

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.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#219

Post by mcbits »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #146
pmoriarty wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 gro…

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.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#220

Post by ryanwaggoner »

JimboOmega wrote: post #212
emodendroket wrote: post #117

> 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 r…

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.

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.

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