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Forces that fuel friendship

theatlantic.com

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Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#61

Post by tomjakubowski »

cehrlich wrote: post #14
johnchristopher wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or "normies" while we are at it. A recent trend I am noticing more often on HN.

Agreed, "normies" is a fine shorthand for "people who are not concerned with the niche thing we're currently talking about", but seeing people who think of it as an actual category that they judge people by is a dangerous mental model that a lot of people on here seem to fall victim to.

Yes, absolutely. People are multidimensional. Most people may not care for your particular captivating niche interest, but some will find your excitement about it interesting and enjoy your excitement about it. And you can reciprocate that feeling towards their niche interests (almost everyone has at least one). Toss everyone who doesn't care about your thing into the same "normie" pile at your peril.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#62

Post by starkd »

phkahler wrote: post #48
pkdpic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I was expecting more substance from this article. I don't think its much of a stretch to view friendship as a concrete social problem. Especially good friendships in our professional spheres which are vital to career fulfillment and health imo. Anyway there was (sadly) nothing realistically actionable in this article for anyone seeking something even vaguely science or stat based.

>> Anyway there was (sadly) nothing realistically actionable in this article for anyone seeking something even vaguely science or stat based. Actionable to achieve what? It makes clear that there is no fixed procedure for making friends, but there certainly are a lot of suggestions. I suspect the many linked stories have a wealth of information and examples, but they will all be anecdotes where none of them could be…

Since a lot of HN followers work in tech, their work sets their expectations for life in general. So, it's frustrating when something in life cannot be deterministically distilled into a series of steps. It's probably one of the biggest blindspots we have.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#63

Post by tshaddox »

Gustek wrote: post #46

I think there are only 2 questions you need to answer to decide if someone is your friend. 1. Do you trust them? 2. Do you care about them? Ideally it should reciprocated. The hard part is getting there, usually it comes naturally as you spend more time with the other person out of your own volition. Just because you are meeting someone everyday at work does not mean they will become your friends, do you trust them?…

What if you trust someone and care about them, but don’t particularly enjoy their company? I suppose it would still be normal to call that person a “friend,” although you’d be missing a key part of what most people think of when using that word.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#64

Post by photochemsyn »

American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic, racial, gender, and probably a host of others.

This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My idea of a great party has always been one where a group of people from widely different backgrounds are put together in a big room and 'forced' to interact with each other, but these days I'm afraid that would lead to a bloodbath of some sort.

To quote from Frank Herbert, on the subject of limiting your relationships to those who share all your identitarian tick-marks, "I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections."

As far as "close deep meaningful relationships that you can rely on through thick and thin, a friend who will always come to your aid in times of trouble, and to whom you will always offer support" ... that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship. Don't expect too much, in other words.

Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. That's called 'networking', not 'friendship'. I suppose it has its place, humans being human, but don't confuse the two.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#65

Post by shard »

tshaddox wrote: post #63
Gustek wrote: post #46

I think there are only 2 questions you need to answer to decide if someone is your friend. 1. Do you trust them? 2. Do you care about them? Ideally it should reciprocated. The hard part is getting there, usually it comes naturally as you spend more time with the other person out of your own volition. Just because you are meeting someone everyday at work does not mean they will become your friends, do you trust them?…

What if you trust someone and care about them, but don’t particularly enjoy their company? I suppose it would still be normal to call that person a “friend,” although you’d be missing a key part of what most people think of when using that word.

The cynical word for that could be "family".

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#66

Post by throwaway0a5e »

emsy wrote: post #24
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious considering hackernewsians are the normies of the online world.

That’s Reddit. On HN I sometimes find people with niche interests and expertise in all kinds of fields, which I like. It’s also relatively civilized. You don’t need to be a 4-chan edgelord to be not-normie.

Reddit is just HN with lower standards of communication, puns, one word rebuttals, all that stuff is fair game there.

Being able to follow cultural norms of the local group is just about the least remarkable thing about any given group of humans. HN is not special.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#67

Post by mbg721 »

starkd wrote: post #58
mbg721 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those were the only criteria, making friends would be easy. People have more built-in tribalism at the very least; the article reads like a '50s science fiction novel about robots making friends.

I trust you are being genuine when you say that, but what an odd comment. The article seemed like a very profound an interesting commentary on what friendship means. I fail to see any kind of science fiction in it. The article even seems to suggest friendship can cross tribal boundaries, but it takes work.

I guess trying to explain how friendship happens seems weird to me? It's obvious enough as it's happening that being forced to spend time together (as with school) generates friendships. Maybe I'm being too critical.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#68

Post by notacoward »

photochemsyn wrote: post #64

American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic, racial, gender, and probably a host of others. This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My idea of a great party has always been one where a group…

> that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship

Has it occurred to you that actual humans' ideal types/levels of friendship might differ from your own? Most people want a mix, with a few very strong friendships (of the author's type) and many more weaker ones (of yours). Many are missing one or the other. Some want something different entirely. If the author's ideas about friendship don't resonate with you, consider just moving on. Deriding it as something that's very much not true friendship by anyone's definition seems like exactly the same kind of condescending clannishness you complain about (and "identitarian" is - intentionally? - a marker of which clan BTW).

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#69

Post by dirtybirdnj »

pure_simplicity wrote: post #26
arolihas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very cynical perspective that seems to encourage self isolation and an emotionally barren life. Not sure if that's wise.

I think the OP meant that friend support you in overcoming your limitations. They support you where you are weak, not they perpetuate and grow your weaknesses.

This is how I chose to interpret it as well.

If you can't handle me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best is a cliche way of saying the opposite.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#70

Post by erklik »

javajosh wrote: post #51
fartcannon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are amall group primates, it's our nature. Us vs Them. In and Out groups. Everyone is a victim of it.

Maybe your narrow-minded group believes in in- and out-groups, but not mine!

Ahh. You mean your "in-group" of people who don't believe in "in-groups".

This is tongue-in-cheek. :)

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