Intentionally making close friends • Hacker News Board

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#131

Post by throwaway_4ever » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #84

nier wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPC as in non-playable character? One of the first search results reads: «[…] slang used by millenials to denote people who act as if they are being told by someone to act in a specific manner, although that may not be the case. Using this abbreviation, the commentator or the creator is poking fun at the other person for acting in a certain manner.»

Right word, wrong meaning. In the result you quoted, a person's intelligence is being compared to that of a NPC, implying that the person can't think for themselves and does whatever they're told like how NPCs in games act. The gp seems to imply a slightly different meaning, where a person is thought of as being not being a real person, and is only someone you go to for transactional work related stuff.

Whichever meaning, NPC is a recent insidious method of dehumanizing people that ranks right up there with labels like "pigs," "rats," and "cockroaches." This tactic is essentially a first prerequisite for mass violence. It's sure to increase incidences of mentally ill shooters viewing everyone around them as bots in a video game. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26330024209169...

https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their...

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#132

Post by standardUser » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 8:57 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #126

Perhaps I'm an outlier, but having to sit around making small talk and sharing personal life experiences with a like-minded cohort is literally a nightmare scenario for me. On the other hand, I love working with people on collaborative effort-intensive projects, working toward shared goals and so on (but I don't have much interest in getting involved in their personal or family lives afterwards). Also, I may be unusu…

"making small talk and sharing personal life experiences"

It sounds odd to me to combine these concepts in the same sentence. Sharing personal life experiences is arguable a necessary part of building deep friendships, and it's often a vulnerable and intimate act. Small talk is none of that, if not the opposite.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#133

Post by valarauko » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

tinglymintyfrsh wrote: post #89

Disclaimer: no unsolicited advice please. I'm old(er) mid-40's, single, no kids, and never married. I don't have much family or close friends. Hookup culture is de rigueur but it doesn't interest me. Where I'm at, there isn't a context to meet people and most random people in public around keep to themselves and treat me like I'm invisible. I do volunteering but that also doesn't go anywhere. If you have to constantl…

> Hookup culture is de rigueur

I don't think that's generally true, especially if you're looking to date around your own age. Some in the age bracket may be averse to marriage, but not a relationship in general.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#134

Post by standardUser » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

I'm in my 40's and I have a lot of close friends, both in my city (mostly newer friends) and around the country/world (mostly older friendships).

My trick is, I cheat. I'm happily single, live alone and have no children. That gives me the luxury of doing the heavy lifting in my friendships. I travel a lot and most of those trips are to stay with friends in their homes or to meet them at a third destination. That's been the most effective way to stay very close to my friends, as well as to become close to their spouses and kids. I understand most people can't do this because of their own family obligations. But maybe it's something people with families could do just once or twice a year to visit people important to them?

Beyond that, I'm usually the one to start group chats or send memes on social media or schedule video chats. Sometimes it's a chore, but usually it's effortless for me. And the close friends I've maintained to this point are with people who are usually very eager and able to stay in touch on their end. The others have fell by the wayside over the years. And some I have consciously excluded from my life when I realized they were bad friends.

I'd also add that, as a man, I find that women make better friends then men, especially past our 20's, and I'd encourage all men to consider finding and building more non-romantic relationships with women.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#135

Post by valarauko » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

afr0ck wrote: post #124

tinglymintyfrsh wrote: post #89

Disclaimer: no unsolicited advice please. I'm old(er) mid-40's, single, no kids, and never married. I don't have much family or close friends. Hookup culture is de rigueur but it doesn't interest me. Where I'm at, there isn't a context to meet people and most random people in public around keep to themselves and treat me like I'm invisible. I do volunteering but that also doesn't go anywhere. If you have to constantl…

It breaks my heart to see Western people living such lives. I love the West for so many reasons, but the social construction is a complete broken mess. Family and community is completely destroyed. People live and work only for themselves. The amount of loneliness and isolation is just mind blowing and unbearable. IMO, it's a selfish lifestyle. People who manage to make great success (due to a combination of lack, in…

What are you contrasting the "West" with? As a person who lived most of his life in an Asian country with a very strong familial and social construct, I can say that there were no shortage of lonely, broken people there - we as a society just did a better job of hiding it. Perhaps the sense of failure and isolation may have slightly different causes, but that is not to say that Western society is somehow uniquely broken.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#136

Post by legerdemain » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

yunwal wrote: post #102

legerdemain wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's primary advice for making more friends is that you will have conversations with lots of people and you should iterate through them quickly by making more intimate conversation and revealing something about yourself to deepen the relationship. This makes sense if the author is a student at a school of any meaningful size in a popular major. But it doesn't make sense for adults struggling to make connectio…

> Assuming you work in an office, would you serially go from desk to desk asking coworkers out to 1:1 lunches? I disagree with the author on a lot, but this is not a bad idea, at least for people you work closely with. I probably wouldn't take them to a sit-down place 1:1 unless you're already comfortable with them but grabbing coffee or a fast-casual lunch that you take back to the office is a good idea

Sure! I do that with my immediate teammates at places I've worked. Outside of that, I'd have to go knocking desk to desk with no pre-existing reason to.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#137

Post by shepherdjerred » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #134

I'm in my 40's and I have a lot of close friends, both in my city (mostly newer friends) and around the country/world (mostly older friendships). My trick is, I cheat. I'm happily single, live alone and have no children. That gives me the luxury of doing the heavy lifting in my friendships. I travel a lot and most of those trips are to stay with friends in their homes or to meet them at a third destination. That's be…

> building more non-romantic relationships with women.

I completely agree; I've always preferred being friends with women, but in my opinion it's not easy to do.

Things sometimes get complicated quickly if there's attraction on either side which often happens to at least one side if you're close friends. Even without romantic feelings, things get weird/awkward if either party is in a relationship or married.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#138

Post by ordu » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

aeturnum wrote: post #51

IMO this is the #1 takeaway: > I was trapped in a ‘normal’ mode of conversation - making small talk, being inoffensive, feeling aversion to being weird, respecting where I thought other people’s boundaries were. If you want something else, you gotta let others know somehow! Everyone's life is different and has differently shaped spaces for relationships, interaction, etc. It's very common for people to be open to gro…

> to think of it as a skill "you are doing" instead of a mutual process that advances only at the shared pace you are getting into manipulation.

A mutual process needs some coordinated actions from both sides. If I'm unable to play my part, then there will be no mutual process. I believe I understand what you are trying to say, but it is the next stage of education on "how to make friends". When you have skill to make friends, then you can think of how to apply it mutually. If you have no such skill, then all your argument about manipulation just doesn't apply.

> If you want something else, you gotta let others know somehow!

There is a question of how to do it. I do not know, for example. Have no idea. Several times different people tried to make friends with me, I tried to be open for it, and it didn't work out.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#139

Post by hahamrfunnyguy » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

legerdemain wrote: post #60

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the author is young, they've made some accurate observations - at least in my experience.

The author's primary advice for making more friends is that you will have conversations with lots of people and you should iterate through them quickly by making more intimate conversation and revealing something about yourself to deepen the relationship. This makes sense if the author is a student at a school of any meaningful size in a popular major. But it doesn't make sense for adults struggling to make connectio…

I am 41 and it's certainly more difficult at this age because people my age are busy with family and work. Friendships ebb and flow based on external factors. Having realistic expectations is important.

I work for myself and generally with my work I am not interacting with people on a daily basis. I also got divorced two years ago and since then, I've made a concerted effort to be more social and do a better job keeping up with friends. I've made quite a few new friends since then, and several that I see at least a few times a month.

My take-away from this article mainly was that making yourself vulnerable makes someone else willing to share too. It's valuable to get to know someone better. I don't think it has to be done in a scripted fashion. For me, the opportunities tend to present themselves organically.

I've had some deep conversations taking a ski lift up a mountain, walking around on the street knocking on doors during a campaign, waiting around to launch at a flying site and on a long drive in a car. You'll probably learn that you have a few shared interests with that person. When you do, it makes finding opportunities to get together and do stuff easy.

Re: Intentionally making close friends

#140

Post by alocasia-1 » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

l33tbro wrote: post #95

This is kind of sad. It just feels like OP has built this enormous apparatus over some emotional void they've picked up in their development. Making friends just isn't that hard for the vast majority of people. If you're having to use reverse engineering and problem solving to form emotional connections, then you might want to spend the time in therapy and working through what caused you to be emotionally stunted.

Therapy can literally just be talking through the same kinds of mechanisms as described here (with the plan to apply them to real life). Source: it was for me. How are they going to become second nature if you don't practice?