I dislike hearing people talk. I think they don't talk nicely unless they're actual chads. Because I can detect when a person means something else, or when they are hating, or worse, my brain can take out-of-context phrases and hint that I'm in danger or among hostiles. I dislike voice chat as well. I limit myself to text communication.
Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
131–140 of 371 posts
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your local Facebook or meetup.com page probably has a running group that meets regularly. Look for the "Meet at 6:30am Friday morning in the parking lot by Starbucks" group. If you show up to that enough I guarantee you'll have 20-50 friends by the end of this year and attend a fun Christmas party where you know or can chat to multiple people.
I challenge you to find this in Mountain View, California.
Seems to be a thing: https://www.meetup.com/mountain-view-area-runclub/
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#133The article does not mention how immigrants can make friends. Not all but most natives treat immigrants as outsiders. I get it that you are more likely to be friends with someone who is similar to you. If it was difficult for a city girl to make friends with people who look like her but grew up in a different location, I can't even imagine how difficult it must be for immigrants who don't look the same, have a differ…
I live in germany and work in an international company. I am the only german on my team. A lot of the younger colleagues blame their difficulties on making friends on german racism and stay in their expat circles, but the truth is: it's hard for everyone here.
I'm an expat (immigrant?) in Germany. IME expat circles are a problem in itself. People who cling to them end up leaving much quicker than people who mingle with natives, or mingle with people from other nationalities. Not only you don't make long-term friends in those circles (because people are constantly leaving the country), but there's a lot of negativity and shit talking. You need to at least make an attempt to adapt, and those circles can be a replacement to that.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I moved from Korea to NZ. And I’m recently trying out Japan. I think it can be _easier_ to make friends as an immigrant that looks different (as long as you can speak their language) as there will always be people who are interested in different cultures. Though I have found that it can be quite hard to become close friends but it’s definitely possible.
Language is a major factor, yes. Another factor I think is whether you come from a “welcomed” country. Under the current chaotic world order, it’s not hard to come up with a few countries that are not welcomed almost anywhere (Disclaimer: I come from one of them). But still, start with some people that are close with you, either at work or in private, and try to expand that circle to larger / more diverse groups. The…
> Another factor I think is whether you come from a “welcomed” country.
Definitely a factor. My wife is not Asian and she gets way more opportunities than me to make friends in Japan, though it is a double edged sword as being treated differently can get really annoying after a while.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#135Is it easier in India? I have to actively avoid getting invites from people and feel bad when I refuse. I’m a native and if I travel to a new city I can make friends in a jiffy. I’m a 28 yo male and still not choosing to commit to marriage and this argument about finding friends later scares me at times. Is it really true? Does the depth of connection vary? I also was in Germany about half the year in 22 and for sure…
No dude, you’re just in the fricken prime of life and living it well.
Enjoy!!
I sincerely hope you have the same experience at 46!
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be very fun to hang out with.
> You must be very fun to hang out with. This is kind of a childish response presuming this is sarcasm. If it's not, then you're actually quite right (at least in my experience). Anyway I'll let you continue to have fun on your own terms. Edit: To be clear, I mean "degenerate" as more just going against general expectations. I.e. partying, drinking, doing drugs, not having kids if you don't want them. Anyway you shou…
Now that you mention it, I definitely prefer being childish over oldfarty. In fact, I always thought "the day I begin to look down on partying people is the day I finally have to admit I am old now."
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#137I have no friends. I moved again in the last year. I have my brother, my parents, and my wife. It’s really hard to make good quality friends. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered right now to invest that kind of time and effort. I hope that changes one day, but at this rate I’ll probably make friends among the parents of my kids friends one day. I just have other priorities now. I’m content, and I have a solid marriage.…
Go to meetup.com. Find a weekly meetup in your area that matches one of your interests (or start one). Go to that meetup every week. Within a couple months you'll be friends with the regulars. I've done this in two cities and I'm still long distance friends with the people I met in the first city. It only takes a couple hours per week and for your mental health you should be getting out for social activities anyway.…
Weekly meetup? Goodness! All the marginally interesting meetups in my area are monthly or less. I specifically started a twice-monthly one myself because it was so grim. (And no, I'm not very happy with my own meetup, either.)
Pretty much the only exception to the monthly cadence is hiking meetups, which in my area are dominated by retirees and midlife singles. I've tried them, I wouldn't keep trying.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#138> "Researchers also find that when we develop groups, our friendships are more sustainable than they are with individuals. Because there's multiple touch points now, right? Someone else in the group could reach out to all of us, and then we all keep in touch." This is the most important tip in the article, in my experience. When I lived in SF, most of my friend hangs were 1-on-1 catchups over coffee or lunch. Schedul…
Ugh, no thanks personally.
I know that the friend I'm hanging out with will get my jokes - inside jokes, weird humor etc. Now I have to worry about an entire group, some of whom may not like my humor, and now I have to put on the 'you're in public, be brusque and minimal' anxiety filled mask, and can't open up as I would in 1-1 or 1-2 with a friend or just a couple of friends.
Now add that to other people invited who may feel the same way. Maybe they're only comfortable with that one or two friends they hang out with, and not the rest of us they don't know.
Groups aren't my thing sadly. Nor, I assume, are a thing for many young people.
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#139It's so weird though. For example, I am interested in photography and in challenging myself by going on hikes, or to colorful events and taking shots I have not even considered before. No restrictions on with whom - men, women, young, old, different backgrounds - just shared pursuit of creativity and getting out of the house. While I hope that some of these shared activities might eventually lead to more broad friendships (not romance, married with kids and not looking), I also would never make that an expectation or demand. Myself I am just a regular guy in late 40th, not a creep or a womanizer, my existing friends of both genders seem to like me fine.
So I reached out at photography groups at work, took half a dozen day classes - nada. I put my e-mail on the board, ask people to ping me if they think of just going somewhere and shooting, nobody ever does. Tried to strike conversations with other birdwarchers in local parks, never leads to lasting connections.
In school / college / 90s workplace, I used to just hang around with people without making any special effort. Some of them later even invited me to come visit them for a couple of weeks in another country. Just what does it take to have some uncomplicated fun and light sharing of one's thoughts and feelings later on in life? I can't be the only one still interested?
Re: Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)
#140I feel like it has more to do with having a surplus of time and resources.
When you're in school, you have more time to hang out with people and every interaction isn't tainted by the reality of having to compete over limited resources.
As an adult, you are responsible for acquiring your own resources so every relationship is tainted by economic competition. I suspect that rich people have more friends for this reason; they have more surplus so they're not constantly (subconsciously) thinking about how to exact resources from everyone around them; it's probably also why rich people feel uncomfortable being friends with non-rich people.
Nobody wants to be seen as a resource. Yet when you are truly deprived of resources, you can't help but see everything and everyone as a resource first and foremost. You need to have your basic needs met and your anxiety levels within tolerable range to see beyond that.
The reality is that, during a bad famine, people will start subconsciously seeing their friends as a potential meal. It's not an ideal foundation for a friendship. In this case (for most of us), the problem is not famine, but there is a strong desire to escape the constant anxiety of having to work insanely hard just to make ends meet which has a similar effect on friendships.
In communist countries, I suspect that regular people form strong friendships because there are no good mechanisms to extract resources from each other and they have their basic needs taken care of anyway (aside from the occasional famine). Citizens are treated like children. In North Korea, many adult women hold hands. That's unthinkable in a capitalist society. That level of friendship is simply unattainable to the kinds of resource-oriented people who tend to succeed at capitalism. But at least if you do have a lot of surplus resources, being resource-oriented isn't as much of a problem.
It's hard to be both resource-oriented and poor, then you can't have any friends. Sadly, capitalism forces us to become resource-oriented, even if it is against our nature.