The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult • Hacker News Board

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#151

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 3:09 AM UTC

m0nastic wrote: post #150

cmelbye wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this unscientific poll, the vast majority of HN readers that answered the poll are non-religious/atheist/agnostic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1486594

I actually think 1/3 of respondents being religious is "more 'religious' people on HN than you'd think" considering the demographic of people here. I think if you asked people familiar with HN to guess what percentage of folks here were religious, you'd get a much lower response (personally, I'd have guessed maybe 10%, which is obviously incorrect).

Oh! He meant, "no, even fewer people than you'd think on HN are religious". He overestimated how many people I think you think are... ahh, forget it.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#152

Post by m0nastic » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 3:29 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #151

m0nastic wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think 1/3 of respondents being religious is "more 'religious' people on HN than you'd think" considering the demographic of people here. I think if you asked people familiar with HN to guess what percentage of folks here were religious, you'd get a much lower response (personally, I'd have guessed maybe 10%, which is obviously incorrect).

Oh! He meant, "no, even fewer people than you'd think on HN are religious". He overestimated how many people I think you think are... ahh, forget it.

but...but...I had to do math to figure out that number. No fun.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#153

Post by noonespecial » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 3:49 AM UTC

larrys wrote: post #66

tsotha wrote: post #39

I knew a guy who made a boatload of money off of the dotcom bubble. He kept doubling down and doubling down, then at right about the peak he told himself "I have as much money as I'll ever need if I cash out now. There's no reason to take any more risks." In other words, he timed it perfectly (based on his own situation - he wasn't genius and he would freely admit that) So here he was, a multimillionaire who'd spent…

"So there were always people around. There were always women willing to sleep with him. But they were there for the money and he couldn't delude himself into thinking otherwise." For some reason people seem to think that someone wanting to be around because of a person's fame or money is less pure than other reasons because it's not real. Generally when people want to be around someone it's because they give them som…

The value of friendship is to understand and to be understood. Every other motive (rightly) feels like a cheap plastic substitute.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#154

Post by justinhj » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 4:11 AM UTC

I'm very surprised the article doesn't mention marriage as big difficulty in making new friendships. I find it easy to find people with the same interests as me that I get along with, but they also have to have partner that's compatible with you and your partner.

Of course YMMV.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#155

Post by callmeed » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 4:21 AM UTC

drpgq wrote: post #64

nhashem wrote: post #52

Just going to share a little anecdote here. I moved to Los Angeles in 2004. The next year I organized a softball team, mostly coworkers at the time. There are six of us that have been playing since we started, going on seven years now, even though we've almost all since changed jobs. Even though it's "just softball" (and our league is about as uncompetitive as possible without being totally beer-league), we've all ma…

Something similar is bar trivia leagues. I see people weekly that I wouldn't necessarily without our team.

I've honestly never heard of this pastime. Is this a non-US or east coast thing? Can you elaborate on what goes on?

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#156

Post by earl » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 4:37 AM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #107

Social life after college is broken. This isn't a complaint. I'm OK with things as they are, but probably because I'm pretty introverted and also because, after years of getting used to cynical networking being the norm, I'm as much a part of the problem as anyone else. We have too much income and social stratification in this country. It's starting to become unreasonable and lead to unexpected adults, including the…

I tend to agree with you, but you can do things to change this. Take up snowboarding as a hobby; it seems to require a decent amount of income but you'll learn there's a leisure class on either end of the income spectrum. Go in on a ski house and don't do it with just coworkers. Or do something cheaper like surfing. You'll meet a ton of people that aren't in the same vc/startup world.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#157

Post by jscn » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 4:39 AM UTC

It seems like the article is talking about close, meaningful friendships as though they're the only kind[1]. But you'd be lucky to have a handful of such friendships over a lifetime. Most friendships will be based on mutual-advantage or simple pleasure. (Nothing wrong with that, and they shouldn't be dismissed.)

All the subjects in the article are very concerned with what they need, what they want. I think it's telling that they don't voice concern over whether they might be capable of being such a friend to someone else.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#158

Post by eupharis » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 4:40 AM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #155

drpgq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar is bar trivia leagues. I see people weekly that I wouldn't necessarily without our team.

I've honestly never heard of this pastime. Is this a non-US or east coast thing? Can you elaborate on what goes on?

It's very common in Portland at least. Any night of the week within any three mile radius there's a bar somewhere hosting trivia.

It's just people who come to a normal bar once a week and play trivia. Think Jeopardy with teams and booze. Sometimes there are prizes for winning/losing. There is an entry fee that goes toward the prize pool and compensation for the person running the trivia.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#159

Post by eupharis » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 4:43 AM UTC

barking wrote: post #102

nhashem wrote: post #52

Just going to share a little anecdote here. I moved to Los Angeles in 2004. The next year I organized a softball team, mostly coworkers at the time. There are six of us that have been playing since we started, going on seven years now, even though we've almost all since changed jobs. Even though it's "just softball" (and our league is about as uncompetitive as possible without being totally beer-league), we've all ma…

This makes sense to me even though I am not involved in anything similar, wish I was though

protip: meetup.com

It may not fill the cockles of your heart with technical wonder, but like Craigslist for classifieds, it's where the "market" is.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#160

Post by pkghost » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 5:11 AM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #155

drpgq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar is bar trivia leagues. I see people weekly that I wouldn't necessarily without our team.

I've honestly never heard of this pastime. Is this a non-US or east coast thing? Can you elaborate on what goes on?

AFAIK, it's bigger in the UK and Australia than the US. I'm from Portland, currently live in SF, and know of a handful of bars in both cities (also Davis, CA) that do trivia, but not as many as in Sydney, where I studied abroad.