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

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#311

Post by eli_gottlieb » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

praxulus wrote: post #173

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 believe organized religion used to sustain social lives for adults, and still does in many parts of the country. Tight-knit communities have been disrupted by economic development and urbanization, but even in a big city you can get to know the people in your congregation very well.

That well and truly depends, for a start on the demography of your congregation.

One of the reasons I had a miserable time living in Cambridge, MA was because the synagogue I tried to join was primarily filled with very secularized, particularly wealthy, overwhelmingly middle-aged academics and businessmen. The kind of "Jews" who'll go out to a paid restaurant for Sabbath dinner every Friday night, but won't order meat because they're vegetarians.

This was an exact non-match to a 22-year-old, religiously inclined, left-wing kid who writes code for a living.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#312

Post by eli_gottlieb » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 2:20 PM UTC

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…

Ya allah! And the solution was so simple, too: invest his millions and live off the interest/dividends, which would be a modest income. A more modest income would have kept gold-diggers away, and he would have figured out that while the security of a personal trust fund is nice to have, you don't need millions to make friends.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#313

Post by codex » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 2:44 PM UTC

I've often wondered if an adult fraternity scheme would be practical. I suppose this is why country clubs exist.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#314

Post by eli_gottlieb » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 2:51 PM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #30

dannyr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm older now and I have been going through the same thing. I made a lot of lifelong friends when I was in the East Coast. When I was in my late 20s, I decided to move out West. My friends were my support system back in the East Coast and now I don't have them. Starting over when you're older is hard. Most people my age have established their own circle of friends. It feels out-of-place trying to join an existing cir…

There's another factor. In my observation, people on the east coast make truer and deeper friendships than people out west. I'm a lifelong westerner and when I first started spending time in the east I felt, in this respect, like I had come home for the first time. People I met (socially, not on the street) would actually do things like make eye contact, listen to what each other said, and respond to it. They were no…

You mean that's the whole West Coast? God, I thought only Seattle was frozen-hearted.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#315

Post by fecklessyouth » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

bdunbar wrote: post #277

Apocryphon wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad there's not an American/Western equivalent to Confucianism. Some sort of deistic civic faith that is less about faith than it is about ritual, philosophy, and social relationships. That seems like something you might be interested in.

Some sort of deistic civic faith that is less about faith than it is about ritual, philosophy, and social relationships. You're described the Unitarian church.

Not really. Confucianism is ingrained into Chinese society in ways the West can't comprehend. UU is a 19th century offshoot of NE Congregationalism.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#316

Post by zem » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

gcr wrote: post #270

twoodfin wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and I think there's an opening here for a social networking app. The way I've always imagined it, you and your friends would feed in your free time, activity preferences, which "friends" you actually enjoy spending time with... The back end would be something like a constraint solver combined with a recommendation engine. It would suggest events either independently or triggered by a user: "I'm feeling bored…

Ignoring the spam and the established conventions, that sounds just like the idea behind facebook's news feed when used on an account only connected to friends you like. You even pratctically verbatim quoted their sponsored targetted ads.

well, you could just use a mailing list. my local meetup group does that with great success.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#317

Post by TheSOB88 » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #250

TheSOB88 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be interesting without forcing your perspective on others. You don't have to tell other people they're wrong in order to tell them how you feel, though it often happens with nerds like us.

If you're really passionate about something and motivated to change the world, and you meet someone passionate and motivated about something that conflicts, there are not many peaceful outcomes. Basically either one person gets steamrolled so bad they have no power left, or one (or both) simply defer to the other.

I still think you can have professional disagreements and make a compromise without being uncourteous and unprofessional. Of course, it's harder when the other party isn't being professional, but it's still possible.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#318

Post by saraid216 » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 8:17 PM UTC

zerostar07 wrote: post #174

larrys wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you have fewer choices if your pool of potential friends is rich people" How many friends does someone need? I don't see any evidence that wealthy people or upper middle class have any problems friend wise. Not only that but nothing prevents them from mingling with anyone even a lower "status" if you want to call it that.

How many friends does someone need? About 150: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbars_number But they don't all have to be real friends. The interesting thing about Dunbar's number is that it also suggests that people strive to make these 150 relationships even when there are not enough people around (i.e. that's why some people care for celebrities and forge online relationships when real life friends are not enough)

Dunbar's number isn't that simple. It's more like you have an upper limit of 150 person-sized points. You can allocate 50 to one person and only have 100 leftover for more casual acquaintances, for instance.

Dunbar's number refers to group sizes, not friend counts.

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#319

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 10:49 PM UTC

fecklessyouth wrote: post #315

bdunbar wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some sort of deistic civic faith that is less about faith than it is about ritual, philosophy, and social relationships. You're described the Unitarian church.

Not really. Confucianism is ingrained into Chinese society in ways the West can't comprehend. UU is a 19th century offshoot of NE Congregationalism.

Oh, I agree. I guess I'm riffing off of superficial similarities. I think some of the Founding Fathers would have tried to create an American civic religion akin to UU, however. (Not necessarily as a conscious decision, but they would have been more comfortable with such a creed in comparison to Puritanism or the sort of revivalism that led to the various Great Awakenings.)

Re: The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

#320

Post by gruseom » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 7:09 AM UTC

alexqgb wrote: post #36

gruseom wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another factor. In my observation, people on the east coast make truer and deeper friendships than people out west. I'm a lifelong westerner and when I first started spending time in the east I felt, in this respect, like I had come home for the first time. People I met (socially, not on the street) would actually do things like make eye contact, listen to what each other said, and respond to it. They were no…

That may be less a West Coast / East Coast thing and more a California thing in particular. I say that because my family hosted a couple of exchange students from France who were really struck by the veneer of friendliness here, and the very real distance that people maintained beneath it. Later, when I went to France, I found that there was an initial aloofness that I mistook for vague dislike. But after a while, th…

Damn, I missed my chance to add that this distinction was captured perfectly by the late great John Callahan in his cartoon "The Difference Between LA and NY":

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanfeeley/5551037426/

... except that that's a censored version. In the one I remember, "Drop Dead" was "Fuck You", as it should be.