71–80 of 261 posts
The culture-centricity in this thread is kind of sickening, and as hackers I hope that everyone who is reading through it remembers to attempt to take things as a neutral observer and apply scientific methods to your findings; and take anecdotal evidence at it's worth.
I'm 28 now and I already feel like I have no friends left. Yay.
This article really resonates with me. Many of my male friendships do seem to resonate around convenience (i.e. we help each other) or activities. If you take that away...I'm unsure what the depth is. This could just be me though. I do have friendships with females who are nothing like me, which are more around just...fun/chatting/hanging out. But either way, friendships do take work/effort - and sometimes you need t…
I'm an extreme introvert with few, if any, close friends and relationships or a strong desire for such, and it has always befuddled me how smooth and effortless many friendships look from the outside. The whole concept of "hanging out" without some common ground or a common activity or goal in mind is almost foreign to me. I can "hang out" with a friend I haven't seen for ages to catch up with what's been going on with each other but I can't see how this is sustainable on a weekly basis or more.
Age is also a big factor. It seems that most friendships go back to childhood, teenage or college years. The older you get, the harder is to make new relationships that go past the plain acquaintance stage. The prospect of building a social network (in the offline sense of the word) from scratch in your mid thirties, say after moving to the other side of the country or the world, sounds intimidating even to normal extroverted people I've talked to, let alone chronic loners.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's certainly easier to make friends in India. I used to do it effortlessly when I was there and I never felt lonely at all. Here it just seems harder to make friends. Part of it might just be that there are fewer people so you're less likely to find someone with whom you connect. And the other thing might be that a lot of interactions are so much more impersonal here. I haven't lived there in years but I know many…
A lot of this stuff is very dependent on the person I feel, the hair stylist I always went to (living in the US) was incredibly on top of what all of her customers were up to. There were even times she'd mention things my parents had told her about that my parents hadn't even thought to mention to me since they didn't deem it important. It's all anecdotal of course, but figured I'd chime in. Speaking more broadly on…
While I kinda agree that the grocery store isn't the best place to make friends, the point I was trying to make was that in India sometimes these people unintentionally end up becoming friends.
An amusing related anecdote: my tailor back in India was mildly upset I didn't invite him to my wedding! On the one hand I was touched that he felt that strong a connection with me. On the other hand, while Indian weddings are quite large, one does have to draw the line somewhere! But the point is this sort of thing does happen. The security guard at the university where my wife and I studied did get invited to our wedding.
These serendipitous friendships do seem harder here or maybe it's just that the cultural gap between me and the average American is too large to bridge.
1. I don't find most my old friends interesting. The guys I have stuff in common with are mostly work connections/guys that understand the plight of the entrepreneur and we don't actually hang out. Activity friends are cool but like most my friends from college, it increasingly feels like a chore.
The few friends that have any depth to them live out of town. That said, in the future we have email and don't have to physically see each other all the time to coddle our friendships.
2. Some dudes just never learned how to have one-on-one friends outside of a group. This is by far the most common problem I see that transcends male friendships. If you befriend someone as an adult that you can regularly carry on a conversation with, without outside help, take note - they may become your new brosive.
This article makes me cringe. Is the author gay or a pseudonym for a girl?
The article seems to extol what most would call "girly" friendship--continuous contact, social gossip, etc. Lots of attention to little things.
Most guys I know of tend to equate true friendship along the lines of "will help you bury the body and won't ask questions." Male friendship tends to get tested around helping with big, infrequent things--death of parent/spouse, get somebody to hospital, cover for you when you did something monumentally stupid.
Men tend to forgive the "didn't hang out last week" but won't ever forgive things like "didn't show up for your dad's funeral".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Strangers are outwardly friendly for no apparent reason Why should one need a reason to be friendly? Would you rather people be curt and standoffish by default?
Well I said outwardly friendly. As in like we grew up together in the same neighborhood kind of friendly.
This makes me sad :( My mother passed away from cancer in 2001 after 16 years of marriage to my father. Their marriage was one of those ideal marriages that most people don't think really exists; they were truly each other's best friend and were incredibly happy together.
Now that my sister is finishing college and I'm in grad school, my dad goes to work for long hours each day and comes home to an empty house. He doesn't socialize much more than going to the coffee shop on weekend mornings.
I don't know what to do about this; I live three hours away and can't visit every weekend, and my sister is getting married soon and moving away as well. He's not opposed to dating, but the last time he dated was nearly a decade ago, and I know he doesn't want to date because of the sheer sadness he still feels from my mother's death. He has mentioned it would be really nice to have a companion though.
I need ideas. Solitude isn't a good way to spend the rest of one's life, and I really want him to be happy. This article has confirmed my fears about loneliness even more, and I want to help him.
Can anyone suggest a better title? This one is pretty linkbaity.
or
"People who you were once friends with aren't necessarily good friends for life"
It's not exactly difficult to make loose friends or fun acquaintances, but maintaining and strengthening those into deep, close friendships feels nearly impossible.