Live data from Hacker News

The Limits of Friendship

newyorker.com

51–59 of 59 posts

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#51
post #45

Many of us complain about not keeping in contact with your friends regularly. What would you think about an application that notifies us to communicate with friends frequently?

I would dismiss any and all notifications with a curt 'oh piss off!' unless they were impeccably timed and had something sentimental like a large photo of me with that friend.

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#52
post #20

Reading the comments, I'd say many members of HN should probably invest more time fostering friendships. Its not that difficult to maintain relationships but it is shockingly easy to let them dissipate. Every so often I set out to "make the rounds" and see my friends who are spread across the country. I'm a bit of a nomad and yet its often my return that triggers close friends to see each other when they live minutes…

I get turned off by social interactions that feel like someone following a rote pattern. When someone isn't a part of my life but "checks in" occasionally it feels more like I'm dealing with a recruiter than a friend.

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#53
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I would have. Sad thing is, the ease of developing new friendships seems to be a function of the number of existing ones. Once you reach zero, like I have, you're pretty much stuck there.

I apologize if this is too obvious, but try meetup.com. I met a lot of good friends through it.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been to a few actually (for bitcoin and spanish practice) and they were a lot of fun, but they never led to any deep friendships like those I used to have. Maybe I'm going to the wrong ones, or alternatively, it's possible I'm just not a very likable person.

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#54
post #20

Reading the comments, I'd say many members of HN should probably invest more time fostering friendships. Its not that difficult to maintain relationships but it is shockingly easy to let them dissipate. Every so often I set out to "make the rounds" and see my friends who are spread across the country. I'm a bit of a nomad and yet its often my return that triggers close friends to see each other when they live minutes…

But why should I put time into phone calls and the like? Most friends ask me to do things, which waste my time, and they don't do much in return and often won't do useful things when I ask them to.

The optimal number of friends when we were hunter gatherers might have been 150, but the optimal number of friends for a developer who gets asked to do work by a new person every week and contacted by a recruiter twice a day and doesn't have much use for any friends beyond graphics designers is probably much less.

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#55
post #54
post #20

Reading the comments, I'd say many members of HN should probably invest more time fostering friendships. Its not that difficult to maintain relationships but it is shockingly easy to let them dissipate. Every so often I set out to "make the rounds" and see my friends who are spread across the country. I'm a bit of a nomad and yet its often my return that triggers close friends to see each other when they live minutes…

But why should I put time into phone calls and the like? Most friends ask me to do things, which waste my time, and they don't do much in return and often won't do useful things when I ask them to. The optimal number of friends when we were hunter gatherers might have been 150, but the optimal number of friends for a developer who gets asked to do work by a new person every week and contacted by a recruiter twice a d…

It sounds like are questioning the value of loose work associates, I'm here defending the value of friends. Friends rarely ask me about doing work and I don't qualify my friends by their ability to do "useful" things for me. On the Venn diagram of friends/useful people I'd say there will be a lot of overlap but it most certainly shouldn't be a pre-requisite.

If you don't see any inherent value in having people to talk to, experience things with, and in general unwind with than you are either young and naive or a totally different animal than most of your fellow humans. In the latter case, feel free to disregard my message as it doesn't apply to you but if you are are in the former camp, I'd recommend you think long and hard about how you value people in your life.

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#56
The article says, "Thus, from the size of an animal’s neocortex, the frontal lobe in particular, you could theoretically predict the group size for that animal". So I did a bit googling and found another article, here

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626378/

This one has another interesting point: "These analyses show that while relative neocortex size is positively correlated with female group size, it is negatively, or not at all correlated with male group size. This indicates that the social intelligence hypothesis only applies to female sociality."

Perhaps after a man gets married with a woman, he could shift much of his social function of the neocrotex to his female partener, and free up that part of the brain for some other interesting stuff...

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#57

The article says, "Thus, from the size of an animal’s neocortex, the frontal lobe in particular, you could theoretically predict the group size for that animal". So I did a bit googling and found another article, here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626378/ This one has another interesting point: "These analyses show that while relative neocortex size is positively correlated with female group size, it i…

Assuming in a typical courting relationship network, a female is being courted by 8 males at the same time, and assuming all those men would devote much of their resources to their courtship and hence would have few resources to spare for other inter-personal relationships, it looks like the neocrotex of the female would need to take on more burden (e.g. more developed) as to take care of those 8 links, than the neocrotex of each man needs to maintain a single link.

This may explain why most of the time woman is more adept at dealing with those sociality issues.

                                    male_0
                         male_7    o
                             o     |     o male_1
                              \    |    /
                               \   |   /
                                \  |  /
                                 \ | /
                      male_6      \|/ female
                         o---------o---------o male_2
                                  /|\
                                 / | \
                                /  |  \
                        male_5 /   |   \
                              o    |    o male_3
                                   o male_4

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#58

What I'd love to know is how people carve out time and energy for learning/self-driven education, hobbies and such in addition to friends, particularly if introverted. My wife seems to be quite good at making friends, because she invests a large % of her time and energy in socializing, and I feel like it is slightly less awkward for a female to invite female coworkers out to do something than it is for male coworkers…

I used to use words like "introvert" and "extrovert" to explain why someone eases into social graces so much better than myself. At some point in my life I realized that socializing, while maybe more intuitive to some, is a _skill_ you get better at with time and energy. Just like any other skill, it's extremely draining and takes a while to reach your goals. You can chock it to being an introvert, or you can invest…

There is a common misconception that introversion/extroversion is about having social skills or not. Sure there is likely some correlation, but I would consider myself to have decent social skills, and I'm guessing others would as well.

Introversion to me is more about how I recharge. If I am interacting with someone else, it takes energy to do so. If I was an extrovert, such an experience might replenish my energy. Instead, I recharge by being alone and solo activities.

So when I reference introversion, it was more in regards to how I recharge, not my level of social skills.

Re: The Limits of Friendship

#59
post #26
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I would have. Sad thing is, the ease of developing new friendships seems to be a function of the number of existing ones. Once you reach zero, like I have, you're pretty much stuck there.

New relationships are a combination of luck and hard work, regardless of your current state. I think having additional friendships just increases the luck side of the equation slightly. If you want to develop new friendships I'd say find hobbies where you might find interesting people. Some hobbies tend to have more welcoming communities than others, climbing gyms being one of the better environments I've come across…

They aren't. If you believe that, you're doing something very wrong. Long lasting bonds/relationships/friendships are a lot of work.

New relationships require for you to put yourself in a position where you meet new people. It also requires for you to have opportunities for people to hang out with you.

Post reply on HN