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Why making friends as an adult is harder

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Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#161

Post by 65 »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #112
prhn wrote: post #10

I've made more friends more easily in my 40s than any other time in my life, and I'm a relatively quiet and disagreeable person. Making connections with people you're around frequently is easy. The problem is that adult life doesn't throw you into those situations post-college outside of work. Now it's on you. Find a group. Sports are the easiest. You will absolutely make strong, long lasting friendships if you play…

You are aware, that you are on a board of grinding workaholics, who work hard to have nobody escape the gulag of modern labor - by forcing everyone to grind their lifes to dust to compete with them? That the processes we are part of have one purpose and one purpose only when it comes to social life, to force everyone to invest there whole social life into a company ? That half the apps written here, are to divide and…

Sheesh. A little nihilist much?

Yes, modern capitalist society is really great at making human needs scarce (friends, relationships) and human wants abundant (junk food, video games).

But I don't think there's really a point in stewing too much about the society we live in, it's easier to accept that this is our reality, and that we have to work extra hard for the things in life that matter. Giving up only creates a much worse situation for yourself.

People back in the day had to do extremely difficult manual labor all day long, think of it as though the "extremely difficult labor" has changed into social labor - from making friends to dating to maintaining relationships.

And you know you don't have to be a workaholic, right? I work 9-5, I have time for other things in life. I have a few friends at the office but I'm not thinking "work is life" ever.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#162

Post by sarchertech »

shreddit wrote: post #123
phil21 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people will simply not do this, even if they know they should. For this reason I think WFH is a massively more risky social experiment than most realize. It works for folks who were either already inclined to "go out and do things" or those who already had established social groups. We will see how this pans out in a generation or two. Having to have everything scheduled weeks in advance is utterly exhaustin…

I do WFH for about 9 months now and i’m not a big fan of it in general (for myself). I can’t go back in the office because i moved too far away, and would have to find a new job to work in an office (quite ironic, isn’t it?). There are some pros, like i eat a lot healthier, sleep a lot better, save a lot of money on gas. But two days without leaving the house is not uncommon, because I don’t have to and since i don’t…

> share your interests (which is just my work currently)

That’s the part I’d work on fixing. Friendships generally start based on shared interests, and you definitely need something in your life other than work.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#163

Post by nobodyandproud »

asp_hornet wrote: post #114
nobodyandproud wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it weren’t for church services and semi-regular in-office work, my in-person contact would be just wife and kids. I believe the Japanese have a near analogous term for this: Hikikomori.

That is not what Hikikomori means. Hikikomori is a complete removal of oneself from society often including family and work.

And “analogous” means “similar”, not identical.

So what’s your point?

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#164

Post by adamredwoods »

I barely have any friends. Being a single father is incredibly isolating.

Doing group activities is the key, but finding a group that can include me and my son is very rare. Also, our neighbors are incredibly impolite. We're hoping to move homes soon, and I am hoping the change in perspective will have a good impact. So I would add neighborhood community also has an impact on socializing.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#165

Post by nobodyandproud »

ilbeeper wrote: post #115
nobodyandproud wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it weren’t for church services and semi-regular in-office work, my in-person contact would be just wife and kids. I believe the Japanese have a near analogous term for this: Hikikomori.

Having regular contact with a wife and kids makes you far from being a Hikikomori.

Regular but minimal. It’s not entirely by choice, but my social skills—never great—have degraded considerably over the last 4 years.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#166

Post by sarchertech »

ajkjk wrote: post #138
JackMorgan wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree, and think work from home (which most of our ancestors did until the industrial revolution) is infinitely better for making and sustaining healthy friendships. There's not 90-120 minutes of commute time sitting alone in a car. There's not the very common occurrences of layoffs and promotions making you directly competing with each other. Instead you've got all that extra time to just spend time…

Aware that this is not how everyone feels but, IMO: you'd really have to mis-design your life to have a 90-120 minute commute. It's almost always possible to live near where you work, and it's a lot more important than most other comforts.

When you’re married with a working spouse, it becomes much harder.

Then when you have kids you need to think about where they go to school and you might want to live close enough to grandparents that they can help out. These constraints make living close to work impossible for a huge chunk of people.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#167

Post by chiefalchemist »

dinosaurdynasty wrote: post #89
phil21 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people will simply not do this, even if they know they should. For this reason I think WFH is a massively more risky social experiment than most realize. It works for folks who were either already inclined to "go out and do things" or those who already had established social groups. We will see how this pans out in a generation or two. Having to have everything scheduled weeks in advance is utterly exhaustin…

> Having to have everything scheduled weeks in advance I don't see how WFH makes this worse, in fact it probably makes it better (less time spent commuting, more ability to end the day early with a flexible employer, etc)

It can be both.

For some WFH will be a big win. But for others a big loss.

How big the big losse are will depend on the individual and their willingness to take action(s) to mitigate the loss.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#168

Post by onecommentman »

phil21 wrote: post #88
prhn wrote: post #10

I've made more friends more easily in my 40s than any other time in my life, and I'm a relatively quiet and disagreeable person. Making connections with people you're around frequently is easy. The problem is that adult life doesn't throw you into those situations post-college outside of work. Now it's on you. Find a group. Sports are the easiest. You will absolutely make strong, long lasting friendships if you play…

A lot of people will simply not do this, even if they know they should. For this reason I think WFH is a massively more risky social experiment than most realize. It works for folks who were either already inclined to "go out and do things" or those who already had established social groups. We will see how this pans out in a generation or two. Having to have everything scheduled weeks in advance is utterly exhaustin…

If we are going all “risky social experiment”, one could argue that almost all of humanity worked from home/neighborhood until passenger rail showed up in the mid 19th Century, and thus the actual anomalous human situation/experiment has been the last 150 years of commuting to work from home. A time of two World Wars and many major bloody military conflicts, breakdown of the family, weakening of community, growth and spread of colonialism, etc.. Perhaps Africa could have been spared the blessing of European colonialism if Nigel, Jacque, Fritz etc. had stayed at home making shoes. (Or maybe not.)

Humans and associated social institutions evolved out of a WFH culture for hundreds of years, and perhaps those time-proven institutions would work better in 2024 if we returned to a WFH culture. Commuting culture may have been the “massive risky social experiment” of the last Century.

Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder

#170

Post by mikem170 »

phil21 wrote: post #88
prhn wrote: post #10

I've made more friends more easily in my 40s than any other time in my life, and I'm a relatively quiet and disagreeable person. Making connections with people you're around frequently is easy. The problem is that adult life doesn't throw you into those situations post-college outside of work. Now it's on you. Find a group. Sports are the easiest. You will absolutely make strong, long lasting friendships if you play…

A lot of people will simply not do this, even if they know they should. For this reason I think WFH is a massively more risky social experiment than most realize. It works for folks who were either already inclined to "go out and do things" or those who already had established social groups. We will see how this pans out in a generation or two. Having to have everything scheduled weeks in advance is utterly exhaustin…

> For this reason I think WFH is a massively more risky social experiment than most realize. It works for folks who were either already inclined to "go out and do things" or those who already had established social groups. We will see how this pans out in a generation or two.

I wonder if this would vary by country and culture?

I wonder if there is a statistically noticeable difference in experience between places like the US and Northern Europe that seem to be more more work-focused compared to Southern European countries like Spain and Italy which have a reputation for having a better work/life balance.

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