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Why making friends as an adult is harder
191–200 of 250 posts
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Find a group. This is obviously great advice, but most groups don't organically sprout around interests. Sports, especially, are something that I have a very difficult time imagining enjoying. And with the slow enshittification of meetup, where do you find these groups? Your local library?
Specially having same sports interests, does not help in finding people with more or less same values/ world view. I cannot really make good friends with people on the opposite side of my thinking.
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Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#193Just suggesting because I don't see it here: foreign language group classes. I would say groups are pretty good for beginner level. But you are trading a bit of learning efficiency for the social aspect, arguably
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Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Over my life, I have made plenty of friends both at work and outside of work — but NONE of them had no interests outside of work.
That's not to say that I've never had coworkers whose only interest was work. I just didn't become friends with them, because what is there to talk about? I greeted them and made basic small talk with them while we worked together, but that's not friendship.
And that's not to say that my friends' interests have nothing to do with the work they do. But their interests in those areas go above and beyond what they are paid to do.
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#195Volunteer. Find an organization that has a good mix of cause you believe in and an activity you enjoy spending your time on. For me, I built emergency housing for people in extreme poverty, I met other amazing volunteers and we'd hang out often outside the social work.
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#196I came to California, in part, because my family in the Midwest is a bunch of Jesus freaks - not the "love thy neighbor" kind, more like the "God hates fags" kind. So when a girlfriend (in California) invited me to her church for some volunteer work, I went prepared to hate on everyone. However, I was blown away, as they were the nicest people I'd ever met in my life. They all went out of their way to help one anothe…
I am sometimes jealous of religious people. They have a clear vision of the meaning of life and churches give them a social group they can join. Us atheists don’t really have something like that.
I wouldn't say that vision is clear. Not at all. It's constant thinking about faith, life questions, shaping values, etc. It's not easier path for sure.
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are or know someone who uses the time savings from not commuting to persue anything outside the house, you are in the vast minority.
That seems like a local from your PoV thing. That overwhelming majority of people I know that have been doing WFH on and off for a decade work regular hours and spend the remainder (time otherwise commuting) socialising (outside the house), sports, gardening, building projects, etc. IRL AFK at least - the 24/7 gamers and shutin's likely have a different world view, but they appear to be in a minoity albeit one perhap…
> That overwhelming majority of people I know
You probably wont get to know a lot of people who don't go outside their house, so pretty biased sample there.
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#198This is my speculation through observation, but imho friendship in its pure form is a genetic program. If you're "no longer twenty these days" (semi-quote from Bernie Taupin), you may not remember how it was but just look at any teen company in public transport or elsewhere, it just feels like a single organism. And at that age it doesn't mean whether your views (if there are any) are similar, you're just attracted. Another speculation that this mutation could be tossed several times with different outcomes, like different spans of this attraction. And keeping the strong bonds later in life from the evolution standpoint it wasn't worth it really so the best fit was to narrow it to some period best for survival of both participant (or group)
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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)
If you are or know someone who uses the time savings from not commuting to persue anything outside the house, you are in the vast minority.
Not necessarily during the week, but I have more energy and time for it on the weekends, thanks to not commuting. Do some cleaning during the week so there's not so much that needs to be done on the weekend.
Re: Why making friends as an adult is harder
#200Earlier 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 solved that joining a coworking space. It changed my life, made a lot of friends since we see each other everyday. We have coffee/lunch chats which lead to friendships. The great thing about it is you get to choose the space so it can fit what you're looking for (quiet, programmer heavy, artsy, walking distance, with a cafeteria, next to the gym, etc), you also don't have the pressure of them being colleagues so yo…
Wish my area wasn't so much of a dead space for coworking spaces. There's a couple but they are both a half hour away. I almost might as well commute the rest of the way to my actual job at that point.