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What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

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Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#231

Post by kodah »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #226
kodah wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am an atheist that grew up Catholic and studied at a Catholic school for 10+ years; Jesus was more like someone who knew he had a deep connection to God but didn't know he was a part of the holy trinity until his resurrection. He experienced serious moments of doubt exemplified on the cross when he shouted, "Father why have you forsaken me?" He was intwined with local hookers and is thought to have had a relationship…

Then your Catholic school did you wrong. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/could-jesus...

That reads like an opinion piece and the etymology of the website is decidedly so: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Answers

Catholics, in fact, are not a monoculture just because they follow the pope. If you travel the coasts, through the South and Midwest you'll see very stark delineations of Catholicism and their beliefs.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#232

Post by nemo44x »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #167
fluoridation wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that time and energy are finite and must be allocated, it makes the most sense to dedicate the most to just one or two activities so that they have the most chance of success (by whatever metric the person sets) than to evenly distribute resources among all of them. That one or two activities could be called the person's "centers".

Activities are not infinite. Given the number of days we live, it makes plenty of sense to spend different days on different activities in different places with different people. The only constant here is self. The question is, what experiences fulfill your self? Experiences with one committed partner, or with several friends? I understand that many people prefer the Cathedral. I prefer the Bazaar.

You clearly don't have kids/family and that's OK. What you've mentioned in a few places in this thread is just not appetizing at all to people with kids and are doing the whole family thing. I don't think everyone needs to do that as the 1 fulfilling way to live a life - although it is incredibly fulfilling and I understand why so many people do it, or dream of it.

But a networked-communal lifestyle is just not appealing to me and probably most people. It's not a social change thing. I mean, I've done it when I was younger and it was fun but I don't know, I think you just grow out of it. Being a dude in his 40's and trying to maintain some large network of meaningful relationships and experiences - it sounds awful and lonely, tbh. People are different from their younger days where you want to socialize like this to where you don't.

I don't know, maybe you find a committed group of lifelong lone wolf friends but my experience says most of them will pair off and look for different things than just having fun with friends.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#233

Post by marcusverus »

XorNot wrote: post #81
scarmig wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it bizarre? It seems the same category as saying friendship is failing, which also is a reasonable claim; see the entire bowling alone thesis. I'd probably group them all under the umbrella of social connections failing, which I'd consider one of the biggest issues of US society today.

It's bizarre because it's distinctly not happening. The number of married couples in the US has been trending up since the 1960s [1] and only very recently has shown a plateau. Which is to say their doesn't seem to be any indication that "marriage is failing" i.e. there are less people in marriages. It's also notable that the rate of cohabitation has tripled over the last 20 years[2] (included because it's a worthwhi…

> Which is to say their doesn't seem to be any indication that "marriage is failing" i.e. there are less people in marriages.

Pew data shows that marriage is down 14% since 1990.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-...

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#234

Post by maerF0x0 »

bumby wrote: post #223
maerF0x0 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd extend the shared goals bit to include difficulty. Physically challenging, life risking, risk of failure etc... I've seen far too many "team bonding" setups fit all 3 of your criteria, but fail dismally to result in bonding.

Out of curiosity, what's the context of those team bonding exercises? I'm curious if the failure is due to short duration and knowing you can revert back to your normal mode in a few days. Humans are creatures of habit, after all, and I don't think what I see in most corporate team-bonding exercises is enough to overcome that in most people.

> unable to leave easily for months on end

Ah yeah, i think i missed this on first pass. Yes they were typically < 1 week.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#235

Post by nemo44x »

ri45 wrote: post #18

As an adult, friendships keep passing by. All of a sudden a good friend "gets busy" or "life just happens". I really do not believe it anymore, even if people are genuinely busy, the least they can do is spare a few seconds of their day to reply back to a text? After what can only be described as a long "sliding window" of maintaining multiple friendships, seeing one tail expire and me actively trying to build more,…

You need to maintain your friends relationships from younger days. You need to check-in, maintain a social circle, etc. It takes work.

The magic is if you keep your core group close (and it's easier today with the Internet to keep in touch) then when you are able to get together (may be once a year!) you'l just pick it up like you hung out yesterday.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#236

Post by standardUser »

nineplay wrote: post #140
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #17

As June rolled around today, I was just reflecting on the history of sexuality, and the philosophical shift that has occurred relatively recently, from "lifestyle" to "orientation" to "identity" and all that comes with it. People in the past did not consider themselves to have sexual orientations, to be gay or straight or something else. Even someone who was committed to a same-sex romantic relationship wouldn't have…

I think there has been a terrible loss that is rarely acknowledged in that men in the western world can no longer have intimate friendships without having to defend their sexual orientation. Seinfeld's "Not that there's anything wrong with that" became a catchphrase for a reason but the line of thinking still exists. I watched the "Tollywood" film RRR and it was startling and refreshing how much affection the two mai…

The phenomenon you describe has gone down two different paths for two different sets of people. In my world, most straight men I bother to associate with are not afraid of showing emotion or admitting to non-masculine traits/experiences or being called gay. I assumed, hopefully, that this was the path the entire country was going down, in terms of male-male relationships. But it seems that has not been the case, and a different segment - one that I don't interact with much - has doubled-down on defining themselves with traditional masculinity and continue to suffer through the whole universe of insecurities that comes with.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#237

Post by doubled112 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #212
cm2012 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans live within driving distance of where they grew up. 60% within 10 miles, 80% within 100 miles.

Your statistics are for age 26.[1] And 100 miles is not halfway across the country but not nearby. [1] https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2022/CES-WP-22-27.pdf

I'm in Canada and 750 km from my family and friends I grew up with. Same province. Ontario is vast.

160km sounds pretty close. Near by, even. I can make that drive happen at a much higher frequency than a 750 km drive.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#238

Post by rgbgraph »

bigthymer wrote: post #145
rgbgraph wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't read into this question more than necessary: are you a "generic" American (non-immigrant, born and raised, family has been here for more than 3 generations, no strong ethnic ties) or primarily surrounded by "generic" Americans? I've found most of my long-term, "deep" relationships in the U.S. to be with immigrants/foreigners. With the "generic" Americans, I can get to the point of a friendly and jolly relations…

Are you a "generic" American? I'm simply asking to get a better understanding of your view.

No, I’m half-and-half.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#239

Post by nashashmi »

lm28469 wrote: post #124
jvm___ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't always happen though. I feel the most lonely when I'm alone with my wife. We can only have a back and forth conversation on topics that interest her, or the day to day of the house/kids, anything outside those things is just never discussed or is a one-way conversation that just dies. I was friendless and grew up with the same 15 boys until the end of highschool, never fit in. Married the first girl who…

Yeah but then again why would your marry and commit to a "2/10 friend" who doesn't share anything with you ? I know a couple who have been together for close to 20 years, they love being together, talking together, going out together, &c. and they're just thinking about getting married now, and they're only doing it to simplify some paperwork for something unrelated Marriage isn't a checkbox, it's an option if you fi…

Marriage is more than that. Marriage is a contract of obligations. On that contract, is a foundation for everything else like inheritance, leadership, responsibility.

A marital relationship without leadership and responsibility is not a “functional” relationship even if it works well.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#240

Post by nashashmi »

bscphil wrote: post #188

I liked this piece a lot. However, I think one failing, which is also tripping up many of the commenters here, is this insistence on ordering one's relationships. Who's my number one? The moment you ask that, you end up with the social norm that one's sexual-romantic partner must be the number one. So you have a ton of people in the comments here who are very defensive of that norm, and you have people like those in…

I think you will have serious eggshells to walk across when faced with simulating the kinds of issues every married couple has to go through.
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