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The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

happiness.hks.harvard.edu

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Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#311

Post by tayo42 »

caseyy wrote: post #310
dm03514 wrote: post #16

For the us, I feel like it’s late stage individualism. This is what happens I think when people prioritize themselves over their communities, I think we have less dependence on our communities than ever thanks to the internet and being able to physically avoid community. We have less interaction than before. We can order grocery pickup and not even have to be physically around people for basic life tasks. We order ne…

Maintaining adult relationships post-Covid is hard as a millennial. Or rather, getting friendly relationships started/restarted has gotten very awkward. But I’ve noticed that most people respond very well to my efforts. I started texting my acquaintances and old friends at random just to ask what’s up every once a week or two. I also started calling some people instead. Almost everyone responded really well to that.…

Being the one that initiates triggers my own anxieties lol. I start wondering how come no one else ever is?

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#312

Post by zug_zug »

closewith wrote: post #225
zug_zug wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, that seems like a rather defensive response to me. Perhaps self-reflection is in order. Is the idea that friendship might be transactional too scary a thought to consider head on? Here's some science on the topic that is food for thought: https://www.thecut.com/2016/05/half-of-your-friends-probably...

> Is the idea that friendship might be transactional too scary a thought to consider head on? Rather than be defensive, it was designed to shock you out of your current thought patterns on friendship, because they are almost delusional. Neither movie idealised friends nor real-life friendships have any of the characteristics you describe, and that is distorting your view of the world. Pretending real friendship is a…

> Come on, time to get offline and go make some friends.

Oof, I really struck a nerve huh?

I'm sure you're smart enough to know you shouldn't try to hurt people's feelings just because they believe and idea that you don't believe.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#313

Post by caseyy »

tayo42 wrote: post #311
caseyy wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maintaining adult relationships post-Covid is hard as a millennial. Or rather, getting friendly relationships started/restarted has gotten very awkward. But I’ve noticed that most people respond very well to my efforts. I started texting my acquaintances and old friends at random just to ask what’s up every once a week or two. I also started calling some people instead. Almost everyone responded really well to that.…

Being the one that initiates triggers my own anxieties lol. I start wondering how come no one else ever is?

I added a little bit about that in my comment above. Yeah, I feel the same way, it’s not a pleasant feeling.

I think many people don’t make the effort anymore, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you if you do — nothing to be anxious about, I’d say. Besides, leading and organizing things has its advantages.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#314

Post by noisy_boy »

bentt wrote: post #201
oddthink wrote: post #56

I don't really get where people with kids found these 6.5 hrs / wk to spend on friendships, or even the quoted current averages of 4 hrs / wk. On a workday, there isn't much time. I roll out of bed at 6:30, get the kids up and fed breakfast and out the door. I finally get actually working at 8:30-9:30, depending on if I exercise or not. Stop work in the 5:30-6 range, switch into making dinner, getting kids to eat din…

One technique that I think needs to come back into fashion, which was familiar to us Gen Xers, is to drag your kids along when socializing for you. Instead of prioritizing their play dates and sitting in the corner on our phones, we should be bringing the kids to our friend's house and they can wander around and be bored while we sit and talk as friends. The problem we have as a parenting culture is that we're not co…

My mum used to do this - I loved going to various places because either there were kids there to play with OR they had something that I found interesting. For example, one of the places had a 12-inch very detailed sculpture of a prawn which I found very intriguing. Some of the places had lots of books which I loved to raid. And there were always snacks.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#315

Post by msephton »

zug_zug wrote: post #64
prhn wrote: post #35

I'm not sure what caused this, but I think the expectations of modern friendship have become unrealistic. Maybe it's movies and TV, where a "close friend" is more or less a non judgemental therapist that will throw down in a fight for you. What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us hav…

>> What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends. I've come to this same conclusion, but rarely express it because it's possible I'm just different. And I'd even go one step further, I think what a lot of people say friendship is, isn't actually what human friendship is…

I have friends like the first set of criteria, and there's nothing Hollywood about them or me.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#316

Post by redczar »

thayne wrote: post #308
redczar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The less dependence on community started with desegregation. There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free. These things and more all ended with desegregation. Now we live in a society in which people don’t walk and don’t have places in their neighborhood where others congregate. Kids rarely play in the street anymore. The notion of it taking a village…

> There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free. All of that is still true of everywhere I have lived in the US, except for the free ambulances. And I think the cost of ambulances has more to do with the evolution of health insurance in the US than desegregation.

Ambulances were a municipal service and insurance had nothing to do with them. The gutting of municipal services followed desegregation.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#317

Post by alganet »

> when people feel isolated, they become more sensitive to social threats and more likely to misinterpret interactions negatively, through the lens of rejection

"I think they are saying that they want lasagna."

C'mon, don't be assholes.

There is plenty of evidence that teenagers were encouraged to ostracize certain personas (other teenagers!), and that behavior spread out of control to more age groups and unforseen interactions.

The hubris of trying to generate little soldiers destroyed our cultural inheritance.

"The lens of rejection", great.

I heard pagliaci is in town, you should go see him, he can cheer you up. I mean, I heard psychology is in vogue, maybe you should all see one.

Please, stop this shit. Let the internet die in peace instead of juicing the last drops of it to try and make yourselves look good.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#318

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

daseiner1 wrote: post #79
zkmon wrote: post #51

Back in the day, more children meant more wealth and prosperity for the family. More friends meant more support, bigger communities were stronger against others. It was need based, as they have a need to support and survive by themselves. The nation concept now drains out the need and viability of communities, families and friendships. It's like a whale swallowing animals. Animals can no longer keep their own structu…

Capital is a destructive force just as much as it is a productive one.

"just as much" is letting capital off easy

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#319

Post by 7thaccount »

SamBam wrote: post #295
paulryanrogers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only modern technology taking up time. I foolishly bought a project house and have spent nearly every weekend and some weeknights doing repairs and improvements. My SO also tends toward time consuming hobbies like gardening and aquariums. Add young children and every free moment in between is precious.

But people have had activities that take up their time since time immemorial. But the "friendship recession" seems to be much newer. FWIW, my friend recently built a summer home. I went over about four weekends to help drywall, put in flooring, build stud walls, etc. He's had other friends over other weekends. Sometimes it's just one friend, sometimes a few of us go up together. It's a great time, and definitely stre…

I think you're right that those of us that had to socialize either before or when the Internet was more in its infancy are just a lot more used to small talk and meet ups. I've noticed younger family members seem to not value that kind of community. The boomers and their parents would say the same about my generation as we have nothing on them. That's literally all they do is drink beer with friends and socialize at various clubs. D&D is the closest equivalent that the younger generation has and half of the people I see playing at my local game shop have gray hair.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#320

Post by justanotherjoe »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #172
NalNezumi wrote: post #104

The article already mention physical changes (car dependent suburbs, lack of 3rd places) and cultural shift (work as identity and nuclear family) but I think the two last things can be expanded to: we now have higher expectations of friends/people we meet. I recently moved back from Asia to Northern Europe, famous for being a place hard to make friends. I made a new friend, when I one day went to the local swimming p…

> What's there to be gained What are you gaining then? It must be something right?

Dispelling the existential fear of death through good feeling by sharing time with your fellow man?
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