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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

#341

Post by edg5000 »

wvlia5 wrote: post #99
bilsbie wrote: post #5

It’s crazy out there for a 40yo. One thing I’m considering is that maybe it’s ok if friends don’t reciprocate. I think some people just have to be the inviters or relationships fall apart.

Does this also apply to texting? (some people always have to text first, otherwise the other will never write again). Or is it just that the other doesn't want to be your friend?

It depends on how they respond and how it goes. If the attitude is great and the time together is great, all is well. There are two sides to the coin. Being the inviter means you get to choose who to invite. Of course you have to invite people you really want to spend time with. And times change, things could always flip around, maybe one day you'll be in a position where people are reaching out. It's dynamic, like the wind.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#342

Post by gehwartzen »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #46
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 you see the Amish, they just rebuilt a whole lumber sawmill in only eight days. https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1915121027820159414 Your project house was an individual pursuit when it should be a collective one.

There’s Habitat for Humanity which I think would fit this description.

I’ve personally never involved myself with it but over the last few months the group built a modest house on a small lot next to my ex-spouse’s place. Every weekend I saw a group of folks (ranging in age from early 20s to retirement) there building, chatting and generally being very friendly with one another. Really cool to see.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#343

Post by uptownfunk »

It’s not what it used to be. I find people are more self-centered than ever. What to speak of friends even family will not spare a moment for you. Many couples do not have kids for this reason. Who wants to make that sacrifice. Covid accelerated this. People got burned out, then realized they needed to take care of themselves better since no one else will (especially after layoffs). I don’t think the pendulum has swung back yet. Obviously I’m generalizing here and this is biased by my own experiences.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#344

Post by tock »

h2zizzle wrote: post #259
decimalenough wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24/7 live-in maids are quite common in places like Southeast Asia, India or the Middle East. And yes, 24/7 really means that: always on call.

In many cases, it's slavery (immigrants whose documents have been taken away). Occasionally, you have tragedies occur, like the Kenyan woman who received 3rd degree burns over most of her body, and her family didn't know until she was shipped back home to die. Extreme, but is that what we're aspiring to? But then, it would be incorrect of me to say that I'm making a purely economic argument because I've clearly moved…

This is every job. The rich paying the poor to do something that will bring them value. Every work visa is slavery by your argument. The reason cleaning as a job icks people out is because they see it as a "lesser" job. I am fine with it as long as the pay is good.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#345

Post by zelphirkalt »

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…

I think you are on to something there. Already doing more than most people, I guess. Most people wouldn't even make the effort of going to the neighbors and saying hello.

I often ask myself, why some people, who are closest to what I would call friends, do not initiate any shared activity at all and how they can always be "busy". Do they not realize, that they are squandering the time they could have with friends?

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#346

Post by zelphirkalt »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #329
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.…

Honestly, I think that is related to the algorithmic collapse of facebook. Facebook was legitimately good for keeping people connected in the first decade or so. Then the monetization enshittification happened, both at the overarching corporate level of facebook and internet advertising in general, and with people becoming exhaustingly self-promoting, which devalued trust between friends and degraded new connections.…

I rather think FB was always part of the problem for most. Having 200 FB friends, but not a single one to go out with and meet them, that's not a healthy social life. Some people might have used FB in a different way, but they would have been fine without FB existing in the first place.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#347

Post by somedude895 »

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…

Another factor I'd mention is, ironically enough, government social programs. Humans were always social because they needed each other. If you don't depend on your community or your family, you'll be much less inclined to invest in those relationships. It used to be if you fell on hard times you might rely on your community to help you out, which would however require you to take part in it, and contribute to it in some way. If instead you just automatically get money or housing from some faceless govt institution, that incentive is removed. Black children growing up in one-parent households was 9% in the 1950s. Today it's 65%. It's controversial what the causes are of course, but it makes sense: Make it easier for people to replace their relationships with government assistance, and it removes any need for taking responsibility for your peers. I'm not saying government-provided social safety nets should be abandoned, but the devaluing of human connection – even if transactional – is an unintended social consequence that isn't talked about nearly enough.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#348

Post by porridgeraisin »

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…

> individualism

Yes.

One good counter-force against this wave is dependence. If you depend on someone for something, or you owe them a lot(I don't mean monetarily), you will not cut ties with them even if you have a temporary fallout. You'll push through it. Yes, this has negative effects (abuse) but at the system level you need to optimize for the majority case not the minority case. One of the things an overly financialised society does is to commoditise/securitize every dependency. Homes, food, care, groceries, maintenance, health, everything is attached a value. It is now possible for someone to live entirely on their own, with fully commoditised dependencies. Even when they start a family, the kids go to day care, and eventually the parents go to an old age home - more things commoditised. In fact, the number of old age homes is the best sign of a failing society. Like a nail in the coffin, these commoditized fractures increase the perceived wealth of everyone, rally the stock market and the variety of casinos around us, and people celebrate it.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#349

Post by [deleted] »

benfortuna wrote: post #131
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…

>The other challenge is finding people, especially as you get older. I've posted this before, but as you get older you really need to seek out established communities. Sports, trivia nights, things of that nature. Something where you can hop in and immediately meet 5+ people. Then you need to show up, over and over. That's how friendships form. The article follows similar lines, but I feel "forcing friendships" just…

[deleted]

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#350

Post by swiftcoder »

sathackr wrote: post #145
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…

It used to be possible in most areas to raise a family and kids on a single middle-class income. So that left one person free to handle domestic tasks instead of them being split between two people in the spare time they have after the kids are all in bed. It still may be possible now but that will require reducing your standard of living to what was common then. Think no stone counter-tops. Not driving a 0-3 year ol…

Or learn how to cook and lay your own tile? One doesn't have to live in an ad campaign for the 70s just to save a few bucks
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