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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

#371

Post by redczar »

thayne wrote: post #326
redczar wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It absolutely has to do with insurance. Without insurance or government funding, ambulance service would be prohibitively expensive for most people. The fact that in America health insurance is often part of worker compensation, meant that cities could transfer the cost of ambulances from taxes to insurance premiums.

Getting rid of municipal ambulance service did not occur for insurance reasons. It was gutted along with the gutting of municipal services in general. Insurance had nothing to do with why the service was cut.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#372

Post by cherryteastain »

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.…

> Almost everyone responded really well to that

That's the impression I got at first as well. However, then I realized a really big proportion of people I'd contact this way would say they'd love to meet up but either repeatedly decline suggestions to meet up or even ghost me. I feel like the positive response is just out of general politeness, not willingness to reconnect.

> It’s okay to be the one who initiates...The only issue with always being the initiator is that no reciprocation is a bit of an… issue to our social brains.

It's also about gauging whether the other person cares about you. I carried out the experiment where I stopped texting people with whom I was always the contact initiator. Years later, they still haven't written a single message to me. To me, it's clear that those people never cared about me, I was just their plan B for a saturday hangout in case their real plans fell through.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#373

Post by TimByte »

Can we say that friendship has shifted from being an assumed part of life to something you have to consciously work at. It made me realize how rare certain friendships have become - like with my two best friends, we can go a long time without talking, but when we meet up, it feels like no time has passed at all. We don't message constantly, but when one of us is going through something, we're always there for each other. It feels like that kind of bond is getting harder to find these days.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#374

Post by TimByte »

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…

The convenience and isolation are so baked into modern life that choosing to invest in community feels weirdly countercultural now for many

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#375

Post by TimByte »

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…

I think people underestimate how much real friendship is built through boring repetition rather than some cinematic, instant bond

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#376

Post by em-bee »

SamBam wrote: post #297
jddj wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a 'temporary boredom as a child is/was pretty normal' datapoint, I remember sometimes falling asleep at the table in the restaurant out of sheer boredom while the adults finished chatting. I don't harbour any resentment for that, and I completely understand that they needed to hang out once in a while.

Honestly there's a lot of value in kids experiencing some boredom.

yes, but i needs to be boredom in an environment/situation where they can do something about it. being forced to sit still and be quiet in a foreign house while the adults have fun is not it.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#377

Post by sathackr »

swiftcoder wrote: post #350
sathackr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's too stressful

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#378

Post by caseyy »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #324
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.…

> It’s okay to be the one who initiates. It seems like not everyone can, somehow the level of social anxiety has gone up in the world. In the end, I get my socialization full and so do they. So I’d recommend to whoever feels a bit lonely — reach out to your past friends and current acquaintances. Agreed. Before Covid I used to have a pretty vibrant social life but I was the initiator and back then I could easily set…

> How do you set boundaries?

I don’t, I just naturally hang out with the people who are most reciprocating and being the most good vibes.

Ultimately, it’s about me first. I function better and am happier when I have recently socialized. I’m not doing this for others, so it’s all good and I don’t feel like anyone particularly pushes me in a way where I’d need to maintain boundaries for myself in this particular context.

Regarding your three points, I hear them. But you probably have enough free time to text a friend, and sometimes physically meet up with them. I’d say, if you really don’t have time for that (and I was there myself), then probably you’re neglecting your social needs (basic socialising, safety net) for something else. Consider if that something else is worth it. Regarding point 3, I used to expect something reciprocal from friendships, but now I just expect to spend time with/among people. Yeah, most won’t help you in a time of need, and some will speak ill of you behind your back. But you’ll also meet many great people that legitimately will be great friends. So I’d say don’t worry about it — “trust the process”.

Overall, I hear some social anxiety in the 3rd point. Social interactions aren’t always ideal but don’t catastrophize them. Just do what’s good for you yourself first. Make sure your social needs are met. Let all other things and friendships develop or not as they would.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#379

Post by coldtea »

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 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.

And are more depressed, sexless, purposeless, and lonelier than before...

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#380

Post by coldtea »

tdrz wrote: post #208
ryandrake wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships Yea, this tracks my observations. A lot of adults make connections in their community through their kids and kids' friends. Kids pick their friends and their parents and guardians just go along for the ride, so when the kids play together, it kind of forces the parents to meet and i…

Maybe they are not anti-social, they are just not being social to you! They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.

The mindset you excibit is already antisocial...
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