Live data from Hacker News

The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

happiness.hks.harvard.edu

451–460 of 469 posts

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#451
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…

Do you actually want to make friendships/connections? If so, the park is probably not the play. Identify your hobbies/interests and figure out which ones have budding local groups. E.g. sports, bird watching, hiking, camping, volunteering, etc. It takes a ton of energy to form and grow new friendships, but once you pass the critical phase, it's much easier to keep them. I don't think what we're seeing is late stage i…

This sounds the most legit to me out of any comment so far. I think there's a tendency to want to either 1.) innovate our way out of this with a novel solution, or 2.) be really passive like "this happening to me and it's hopeless." I think the way out is less profound, less complicated, and ultimately more fulfilling and efficacious than people imagine. Virtually everyone who is researching/writing in the friendship space talks about finding common interest groups, regularly occurring interactions, consistent effort (supposedly 200 hours to form a close friend), candid conversations to strengthen commitment, etc. Honestly, it's all the same stuff that a romantic relationships requires, just with a couple significant variations ;)

A helpful corollary (from writer Shasta Nelson author of "Frientimacy") is that we all understand that working out requires some amount of pain and struggle (also fun, enjoyment, accomplishment, etc...) in order to get a great bod. We would do well to expect the same experience in friendship. It's not a question of access to people, like Facebook, or even Bumble BFF would have us believe. Again from Shasta "We don't need better friends, we need better friendships."

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#452
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…

Do you feel that politically "extreme" movements are a reaction to that and actually mostly about community and community interaction? For example, during covid I believe the anti vaccination movement was largely about community and only tangentially about political goals. Especially because it was an otherwise hard time for people to interact. It's probably largely the same for the maga movement, the rationalism mov…

>Do you feel that politically "extreme" movements are a reaction to that and actually mostly about community and community interaction?

Yes. Great writing on this from Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind), Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone) and Ezra Klein (Why We're Polarized) and Vivek Murthy (Together). Haven't read these, but I've read about them. One of their main ideas is that when people lose trust in institutions and feel disconnected, they’re more likely to embrace extreme ideologies or groups that promise belonging.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#453
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…

Yes.

I think what everyone wants to do with all this postulating and explaining is avoid the fact that it is hard and takes time and is awkward and there's no clear metric of success. But still worth it, somehow. Like life.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#454
What would happen if your friend relationships had a lot more similarities to romantic relationships? Scheduled outings, regular discussions about what is pissing you off, regular apologies, mundane/unscheduled time together, discussions about hopes and dreams, declarations of affection. Probably less physical touch...

Anyway, I feel like people think they can let friendships develop by osmosis. I don't think ANY deeply fulfilling relationship can just happen without real relationship work.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#455
post #454

What would happen if your friend relationships had a lot more similarities to romantic relationships? Scheduled outings, regular discussions about what is pissing you off, regular apologies, mundane/unscheduled time together, discussions about hopes and dreams, declarations of affection. Probably less physical touch... Anyway, I feel like people think they can let friendships develop by osmosis. I don't think ANY dee…

This is exactly why we built Soonly (https://soonly.com)! It's about scheduled time to connect with friends rather than relying on osmosis like you mentioned.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m more of a hardcore guy but stopped going to shows when I got out of college and got a job. I’m in my 40s now, well my point is it’s amazing how you are still going to shows.

Idk how you're not still going to shows, and my 40-something show-going friends would probably think the same. Just not a concept i can wrap my head around lol

Yeah, taking care of my autistic kid just takes all my remaining time.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#457
post #455
post #454

What would happen if your friend relationships had a lot more similarities to romantic relationships? Scheduled outings, regular discussions about what is pissing you off, regular apologies, mundane/unscheduled time together, discussions about hopes and dreams, declarations of affection. Probably less physical touch... Anyway, I feel like people think they can let friendships develop by osmosis. I don't think ANY dee…

This is exactly why we built Soonly ( https://soonly.com )! It's about scheduled time to connect with friends rather than relying on osmosis like you mentioned.

Cool idea! My hot take is that people can be reminded to reach out to friends, but it's the actual relationship skill-building that is the hurdle. Are you addressing that as well somehow?

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don’t understand what happened. When the laws were changed and forced communities to allow blacks to use municipal pools and when places like Elks Lodges were forced to accept women and minorities white men abandoned these things. Cities stopped funding municipal pools and membership in clubs drastically declined. White men gutted the idea of communal activity in response to civil rights.

Yeah, surely the old white men's clubs were the only communities to be found Sorry i find this whole line of reasoning absolutely asinine

It’s a historical fact what response to desegregation entailed. I agree that it was asinine. It’s stupid that we don’t have municipal trash service, free ambulances at point of usage, municipal pools, etc.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#459
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the time we would have if.... Instead of doom scrolling on social media we called a friend. Instead of binge watching another meh show, we had friends over to play cards or a board game. Instead of over scheduling kids with constant activities, parents had a regular night out with friends while kids spent quality time at home with the other parent. The time is there. It was in the past. We just have a finite…

Imagine the time when kids could actually do things on their own and learn resilience, independence, and community alongside their friends. Instead, their parents now need to drive them everywhere alone because communities got rid of school buses, sidewalks, and speed bumps to help make cars go faster. We've done the real-life version of gamers min-maxing the fun out of a game. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/arch…

You are so right. Just imagine having a physical community that wasn't completely gutted for the sake of transporting cars through non-communal spaces to other non-communal spaces. In America, we can hardly even imagine this, and if you try, you will experience something close to a mob backlash.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, surely the old white men's clubs were the only communities to be found Sorry i find this whole line of reasoning absolutely asinine

It’s a historical fact what response to desegregation entailed. I agree that it was asinine. It’s stupid that we don’t have municipal trash service, free ambulances at point of usage, municipal pools, etc.

I've had municipal trash service in every city I've lived in

The municipal pools where i live are well maintained and extremely popular

Nothing you're saying has anything to do with desegregation and you've shown nothing to back up the shit you're pulling from your ass

Post reply on HN