461–469 of 469 posts
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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.
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shops are nearby, less or even no commute to work. access to public transport.
Doesn't that describe every cheap small town? (Little public transport is needed as you can walk the whole town over, but there is usually transport to other towns)
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Doesn't that describe every cheap small town? (Little public transport is needed as you can walk the whole town over, but there is usually transport to other towns)
as the other comment says, small towns don't have good jobs. so you still have the commute to bigger ones with the jobs. also i forgot another category: entertainment. if you are not an outdoor nature person, small towns have little to offer.
Okay, sure. "Do you want a fun job or do you want a well paying job?" is the age old question. Rarely do you get to have both. If what you are trying to say is: "They are willing to give up friendships and everything else that is usually considered to be important to one's personal life to be able to have fun at work", that is a reasonable answer, but this exchange is a strange way to communicate that if that is your intent.
> also i forgot another category: entertainment. if you are not an outdoor nature person, small towns have little to offer.
1. If you can't even afford to visit with a friend now and again, you most certainly can't afford such entertainment. In your feverous attempt to settle the post-purchase rationalization pangs have you forgotten what the discussion is about?
2. I never understood this anyway. Cities, especially the North American ones that resonate most with the HN crowd, are typically designed for outsiders (i.e. car culture), usually to the detriment of those who live inside the city. As a result, you quite often have better access to those big city entertainment venues by living in a small town than you do living within the very city! Where does this bizarre idea that you can only be entertained within the municipal borders in which you live come from? This is not the first time I've heard it.
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There were more kids around, which meant there were more kids for your kids to play with instead of hanging on you and more parents in the same boat to form a support network. It’s one of the problems with birth rate collapse. The fewer people have kids, the harder it is in very hard to measure ways.
This doesn't make sense, the population has only increased. Quick Google tells me 40 years ago, in 1985, there was 62.6 million children in the US. In 2025 there are 74.7 million. That is more children in 2025 than 1985. Parents not allowing their children to play independently isn't due to lack of other children, it's a choice.
2025 74m kids / 343m total = 0.21
So there is ~20% less kids than in 1985
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as the other comment says, small towns don't have good jobs. so you still have the commute to bigger ones with the jobs. also i forgot another category: entertainment. if you are not an outdoor nature person, small towns have little to offer.
> small towns don't have good jobs. Okay, sure. "Do you want a fun job or do you want a well paying job?" is the age old question. Rarely do you get to have both. If what you are trying to say is: "They are willing to give up friendships and everything else that is usually considered to be important to one's personal life to be able to have fun at work" , that is a reasonable answer, but this exchange is a strange wa…
american cities maybe. but european cities most certainly not.
Do you want a fun job or do you want a well paying job?
the problem is that small cities likely have neither. if they have jobs at all.
If you can't even afford to visit with a friend now and again, you most certainly can't afford such entertainment.
depends on the location. the city where i am from has plenty of free entertainment options that i would not have outside.
hackerspaces, irish folk sessions, when i was in LA i participated in irish dancing. these kind of culture activities need a critical mass that only exists in cities. in the US in small cities i might find country music sessions and square dance and maybe some other popular activities, but not the ones i'd be interested in.
also food. in LA i found a russian supermarket with had european style food that i could not find anywhere else in the US. anywhere in the world, the larger the city the more options i had available.
of course the original argument was that the cost of living was so high that people don't have money left, which was never true for me. but i also never had an issue making friends without needing money. so i think that original argument is just an excuse. if it is an argument at all. as many other commenters already said, having time for friends is a matter of choice. and it's not a matter of time or money. i could also argue that the kind of people i like to have as friends also have similar big city preferences just like me, so i like to live in a big city because for me it makes finding friends easier.
Having friends is great but not "having" to have them is also great, which is what individualism allows us to do. Many people get in trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. Many people also become wealthy by hanging out with the right people. But being able to live your life alone without dying is a privilege that we should be thankful for.
You chose very interesting two different outcomes. Super vast majority of people just hang out with decent people, have drinks, talk about stupid stuff and call it a day. I’d like to think that people don’t strive to have friends for “networking” or are scared to have friends because “wrong crowds”. It just feels wrong. My friends have been there at my low lows, and knowing that I can theoretically call them at any p…
If I lived in Afghanistan for example, I would rather stay at home playing video games instead of interacting with my neighbors. In the past, this would be impossible because video games didn't exist. That's why I'm saying that we live in amazing times where people can "choose" to not have friends instead of being forced into communities.
I'm way out on the edge of the bell curve in terms of desire for 1 on 1 quality time with friends. Almost everyone enjoys time when it is given to them, but almost no one is proactive. I hear "Thanks so much for reaching out I am so bad at it" from practically everyone. I've concluded that most people simply don't have the executive function to manage and overcome such a disconnected social environment.
Everybody has the reaction you described. They all seeemed to be unhappily stuck in the same mindset I was, and nobody went ahead and tested the hypothesis.
It just takes one.
I live in a building with 25 apartments. Nobody really knew their neighbours. After I had been living there for almost five years, one tenant decided that everybody should meet for a barbecue in the yard and get to know each other. Now, we all know the people living next to us, we meet regularly for dinners or barbecues and chat. We have a WhatsApp group where we exchange news and favours. I'm almost sure that without this one person's initiative, most of us would still be strangers. Apparently, everybody thought it was a pity that we don't know each other better, but nobody else kicked things off until that one guy did and showed us that we all felt the same way.
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I agree with what you said in the other two paragraphs, but I think people _are_ suggesting what you said, and it is not really an "explanation": it is part of the observation itself
The article is claiming that people need to put more effort into organising social events with tips on how to do it. And the tips around escalating discloure etc. are very much like workplace ice-breakers... utterly awful experiences that everyone hates. Unless you first diagnose why people dislike socialising nowadays you're unlikely to fix the problem. Enjoining people to 'invest' in relationships is entirely missi…
It reads very Ivory Tower, an overly scientific and analytic essay on something that simply doesn't work unless it happens naturally. I appreciate where the author is coming from, and their intentions, but I think it ironically ends up arguing against its own premises. It mentions that people are forgetting how to form natural connections and deal with the messiness of personal interactions, before going on to suggest approaches that feel mostly like following a recipe or checklist.
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Yes here too, and I’m guilty of the focus on family over friends, but also my peers are too and it creates a bunch of people that used to be close that never really see each other because they prioritize their immediate family
Guilty? Your family is your priority. Your duties toward them come first.