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Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

nytimes.com

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Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#641

Post by hx2a »

Kuiper wrote: post #528
hx2a wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely something to this. What other struggles are there that we can take on to facilitate bonding? It occurs to me that raising children is a struggle and can help someone bond with their spouse. That doesn't help single people (like me) though. Work can be a struggle, but not always a positive one, and switching jobs can end it. I imagine firefighters and EMT workers face a deeper struggle than corporat…

>What other struggles are there that we can take on to facilitate bonding? I've found that competitive gaming has been pretty good for this, with the stipulation that it mainly applies to 1v1 games which are usually played at live events (such as fighting games like Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros Melee, or card games like Magic: The Gathering), rather than games which tend to have more of an online presence (MOB…

> I've found that any hobby that offers "casual regular events on a weekly basis, plus occasional group trips for the people who take it more seriously" is a great recipe for bonding

I used to be active in a ski club that would plan weekly trips to mountains. Made a lot of friends through that. I need to find another organization like that.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#642

Post by chapill »

emodendroket wrote: post #91
chapill wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't sound like very American men. Like the song goes, "I'm afraid of Americans... They don't need anyone, they don't even just pretend." I realized I have no friends at age 19. I've been fine with that for decades. I won't make any such generalizations about women. I know where I'm at. But I will say the younger guys seem weaker these days. They don't have the same general tough, friendless demeanor the Gen Xe…

This post is, and I am not using the term to be hyperbolic or insulting, pathological. If we need songs to prove the point, Hank Williams, undoubtedly an American man, wrote "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" in 1949.

>This post is ... pathological.

Flattery will get you nowhere.

>Hank Williams

Alcoholic, died age 29, sings about how he is lonely, like other alcoholics do.

British singer describes how he's afraid of Americans.

You see the difference, right? The current generation, the weak ones, they like to sing about how tough they are. "Heathens" or "Royals" is the typical sort of chest puffing bragging about their own prowess.

That's a lot different from outsiders describing their fear of your kind in song.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#643

Post by cpeterso »

julianilson wrote: post #590
kokey wrote: post #508

As someone who has been an expat in several locations and also divorced, I have found that it's not really due to age but down to where the people around you find themselves in their life and where you find yourself in life. When young people go to college a significant portion of them are in a situation where they would need to seek and develop new friendships. The same happens if you move to a location which has a…

Fellow expat here. This problem had been on my mind for years. Like you said, the main challenge is how to spot the most compatible people in a sea of strangers that are in a similar phase in life. I built We3 to try to make this easier (and it looks like it's working!). We launched recently and matched around 30k people already. It's a mobile app where profiles are private. And it connects people in groups of 3, but…

btw, the We3 product screenshot of the man calling the other men "ladies" and the video of Donny touching the crying girl are in poor taste.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#644

Post by macintux »

heedlessly2 wrote: post #620
macintux wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It at least gives you an opportunity to get your foot in the door so next time it's a genuine invitation.

if you joined their whatsapp group out of self-invite and they begrudgingly obliged, then you will see all their invites and still be self-inviting yourself to their other events unless they personally asked you

Gotcha, I'm completely oblivious to Whatsapp.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#645

Post by Broken_Hippo »

narrator wrote: post #147

I have tried to make guy friends and the main problem seems to be that they're boring. We just run out of stuff to talk about unless we have some business related stuff to talk about. I prefer lady friends ( AS IN FRIENDS WHO ARE FEMALE WHO I DO NOT HAVE A SEXUAL OR WORK RELATION WITH AND WHO I AM NOT TRYING TO DATE ) as there's always the flirty subtext to play around with and they are just pleasant to be around and…

My spouse is similar - he finds women easier to be friends with. I'm the opposite - I tend to get along better with men than women. (We are an opposite-gendered couple, btw). To answer your last question: Yes, for some reason there is something controversial about men and women being just friends and I wish folks would stop worrying about it.

I got a lot of crap when I was younger because of my friend choices. Teenage years? My parents wouldn't trust my friends. Didn't like me hanging out with them. Folks assumed I was having sex with this group of guys, which was really weird as I didn't generally date within our core group. In many areas, it simply isn't socially acceptable. Yet it is completely socially acceptable to be somewhat possessive of your romantic interest, up to and including forbidding them to have opposite-gendered friends. For men stuck in a "macho" society, it can signal that they might be gay and made fun of for it (and I don't actually understand why). It sucks, and I'm quite happy my spouse isn't one of those people.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#646

Post by ValentineC »

VLM wrote: post #139
misnamed wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you need a 'third place' - I had one for a while, then it closed down (and I moved). But when you find one, they're great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Genealogy can be interesting. My ancestors "third places" have mostly closed down. I'm the first in my male lineage in an unknown but large number of generations to not be a Freemason. On the other side of the family, Church is not politically cool today.

I've found my local hackerspace to be an awesome "third place", and we're hoping to figure out a way to market it as such to boost our dwindling membership.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#647

Post by robotpony »

narrator wrote: post #147

I have tried to make guy friends and the main problem seems to be that they're boring. We just run out of stuff to talk about unless we have some business related stuff to talk about. I prefer lady friends ( AS IN FRIENDS WHO ARE FEMALE WHO I DO NOT HAVE A SEXUAL OR WORK RELATION WITH AND WHO I AM NOT TRYING TO DATE ) as there's always the flirty subtext to play around with and they are just pleasant to be around and…

A lot of guys are boring, especially for people who have studied and focused in their specialties for years and years. You have to find common ground, and that can become increasingly difficult unless your friends share parts of your core interests.

I work pretty hard to maintain some normal interests, enough that I can chat with pretty much anyone. I do find deeper relationships difficult though, as there are fewer people who share my real interests in my area (or even in my cohort of long term friends). Finding those people is difficult.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#648

Post by Bjartr »

jsemrau wrote: post #189
Bjartr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grabbed your app because I've been looking for something like this for a while (there's tons of useless ones that claim to do this) however it's crashing on my Note 5 every time I start it after I signed in.

This is an iPhone app. How are you running it on a Note 5? And there is no signing in necessary. Are you sure we are speaking about the same app?

Ah, I guess there is either a copycat, or coincidentally similar app with the same name on Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dropin.main

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#649

Post by wonderbear »

hx2a wrote: post #637
77pt77 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm 42 > Currently I am in grad school A post about being in grad school at 42 would be something I'd read.

Really? Interesting. I can do that. How would be the best way to go about that on HN? I'm new here and haven't seen any posts like that. Just start a thread with some info and answer questions?

I'd read it.

Re: Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

#650

Post by odammit »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #599
odammit wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Roatan and there is a notion of “island time” you hear flying out of every lazy white mouth who is trying to sound hyper-local, but most people I met that grew up there, that work there and make plans with friends there - they tend to be pretty respectfully on-time. Nice stereotype though!

> "Nice stereotype though!" If you don't like the example I gave, you can have another example, looking at Ikaria: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171116-the-greek-island-wi... Quoting the article (note this was said by a Greek person, not an expat): "Retired doctor Christodoulos Xenakis has another theory about how Ikarians avoid unnecessary anxiety. We met briefly during my first hour on the island and we had agr…

Sounds like he always eats his food cold when he shows up at dinner parties.
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