Making friends as an adult is hard (2021)

Had another group where every Saturday morning we would go to a different cafe for brunch. It was a smaller and less dynamic group, and we would organise the venue in a group chat throughout the week, but it wasn't a question of, "who wants to come this week?", it was just assumed we would all be there and phrased as, "Any objections to trying this place?"

Mid-size city in Australia.

My wife and I are polar opposites in that regard. She can never seem to have enough friends, and they talk often. I think one big difference is how people are with nothingness. Because no matter how busy our day is, there's always periods of downtime...on a bus, on a walk, before bed, etc.

For example, I could sit in a chair and stare at nothing for a long time and not get bored. Mind always wondering, planning, thinking. She on the other hand gets bored and stir crazy in short order. And having people to reach out to chat with is a good cure for that.

I'm not suggesting one is better than the other, of course, just another difference in people.

All of that is to say, people like us who at least -say- we don't want more friends make it harder for people seeking, by removing ourselves from the pool so to speak. And I'd imagine between marriages, kids, work, etc... there's a lot of us like that.

Historically, humans lived in tribal groups where they're in constant contact with a large but cohesive group of people. So in terms of anthropology this is the more natural way.

Now there is a population of adults who are admitting out loud that they are lonely and want to make friends and are willing put in the effort and make the compromises for that to happen.

This past weekend there was some great new TV on and my wife and I had had long work weeks, but we made a point to get out of the house and at least watch TV in a bar. When we met people we actually took the initiative to look them up on social media and followed them.

We were working on this in 2019 and people were put off by it or found it sad. Now people are ready and it's really exciting to me. I think we have the opportunity to build new social structures to replace the ones that have been eroding for several decades.

1:1's don't renew. You have to keep feeding the relationship. The relationship can be extremely rewarding for chit chat & conversation, but it could drop at any point, and become a memory. It has no self-maintaining spirit, no ability to repair itself if one person loses some availability or time.

A group can fend for itself in a far different way. Assemblages can have members come and go, but maintain a core purpose and identity. There's rhizomatic affiliations that can find each other & get new currents & excitements going, whereas in 1:1's the potentials for connection are bounded.

Closed systems can only keep processing the same pieces of energy again and again for so long. They can steal some vitality from the surrounding, but the lifetime of the relationship is limited. You need more open dynamical systems if you want to keep interesting things going. Long term survival requires systems that can perpetuate & share themselves. 1:1's by definition cannot.