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America's “Friendscape” Crisis

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Re: America's “Friendscape” Crisis

#3

Post by 0235005 »

I think that people sometimes focus to much on career and are leaving a bit the idea on the side. It's kind of sad, but I really don't think it's going to be good in the log run. There's going to be a breaking point and it's not going to be fun

Re: America's “Friendscape” Crisis

#5

Post by ethbr0 »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

Modern Americans suck at building and maintaining community. Everyone wants to play in the sandbox but no one wants to rake it.

I would counter that modern America sucks for supporting communities.

Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas.

Similar to college, fixing America starts with deciding that everyone doesn't need a single family home in a popular metro.

Re: America's “Friendscape” Crisis

#7

Post by epicureanideal »

ethbr0 wrote: post #5
yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

Modern Americans suck at building and maintaining community. Everyone wants to play in the sandbox but no one wants to rake it.

I would counter that modern Americ a sucks for supporting communities. Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas. Similar to college, fixing America starts with deciding that everyone doesn't need a si…

The problem isn’t that people are wanting too much. It’s that getting on the property ladder at all, even a small condo in a metro where there are jobs, is becoming far, far more difficult than for previous generations.

And of course, if people need to work longer and harder to achieve what would've been considered fairly modest goals by (recent) previous generations in terms of housing, then they have less time and energy to devote to friendship and community.

Re: America's “Friendscape” Crisis

#8

Post by imbnwa »

Personally I realized during the Pandemic that a lot of the relationships I'd fostered over the course of my adult life were lead by a desperate desire for belonging rather than on sober considerations such as: do these people respect me at all?; do these people care about my inner life at all?; do these people share a desire for growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do these people have any ambition at all? - these were just drinking buddies at best.

I'd always had teachers in grammar and high school telling me directly or indirectly I was wasting my potential trying to be like the other kids but I only recently understand what they meant and what, more importantly, they saw that I didn't, but that's what a childhood of deep ostracizing both within and without one's family will do.

Much of this thought process has only been possible because I enrolled in therapy a few years before the pandemic. Prior to this I meandered around life with a desperate, pathetic cheerfulness that masked how alone I already was. Alone, not just on the basis of deep, meaningful companionship but that I hadn't at all cultivated being a friend and ally to myself, such that I allowed myself to take on friendships that were not good for my growth as person at all, rather caused me to regress to the same old childhood tropes and tactics time and time again, unable to address the real interpersonal complexity that requires a defined and resolved character to decide and navigate; I tried to be these other apparently successful types to have some social life rather saying NO to what I knew wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go and the kind of people I'd probably enjoy beyond inebriation and frat-level jokes.

What sucks though is that you spend so much time in these relationships you develop a sort of Stockholm Syndrome where the sense of "love" and "affinity" are really just "this is all I've ever known".

Rebuilding at a late age like myself is going to be tough, social media can be particular booby trap here I realize, but it seems necessary.

Re: America's “Friendscape” Crisis

#9

Post by mschuster91 »

I see a lot of "it's the computers/smartphone!" and "it's corona" takes in these kind of articles. However, there is one in the article who has the real reason and not a scapegoat:

> "We realize the importance of friendship, and we're just not investing the time," he said, adding that it's another way the nation is "vulnerable."

Too many people don't have the resources to invest in friendships. Mostly it's time - working two or more jobs to survive or putting in 60+ hour workweeks plus insane 2 hour commutes doesn't leave much time for anything else than sleep - but also, money in general. There are not many places outside of a home for people to gather that are affordable and accessible to anyone, thanks to gentrification. Shoddy run-down bars that were a place for regular people have been replaced by hipster outfits that charge ten euros for a coffee.

Re: America's “Friendscape” Crisis

#10

Post by ethbr0 »

epicureanideal wrote: post #7
ethbr0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would counter that modern Americ a sucks for supporting communities. Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas. Similar to college, fixing America starts with deciding that everyone doesn't need a si…

The problem isn’t that people are wanting too much. It’s that getting on the property ladder at all, even a small condo in a metro where there are jobs, is becoming far, far more difficult than for previous generations. And of course, if people need to work longer and harder to achieve what would've been considered fairly modest goals by (recent) previous generations in terms of housing, then they have less time and…

My personal read is that a huge amount of that in the last decade or so has been a consequence of basement central bank rates.

When vast sums of institutional money are freed and chasing yield, eventually some of it leaks into residential property.

And when a market that was precariously balanced with only retail buyers (due to density opposition and building economics) now has equal or more investors pile in? Well, prices do what they've done.

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