Falling in love will cost you two close friends

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11321282

by inmygarage • 16 years ago

45 30 16 years ago

bbc.co.uk

jlees• 16 years ago

Working as intended.

Of course, the fun part is when you break up after a long relationship where your social circles are very mixed. You run the risk of losing all your friends. Which sucks.

presidentender3• 16 years ago

I had a relationship in which I attempted to maintain separate social circles as much as possible for this very reason - we had overlapping friends, but I encouraged her to keep a separate group of "her friends" with whom I would not go hang out, mostly girls. She'd invite me frequently, and this became a major bone of contention... This was a contributing factor to the downfall of that relationship.

On the upside, I didn't lose any friends. On the downside, she lost many.

pkulak• 16 years ago

Sounds like if you had just not tried this little experiment you'd still be with her and have double the friends.

okaramian• 16 years ago

I believe this is the "George Costanza World's Colliding" philosophy of relationships and friendships.

CWuestefeld• 16 years ago

Hedging against the failure of the relationship is not the best way to achieve a successful long-term relationship.

10ren• 16 years ago

Corollary: them falling in love will cost you a close friend, 40% of the time.

nlavezzo• 16 years ago

Not if you're the most awesome friend they have though... So if your friend starts falling in love, step up your friend game ASAP. Getting in good w/ the new significant other is probably also a good move.

ardit33• 16 years ago

I wonder how many close friends does a startup cost too?

I am guessing If you are a founder, your time for social life will be very very limited, and a startup will cost 2 or more close friends.

One thing I found out, is that in general (for guys at least) is very easy to catch up and reconnect even after a long period of time of disconnect, as long as they are in the same stage lifes (eg. both being single, or not having kids, or both having a domestic life and kids, etc.). The disconnect becomes more permament when one enters a completely different stage of the life (having kids, will the major one), than the other friend.

bkrausz• 16 years ago

I think this is one of the biggest perks of YC: I have more friends because I did it, not fewer. I met some of my closest friends there (and even got introduced to my girlfriend through one of them).

Seems like a net gain to me ;-).

robryan• 16 years ago

Even without something like YC it gives you to opportunity to connect with others doing startups, as long as your city has a startup/ coworking ecosystem. Probably met more people and had way more interesting conversations since getting involved.

osopoderoso• 16 years ago

the title of the post make me wonder what happens when you have only one close friend, you can't fall in love because you can't afford the exchange?

wtracy• 16 years ago

The content of the article gives me hope that starting a relationship will cause me to gain a close friend. :-D

rjbond3rd• 16 years ago

What you have written brings a tear to my eye.

Sadranyc2• 16 years ago

Close friends will be there for you even if you don't see them as frequently as before.

Psyonic• 16 years ago

No true scotsman...

Sadranyc2• 16 years ago

Sorry, I meant TRUE close friends. Done.

vdoma• 16 years ago

I call bullshit. The very definition of close friends is that they are close, whether you spend less time with them or not. I've got friends across the country and we're very close even though we meet a only few times a year.

jedwhite• 16 years ago

Working on a startup will cost you the rest :)

And probably the love relationship too!

lmkg• 16 years ago

When I went to orientation when I entered college, they were very explicit not to start intimate relationships until a month or two in (after the first chem test). One reason was we would find out how hard college really was and could judge whether we could afford that commitment, but another reason they gave was that you wouldn't develop friendships with other people nearly as much, and you needed that broader support group to help you in college. Plus heaven forbid you break up, and find yourself with no social circle at all.

lukev• 16 years ago

This is a classic case of statistics being useless. Are we actually supposed to avoid falling in love because of this negative effect?

It's like knowing that 50% of marriages end up in divorce. True, and damn irrelevant when trying to decide if you should propose or not. Individual marriages have either a 100% or 0% chance of success, and calculating the probability of those outcomes is not greatly informed by the "national average."

philwelch3• 16 years ago

It's like knowing that 50% of marriages end up in divorce. True, and damn irrelevant when trying to decide if you should propose or not. Individual marriages have either a 100% or 0% chance of success, and calculating the probability of those outcomes is not greatly informed by the "national average."

Not true at all.

The subjective probability (which is all you have to make a decision from) is reflected by incomplete information, but is never 100%.

But even the objective probability (as far as such a concept is even coherent) isn't either 0 or 100. It's somewhere in between. Maybe under one set of circumstances the marriage will work out perfectly, but under another set of circumstances it won't. That's random. In one possible world the husband could arrive home at 5:12 and find his wife with another man, in another possible world he arrives home at 5:17 to find his wife freshly showered. That's random, or at least stochastic enough. In one possible world a stray gamma ray gives their child leukemia and the couple grow closer by going through the experience together, in another possible world no such thing happens, the husband goes back to work shortly after the child is born and slowly becomes alienated from his wife until divorce happens. Think you have a good enough marriage that adultery or alienation aren't going to become problems? Well throw in the multitude of circumstances which can cause people to change over time, and you'll find random factors there, too.

tokenadult• 16 years ago

It's like knowing that 50% of marriages end up in divorce.

Which is something we think we know that just isn't so, and (as you point out) is something not too relevant at the individual level.

http://www.divorcereform.org/nyt05.html

http://www.divorcereform.org/real.html

vl• 16 years ago

I think it's might be somewhat relevant, consider this theory: it reminds reasonable person that there is a possibility of divorce, and given the high cost of divorce for at least of one parties, people might become more cautious in proposing or accepting. Ironically, potentially reducing future divorce rate by doing so. In other words, knowing this statistics may tilt people into more cautions behavior.

Falling in love will cost you two close friends

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