The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html?_r=1

by MRonney • 14 years ago

697 304 14 years ago

majormajor2• 14 years ago

You don't even need to me approaching middle age. I'm in my 20s and moved halfway across the country recently, and am continually amazed at how hard it is to make good friends of the same gender. Given all the websites/events/groups dedicated to meeting people to date I've found it far easier than ever to get dates, but more difficult to make friends. It's a weird reversal. There's probably an opportunity for a little business there, but I haven't quite worked out how it would work.

peter_l_downs• 14 years ago

Any chance you're in the Bay Area? I just moved out here from Philadelphia and am stuck in the exact same situation. Either way, feel free to shoot me an email (in my profile).

eli2• 14 years ago

Meetups? The vast majority of them are not designed to find people to date.

crusso• 14 years ago

I've found it far easier than ever to get dates, but more difficult to make friends

That's interesting and kind of profound.

I guess when you're arranging dates on match.com, the intention is clear. You're out to meet someone for a relationship. It's the goal.

A meetup to discuss Ruby on Rails or something is all about the subject of the meetup. Most are there just to talk about Rails and get help with a bug, not to make close friends.

How would you find activities where the specific goal is for people new to an area to make friends, or maybe for people who aren't new to an area but they want to make friends?

There's probably an opportunity for a little business there,

There has to be someone already doing this... maybe?

_delirium2• 14 years ago

> A meetup to discuss Ruby on Rails or something is all about the subject of the meetup. Most are there just to talk about Rails and get help with a bug, not to make close friends.

You can sometimes make friends in such settings if they're regular enough, informal enough, and smallish groups. I initially met one current friend via the SF Wikipedia meetups, for example. But they have a somewhat deliberate "social outing" tone, where it's expected some Wikipedia business will be discussed, but not in any organized way.

mtrimpe• 14 years ago

A friend used to say that OkCupid sucks for dating, but is great for finding friends.

It makes sense as most people want partners that complete them but friends that are like them.

vijayr• 14 years ago

I've found it far easier than ever to get dates, but more difficult to make friends

People have ridiculously high standards for friendships than dates. This sounds weird, even writing it, but I've found it to be true again and again. Many many people would have no problems dating absolute jerks, but wouldn't hang out for 15 minutes with a genuinely nice person (of the same gender). May be people are just desperate to hang out with people of opposite gender? I dunno.

There's probably an opportunity for a little business there,

I doubt that. How could you do this as a business? Arrange volunteer activities/"friend dates"/hang-outs with the primary aim of making friends? Make a website like lookingforfriends.com (just made up the name)? Most people just can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes getting to know another person, unless there is something in it for them (that is why it is easier to get dates, than friends). It just boils down to, people are just plain selfish, at least most of them.

mahyarm• 14 years ago

I'm in the bay area in my mid 20s, and it's quite the opposite for me, lots of same gender friends, not a lot of dates.

katovatzschyn• 14 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efWTPuc6YAA

dannyr• 14 years ago

I'm older now and I have been going through the same thing.

I made a lot of lifelong friends when I was in the East Coast. When I was in my late 20s, I decided to move out West. My friends were my support system back in the East Coast and now I don't have them.

Starting over when you're older is hard. Most people my age have established their own circle of friends. It feels out-of-place trying to join an existing circle.

gruseom4• 14 years ago

There's another factor. In my observation, people on the east coast make truer and deeper friendships than people out west. I'm a lifelong westerner and when I first started spending time in the east I felt, in this respect, like I had come home for the first time. People I met (socially, not on the street) would actually do things like make eye contact, listen to what each other said, and respond to it. They were noticeably more contactful.

On the west coast, things don't work that way. People seem nicer on the surface but it's a cool sunniness. They don't really mean the friendly things they say and they shy away from deeper connection. It's an alone-together vibe. The social ecosystem is less hospitable to bonding.

franze• 14 years ago

my solution: travel

1) you meet a lot of people while traveling (quantity)

2) you and them are out of context (and out of existing social circles)

3) all are a little bit more relaxed

4) you start pretty fast talking about things that are interesting without (social circle / insider) background information - you can filter them for quality (if they are interesting enough for do friendship follow ups)

from the last 5 years about 80% of the new people i now call friends i met during traveling

hv23• 14 years ago

That's the premise of Grubwithus - connecting people over meals so you can get to know new people in a casual environment where the focus isn't an activity where conversation is sort of restricted to that event (like most Meetups). Have you tried one out?

majormajor2• 14 years ago

Ah, that looks very interesting. The ones currently closest to me seem about an hour's drive away in LA, but I'll keep an eye on it.

And yeah, that's the thing I've run into with Meetups. Great place to find a particular activity, harder to find people looking to meet people beyond just the activity.

carerra• 14 years ago

you should make dates with prospective friends. we fall in love a little with guy friends, so instead of the outcome being 'let's explore a romantic chemistry' it is 'let's explore a friendship chemistry', but the mechanics are the same: one on one meetup with a stranger.

jlgreco4• 14 years ago

There has got to be a writing style rule somewhere out there that says you should not capitalize the entirety of a word at the beginning of an article if doing so forms a common acronym. It took me almost a solid minute to make sense of that first sentence.

moron• 14 years ago

That acronym in the New York Times would be "I.T.", not "IT".

jlgreco4• 14 years ago

Yeah, I realized that after I realized that it was saying "It".

eli2• 14 years ago

NYTimes takes its style guide pretty seriously. This would probably be the place to make such a request: http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/

gruseom4• 14 years ago

This is much better than the average lifestyle piece, or at least I guess it is. I couldn't read it - it's too painfully accurate. I'm very sad that our society works this way.

I think I'll go walk the dog.

jedberg• 14 years ago

Wasn't there a movie with Paul Rudd based on this premise?

m0th872• 14 years ago

"I Love You, Man." Good movie.

MattSayar• 14 years ago

Yeah, and it's pretty good. We should grab a beer and watch it sometime.

bmac27• 14 years ago

Sorry, I don't agree with the premise of this piece. I'm finding it easier to make connections and friends since I've left school and the place I grew up. Are these BFF-type connections? Not yet since they haven't had the time to really flourish. But with time, I anticipate they will since we share common goals & interests. When you're in your teens/early 20's, you're at the mercy of a small pool of individuals (classmates, neighbors, people in town) that you may have absolutely nothing in common with other than sharing the same space or a passing interest in the same music, tv show etc. These passing commonalities aren't indicative of a friendship that will last.

Maybe I've just always been pickier about who I've associated with. I don't know.

I also think it's got the vibe of one of those pieces that make you feel guilty for getting older, i.e. the nonsense of entrepreneurial "peak ages"

saraid2164• 14 years ago

There's definitely an inverse effect in the "when you grow up, move out, and search around on the Internet, you'll find Your People" phenomenon. Not sure that's exactly what you're referring to, so maybe there's a third one.

Do note: the article provides several anecdotes to your one. :)

m0th872• 14 years ago

> Thayer Prime, a 32-year-old strategy consultant who lives in London, has even developed a playful 100-point scale (100 being “best friend forever”). In her mind, she starts to dock new friend candidates as they begin to display annoying or disloyal behavior. Nine times out of 10, she said, her new friends end up from 30 to 60, or little more than an acquaintance.

Whoa. I would never want to be acquaintances with this person.

And yet that's not too far off from what I - and I think most people - are doing. Sure, I don't have a scale. But I'm sizing people up. If I had that cynical, narrow-minded approach back in high school, I don't think I'd have the life-long friends I have now. I'm working on shutting that inner voice up, but I think it's something that slowly creeps in over time.

But that's just part of the problem - the other is that, especially with big moves, there's no obvious support structure for making new friends. Having moved across the country a few months ago, I'm still trying to figure this one out. Any idea HNers?

Timothee2• 14 years ago

"Whoa. I would never want to be acquaintances with this person."

Thinking of specific numbers is very cynical indeed, but I agree with the point made though.

For example, there's a former colleague I've had a few lunches with, every 3-6 months or so, since the startup we were working at folded. We clicked well when working together and we enjoyed talking about ideas. However, during the past few lunches, I've been more and more annoyed at the fact that he's been mostly interested in talking about his own stuff, not caring at all about mine. (granted, I've wondered if I could be just like him, since I want to talk about my stuff… :)) Overtime, I realized that I won't be seeking lunches with him anymore.

So unconsciously, every bad interaction kind of knocked some points off.

Friendship is really like any kind of relationship: you're expected to give and to receive. If it goes only one way, it will eventually stop going any way at all.

jkbyc• 14 years ago

>Friendship is really like any kind of relationship: you're expected to give and to receive. If it goes only one way, it will eventually stop going any way at all.

The whole area of transactional psychology is based on that idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis

PakG13• 14 years ago

When I read this, I honestly wasn't taken aback by it. Rather, it seemed to me a pragmatic realization that often, our friendships are self-selecting. If someone doesn't call you back, you naturally won't get closer to them. If someone does call you back, you probably will naturally get closer.

gcr8• 14 years ago

I guess so, but is there really a need to explicitly quantify that?

What purpose could such thinking have?

awj• 14 years ago

> Having moved across the country a few months ago, I'm still trying to figure this one out. Any idea HNers?

Take up a hobby, more or less unrelated to what you do for a living. Maybe it's rowing or rock climbing or fencing or writing. Find something you think you'll enjoy that draws in people from all walks of life.

I think it's especially important now, when the only thing in your life is your work, to avoid trying to make friends there. In my mind deep friendships start with sharing personal things, which starts from sharing everyday things. Someone you're around all the time will share just enough experiences that you won't be able to talk long enough to open up.

rdtsc• 14 years ago

I have been thinking about this as well. I often wonder that it is not only my friends that I got pickier, as the article suggests, but I also changed, became more withdrawn, more introverted, and thus maybe less fun to be around.

Then of course there is the problem of time. That coupled with priorities, make it very hard to balance friends with family with career. After having children, I just want to spend more time with them than making friends, even though I might say that "yes, having more and better friends would be nice" my daily actions and attitudes probably don't reflect that.

I have also realized that being friends with co-workers doesn't work. They switch jobs or there is often competition for the same bonus pool, same cool projects and this turns things sour

kingkilr• 14 years ago

I'm 21 and having just moved across the country for a job this isn't resonating with my life so much, since I already had a lot of friends where I am. But looking back, it's pretty clear that 90% of my parents' good friends came from two categories: people they'd known since college, and parents of me or my sisters' friends.

I think the expected reaction to this is to be afraid of it, especially given I don't make friends very easily my best friends today are all people I've known since elementary school, and already I'm only in contact with a handful of people from college. But somehow I find it reassuring, my takeaway is that if I work at it I can stay good friends with all of these people, and maybe that'll be enough. Plus someday I'll have kids and hopefully their friends will have nice parents, I know my parents are as good friends with my friends' parents as I am with them (wow that's a badly written sentence!).

m0nastic4• 14 years ago

I hadn't really ever given this much thought, but now if I categorize the overwhelming majority of my friends, they fall into the following buckets:

High-School Friends (who I still stay in touch with, although only peripherally, as I don't still live where I grew up)

College Friends (which includes a subset of High School friends, who I do a better job of staying in touch with, but who also mostly live back where I went to school)

Work Friends (the overwhelming majority of my friends are people I've worked with at one time or another. Reservations about mixing work with pleasure aside, people in my line of work tend to have a lot in common)

Photography School Friends (I suppose similar to college, but they are more recent, and local. This group is unusual in that the entire class ended up becoming really really close)

For whatever reason, I've never had trouble meeting people. What has proven to be a lot of work is actually committing to spending time with people (as my natural state is to never want to leave the house under any circumstances).

I've found online presence exacerbates that, as it's easy for me to convince myself that I'm being social merely by responding to people's Facebook posts (which doesn't really cut it).

gruseom4• 14 years ago

m0nastic

my natural state is to never want to leave the house under any circumstances

Coincidence? :)

m0nastic4• 14 years ago

The name was suggested to me many many years ago on IRC, but I'm sure it resonated at least partly because of the way I'm wired. ;)

Timothee2• 14 years ago

It's definitely challenging.

One part is actually meeting people with whom you click. Unless you go to a lot of meetups and similar events, overall, you won't be meeting that many new people besides co-workers. And meetups tend to have a theme other than just having fun, whereas that's what most college activities are about. So you meet people in a serious context, and you need to bring the fun with you.*

So, you first need to come across someone with whom you click, and then you have to fuel that relationship. What's difficult there is that you need time. Once married with children, grabbing a beer after work is not as simple. You also have that awkwardness as pictured in "I love you, man" (and I believe a Louis CK sketch in his TV show): you have to acknowledge pretty fast that there's something going on and that you feel you could indeed become friends! It's one meetup, you're awkward now with that guy who seems cool, or you might never see him again.

But as you grow older, you also lose a lot of that casualness that you had before: you don't just invite them over after work to play video games. Now that you're a "grown-up", it's "a dinner". And since you're a grown-up, your home has better be somewhat clean, and you can't just serve pizza. What was a spontaneous interaction before is now a whole event that needs planning, some cleaning, some cooking, etc. (until of course, you become real friends) So these happen less, and friendships can be like making mayonnaise: if you don't make it go right now, you'll never make it go at all.

* I'm not saying meetups are no fun, just that it's not the end-game for everyone. Some people are there only for "professional" reasons and you need to figure out what people are looking for.

dwiel• 14 years ago

I agree with your description with how a lot of people feel, myself included, especially the part about meetups. However, 'you' don't have put up with grownupness and dinners and clean houses and fancy meals if you don't want to. If you like the grownupness then by all means get into it, but you make it sound like it is a required pain ... If you don't like it find friends that also don't like it.

robryan• 14 years ago

I think the issue is that before you know enough about the other person you have a lot more chance to ruin the friendship with the cheap meal in front of the TV than the well planned and prepared one.

pnathan4• 14 years ago

> But as you grow older, you also lose a lot of that casualness that you had before: you don't just invite them over after work to play video games. Now that you're a "grown-up", it's "a dinner". And since you're a grown-up, your home has better be somewhat clean, and you can't just serve pizza. What was a spontaneous interaction before is now a whole event that needs planning, some cleaning, some cooking, etc. (until of course, you become real friends) So these happen less, and friendships can be like making mayonnaise: if you don't make it go right now, you'll never make it go at all.

That is so frustrating to me. I don't really want a Do when I get together with people, I just want to kick back.

prawn3• 14 years ago

Aren't quiet pubs/bars for that? Or say you've had a busy week but how about takeaway and some trashy TV in the background? Been meaning to try some local restaurant, you guys want to see if it's any good?

akkartik• 14 years ago

This adds something to http://www.paulgraham.com/todo.html. The dying would like to not just have kept in touch with friends, but also to have made more of them. PG's edit captures the generalization, but I hadn't noticed that before.

iterationx• 14 years ago

The why is so much more interesting. Part of it is a product of topology, visualize this pattern: home, car, work, car, home. There's not a lot of surface area in there to meet someone. This is a product of America's lack of streets, we have roads not streets. Roads are for cars, streets are for people. Some good reading on this subject is, "The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community", and of course "Streets for People, A Primer for Americans".

pnathan4• 14 years ago

"home, car, work, car, home."

This is a problem, that's for sure.

klipt3• 14 years ago

Although I can't count the amount of times I've seen people say it's "creepy" to talk to strangers in the street.

mooreds• 14 years ago

I've found that joining clubs (either informal, like the climbing club I was a member of) or formal (like the Odd Fellows or Masons or Kiwanis) is a great way to meet friends. You still have to deal with the time issues, but at least you don't have tensions of work--and as a plus you get to meet people with different types of employment and age.

However, the main issue is that when you are in college and your early 20s, you tend have gobs of time to make friends--once you hit a certain age (or marital status or child status) other activities come first. Might as well celebrate the closeness with your family or your work achievements as kvetch about the difficulty of making friends.

I'm in my mid 30s.

tsotha8• 14 years ago

I knew a guy who made a boatload of money off of the dotcom bubble. He kept doubling down and doubling down, then at right about the peak he told himself "I have as much money as I'll ever need if I cash out now. There's no reason to take any more risks." In other words, he timed it perfectly (based on his own situation - he wasn't genius and he would freely admit that)

So here he was, a multimillionaire who'd spent the last five years or so working and playing the market to the exclusion of everything else. He was one of those people who had unconsciously believed if he just had enough money he could find a way to be happy. When he finally had the money he realized relationships with other people are what make you happy. But at that point he didn't have any friends and didn't know how to make them.

He was, without a doubt, the most miserable guy I've ever met. He was always willing to buy a round or lend people money. He'd go to Vegas and pay for five or six people to go with him. So there were always people around. There were always women willing to sleep with him. But they were there for the money and he couldn't delude himself into thinking otherwise. The money actually added to the problem, because it meant even when he wasn't paying, people had a motive to hang around. So he became cynical and a bit paranoid.

Eventually he got into drugs and ended up eating a whole bottle of pills. I've always wondered if any of those hangers-on went to the funeral.

corin_5• 14 years ago

Obviously there are people who can't do this (Zuckerburg, and plenty of much smaller examples too) but I don't see why, if you have the choice, you'd let people know how rich you are. Of course, unless you live the life of someone much poorer people can always guess ("hey, nice house you've got there..."), but people who talk about how rich they are, or show off with the money... just seems stupid to me.

tsotha8• 14 years ago

He didn't realize it would be a problem in the beginning. After that I think he was just afraid to move away from the people he knew.

I've thought a lot about what I would do in that position, and came to the same conclusion you did. The right thing to do probably would have been to move far away, live simply, and take up a hobby so he could meet people on an equal footing.

Of course, it's easy to decide how other people can fix their lives :)

ralfd2• 14 years ago

Speaking of Zuckerberg: I find it a good move to avoid gold-diggering that he married his college sweetheart.

ajays2• 14 years ago

Not that I've ever had much money, but let me provide some thinking of why this is the case.

When you have a lot of money, you are used to getting anything you want, since everything has a price. Want a hotel room overlooking Times Square for NYE? Sure, maybe it'll cost you $25K, but you can probably get it (I'm just guessing here). Want Madonna to come sing at your barbecue? Sure, that'll be a million bucks (plus incidentals).

So when a rich guy is without friends, his first reaction is "how much will it cost?". The moment he flashes his money, all sorts of "friends" come out of the woodwork, happy to be his chum. So, in the short term it looks like it's working. But these aren't friendships; these are hired companions. Just because you can hire a hooker to have sex with you doesn't make her your girlfriend.

One only has to look at the myriad NBA/NFL players out there who, despite having earned 100s of millions of dollars over their lifetimes, end up broke shortly after retiring (and this does not include child support). It's mainly because their wealth attracted the leeches who sucked them dry.

larrys5• 14 years ago

"So there were always people around. There were always women willing to sleep with him. But they were there for the money and he couldn't delude himself into thinking otherwise."

For some reason people seem to think that someone wanting to be around because of a person's fame or money is less pure than other reasons because it's not real.

Generally when people want to be around someone it's because they give them something the other person needs. It could be humour it could be looks, it could be prestige, it could be they went to a college you admire, it could be because they are in awe of the person, or their profession, or their power. There is always a reason that a person is attractive to others. Money is certainly one of those things. Sometimes it's because they are angling to gain something from the person and sometimes it's just the halo that makes the person more attractive or respect for what they have done.

I understand the whole idea of people who are successes attracting people and not knowing of their motives. But the fact that someone liked you "way back" when you were nobody doesn't mean their current attraction is entirely pure either once you gain something else that is of benefit to them.

I've read these stories of guys who are big successes and manage to still play ball with the same guys from high school who are "regular" guys. Do you think the successful person's status has nothing to do with the fact that the high school friends all manage to want to get together and maintain ties? I think it does. For one thing it gives them something to talk about with others (say at the office) that elevates them. "Oh, yeah, I played soft ball with my friend from high school Robert DeNiro this weekend and was at his house, anyway..."

_csoz• 14 years ago

It would be impossible to have a meaningful friendship on such grounds. That is not friendship it's a trade between "fame/money" and "rich friend". It's not just "less pure", it's insane and wrong.

It's entirely possible to be true friends with people of vastly different status. People have a great instinct for real friends when they see one. The problem with rich/famous people is that their lifestyle changes vastly since they can afford not to work, they live in more isolated neighborhoods and it becomes increasingly rare to bump onto people with similar goals in life.

If you're super rich you can work your way through the social elite, but if you're averagely rich this doesn't seem to be an option.

nostrademons• 14 years ago

Uh....many people don't think like that.

For most of the people I know, they aren't looking for anything besides connection to other people. They're complete & whole people on their own, they don't need anything else. They don't hang around their friends because they're looking for a halo of success. They don't do it for prestige or looks or humor. They just do it because they like company.

It's really a difference in worldview. For some people, things come first in their life, and they surround themselves with people who will help them achieve those things, or ones who have already achieved them so they can bask in their glow. For others, people come first in their life, and they surround themselves with things that will help them relate to the people they care about.

I've been on both sides of the fence, and I can tell you, I have felt miserable every time I tried convincing myself that success was all that mattered. I'm trying to find my way back to a place now where the people matter more than the accolades - it's not all that easy, because it really is a worldview, and once you've optimized your life for success, it's pretty hard to un-optimize it and build relationships. But I can tell you that my friends don't care if you're a hot-shot developer for Google or a yoga instructor or a public-policy consultant or an urban planner. People are people, they're complex, and they're a lot more than a laundry list of characteristics you might like to have.

tsotha8• 14 years ago

>For some reason people seem to think that someone wanting to be around because of a person's fame or money is less pure than other reasons because it's not real.

There's a big difference between a person's intrinsic properties and his money. You like your friends; you like the rich guy's money.

And when you're around someone for his money you're playing a part. It's a job. You're not going to tell him what you really think about anything. That's pathological.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

The value of friendship is to understand and to be understood. Every other motive (rightly) feels like a cheap plastic substitute.

JanezStupar2• 14 years ago

I have a couple of wealthier friends and one that is getting wealthier by the day.

The way I solved this problem between us is that I refuse to accept "mercy" gifts. I will accept an earnest gift when It is presented out of kindness. Also I demand that our financials be thoroughly transparent with me covering my fair share.

It works exceptionally well, allowing for our friendship to develop at its own and sincere pace. Besides, being around him and having such a friend/mentor is a gift that keeps on giving, more than a paid this or that ever could.

tsotha8• 14 years ago

They're lucky to have you as a friend. But the friendship started before they became wealthy, right? That way they'll never have to wonder if you're working some kind of long angle.

sopooneo• 14 years ago

The "Rich guy not made happy by wealth after all" story is so old that I am surprised anyone is still surprised by it. Every other novel they made me read in middle/high school had this as its message. I am very reluctant to use the term "smart" for anyone that runs into this problem.

tsotha8• 14 years ago

What struck me about the experience wasn't the "Rich guy not made happy by wealth after all" part, but that he was so desperate for friends and just couldn't make them. That's why I thought it was relevant to the topic.

eli_gottlieb4• 14 years ago

Ya allah! And the solution was so simple, too: invest his millions and live off the interest/dividends, which would be a modest income. A more modest income would have kept gold-diggers away, and he would have figured out that while the security of a personal trust fund is nice to have, you don't need millions to make friends.

zem2• 14 years ago

something hinted at but not made explicit is the relentless filling of your calendar as you get older. it's simply harder than ever to get together with people on short notice, which is one of the major ways of nurturing nascent friendships.

twoodfin• 14 years ago

I agree, and I think there's an opening here for a social networking app. The way I've always imagined it, you and your friends would feed in your free time, activity preferences, which "friends" you actually enjoy spending time with... The back end would be something like a constraint solver combined with a recommendation engine. It would suggest events either independently or triggered by a user: "I'm feeling bored tonight. Does anyone I know want to do anything? Preferably within walking distance of my apartment." That triggers some notifications to check if there's any consensus for a get-together.

The idea is that it's a lot of work and noise to spam all your friends whenever you've got a few free hours, especially since only a small subset of them are likely to be free on short notice. And planning any kind of outing can be a real headache when you have to either accomodate everyone's schedules/preferences or actively exclude them.

You could even monetize it by sponsoring suggestions: "Three of your college friends are interested in getting Mexican tonight. Join them and get 10% off at José's. Want to go?"

gcr8• 14 years ago

Ignoring the spam and the established conventions, that sounds just like the idea behind facebook's news feed when used on an account only connected to friends you like.

You even pratctically verbatim quoted their sponsored targetted ads.

RexRollman• 14 years ago

This reminds me of a time, last year, when I needed to fill out some paperwork that asked me to list four friends and I couldn't list one (I ended up listing my wife's friends instead).

Sadly, these days, I don't often meet anyone with similar interests. The people who I do meet and find interesting are often female, which leaves me confused about how friendly to get without causing people and my wife to think I am cheating.

This definitely used to be easier.

kafkaesque4• 14 years ago

This rings very true. In fact, I turned 29 eleven months ago and I moved here (to another country, albeit culturally similar) eight months ago.

I have zero friends.

My coworkers are vastly different from me. I work with two people the most; one is a younger guy who goes clubbing and is interested in getting laid, and the other is a 40-something woman who is most likely menopausal and hates everything in her life.

I'm married to boot.

All my friends and wife are back home. My immediate family is here but we couldn't be any more different. My situation is complicated, but for all intents and purposes, you can say I was adopted.

I moved here for a better job, yet it happens to be a city I hate; a city in which driving and huge cars is a fact of life, yet I absolutely despise cars. I am used to taking public transport, cycling, walking, and even running. I run 5 times a week. The air is so bad here I had chest pain yesterday after running. I still do it.

I observe the people in this dreadful city and feel they are either extremely superficial, cliquey, and stereotypical or go-getters who do nearly anything to go up the corporate ladder in a dog-eat-dog 'world'.

Where is the substance?

If you've not guessed already, I'm trying to get out of here, but it would be nice to have meaningful conversations or form some type of meaningful relationships along the way.

Most Americans (and maybe Canadians) will guess what city I'm in, and as others have mentioned, the American west coast just works differently, especially the southwest. It's definitely not me.

(Sorry if this sounds like a soapbox, corny or like I'm wearing my 'heart on my sleeve' - I know it's not a social norm. It wasn't my intention and I hope someone can extract something useful out of it.)

Axsuul• 14 years ago

But isn't the weather nice in Los Angeles?

starpilot• 14 years ago

I actually miss the bad weather of other places I lived. One reason for that is I'm just weird, but another is that the common struggle of shitty weather leads to interactions with strangers. There was the time in college I pushed my neighbor's car out of the snow and she asked for my name, or during the great NYC xmas blizzard of a few years ago, where waiting for a very late bus led to friendly grousing with a stranger. Or even as a kid in Virginia, checking up on neighbors during storm power outages. Now I find in LA there's no real need to ally with others. It's just one person per apartment, per car, gliding smoothly from place to place, alone.

vellum• 14 years ago

So, I see you're enjoying LA...

>The air is so bad here I had chest pain yesterday after >running. I still do it.

Pro-tip: Don't run in the streets. Try the trails in Runyon Canyon, Lake Hollywood, Griffith Park, Dockweiler Beach or the Strand in Venice.

kafkaesque4• 14 years ago

Thank you. This is a great tip. I am training for my first half marathon and I've been running really early in the morning before work or after (around 6pm), but sometimes it gets too hot or I can't make those times and end up running around 11am on weekends. Yesterday was the worst I ever felt.

Do you know how accurate areavibes.com is? I'm trying to move to a city with cleaner air within the incorporated or unincorporated LA area.

Thanks again for the suggestions! I will have to check them out!

vipervpn• 14 years ago

I despise cars too (which definitely makes me an oddball since I'm Canadian and live in a mid-sized city), so I sympathize with you. North America is obsessed with cars, and has caused a lot of pollution and havoc on the landscape.

But I digress. I just wanted to let you know there are others that feel the same way.

kafkaesque4• 14 years ago

Thanks. I moved from Vancouver. A couple people I talk to love to point out my 'Canadianisms'.

When I first moved here, people were surprised I wasn't into cars and told me, "Don't worry, give it a few months!" And I just smiled and said, "I don't know!"

mturmon2• 14 years ago

LA is a big and highly diverse place. Maybe move to another neighborhood?

freshfunk• 14 years ago

I grew up in la. My best advice for someone like you is to move to San Francisco. You'll be much happier here.

pehrlich2• 14 years ago

Where's summer camp for adults?

slig• 14 years ago

Backpacking to Europe.

nodemaker• 14 years ago

yessir!

neves• 14 years ago

and don't forget to sleep in a Hostel

geoffschmidt• 14 years ago

Burning Man. Join a theme camp and work on a big project for three months with 50 people, then try to survive the dust storms together on the playa. It's a great way to make friends. I'm told that you can have a similar experience working on a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans. There must be other regional equivalents.

nickzoic2• 14 years ago

Motorcycle Rallies. Of course, it does help somewhat to be into bikes.

Lambent_Cactus• 14 years ago

At this point they're just trolling the "The [New York] Times Is On It" twitter feed: https://twitter.com/NYTOnIt

mturmon2• 14 years ago

Thanks for that. NYT lifestyle stories can be so dreadfully middle-of-the-road (while taking their subjects oh-so-seriously).

jakeonthemove• 14 years ago

I think part of what makes it harder to make "true friends" when you're older is that everyone is more independent and it takes a lot of work to get a person to consider you for a true friend.

What I mean is, when you're in high school and college, everything just seems bigger, and any help from anyone counts a lot. Helping someone pass the exams, get a girlfriend, restore their dad's car (which they wrecked :-) can be instant reasons for that person to start considering you a true friend, and that sticks around for a looong time.

When you're an adult, you support yourself, and it takes much more to get to that point: heck, I don't even know what it would take to make a best friend - help him/her get out of jail, get a green card, buy a house or something?

Everything else are just little things that don't count for much in the minds of most adults...

kellishaver• 14 years ago

Making friends as an adult can certainly be difficult, although I do think some of it may be self-inflicted. I find that I definitely am one to prefer quality over quantity, so a lot of times, I just don't go looking for new friends. The last time I did, I happened to get lucky. The last new friend I made was almost exactly a year ago, but in that year, he's become one of the best friends I've ever had.

He's an HN regular, so maybe he's reading this and will chime in and offer his view on the subject. :)

For me, there are all sorts of practical reasons, but a lot of it just boils down to the fact that there aren't a lot of people around me that I share common interests with. So most of my lasting adult relationships have started as online acquaintances that grew into real, meaningful, "offline" friendships (that's also how I met my husband 16yrs ago).

nhashem2• 14 years ago

Just going to share a little anecdote here.

I moved to Los Angeles in 2004. The next year I organized a softball team, mostly coworkers at the time. There are six of us that have been playing since we started, going on seven years now, even though we've almost all since changed jobs. Even though it's "just softball" (and our league is about as uncompetitive as possible without being totally beer-league), we've all made attempts to make it to games that bordered on absurd. I'm talking like, having a game end like 90 minutes before a flight I had booked, so I brought my luggage to the game, planned for a cab to arrive right as our game ended, and changed in the back seat of the cab on the way to the airport. Sure, I could have just skipped the game. I don't know if it's as contrived as "not wanting to let the team down." But these guys were my friends and I wanted to be there. Outside the six of us, we've had countless guys come in for a season or two, and then kind of fall off and stop playing. Almost all my post-college "good friends" -- the kinds of guys I invited to my wedding, for example -- have played on this softball team.

So I've thought about this a lot. I guess I've concluded that male friendships in particular are more easily forged in some environment of "commitment." In the "you've been there for me, so you're a good guy, so I can feel comfortable about opening up to you about subjects you only bring up with your good friends," sense. Also, I don't think this happens overnight, at least not for me. We were playing for two years before we'd do something like get dinner after the game. It was another long while before we'd talk about deeper friendship stuff like career advice, girlfriend problems, etc.

Hopefully I'm not making this sound like you can only make friends when you're a "bro" who plays sports. When we're younger, these organizations exist everywhere: high school, college, school clubs, sports teams, whatever. Just any place where you're expected to give more than what may be convenient and everyone else does the same. Going back to the softball team, let's say I get two emails the day of a game. One guy says, "hey my boss wants to pull me in a meeting that probably run long, I managed to tell him I have a hard stop at 7:00pm, but I may be like 10 minutes late to the game." Another guy says, "hey, I had a big lunch, I'm gonna skip the game." Which guy am I going to end up being friends with?

So I suppose my conclusion, at least for me personally, is that it's usually not enough to find people I have something in common with, but something in common that we're both committed to. It's tougher to find that after high school and college, but it's not impossible.

drpgq• 14 years ago

Something similar is bar trivia leagues. I see people weekly that I wouldn't necessarily without our team.

jamiepenney• 14 years ago

Our quiz team is a pretty good source of friends. People bring in their own friends and workmates so we get to meet quite a few new people.

callmeed• 14 years ago

I've honestly never heard of this pastime. Is this a non-US or east coast thing? Can you elaborate on what goes on?

rubashov2• 14 years ago

Beyond the juvenile stage men can't bond through "play time". Men bond through shared struggle and purpose. You aren't going to make close lifetime male friends at some stupid beer centric sports league.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Men-Jack-Donovan/dp/0985452307

I think it's an interesting distinction that this is not really true of women. Women can get close over various shared interests and activities.

nhashem2• 14 years ago

Yeah, I read Fight Club too, dude.

We could have a much deeper discussion on the evolution of society and how the gradual reduction of physical survival difficulty has eroded a lot of the male bonding development that used to exist. But a lot the OP was about difficulty making friends even when people had a lot of things in common, so I was sharing an anecdote on how a shared activity and commitment, even for a mostly trivial hobby, still led to what I considered good friendships.

You may consider bonding through my softball team "play time." I posit that it's better than not bonding at all, but if you really want to dismiss my friendships and suggest the only way to forge lifetime male bonding is to form an underground anarchist militia and make bombs out of soap, I'll take that under consideration.

subpixel• 14 years ago

At first glance, I totally thought you were linking to a book by Jack Donaghy.

Spearchucker• 14 years ago

Not always true either. I spent some time in the military in South Africa during the bush war. I can without a doubt say that I've never felt closer to another male as I did then.

However, 23 years later and I only have contact details for one of the 8, and even though he and I are friends on Facebook we never exchange more than the annual "happy birthday". Back then all 8 of us were in the same hole. Today we have different lives, with little (if anything) in common. Anything we have left for each other belongs to another time, and place.

A softball team is going to provide far more rewarding and, importantly, long-lasting friendships than "shared struggle and purpose".

barking• 14 years ago

This makes sense to me even though I am not involved in anything similar, wish I was though

eupharis2• 14 years ago

protip: meetup.com

It may not fill the cockles of your heart with technical wonder, but like Craigslist for classifieds, it's where the "market" is.

jordo37• 14 years ago

Completely agreed with this. My best friends from High School and college were those I was doing something with, not just hanging out. I'm still friends with those folks and have tried repeatedly over the years to capture that feeling and turn it into an application that would solve this problem for folks, especially in new towns. The problem seems to be that doing something meaningful but still organic is very hard to replicate. Good on you and your teammates with the softball team.

INTPenis• 14 years ago

Same story but the game of talisman and a much smaller group.

Edit: Unfortunately not that many meetups in the summertime. ;)

impendia• 14 years ago

Anyone for whom this story seriously hits home, but who has success stories to share?

vikas56782• 14 years ago

I think this shows how important it is to have interests outside of work. Most of my real friends are people I've met through shared interests, and earn less money than me and it matters little. Pity is that most middle aged people have little energy left in their lives to devote toward hobbies/self-improvement after work, kids and whatever they call recreation.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

I wasn't very good at making friends as a kid or a college student. I think some combination of my natural introversion and moving 50+ times before graduating high school combined such that I never really learned how to move a relationship from "acquaintance" to "real friend". Adding in "real life" (eg jobs, significant others, children, etc) makes it just that much worse.

Social networks have actually made things worse for me. It is a constant reminder that other people manage to have these close relationships and I'm on the outside looking in.

I'm still looking for the "make a friend" startup that actually works. :)

tchock23• 14 years ago

I wonder how much of the challenge of making friends as an adult varies by the city you live in...

I moved to NYC last year from Rochester, NY and have found that people in NYC are so "busy" all the time that it's much more difficult to make new friends (the recent NY Times article on HN called "The Busy Trap" summed that up perfectly). People in NYC also seem to treat new connections from the perspective of "what can you do to help me advance somehow."

In Rochester, people seem to live more balanced lives (for example, they generally leave work right at 5) and therefore have time to make new connections. They're also less on guard about people, which could have a lot to do with the size of city compared to NYC.

Granted, this is just my observation of the differences between one small/mid size city and a very large one, but anyone else notice this as well?

rwhitman• 14 years ago

I completely agree. A lot of this is part of living in NYC as opposed to somewhere else. I lived in LA for 7 years and did not experience the same aversion to making new good friends there. I think there are some missing components to this regarding location and local culture that the author didn't seem to be aware of

rweba• 14 years ago

As the article says, it is not hard to MEET people - I meet plenty of people mostly through work and a few through book clubs, running clubs, bike clubs or just at the coffee shop. And a lot of them are actually legitimately cool people that I would have become friends with if I met in college or grad school.

The challenge is converting those people into FRIENDS. Basically you have to hang out together a ton in order to build that comfort level and familiarity. And modern adult western life simply doesn't facilitate this very much.

The one exception I can think of is a small town or village where people bump into each other all the time without having to consciously plan to do so.

So it is a bit paradoxical: Living in a city there are a ton of interesting people to meet, but precisely because of the density it is unlikely for you to randomly end up spending enough time with someone for you to become good friends.

ayush_gupta• 14 years ago

Thats an interesting paradox. Hadn't thought of it like that.

smokeyj• 14 years ago

It won't be long until gaming is mainstream for adults. It makes striking up a conversation pretty casual. "Dude, you gotta help me kill these zombies. And let's talk about those Q3 results..".

dctoedt• 14 years ago

1. It helps to volunteer regularly for a non-profit cause that you believe in, or at least approve of. You likely will get to know some "nice" people; once you establish that you're actually committed to whatever the cause is, and not just on the prowl, then you can establish lifelong bonds.

2. It also helps to be cheerfully unembarrassed about taking the lead in organizing groups to do stuff. People are often secretly grateful to be able to follow someone else. They'll often reject you. They'll say yes but then flake out on you. You'll feel mortified; you'll be certain that everyone else thinks you're a dork. That's OK; keep at it. (This is good practice for customer development and sales work, come to think of it.)

3. A lot of churches and synagogues have active single-adult programs. I grant you, tech people often don't go for religious dogma. Neither do I.

I've been fairly happy in the Episcopal Church (I "married in") for reasons described at http://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse..... Among other things, that post recounts how a priest's citation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a discussion about my inability to assent to dogma about God, had a real impact on my religious views, such as they are.

Retric3• 14 years ago

1. A lot of people do this stuff purely for the social aspect.

2. Agreed.

3. We have poor intuition about the way the universe works. And not just on the big or small scales. Your average five year old has probably seen black lines when looking at a light source though there nearly touching fingers, but nobody they know can tell them why that happens. However, religions tend to have vary good answers in terms of how people think. And I don't mean that in a bad way, even if they are gibberish they still add a level of comfort that the universe works just like how they think it does.

PS: As to thermodynamics sunlight renders most simple arguments meaningless. If you find comfort from the ideas great, just don't look to deeply for there be dragons.

tptacek6• 14 years ago

It's funny that you felt you had to couch the church thing this way. There are more "religious" people on HN than you'd think, but they're mostly closeted. Unlike the real world, where concerns about "a war on Christianity" are entirely hysterical, there is a real intolerance towards it here.

Despite incredible advances in connectivity over the last 20 years, I think you'd have a hard time finding thinkers who believe we're less isolated now than we were in, say, 1980. Part of that is economic, but I'm sure a good chunk of it has to do with the role churches used to play in our social lives and don't so much anymore. Fear of isolation and alienation and loss of fellowship might go some way towards explaining why religious people are so jealously defensive of their churches: no matter how deeply they believe, the church probably plays a huge role in their day-to-day life.

That's not a religious sentiment, just a statement of (maybe) fact. People used to build barns together too.

I am, by the way, a sucker for stuff like this:

http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/redacting_the_n....

More theology from startup people, please!

(I'm the worst Catholic on HN; Christmas & Easter, CCD the year of First Communion and, I suppose, Confirmation. Church is not a major part of my social life, at all.)

cmelbye• 14 years ago

According to this unscientific poll, the vast majority of HN readers that answered the poll are non-religious/atheist/agnostic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1486594

einhverfr6• 14 years ago

Actually religious groups can be great. I am a Neopagan, formally polythistic with pantheistic undertones, and open generally to the ideas of pantheism, autotheism (is this a form of atheism?), and agnosticism.

However the nice thing about escaping the circle of Christianity and affected religions (Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and spinoffs of these), is that religion ceases to be about what you believe (or more cynically what you say you believe) and rather about ritual, tradition, and what you understand. I have religious students who are atypical atheists, and this is just fine. I don't care what opinions they have, just that they make their own sense out of (and find meaning in) the tradition. You can't do that by simply copying the opinions of someone else....

Many of my deepest friends arise from my religious work. These are often long-term very stable friendships brought about through respect for eachother's intellect and character. And many of those friendships I made as adults. There is little greater friendship that those who mutually inspire eachother.

winter_blue3• 14 years ago

If you want really good theology I would recommend Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652...

I'm a Christian myself and have been one for nearly two two years. I came from a more or less non-religious background growing up and today Christ is of utmost importance in my life displacing everything else.

I look forward to ultimate redemption of mankind - basically a time where every problem in the world will be solved and there will be no suffering. It will be a time when humans and their creator (God) will dwell together and Christ will rule over them with justice and love. I believe there is no human description of this supernatural world, what I assume is that it will be filled with unfathomable joy and splendour.

A few verses from the Bible about it: (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21...)

(Please bear in mind most of this is symbolic as is the rest of the Book of Revelation)

"Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away ... 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life." - Revelation 21

Most importantly of all, the price (or ticket) to enter the Kingdom of Heaven has _already_ been paid; by Jesus on the cross.

The core Christian belief is that _all_ humans are sinner (or evil) and that none of us are deserving of anything but death. But God so loved us (his creation), that he decided to save us by taking the penalty of our sin (which is death) upon himself on the cross. (Jesus is an exact representation of God - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+1%3A3...). He intends to eventually fix everything; this world, and unite us with himself. The good news is that He freely offers us his salvation and all we have to do to receive it is to believe in him.

This oft-quoted Bible verse summarizes it well: "16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A16-17&#...)

pyre2• 14 years ago

  > they're mostly closeted

Probably because they end up eliciting comments like the one you've elicited from winter_blue. There's nothing wrong with someone being religious, but this isn't the forum for an essay quoting Bible verses.

codehotter• 14 years ago

Believing in God - not because you think it is true - but because you are lonely and believing allows you to meet people is selling your soul to the devil.

When you get to a point where the question of whether somebody starts believing in God or not has very little to do with critical thinking and a lot to do with emotions I become uncomfortable. It's like the people are being taken advantage of.

When somebody starts believing because he is lonely, it feels like religion is a virus, taking advantage of a weakness in somebody's critical thinking systems in order to infect their brain.

We are not completely rational beings, we don't always need to focus on evidence and occam's razor and strip all spirituality from our life. It's fine to be religious. That is a choice everyone makes for themselves. I believe that, and it still makes me uncomfortable when religion seeks out to lonely people. It feels a little like looking for a soft mark.

PotatoEngineer• 14 years ago

The point is that churches attract people who think they are doing good, and each church attracts local people. So you have a group of people who like being good to other people, are local, and some subset of that also enjoys activities centered on the church. (The rest just show up for services and then go home.)

This is a group of local people with a common cause, and that makes a good place to meet friends. If you're already religious, then you can easily go to church, join the activities there, and make friends.

mpdaugherty• 14 years ago

>> 2. It also helps to be cheerfully unembarrassed about taking the lead in organizing groups to do stuff. People are often secretly grateful to be able to follow someone else. They'll often reject you. They'll say yes but then flake out on you. You'll feel mortified; you'll be certain that everyone else thinks you're a dork. That's OK; keep at it. (This is good practice for customer development and sales work, come to think of it.)

This is exceptionally true. I moved from Boston to Beijing a few years ago (and in with my girlfriend at the same time) and essentially had 0 friends for about six months. I'm not naturally very social, so of course, I became extremely depressed.

At some point, though, I got through it and realized that I needed to meet more people. I started a "Beijing Coworking" email list for anyone who was working on a startup or freelancing to meet in coffee shops every day. I literally planned out which restaurant I would be in every day for a week every sunday and emailed it out to 100+ people. Only 3-4 people came regularly, but some of them are now among my closest friends.

I also learned from one of them how to turn acquaintances into friends. She had an email list of cool people she knew, and would schedule random events a few times a week. She didn't care at all if people came or not.

She's since moved away, but now every time I meet someone, I add them to my contacts and invite the whole set of Beijing contacts out whenever I go to a concert or out to eat, etc. People who don't come to anything in the first three months get dropped, but even so, just losing the embarrassment of inviting people means I naturally give them a few more chances to become a friend.

danso• 14 years ago

I know this answer might get looked down on here, but I've made a few good friends thanks to FB. The OP is right that it's harder to make commitments to new friendships...and that starting step is so energy-demanding that you'll more often than not skip it as an adult. But FB allows for some low-energy engagement...this often leads to shallow acts of friendship but allows you to passively attract acquaintances who share the same interests without you having to call them...because when would you ever just call up an acquaintance to find out more about them?

gcr8• 14 years ago

If passively sharing engagement with people who share similar interests is the only point, I think HN is the logical conclusion down that road of thought.

zerostar076• 14 years ago

This is a real problem that should be tackled in itself, rather than suggesting friendmaking as a side effect of joining a class or sports group etc. There's a prevalent view that people don't make friends when older because only children and young adults do that. That's so wrong it's sad, people shouldn't be shy to say they want to make friends. There used to be institutions and venues that made it natural for people to bump onto each other again and again (from the church to the pub to the barber), then modern life, competition and individualistic culture came along and now people only listen to their i-pods. It seems to me that this is a transitory (lonely) period until we find our new social venues.

chernevik• 14 years ago

At first I and my best friend regarded each other as assholes, but we were forced together by a casual bridge game. One afternoon I arrived at his house to discover the game was off -- he'd been accused of date rape and he and his housemates were processing the news. He'd slept with a friend of his girlfriend and this story was her excuse to the girlfriend.

I remember leaving the room, looking out a window and thinking "This guy isn't as big a prick as _that_." (I had seen something like this before.) And I went back in and said, "what are we going to do about this?" I had enough standing among this larger circle to help slow down the rumors and witch-hunting until things got sorted out, which happened quickly after Friend of GirlFriend admitted it was just a lousy story. (He was never accused of this again, and never had been before.)

We ended up living together for years, and I helped him move to university for his masters. It turned out that we had similar interests and enjoyed similar arguments and enjoyed picking stuff up off one another. He introduced me to all sorts of music, and, a Jew, learned from me to give up ice cream for Lent. (I got more from this friendship than he did.) When a friend's boyfriend moved into town for her, we took him as a roommate, and cut her out when she dumped him two weeks later -- we hardly knew the guy, but she had friends in town, and he didn't. There was the day he yelled at me for suggesting something _he_ did all the time, because it wasn't something _I_ believed in.

Unfortunately, he was killed in a freak car accident, returning from completion of his masters'. That was a long time ago. I've never come close to anything like him.

In your twenties you live with more drama. You're figuring yourself out, you do stupid things, people do stupid things to you. It's easier to see who and what people are, and you need people more to bring you through all the noise. As we age as we figure out our basic choices and move on from there. The drama recedes and the volume goes down. We get more complicated and it becomes harder to read us. Confessions that made sense as we were figuring stuff out start to seem a lot more demonstrative and overwrought. Let's face it, many of us make soul-deadening choices and become much less interesting.

As we "grow up" the stuff that was questioning and exciting starts looking like instability. The raw threads of personality that can be woven into another person get woven up into others and ourselves and tucked out of sight. For lots of people this is actually good, there is less chaos and more enjoyment and more creativity. But it does become harder to make friends.

tldr; Cherish your friends. You can lose them, and they're very hard to replace.

ralfd2• 14 years ago

Uh. This nice story got unexpectedly dark. Sorry for your loss, bro.

zerostar076• 14 years ago

Let's face it, many of us make soul-deadening choices and become much less interesting.

Wonder what could be done to break that vicious cycle

sp3322• 14 years ago

Continuing a ridiculous amount of drama into later life. Strong personalities multiply personality conflicts. If you want a peaceful workplace, most people will have to be much less "interesting".

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

I definitely got lucky by falling into a community of folks that has made it easy for me to find friends. I suppose it helps that I live in a very geek-centric town as well (seattle). If I had any advice it would be this: find something you're interested in and join a group or a class about it, volunteer, and attend conventions (games, comics, etc.) Also, make the effort to cultivate friendships with dinner parties and outings and board games and such-like.

My life would be unimaginably different without the friends I've made, it's very much worth the trouble to put effort into it.

spiredigital• 14 years ago

My wife and I were recently joking the other day starting a match-making service for couples. But instead of matching single guys with single girls, you'd be matched via the interests and personality of your counterpart in another couple! Finding couples were everyone is a good fit is much harder than finding compatible 1-on-1 relationships, like the article mentions.

I think the outcome of such a service would be great when successful, but I don't think many people would feel comfortable with the process. I know I wouldn't...

chewxy• 14 years ago

While I echo the sentiments of many people here, I don't think that it should be difficult to make friends with people. Granted, we being full blown adults have lives that probably doesn't involve roaming around in clubs and meeting people.

I mean, I had problems making friends. I even started a website to throw dinner parties for strangers (http://strangersfordinner.com), but it turns out it was the willingness to make friends that... made friends.

Since starting the site, I've been to more meetups and dinner parties than I could care to count. I recently introspected and realized that it wasn't the tool, rather it was my own willingness to be more social that caused it.

That said, I still think I am pretty much a loner. So, yea still working on it

michaelochurch• 14 years ago

Social life after college is broken. This isn't a complaint. I'm OK with things as they are, but probably because I'm pretty introverted and also because, after years of getting used to cynical networking being the norm, I'm as much a part of the problem as anyone else.

We have too much income and social stratification in this country. It's starting to become unreasonable and lead to unexpected adults, including the impoverishment of social life. We have a society based on climbing and positioning and maintaining ground, and that causes a lot of these problems. People don't realize that when they live in gated communities, they've essentially taken up a mentality that confines them to isolation, because once you start to conclude that most people are undesirable and need to kept away, you become cynical and just starting rejecting people for ludicrous reasons, until you end up alone because no one (not even you, if you evaluated yourself honestly) can meet your high standards.

Socially, college was better because a 3.2 English major and a 3.9 math major could eat at the same table and attend the same activities. I didn't even know most of my friends' GPAs. It didn't matter. That enabled a certain diversity of thought that doesn't exist in the adult world.

earl• 14 years ago

I tend to agree with you, but you can do things to change this. Take up snowboarding as a hobby; it seems to require a decent amount of income but you'll learn there's a leisure class on either end of the income spectrum. Go in on a ski house and don't do it with just coworkers. Or do something cheaper like surfing. You'll meet a ton of people that aren't in the same vc/startup world.

praxulus• 14 years ago

I believe organized religion used to sustain social lives for adults, and still does in many parts of the country. Tight-knit communities have been disrupted by economic development and urbanization, but even in a big city you can get to know the people in your congregation very well.

gnaritas4• 14 years ago

Which is a problem for sane people who can't fit into such organized superstition.

eli_gottlieb4• 14 years ago

That well and truly depends, for a start on the demography of your congregation.

One of the reasons I had a miserable time living in Cambridge, MA was because the synagogue I tried to join was primarily filled with very secularized, particularly wealthy, overwhelmingly middle-aged academics and businessmen. The kind of "Jews" who'll go out to a paid restaurant for Sabbath dinner every Friday night, but won't order meat because they're vegetarians.

This was an exact non-match to a 22-year-old, religiously inclined, left-wing kid who writes code for a living.

eli_gottlieb4• 14 years ago

I'm inclined to agree, but I think that's my prejudices talking. Did we really have more friends when inequality was lower? I don't think so.

I dare say that we Americans might just have a culture of reticence and disaffectedness. We place a high value on politeness and conformity to norms, but we treat genuine displays of emotion as though someone vomited on the floor.

Though I completely agree on the Orwellian character of gated "communities".

fecklessyouth4• 14 years ago

CHURCH, CHURCH, CHURCH.

There's none of the financial worries, pecking orders, or time constraints of workplace friendships, plus more of the freedom. You do it, supposedly, once a week, or more. There's no pressure to make small talk because you're there for another purpose as well, so if you get uncomfortable, you can just leave. As you get more involved, you start joining committees, planning events, coaching teams, going on retreats, leading the local Boy Scout troop, participating in Bible studies, etc and are able to bond with adults there. As long as you're set on your denomination, there's no reason to leave while you're still in the geographical area. Your kids can encourage interaction with other parents, and if they stop being friends, they'll probably still be forced together through sports/school/service events. And you're operating on the same general life philosophy as all of them--supposedly.

When my parents moved, their "friends list" literally became a subsection of the church directory.

Church literally fills every requirement in the article, since it's a very social event with a purpose besides being social for its own sake. I'm amazed the author didn't mention it. Well, not too amazed, since there's nothing more socially unsexier than church groups. I know most people here aren't too warm on religion but it sure knows how to built community.

philwelch4• 14 years ago

I think the main problem is that we live in an increasingly secular society, but nothing has actually replaced church. And the people who are still at church, at least at many churches, are right-wing nutjobs.

jleader• 14 years ago

Have you been to a Unitarian Universalist church? Definitely not right-wing.

I've also read about left-wing Catholics and Baptists (two cases where the main organization is generally seen as right-wing, but there are significant left-wing groups within them). I'm not a church-goer myself, so I don't have any suggestions on how to find a church you're comfortable with.

fecklessyouth4• 14 years ago

And I think that problem will continue for some time, since a replacement for church would require frequent socializing in a comfortable environment not aimed explicitly at socializing.

sjmulder• 14 years ago

Churches are an amazing way to meet people. When I moved abroad for a while I went to a Sunday service, immediately got introduced to a few people who I ended up becoming good friends with. I didn’t make any friends outside of church and wouldn’t have known where or how to. It was a small city with hardly anything but pubs and churches.

mattmanser2• 14 years ago

From the US by any chance?

Of the few hundred people I've met past casual acquaintance here in the UK, only a couple have ever talked about going to church as if it were normal. Even as a fairly passive atheist these days, I wouldn't be able to go, it'd just be very disingenuous play acting.

In the spirit of the comment I agree that something needs to replace church in secular societies. In fact, I think this is the root of the problem, there's not something to force you to see neighbours regularly any more.

fecklessyouth4• 14 years ago

Correct.

I don't know much about religion in the UK; here, it revolves very much around what sort of circles you move in. Plus what region of the country, and whether you're in the suburbs, inner city, or country.

But hey, that's what you guys have pubs for, right?

snowwrestler• 14 years ago

There are certain activities that seem to fill the "church gap" for people. The two that I know of are surfing and whitewater kayaking.

When you're on the water you are not worrying about finances or work or the rat race. Everyone is there to surf or paddle so there is little social pressure. You have freedom to go where you want, when you want, but you still find yourself constantly running into people you recognize or know. And if you want to "get involved" there are all sorts of events, committees, volunteer opportunities, schools, etc.

On top of all that surfing and kayaking have the ability to create spiritual experiences. Catching a great wave, or having a great run in a rapid, can create a sense of peace and bliss. The environment around you instills awe. Those sorts of shared experiences help bring people together and create friendships.

president• 14 years ago

I would assume most church-goers know this already. Doubt the rest of us secular folk would ever go to church to make friends..

joshuacc2• 14 years ago

But of course, there are other groups than "church-goers" and "secular folk," like the moderately religious and nominally religious, who just aren't involved in their churches.

zerostar076• 14 years ago

Unfortunately we need to replace church with something that people can do together for the point of being together.Church may still have a role in the US, but over here in Europe it's hardly an option anymore.

Could there be a startup opportunity in this space?

Relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html

klipt3• 14 years ago

I've heard that in Scandinavia, a lot of people still go to church for social contact even though most of them are agnostic/atheist.

cgoddard• 14 years ago

There are humanist churches too that you can get involved with ... if you don't want to deal with the crazy dogma that is.

Tichy• 14 years ago

Yeah, but everybody you'll meet will be religious. I often think that "atheism" needs to set up structures to care for the lonely, too. Basically I think that is what the church is (among other things), they are a company catering to lonely people.

Of course lots of my friends are (moderately) religious, too, but it always leaves me uneasy. Because the things I am really interested in (evolution theory, science, artificial intelligence, science fiction, economics...) are incompatible with their beliefs. So I'll never even try to start any deep conversations with them.

krschultz• 14 years ago

You make friends the same way you meet someone to date - by doing something.

You will not make friends sitting at home. You will not make friends at a bar full of people.

Join a club or sports team. I've met most of my adult friends through ski club trips and sailing teams. Or join a volunteer organization, or attend local meetups, or take a photography/art class.

It is difficult to make friends at work, but not impossible. You have to find common ground outside of work, because no one wants to hang out with people where the only topic of conversation is work. I surf with one guy from my office and ski with a few others.

The friendship is not from the activity - the activity could be solo (like surfing). The friendship comes from the 3 hour car ride up to the mountain you share BSing about stuff. Or hanging out in a bar after racing sailboats with the rest of the crew. Or looking at the surf forecast in the office all day hoping its good that evening.

Somehow the conversation grows from 'what mountains do you like to ski' to 'man I'm having X, Y, Z problems in my life'. That doesn't always happen, but I've probably met 15 people over the last 2 years that I regularly do things with outside of work and I'm actually friends with 3 or 4 of them.

wallflower• 14 years ago

A while back, I came across this advice below (which could touch a nerve with some of you - because you may reject what it implicitly is saying - that you need to put yourself out there - be willing to be rejected):

"It takes relationships to make relationships. And, in general, to make relationships, you have to allow vulnerability. Vulnerability is the difference between a conversation that starts, "How about this weather we're having?" and a conversation that starts, "Oh my God, let me tell you about how I just fell in a puddle in front of a group of nuns." The former is so boring that it makes listeners want to crawl under a table; the latter creates a spark and a list of follow-up questions. These are two extreme examples, but generally, the more of yourself you put out there, the more others will have to connect with.

As for your list of "nevers": they may feel big to you, but in the scheme of things, they get a shrug. Each of us is on an individual and separately-terrifying trajectory. Ultimately, you are not behind. Self-discovery is vital at any age. A lot of people couple up, get married, and have kids without ever having to look inward. Those are often the people who cave later in life. Get that introspection out of the way now, and you'll set yourself up well for the future — angst-Tumblr or no...

Pursue activities you are passionate about: passion is an attractive quality, and others will pick up on it...

Friendships will be made when your attention is elsewhere."

http://www.nerve.com/advice/miss-information/miss-informatio...

richardjordan• 14 years ago

I am sure it's a great article but NYTimes doesn't get my personal info just so I'll log into their articles I am afraid.

coffeemug• 14 years ago

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok

Do things that challenge you with other people, and you'll have no trouble making friends. Play it safe, and friends will be hard to come by.

lwhi• 14 years ago

It's a cynical, 'sharp', critique of 'modern' social struggles; written for people who wish to think of themselves as cynical, sharp and modern. A cookie cutter article describing a very common social ailment (loneliness) in a way that panders to people's sense of self importance and social status.

In reality, to make a friend - you simply need to reflect what you feel honestly in the company of someone else who's doing the same. Do that enough, and soon enough you'll find someone who thinks in a way that meshes well with your own mode of being .. and at the risk of making a NYT journalist's 1000 words redundant, that's actually as difficult as it gets.

pixie_• 14 years ago

Nice.

justinhj2• 14 years ago

I'm very surprised the article doesn't mention marriage as big difficulty in making new friendships. I find it easy to find people with the same interests as me that I get along with, but they also have to have partner that's compatible with you and your partner.

Of course YMMV.

cpeterso• 14 years ago

You must not have read page 2 which directly addresses couples.

justinhj2• 14 years ago

Oops, you're right. I see the article talks about it briefly but I think it's a fundamental point. Also bringing in opposite sex friends is another huge issue, which is probably another article in itself.

jscn• 14 years ago

It seems like the article is talking about close, meaningful friendships as though they're the only kind[1]. But you'd be lucky to have a handful of such friendships over a lifetime. Most friendships will be based on mutual-advantage or simple pleasure. (Nothing wrong with that, and they shouldn't be dismissed.)

All the subjects in the article are very concerned with what they need, what they want. I think it's telling that they don't voice concern over whether they might be capable of being such a friend to someone else.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia

jroseattle• 14 years ago

The article is spot-on, but I'd boil it down another way: relationships are investments. Investments in time, emotional availability, mental state, etc. And financial, depending on the circle you run in.

When we're young, we have things like time and emotional state and such available in quantity, so we can form those relationships. As we get older, those things start to dwindle in supply. As such, our mental ROI for relationships formed later in life needs to be higher in order for us to make that investment.

I'm much more interested in quality relationships now than I was in my younger days. Quantity is easy to come by, but the really great ones are just harder to come by nowadays.

davidw• 14 years ago

Well, that's a bit depressing. One of our good friends is leaving town to get married, and we are indeed down in the dumps about it.

kokey• 14 years ago

I've moved around a lot, and in between countries too. Making friends when you are older gets harder, and if there is a culture difference it gets even harder. That said, I've also gotten better at it over the years. You see this sort of thing in people who have spent big chunks of their life as an expat. There are also places around the world that have a lot of English speaking expats around, where it's fairly easy to make friends. These friendships aren't all long lasting, and you only manage to keep a fraction of the friends you have made in a new location. That said, you do value good friendships a lot more and will make the extra effort to travel to see these people.

MicahWedemeyer• 14 years ago

So the woman keeping score: Would she accept herself as a friend? Is she a perfect 100? Or perhaps a 99, since she forgets to wish people a happy birthday on Facebook sometimes...?

If I find out my friends or acquaintances are scoring me, that's an automatic -100 in my friend ledger.

fallous• 14 years ago

I've long been of the opinion that the decline in local socializing (in the physical realm) is due to the advent of air condition, radio, and later television.

Previously people sat on their porches in the evening to escape the heat of the house and thus saw their neighbors nightly. Now we're all in our climate-controlled cocoons.

After moving to this city a few years ago where we had no friends or family, I just started stopping at neighbor houses when I saw them working on something and offered to help. Establishing this pattern of behavior triggered most of them to do the same not only to me but also to other neighbors and now we have a very tight-knit group of people whose only real initial "shared interest" was physical proximity.

When one of the neighbors was diagnosed with terminal cancer, some of the others were wondering what we could do to help. I suggested we ask him what things he wanted done for his house so that he could not worry about such things and focus on his last months with family. So we spent a lot of summer weekends painting, roofing, doing general house repairs. Along with that his teenage boys got to hang around a group of men in a setting where we would naturally banter and tease without any social climbing or the like. Close to the end of his life my neighbor told several of us that he was happy to know that there were going to be men around his family that would take care of things and serve as role models for his boys. I can't think of anything that would give me more comfort if I was in his position.

So basically, get off your butt in the evenings and walk the neighborhood. Look for someone doing something and offer to help. If nothing else you'll feel good about being able to help someone out and it just may start the chain reaction necessary to build an entirely new social group.

pnathan4• 14 years ago

The above comment should be read and thought about a bit.

thedillio• 14 years ago

In hindsight, I realize that I took the relationships in my life for granted when i was younger because I always had an abundance of them in high school and college.

Back then I was very involved in church, went on ski trips, camping trips, kayaking, and participated in weekly extracurricular activities. Friends were just around all the time.

Also looking back, all of my good memories are people an experiences, not money, projects, or things - all of which education and the real world focus you on.

Now that I'm 28 and have a family, it is difficult to spend time with friends - even the ones with families as well. Everyone has jobs and lots of other commitments.

By now most of my college friends have moved away and even the ones that haven't I rarely see.

These days I make a conscious effort to attend anything I possibly can with friends, and it certainly helps.

My point is that if there are any high school/college aged people reading my advice is that you take advantage of every opportunity with friends now. Focus on quality and quantity of relationships. If you have a choice between a "B" on a project if you go out with friends and an "A" if you stay home and study, pick the former. The relationships you build will be far more useful to you in life that getting the "A."

Not saying all the fun stops, it just becomes less sporadic and further between visits with friends.

The reason I am saying all of this is because I wish someone would have told it to me...not that I would have listened anyway.

reinhardt• 14 years ago

I don't really get much out of friendships. There, I said it. The desire, let alone the need, to initiate and maintain such social rituals is simply not there. The whole concept of connecting for connectedness sake without a tangible goal to go after has always been foreign to me. Thankfully, growing older makes it easier to hide one's lack of social bonds, needs and desires.

codex• 14 years ago

I've often wondered if an adult fraternity scheme would be practical. I suppose this is why country clubs exist.

The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult

Related Stories