4 ms·

If everyone started out identical, however unlikely that is, and hobby interests compounded like interest, increasing the balance of ... warhammer 40K, for the

by VLM 9y ago

If everyone started out identical, however unlikely that is, and hobby interests compounded like interest, increasing the balance of ... warhammer 40K, for the sake of example, by 1% every year, then at age 18 you'd have identical interests and experiences and therefore make shallow friends with all kinds of randos who will diverge dramatically in the future, and by age 50, 1% compound hobby interest per year means you'll all be very diverse and therefore unlike to friend up except with people like you. There's actually a pretty good financial analogy with... finances. At uni "all of us" lived the same lives in the dorms. We had all the same financial life, which was "student poor". Rapidly the ultra rich kids moved to the ultra high rent apartments, we had lives that diverged, etc. Decades later rather than all of us having the same financial condition and experiences, there are likely very few people exactly like me financially. Finally there's a lot of hand wringing that I'm not hanging out with people who have nothing in common with me other than drinking the same beer or cheering for the same sportsball team. A lot of people grow up and see that as the waste of time that it is. At 18 you can be fooled into thinking a shared enjoyment of "Miller Lite Ice" is a deep personal connection, but many people can't be fooled that way at age 50. Not really a problem.

emodendroket 9y ago
When I was younger I thought sports were stupid, but as I've grown older I've come to enjoy watching football a lot and to especially enjoy watching it with other people. Yeah, it's not going to go on my tombstone when I die, but how many things are? It's a common thing to watch, speculate about, emote over, etc., and the game itself has grown more interesting to me as I've come to understand it more. I also think the importance of having a common lifestyle or a lot of shared interests can be overstated. I don't share that many hobbies with my wife but I enjoy talking to her and spending time with her regardless. I enjoy meeting up with old friends from school even when they're at totally different career stages than I am. You don't have to do the most expensive thing you can afford every night.
- VLM 9y ago
  That circularizes the problem in that we use the same word to describe someone who happened to separately watch the same TV program as to describe something like a non-romantic life long soulmate. I think the article is talking about the latter, although the former is an open question, may or may not be an issue.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    You can't build a deep friendship without first having a shallow acquaintance. Getting together every weekend to watch football is a good start to making a closer friendship that transcends the activity. Really any activity you repeatedly engage in together would be. Most close friends I have are people who I initially started hanging out with because we both enjoyed watching football, or playing pool, or playing a video game, etc.
- incompatible 9y ago
  Sports are so boring and repetitive though. Especially when you don't care who wins, and I can't imagine why I'd care.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    I think it helps to have played a sport before to appreciate watching it. For example, when I was younger I used to play some football (soccer). I don't play at the moment, but when I watch a game there's a lot more for me to pick up on because of that past experience. I get that to someone who's never played before the game might look uninteresting as it's a relatively low point scoring game (compared to something like basketball or tennis), but to people who are into it there's much more going on than just the goals, it's the dynamics of the game as a whole that captures their attention. Having past experience playing makes it easier to see when a team is attacking well and defending well, easier to pick up on individual displays of skill, easier to pick up on new opportunities and how these could change the game, easier to pick up on the state of the game (chances of a win, loss or draw) and the ways the players respond to this. If the only part of the game that mattered was when the ball was kicked in the net then it would be a boring game as it doesn't happen very often, but there's a whole lot more going on if you know where to look. You might still find the game boring, but hopefully this helps to explain how people get into it.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I don't doubt that that really deepens your appreciation, but I think even through repeated watching you can come to appreciate the game more. To give the most obvious example, someone without a lot of familiarity with football would probably be confused about why they were go back five yards behind where they were after the last play instead of the last place they got to because the penalty system isn't obvious to a neophyte (in soccer terms, consider how many people are baffled by off-side calls if they only ever watch a few games during the World Cup every four years).
      - incompatible 9y ago
        I'm not even sure if your references to football and soccer are the same sport, or two different sports. I think they usually mean the same thing, except in certain countries where other sports (such as rugby) are called football instead.
ahtu123 9y ago
It works well the other way too. Go to a bookclub about a topic you're interested and you might be surprised to find how much in common you have with people who you otherwise might have thought were completely different (different career, family, gender, nationality). I haven't made any friends that way but often the talks we have feel like everyone is old friends in the moment.

by VLM 9y ago

emodendroket 9y ago

When I was younger I thought sports were stupid, but as I've grown older I've come to enjoy watching football a lot and to especially enjoy watching it with other people. Yeah, it's not going to go on my tombstone when I die, but how many things are? It's a common thing to watch, speculate about, emote over, etc., and the game itself has grown more interesting to me as I've come to understand it more. I also think the importance of having a common lifestyle or a lot of shared interests can be overstated. I don't share that many hobbies with my wife but I enjoy talking to her and spending time with her regardless. I enjoy meeting up with old friends from school even when they're at totally different career stages than I am. You don't have to do the most expensive thing you can afford every night.

VLM 9y ago
That circularizes the problem in that we use the same word to describe someone who happened to separately watch the same TV program as to describe something like a non-romantic life long soulmate. I think the article is talking about the latter, although the former is an open question, may or may not be an issue.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  You can't build a deep friendship without first having a shallow acquaintance. Getting together every weekend to watch football is a good start to making a closer friendship that transcends the activity. Really any activity you repeatedly engage in together would be. Most close friends I have are people who I initially started hanging out with because we both enjoyed watching football, or playing pool, or playing a video game, etc.
incompatible 9y ago
Sports are so boring and repetitive though. Especially when you don't care who wins, and I can't imagine why I'd care.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  I think it helps to have played a sport before to appreciate watching it. For example, when I was younger I used to play some football (soccer). I don't play at the moment, but when I watch a game there's a lot more for me to pick up on because of that past experience. I get that to someone who's never played before the game might look uninteresting as it's a relatively low point scoring game (compared to something like basketball or tennis), but to people who are into it there's much more going on than just the goals, it's the dynamics of the game as a whole that captures their attention. Having past experience playing makes it easier to see when a team is attacking well and defending well, easier to pick up on individual displays of skill, easier to pick up on new opportunities and how these could change the game, easier to pick up on the state of the game (chances of a win, loss or draw) and the ways the players respond to this. If the only part of the game that mattered was when the ball was kicked in the net then it would be a boring game as it doesn't happen very often, but there's a whole lot more going on if you know where to look. You might still find the game boring, but hopefully this helps to explain how people get into it.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I don't doubt that that really deepens your appreciation, but I think even through repeated watching you can come to appreciate the game more. To give the most obvious example, someone without a lot of familiarity with football would probably be confused about why they were go back five yards behind where they were after the last play instead of the last place they got to because the penalty system isn't obvious to a neophyte (in soccer terms, consider how many people are baffled by off-side calls if they only ever watch a few games during the World Cup every four years).
    - incompatible 9y ago
      I'm not even sure if your references to football and soccer are the same sport, or two different sports. I think they usually mean the same thing, except in certain countries where other sports (such as rugby) are called football instead.

ahtu123 9y ago

It works well the other way too. Go to a bookclub about a topic you're interested and you might be surprised to find how much in common you have with people who you otherwise might have thought were completely different (different career, family, gender, nationality). I haven't made any friends that way but often the talks we have feel like everyone is old friends in the moment.