6 ms·

I think the elephant in the room for making new friends over 30, is stagnation in one's daily routine caused by one's job. I don't think anything changed drama

• nocman 8y ago
  Maybe it depends on where you live, but I'm over 30 and I've made friends with coworkers from probably every job I've ever had in my adult life. Sure I've dealt with a few jerks at work, but very few of the relationships have felt adversarial. I certainly would not call most of my workplaces environments "toxic for creating trusting friendships". I don't know, maybe you need to be more particular about where you work.
  • Karrot_Kream 8y ago
    I think that was the GP's point. If you want to be friends, then find a workplace or routine that aligns with those goals.
• vorpalhex 8y ago
  > when the hell do you expect to be making your friends over 30, during your 8-hours asleep? You neglect the other 8 hours in a day, and you aren't alone in that. I have a ton of coworkers who do their 8, go home and watch tv and have a beer, then go to bed. Meanwhile I'm going on short hikes, taking classes or hitting the gym, or going to shows and meeting new people. With kids, the equation is obviously different (at least the eight hours of sleep portion) but you can take the little one to the park, to play dates with other kids, and occasionally non-kid focused events (the last beer fest I went to seemed to have several kids running about). At the end of the day you have to prioritize how to spend your time and use it fully. It is harder then just watching tv and having a beer, but much more rewarding. Take classes, volunteer, be social. Your time is limited, always use it well.
  • swimfar 8y ago
    He didn't neglect that, he said, "...and you're not interacting with people in a way that leads to making friends in your 8-hour evenings,..."
  • mancerayder 8y ago
    Except it's exhausting after 8 hrs (or more) in a job, 30-45m commute each leg, and some gym or other exercise (which can energize but steal hours from the day to socialize). Going home and opening a beer is the popping of the pressure/people overdose cork. Commuting on a crowded subway is exhausting personally.
    • Balero 8y ago
      Have you tried mixing your exercise and socialising? Do a team sport, or a class, run/swim in a group, or just go to the gym with a friend.
    • slfnflctd 8y ago
      > Commuting on a crowded subway is exhausting personally Honestly I find all types of commuting exhausting in different ways, except possibly a medium-to-long trip on a nicer train, where I can use my laptop (mostly) how I would in a hotel room. It will probably never happen, but in my view the next major worker's rights advancement should be some kind of amelioration of the commute factor, either by employers or the government. It's probably more than half the reason I left my last job. I've always believed that making things 'feel more fair' tends to motivate at least some workers to put in extra effort more enthusiastically.
• hunter23 8y ago
  I think most people 60 years ago would have not considered the workplace a "environment toxic for creating trusting friendships". In fact, most people met their future spouse from their neighborhood or workplace when they analyzed marriage records from early to mid 1900s. Perhaps the real story here is that the reason people don't make friends over 30 is that the historical avenues for adult friendships, neighborhoods and work, are no longer conducive to meeting people.
  • qazqazqazqaz 8y ago
    Throwaway, but made the throwaway for the express purpose of saying “this”. Maybe what was before not-exactly-zero-sum has become now indistinguishable-from-zero-sum.
• jupiter90000 8y ago
  There are a lot of 'you' statements in there that sound more like they probably are 'I' statements. Alot of what is written is not true for me. I've made friends at work that I hang out with outside of work and I do hobbies and exercise with new people. No one's stopping anyone from living a life like the one you described though.
• gerbilly 8y ago
  > stagnation in one's daily routine caused by one's job. Definitely this. We let work take way too much time from our lives. If you count commuting, the minimum 8 hours at work (more like minimum 10) then work can eat up to 12 hrs/day. On top of that us 'knowledge workers' carry our work around in our heads all the time. It's not as though after 8hrs we just put the wrench down and go home, no the ongoing problems of work follow us around and even toss and turn us in our dreams sometimes. To me this is unacceptable. The way that we employ our working hours is a waste of time[1] on a colossal scale, and for little benefit to humanity most of the time. [1] Literally the finite precious time we each have on earth.
  • ende 8y ago
    So when do we go on strike?
    • sillysaurus3 8y ago
      Start writing about it. Five or so years later, if you gain a following, it can have an effect.
    • harlanji 8y ago
      Now. When else? contracting is good for establishing boundaries, because it costs money to violate them. Price according to value of life mission opportunity cost, and have faith you’ll always have enough resources.
    • Cthulhu_ 8y ago
      No need, the pay for software development is more than enough (like, 3-4x more than enough). The main problems are excess housing prices (so that income is not enough), and a combination of ambition / competitiveness / fear of missing out / fear of running behind.
      • pc86 8y ago
        Have you ever noticed how nobody complains about "excess housing prices" when they can easily afford it and the populations that have been living there for decades can't?
• ghostcluster 8y ago
  I think it's partly an ingrained cognitive issue. There are some stable patterns to friendships and age, which this article is speculating around. Women tend to have more than men over 30, and it is true that the number of new one's fomed tends to decrease from the youthful stage, where other patterns are more prominent (practicing mature social roles through play, etc). Much of it is likely evolved, though there is definitely a large culural and environmental component.
• lsc 8y ago
  >For at least 8 hours of your day, you are at work, interacting with people in an environment toxic for creating trusting friendships (You're competing for the same roles, titles, bonuses, etc.) I... man, I hate working at places like that. And I don't very often; I suppose it's the privilege of having in-demand skills and living in a place with a wide choice of employers, but yeah, I've had jobs like that and I got out quick. The vast majority of places I've worked came with sort of built in friend groups. I mean, "work friends" are different from real friends, but it is a built in social group that pretty much has to be friendly to you unless you do thing that are outlandishly unacceptable. And sometimes 'work friends' turns in to real friends. Friendship and competition can go together, and they usually do. I mean, look at normal people and sports, or academic high achievers and academics. If you can't compete without being friends, you either need to work on yourself or you need to compete with different people. As technical individual contributors, I personally don't feel a strong sense of competition, for that matter. In my experience, you get more points by telling the boss something true and good about a co-worker than you do for telling the boss something true and bad about a co worker. I mean, we all know, if you want to really get ahead, you switch jobs, right? and yes, in the abstract, you are competing with your co-workers for those other jobs, but you rarely know who else is interviewing for a particular position. But my own experience is that work is way better for meeting friends than high school. (I mean, unless by friends, you mean dates... which is a different sort of thing, and yeah, I personally don't have the social skills to date people I work with, so I avoid that whole can of worms)
• mstade 8y ago
  I don't think it can be entirely blamed on oneself or stagnant routines – making friends is a two way street, and I find more often than not the other party just isn't that interested. I tend to go out a lot on my own, and over the past three years or so I've made maybe two friends. Not close friends mind you, but people I feel comfortable shooting a message out of the blue just to see if they want to meet up and shoot the breeze. During the same three years however, I've made a conscious effort to meet new friends but it's a hard shell to penetrate. People already have their circles, or maybe they think you have ulterior motives (e.g. "I already have a partner" or "we're not looking to hire".) It seems to me that as people grow into their 30s, they grow cynical to the point of almost closing themselves off. I have a much easier time making friends who are in the 40s or 50s, or younger people in their 20s – neither group which I can really feel entirely comfortable just hanging out with. I've taken up video games over the past year. It's hard to find quality conversation while shooting imaginary characters on screen, but at least I've been able to find enough people that there's at least one or two people online that I can have a casual conversation with while mashing buttons. This helps somewhat, but it's a far cry from in-person social interaction.
  • amyjess 8y ago
    > I have a much easier time making friends who are in the 40s or 50s, or younger people in their 20s There's also another reason for that: they don't have to take care of kids. Young singles and old empty-nesters are the best people to hang out with. Most people my age either have kids or are newlyweds, neither of which is conducive to hanging out with people. Though I'd probably go with "50s or 60s" over "40s or 50s", just because older people are more likely to be empty-nesters. Or if their kids are still living with them, they're adults who don't need any kind of supervision.