> I think the 3-5 year friendship thing is pretty common It's not really the 3-5 year thing though. it's about whether you have supportive weak-tie friendships

> I think the 3-5 year friendship thing is pretty common It's not really the 3-5 year thing though. it's about whether you have supportive weak-tie friendships with people that you can easily visit [1][2], something I believe is especially missing for men in our current society [3]. Are you able to go and see people that hold some of your story - who you can lean on when things get rough in certain periods of your life? If there are thousands of kilometres in between you and you need to take expensive flights - because your parents continually moved/uprooted you to countries on the other side of the world (my case) - then the answer is no. This is a reality I am starting to wake up to. I have a lot of unprocessed and unexpressed grief about this, having grown up all over the world during my youth. I do not have many weak-tie friendships. it fucking sucks. big time. To me 'internet friends' are not a good replacement for in person physical friends who you can go and get a hug from, share some of your sorrows from daily life with, drink tea with, or hang out and watch TV or do your favorite shared activity with. There is a well-known researcher who researched kids in highly mobile families who wrote a book called 'Third Culture Kids' [4]. I found it very insightful. Essentially the book coins the term 'Third Culture Kid' to describe a child who was raised in a foreign culture+country during their formative years (before 18). It has been useful to me to find communities online. There are now important arguments coming forward [5] that promote a wider use of this term, as it has mainly been used for childen in white upper-class circles. [1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200701-why-your-weak-tie-friendships-may-mean-more-than-you-think https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200701-why-your-weak-... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/smarter-living/why-you-need-a-network-of-low-stakes-casual-friendships.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/smarter-living/why-you-ne... [3] https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a27259689/toxic-masculinity-male-friendships-emotional-labor-men-rely-on-women/ https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a27259689/tox... [4] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/121920.Third_Culture_Kids https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/121920.Third_Culture_Kid... + https://www.cmhnetwork.org/news/the-trouble-with-third-culture-kids/ https://www.cmhnetwork.org/news/the-trouble-with-third-cultu... + https://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home/transcript... [5] https://gal-dem.com/third-culture-kid/ https://gal-dem.com/third-culture-kid/