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I think this phenomenon is part of the reason it's difficult to form friendships as adults. The shared context that the article mentions requires a lot of time

I think this phenomenon is part of the reason it's difficult to form friendships as adults. The shared context that the article mentions requires a lot of time around your circle of people, just "hanging out". It's tough to make that time as an adult with a career, family, etc. This may be why college friendships can be so strong – often a lot of time is spent living and working around friends by default, without needing to schedule it.

hosteur 4y ago
If this is the case then why wouldn’t workplaces create lots of strong friendships? There is a lot of shared context. I’m not sure I buy author’s brushing this away as being because coworkers are trained to replace you. There is lots of competition in school and college also.
- bitcurious 4y ago
  To make friends you need to make mistakes. Litigation culture in the workplace prevents that.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I don't see this. I've yet to be afraid of being sued by a co-worker and after a couple of decades I can assure you that I've made plenty of mistakes.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      If you aren't more guarded around co-workers than your friends, maybe you should be.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Why on earth would a co-worker sue me?
        slothtrop 4y ago
        Suing? They can get you terminated, or hinder your advancement. Anything that can be construed as reflecting badly on you or the company can be used against you.
    - bitcurious 4y ago
      In the edge case, your failed-friend coworker would sue the corporation. This would cost corporation money. The corporation doesn’t care about you having friends, but does care about losing money. As such structures the workplace to minimize the sorts of free expression that creates “shared context” but also creates room for error - discussions of politics, religion, your health, ethnicity, age, etc. - topics that in the best case build trust and curiosity and lead to friendship. My comment isn’t a commentary on people - who are mostly loving, reasonable, and forgiving. It’s a commentary on incentives and the structures those incentives lead to.
  - Sirened 4y ago
    is this a thinly veiled complaint about being hit with sexual harassment complaints? The simple trick to solve this problem is not to sexually harass your friends either
    - nickff 4y ago
      Why did you make two logical leaps just to arrive at an accusation? From the HN Guidelines: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        Having backed out of including a reply with my downvote—which I seldom do, but couldn’t find a productive response in me despite some effort—I’m curious what your charitable interpretation is. I went through all of mine, and none of them reflected well on the commenter.
        bitcurious 4y ago
        Bizarre but illustrative that I have to defend myself against a nebulous “uncharitable interpretation.” Are you free (according to corporate policy) to ask your coworkers about religion, health, romance, politics, ethnicity, etc.? I’m comfortable discussing all of the above with my friends, yet each is to some extent restricted in the professional context, either by default or with seniority.
        MrJohz 4y ago
        Not the previous commenter, but yes? I have literally never worked in a place where talking about that has been forbidden. I mean, talking about it offensively is obviously not on the table, but I've discussed literally every single one of those with colleagues before. Is this a cultural thing? I'm from the UK, and I'm working now in Germany. Perhaps things are different in the US?
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  The workplace is more like a relay race than a basketball team. Everyone may share the same project, but they all have different parts to it, and are unlikely to share the same or a sufficiently similar understanding of it.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  It does. A lot of younger knowledge workers (not at all restricted to STEM) make good friends in their first job because of shared context. Eventually increased responsibility through experience means you necessarily open yourself up less and spend more time mentoring, guiding, or otherwise leading.
- Enginerrrd 4y ago
  In my experience, workplaces HAVE created lots of strong friendships in my life. Though, it's interesting, it varies tremendously by workplace culture and the work you're doing. In my jobs doing manual labor or jobs involving a lot of boring hanging out (as a cashier / supervisor / lifeguard) I made lots of friendships. In jobs where it's been primarily knowledge work, I had a lot of good acquaintances, but rarely did that turn into more. I think that being able to talk makes a big difference. It's worth noting though that when I was a lifeguard, I was a long lived employee surrounded by short term employees. The culture was in flux. There are times when I fit in and we became good friends (which remain to this day) and there are times when I didn't fit in or like the people and didn't make any friends. The manual labor jobs produced more lasting friendships than the lifeguarding for whatever reason. Something about actually suffering with others and working toward common aims and being able to talk about stuff produced the best friendships. (I also think that the nature of the work filtered out some of the lower quality people too, and that played a role.)
- bobsmooth 4y ago
  Pretty much every friend I have is a co-worker.
- armchairhacker 4y ago
  I doubt “coworkers trying to replace you” has much of an impact. The bigger issue with some workplaces is that they’re not really close-quarters, because they’re very impersonal. Sure you might be all in the same room a lot, but you’re largely discussing business stuff or working independently. Even corporate “parties” and retreats can be surprisingly professional and unnatural. It’s almost like you don’t really “interact” with the person, you interact with their business facade. If you’re not just talking business with your coworkers, you’re actually talking about life and hanging out and not having a fake professional personality, then you do form friendships. I say this from experience. Though talking about non-professional things and not putting on a facade also makes you vulnerable, so those companies where everyone is competing against each other happen to be the ones where everyone is impersonal.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Friends happen when you spend time with the same people in different contexts. That’s why most workplace relationships don’t result in friends.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Workplaces do create lots of strong friendships. In the past, they were also one of the biggest sources of romantic relationships. Though that has changed, people are still friends through work.
zamfi 4y ago
Having a family offers a natural avenue for this, though: parents of your kids' friends share a lot of context with you.
goethes_kind 4y ago
The reason friendships between adults are hard is because adults are reluctant to make themselves vulnerable, but opening yourself to others and making yourself vulnerable is exactly what you need to start building a shared history of living (shared context).
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  I just learned this in my mind 30s. So many hollow friendships before.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  It has to be something like this because I add to my list of close friends fairly often - so I have lots of people to lean on (as I discovered when I found myself debilitated by an accident recently). I'm mid thirties and the last close friend who was willing to help me shower when I couldn't is someone I got to know 3 months ago.
- bradlys 4y ago
  YMMV. I found that least in SV - people are so guarded that they’re rarely ever going to be vulnerable even with anyone new they meet. Maybe it’s the crowds I keep meeting but everyone is uncomfortable with even talking about what they want from life - let alone what they struggle with. I think many people here don’t ever open up except with their therapist and parents.
JamesBarney 4y ago
Yeah it's this, just shared time, specifically time hanging out shooting the shit. For instance of all of my coworkers I am paradoxically the closest to are the ones from out of town. I think this is because when they visited they had no other obligations so we ended up shooting the shit a lot. Where co-workers who lived here were always busy with family/life obligations.
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  When working 'busy season' in accounting 50+ hours per week for 4 months, there's not time for friends, and barely time for family. I won't work for that toxic culture again.
danenania 4y ago
A hack that takes advantage of this is to look for activities/events where you spend a lot of sustained time with others. So instead of a meetup once a month, go to a week-long retreat or an all weekend hackathon. Or if there’s someone you’d like to get closer to as a friend, instead of just inviting them to hang out once in awhile, invite them to go on a trip somewhere. Once you reach the tipping point of enough shared time/context by fast-forwarding in this way, it’s easier to then settle into a more ordinary rhythm where you see people periodically but still feel they are real friends.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  If you're into music, festivals are fantastic for this. I was just at such a festival, in an MDMA-fueled reminiscence of just how lucky my friends and I are to have found each other. Through years of simply showing up, gifting my art, and being open to new people, I now have a tight party crew which has supported each other through some of the darkest shit I have ever experienced in my life. Deaths, overdoses, bad trips, poverty, angry neighbors/property owners, whatever... these guys have my back and I have theirs. I may be a thirty-something loner and introvert, but these guys are my bass music battle buddies. Highly recommended.
  - danenania 4y ago
    That's awesome. How long did it take/how many festivals before you started to feel they were real friends you can count on in day-to-day life rather than just being 'festival friends'?
    - tomc1985 4y ago
      The relationships are generally cultivated over time. I have been active in the local dance music underground for all of my adult life, but in this case familiarity was established after showing up at a couple of desert events and hanging out. Later on, I was invited to a house party with some of the same folks where I was accepted into the "family". During all this I would show up at events with my camera, take really good photos, and then give them away, and that got me noticed and made me the unofficial-official photographer of the group. This was several years ago, and the story has advanced considerably since then. edit- To answer your question directly, it took a few years to really feel that these guys were more than just party friends. I think the catalyst here was us, as a group, navigating through shared tragedy. The 'family' was already formed when I joined, and it definitely took a while to feel like I was someone more than just a guy in the periphery. Gifting is big in my scene, and if you want to speed up the process that is probably the best way to start -- art, food, whatever you can provide that other people might want or need. edit2- It just occurred to me that gifting is a great lifehack in general for ingratiating yourself into a new group. The key is that it has to be something they genuinely want. For example, I went to visit a friend of mine in Chile and filled up about half of my luggage with candy, alcohol, and some other things that I knew my friend would appreciate. She was so happy and told all her friends, and in an instant I had a whole group of people to hang out with -- who very specifically told me that they appreciated the gifts -- while I was visiting.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> It's tough to make that time as an adult with a career, family, etc. It's more difficult than college, where everyone is thrown together into close quarters. However, it's not impossible. It's just different and requires different techniques. If you sit back and wait for the contexts to come to you, it's going to be a slow journey. If you go out of your way to create those contexts, it's actually not that difficult to find and make new friends. Hosting events, BBQs, get togethers, and any other social event is an easy way to start it off. This gets massively easier when you have kids, IMO, because you can now also host play dates, invite other families along to activities, meet other parents through daycare or school, and so on. It won't happen if you're staying at home or waiting for people to come to you, of course, but it's not that hard to get out and meet new people and friends-of-friends once you start getting out there and making an effort. Even work can be an easy pivot to new connections if you make an effort. In-person makes this especially easy: Get into the habit of inviting people out to lunch with you once a week and ask if they can think of anyone else to invite along. The bigger the company, the easier it is to be exposed to a lot of new people this way. Again, it won't happen if you're not making an effort, but the amount of effort required is much smaller than it may seem.
- gumby 4y ago
  I became closer friends, and even friends at all, with folks I knew from college years after graduating. As noted in this discussion, we had a lot of shared context that became more meaningful as we grew up.
fleddr 4y ago
I think you're right, you need proximity and significant time together to create and maintain friendships. Which is very hard to organize with adults. Another way to look at it is the shift in priorities. When I was young, all I cared about is friends. I found it more important than school or my parents. I maximized my time with friends. As adult "friend", you're way down the list of priorities, after the job, family, personal health, chores, recovery time...and then there's you, the friend. It's not malice, adults simply have too much shit to manage. Some might be so busy that the last thing they need is a new friend.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Need? They need friends, they don’t have time for any. I went to ICMI (International Conference on Men’s Issues) 2018 and the thing I was most surprised of is, a men help group is often just having a beer together. Fathers have been so busy with raising babies, maintaining the house and performing at career, that when it breaks down, they just need a beer, even with unknown people.
  - ungamedplayer 4y ago
    We're in an odd world where this is the case.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    I get what you're saying and couldn't agree more. My take was a bit more literal, the situation were one already has "enough" friends and is not in search of making new ones. Not to say that one is not open to meeting new people if it happens by chance, instead to say to not being open to turning that into the commitment of a new friendship. I'm saying this mostly for people that lack friends and are looking to make new ones. It's good to understand the sobering reality that some may dodge the chance of a deep new friendship developing. Not because they don't like you, simply because they can't take on the commitment.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  The priority thing is an interesting one. When I was a kid I was just frequently bored and so were the other kids, so we'd hang out. I'm never bored anymore. I might be depressed and not want to do anything, but that's different from bored. With all the entertainment and things to do at all times, I wonder if current children will have the same experience as we did.
88913527 4y ago
I regret not going to college in the city I ultimately knew I'd end up living in. It was a ton of wasted social capital. I did end up saving money though (college city was cheaper), but it probably wasn't worth the savings. I still do keep in touch with a few people, but it's "annual Zoom call" catchup level of socializing: not enough to fill the day-to-day.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I regret not going to college because here I am now with near 0 social capital (and very limited with how I can pivot my professional life).
throwaway290 4y ago
IRL I find it exceedingly easy to form connections with others (in my 30s), it doesn't take much time at all. I tend to be in situations where meeting new people happens (coworking spaces, cafes, big cities, going to other cities and staying in places with shared spaces etc). However, 99% of the time I feel disinclined to solidify those connections and create the dependencies the article calls "shared context", because I actively do not find I have much in common with these people. Often I resist accumulating that "shared context" and actively evade and ghost them, other times I don't but later I wish I did. The reason is that by now I have a pretty well-formed worldview, and I know most others have one as well, and I am correspondingly sensitive to finer differences between them. And with meeting people in various IRL communities, the likelihood you are compatible in this way is hovering around zero. *** Generally, I strongly disagree with the article, find it meandering and struggle with the unorthodox meaning it's trying to force onto the phrase "shared context". In fact, in the very next paragraph it gives a stark but much more suitable term for what it wants to say: a web of dependencies. Friendships may form via such a web, but good friendships usually don't. It's a legacy way of sorts, and in our age worth actively avoiding. An example of friendships formed via these webs is often childhood classmates. The only reason you may end up being friends is geographical proximity. There may well be nothing in common between you otherwise. If you let such friendships solidify, they will weigh you down or you will have to endure the psychological pain of ripping yourself out of that web of dependencies. Meeting people in IRL communities is like that, it suffers from people being randomly put together. Accumulating "shared context" (again, web of dependencies) due to geographic proximity alone is the last thing you want to be doing. If you happened to meet someone due to chance IRL encounter, you have to vet them 10x more carefully before letting the web grow, because the chance the encounter is worthwhile is very low. By contrast, shared context (the actual thing, not the meaning forced by the article) is easy to come by thanks to the Web, and there're plenty of people who have compatible worldviews yet are different enough to be interesting to engage with. All you need is try and get a feel for all the various ways of signaling. If you are sorta good at something like art or engineering (yes, this can be hard to know for sure), be a bit brave to go more public with it through social channels, etc. Establishing IRL acquaintance later with casual meetups is easy thanks to relaxing travel restrictions.

hosteur 4y ago

If this is the case then why wouldn’t workplaces create lots of strong friendships? There is a lot of shared context. I’m not sure I buy author’s brushing this away as being because coworkers are trained to replace you. There is lots of competition in school and college also.

bitcurious 4y ago
To make friends you need to make mistakes. Litigation culture in the workplace prevents that.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I don't see this. I've yet to be afraid of being sued by a co-worker and after a couple of decades I can assure you that I've made plenty of mistakes.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    If you aren't more guarded around co-workers than your friends, maybe you should be.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Why on earth would a co-worker sue me?
      - slothtrop 4y ago
        Suing? They can get you terminated, or hinder your advancement. Anything that can be construed as reflecting badly on you or the company can be used against you.
  - bitcurious 4y ago
    In the edge case, your failed-friend coworker would sue the corporation. This would cost corporation money. The corporation doesn’t care about you having friends, but does care about losing money. As such structures the workplace to minimize the sorts of free expression that creates “shared context” but also creates room for error - discussions of politics, religion, your health, ethnicity, age, etc. - topics that in the best case build trust and curiosity and lead to friendship. My comment isn’t a commentary on people - who are mostly loving, reasonable, and forgiving. It’s a commentary on incentives and the structures those incentives lead to.
- Sirened 4y ago
  is this a thinly veiled complaint about being hit with sexual harassment complaints? The simple trick to solve this problem is not to sexually harass your friends either
  - nickff 4y ago
    Why did you make two logical leaps just to arrive at an accusation? From the HN Guidelines: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      Having backed out of including a reply with my downvote—which I seldom do, but couldn’t find a productive response in me despite some effort—I’m curious what your charitable interpretation is. I went through all of mine, and none of them reflected well on the commenter.
      - bitcurious 4y ago
        Bizarre but illustrative that I have to defend myself against a nebulous “uncharitable interpretation.” Are you free (according to corporate policy) to ask your coworkers about religion, health, romance, politics, ethnicity, etc.? I’m comfortable discussing all of the above with my friends, yet each is to some extent restricted in the professional context, either by default or with seniority.
        MrJohz 4y ago
        Not the previous commenter, but yes? I have literally never worked in a place where talking about that has been forbidden. I mean, talking about it offensively is obviously not on the table, but I've discussed literally every single one of those with colleagues before. Is this a cultural thing? I'm from the UK, and I'm working now in Germany. Perhaps things are different in the US?
Dracophoenix 4y ago
The workplace is more like a relay race than a basketball team. Everyone may share the same project, but they all have different parts to it, and are unlikely to share the same or a sufficiently similar understanding of it.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
It does. A lot of younger knowledge workers (not at all restricted to STEM) make good friends in their first job because of shared context. Eventually increased responsibility through experience means you necessarily open yourself up less and spend more time mentoring, guiding, or otherwise leading.
Enginerrrd 4y ago
In my experience, workplaces HAVE created lots of strong friendships in my life. Though, it's interesting, it varies tremendously by workplace culture and the work you're doing. In my jobs doing manual labor or jobs involving a lot of boring hanging out (as a cashier / supervisor / lifeguard) I made lots of friendships. In jobs where it's been primarily knowledge work, I had a lot of good acquaintances, but rarely did that turn into more. I think that being able to talk makes a big difference. It's worth noting though that when I was a lifeguard, I was a long lived employee surrounded by short term employees. The culture was in flux. There are times when I fit in and we became good friends (which remain to this day) and there are times when I didn't fit in or like the people and didn't make any friends. The manual labor jobs produced more lasting friendships than the lifeguarding for whatever reason. Something about actually suffering with others and working toward common aims and being able to talk about stuff produced the best friendships. (I also think that the nature of the work filtered out some of the lower quality people too, and that played a role.)
bobsmooth 4y ago
Pretty much every friend I have is a co-worker.
armchairhacker 4y ago
I doubt “coworkers trying to replace you” has much of an impact. The bigger issue with some workplaces is that they’re not really close-quarters, because they’re very impersonal. Sure you might be all in the same room a lot, but you’re largely discussing business stuff or working independently. Even corporate “parties” and retreats can be surprisingly professional and unnatural. It’s almost like you don’t really “interact” with the person, you interact with their business facade. If you’re not just talking business with your coworkers, you’re actually talking about life and hanging out and not having a fake professional personality, then you do form friendships. I say this from experience. Though talking about non-professional things and not putting on a facade also makes you vulnerable, so those companies where everyone is competing against each other happen to be the ones where everyone is impersonal.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Friends happen when you spend time with the same people in different contexts. That’s why most workplace relationships don’t result in friends.
renewiltord 4y ago
Workplaces do create lots of strong friendships. In the past, they were also one of the biggest sources of romantic relationships. Though that has changed, people are still friends through work.

zamfi 4y ago

Having a family offers a natural avenue for this, though: parents of your kids' friends share a lot of context with you.

goethes_kind 4y ago

The reason friendships between adults are hard is because adults are reluctant to make themselves vulnerable, but opening yourself to others and making yourself vulnerable is exactly what you need to start building a shared history of living (shared context).

kelseyfrog 4y ago
I just learned this in my mind 30s. So many hollow friendships before.
renewiltord 4y ago
It has to be something like this because I add to my list of close friends fairly often - so I have lots of people to lean on (as I discovered when I found myself debilitated by an accident recently). I'm mid thirties and the last close friend who was willing to help me shower when I couldn't is someone I got to know 3 months ago.
bradlys 4y ago
YMMV. I found that least in SV - people are so guarded that they’re rarely ever going to be vulnerable even with anyone new they meet. Maybe it’s the crowds I keep meeting but everyone is uncomfortable with even talking about what they want from life - let alone what they struggle with. I think many people here don’t ever open up except with their therapist and parents.

JamesBarney 4y ago

Yeah it's this, just shared time, specifically time hanging out shooting the shit. For instance of all of my coworkers I am paradoxically the closest to are the ones from out of town. I think this is because when they visited they had no other obligations so we ended up shooting the shit a lot. Where co-workers who lived here were always busy with family/life obligations.

formerkrogemp 4y ago
When working 'busy season' in accounting 50+ hours per week for 4 months, there's not time for friends, and barely time for family. I won't work for that toxic culture again.

danenania 4y ago

A hack that takes advantage of this is to look for activities/events where you spend a lot of sustained time with others. So instead of a meetup once a month, go to a week-long retreat or an all weekend hackathon. Or if there’s someone you’d like to get closer to as a friend, instead of just inviting them to hang out once in awhile, invite them to go on a trip somewhere. Once you reach the tipping point of enough shared time/context by fast-forwarding in this way, it’s easier to then settle into a more ordinary rhythm where you see people periodically but still feel they are real friends.

tomc1985 4y ago
If you're into music, festivals are fantastic for this. I was just at such a festival, in an MDMA-fueled reminiscence of just how lucky my friends and I are to have found each other. Through years of simply showing up, gifting my art, and being open to new people, I now have a tight party crew which has supported each other through some of the darkest shit I have ever experienced in my life. Deaths, overdoses, bad trips, poverty, angry neighbors/property owners, whatever... these guys have my back and I have theirs. I may be a thirty-something loner and introvert, but these guys are my bass music battle buddies. Highly recommended.
- danenania 4y ago
  That's awesome. How long did it take/how many festivals before you started to feel they were real friends you can count on in day-to-day life rather than just being 'festival friends'?
  - tomc1985 4y ago
    The relationships are generally cultivated over time. I have been active in the local dance music underground for all of my adult life, but in this case familiarity was established after showing up at a couple of desert events and hanging out. Later on, I was invited to a house party with some of the same folks where I was accepted into the "family". During all this I would show up at events with my camera, take really good photos, and then give them away, and that got me noticed and made me the unofficial-official photographer of the group. This was several years ago, and the story has advanced considerably since then. edit- To answer your question directly, it took a few years to really feel that these guys were more than just party friends. I think the catalyst here was us, as a group, navigating through shared tragedy. The 'family' was already formed when I joined, and it definitely took a while to feel like I was someone more than just a guy in the periphery. Gifting is big in my scene, and if you want to speed up the process that is probably the best way to start -- art, food, whatever you can provide that other people might want or need. edit2- It just occurred to me that gifting is a great lifehack in general for ingratiating yourself into a new group. The key is that it has to be something they genuinely want. For example, I went to visit a friend of mine in Chile and filled up about half of my luggage with candy, alcohol, and some other things that I knew my friend would appreciate. She was so happy and told all her friends, and in an instant I had a whole group of people to hang out with -- who very specifically told me that they appreciated the gifts -- while I was visiting.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> It's tough to make that time as an adult with a career, family, etc. It's more difficult than college, where everyone is thrown together into close quarters. However, it's not impossible. It's just different and requires different techniques. If you sit back and wait for the contexts to come to you, it's going to be a slow journey. If you go out of your way to create those contexts, it's actually not that difficult to find and make new friends. Hosting events, BBQs, get togethers, and any other social event is an easy way to start it off. This gets massively easier when you have kids, IMO, because you can now also host play dates, invite other families along to activities, meet other parents through daycare or school, and so on. It won't happen if you're staying at home or waiting for people to come to you, of course, but it's not that hard to get out and meet new people and friends-of-friends once you start getting out there and making an effort. Even work can be an easy pivot to new connections if you make an effort. In-person makes this especially easy: Get into the habit of inviting people out to lunch with you once a week and ask if they can think of anyone else to invite along. The bigger the company, the easier it is to be exposed to a lot of new people this way. Again, it won't happen if you're not making an effort, but the amount of effort required is much smaller than it may seem.

gumby 4y ago
I became closer friends, and even friends at all, with folks I knew from college years after graduating. As noted in this discussion, we had a lot of shared context that became more meaningful as we grew up.

fleddr 4y ago

I think you're right, you need proximity and significant time together to create and maintain friendships. Which is very hard to organize with adults. Another way to look at it is the shift in priorities. When I was young, all I cared about is friends. I found it more important than school or my parents. I maximized my time with friends. As adult "friend", you're way down the list of priorities, after the job, family, personal health, chores, recovery time...and then there's you, the friend. It's not malice, adults simply have too much shit to manage. Some might be so busy that the last thing they need is a new friend.

eastbound 4y ago
Need? They need friends, they don’t have time for any. I went to ICMI (International Conference on Men’s Issues) 2018 and the thing I was most surprised of is, a men help group is often just having a beer together. Fathers have been so busy with raising babies, maintaining the house and performing at career, that when it breaks down, they just need a beer, even with unknown people.
- ungamedplayer 4y ago
  We're in an odd world where this is the case.
- fleddr 4y ago
  I get what you're saying and couldn't agree more. My take was a bit more literal, the situation were one already has "enough" friends and is not in search of making new ones. Not to say that one is not open to meeting new people if it happens by chance, instead to say to not being open to turning that into the commitment of a new friendship. I'm saying this mostly for people that lack friends and are looking to make new ones. It's good to understand the sobering reality that some may dodge the chance of a deep new friendship developing. Not because they don't like you, simply because they can't take on the commitment.
ajmurmann 4y ago
The priority thing is an interesting one. When I was a kid I was just frequently bored and so were the other kids, so we'd hang out. I'm never bored anymore. I might be depressed and not want to do anything, but that's different from bored. With all the entertainment and things to do at all times, I wonder if current children will have the same experience as we did.

88913527 4y ago

I regret not going to college in the city I ultimately knew I'd end up living in. It was a ton of wasted social capital. I did end up saving money though (college city was cheaper), but it probably wasn't worth the savings. I still do keep in touch with a few people, but it's "annual Zoom call" catchup level of socializing: not enough to fill the day-to-day.

the_only_law 4y ago
I regret not going to college because here I am now with near 0 social capital (and very limited with how I can pivot my professional life).

throwaway290 4y ago

IRL I find it exceedingly easy to form connections with others (in my 30s), it doesn't take much time at all. I tend to be in situations where meeting new people happens (coworking spaces, cafes, big cities, going to other cities and staying in places with shared spaces etc). However, 99% of the time I feel disinclined to solidify those connections and create the dependencies the article calls "shared context", because I actively do not find I have much in common with these people. Often I resist accumulating that "shared context" and actively evade and ghost them, other times I don't but later I wish I did. The reason is that by now I have a pretty well-formed worldview, and I know most others have one as well, and I am correspondingly sensitive to finer differences between them. And with meeting people in various IRL communities, the likelihood you are compatible in this way is hovering around zero. *** Generally, I strongly disagree with the article, find it meandering and struggle with the unorthodox meaning it's trying to force onto the phrase "shared context". In fact, in the very next paragraph it gives a stark but much more suitable term for what it wants to say: a web of dependencies. Friendships may form via such a web, but good friendships usually don't. It's a legacy way of sorts, and in our age worth actively avoiding. An example of friendships formed via these webs is often childhood classmates. The only reason you may end up being friends is geographical proximity. There may well be nothing in common between you otherwise. If you let such friendships solidify, they will weigh you down or you will have to endure the psychological pain of ripping yourself out of that web of dependencies. Meeting people in IRL communities is like that, it suffers from people being randomly put together. Accumulating "shared context" (again, web of dependencies) due to geographic proximity alone is the last thing you want to be doing. If you happened to meet someone due to chance IRL encounter, you have to vet them 10x more carefully before letting the web grow, because the chance the encounter is worthwhile is very low. By contrast, shared context (the actual thing, not the meaning forced by the article) is easy to come by thanks to the Web, and there're plenty of people who have compatible worldviews yet are different enough to be interesting to engage with. All you need is try and get a feel for all the various ways of signaling. If you are sorta good at something like art or engineering (yes, this can be hard to know for sure), be a bit brave to go more public with it through social channels, etc. Establishing IRL acquaintance later with casual meetups is easy thanks to relaxing travel restrictions.