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I have schizotypal personality disorder, so I love solitude 90% of the time, but even I'm starting to miss having friends. I watch shows like Derry Girls or Det

I have schizotypal personality disorder, so I love solitude 90% of the time, but even I'm starting to miss having friends. I watch shows like Derry Girls or Detectorists and I'm thinking damn I know my childhood and teenage friends were just "friendships of convenience", but I miss being part of a group or posse with "no holds barred" friendships. The relationships with colleagues at work aren't the same... always seem to have some kind of "wall"; I guess it's because the friendship going badly will have a detrimental impact at work and you have to interact with these people every day whether you want to or not. It's crazy how hard it is to not only make friends, but keep them. My wife and I meet another couple that even have kids the same age as ours. We get along very well, they like us and we like them. We managed to have dinner once and we see each other occasionally at outings or birthdays. We have fun each time, but then we go months in-between without any communication. It's like there's some kind of threshold or tolerance preventing us from making it a more permanent bond. EDIT: after thinking on it a little bit, I can't remember my parents nor friend's parents having friendships either. That makes me second-guess the technological influences on loneliness. I'm sure technology is making it worse, but I don't think we can point at it and say "this is the cause" because the loneliness epidemic seems to have started even before my generation.

corrral 4y ago
> I guess it's because the friendship going badly will have a detrimental impact at work and you have to interact with these people every day whether you want to or not. The book Impro characterizes friendship as a relationship in which one can freely and safely play "status games" without any actual stakes or chance of status-shifts. If that's true, then it's definitely more challenging to have a "real" friendship with a co-worker. [EDIT] > EDIT: after thinking on it a little bit, I can't remember my parents nor friend's parents having friendships either. That makes me second-guess the technological influences on loneliness. I'm sure technology is making it worse, but I don't think we can point at it and say "this is the cause" because the loneliness epidemic seems to have started even before my generation. Bowling Alone[1] was published in 2000 and is an expansion of a 1995 essay, which makes it about 27 years old now. It was not observing a new trend, but one that had been going on for decades, when it was published. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

corrral 4y ago

> I guess it's because the friendship going badly will have a detrimental impact at work and you have to interact with these people every day whether you want to or not. The book Impro characterizes friendship as a relationship in which one can freely and safely play "status games" without any actual stakes or chance of status-shifts. If that's true, then it's definitely more challenging to have a "real" friendship with a co-worker. [EDIT] > EDIT: after thinking on it a little bit, I can't remember my parents nor friend's parents having friendships either. That makes me second-guess the technological influences on loneliness. I'm sure technology is making it worse, but I don't think we can point at it and say "this is the cause" because the loneliness epidemic seems to have started even before my generation. Bowling Alone[1] was published in 2000 and is an expansion of a 1995 essay, which makes it about 27 years old now. It was not observing a new trend, but one that had been going on for decades, when it was published. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone