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Live near your friends

• matchbok 3y ago
  Spending my 20s in city, where I could walk to a bar/friend's house/restaurant/ball game, was a wonderful experience. When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I can't help but feel depressed. And for older folks too - the isolation is real. It's a shame so much of our built environment reduces socialization.
  • VyseofArcadia 3y ago
    > When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I can't help but feel depressed. On the other hand, I grew up and spent about the first two-thirds of my life in an extremely rural area. Socializing happened only at school, and when your nearest friends are a thirty minute drive away, you learn to effectively spend time alone. I read, I wandered through the woods, I played video games. Activities I still enjoy. It was nice spending my 20s a few minutes walk from my friends, restaurants, my office, etc, but it certainly got overwhelming. People were inviting me to do stuff nearly every night. I frequently wondered if people just live like that and when they found the time to just do normal alone stuff.
    • addicted 3y ago
      > but it certainly got overwhelming. People were inviting me to do stuff nearly every night. I frequently wondered if people just live like that and when they found the time to just do normal alone stuff. The realization that helped me here is that people don’t think about you as much as you think they do. So, for example, if you ignore most events, and just join these events once every few weeks, it’s not like people will think any less of you. I decided to skip a lot more of these events and instead meet smaller groups of friends for last moment smaller hang outs instead. Maybe just grab a 30 min walk after work or grab a coffee or a couple of drinks a weekend morning.
      • esafak 3y ago
        I would not go that far. If you repeatedly turn down a friend you won't get invited any more.
        • brewdad 3y ago
          If meeting up with a friend every few weeks instead of nightly means you no longer want anything to do with that person, I doubt the friendship was that strong to begin with. Also, there's a difference between having a friend turn down a one to one meetup versus turning down a party of 30 people, 20 of whom they don't really know.
      • bombcar 3y ago
        The other thing to remember is that if YOU do an event, and invite 10 people, that is ten invites. Everyone will receive more invites than they can accept, it's normal.
    • lobsterslive 3y ago
      Having grown up in a rural area, I share your experience. I'm very comfortable being by myself and get drained when I have to socialize. I honestly feel pretty lucky to be this way. Most people get incredibly stressed when they have to be alone. Finding joy with yourself leads to a pretty high quality of life imho.
    • dukeyukey 3y ago
      I quite enjoyed my rural upbringing, but there was a massive lack of specific stuff to do. Like, I wanted to do martial arts for ages as a kid, and I had zero options. Not a single club within an hours drive. That was real annoying. So I moved to London, and damn I'm glad I did.
  • nervousvarun 3y ago
    Interesting...spent 20s in city also but now live in suburbs and don't feel isolated at all. We know all our neighbors, our kids play together etc. I didn't know any of these people before we lived there obviously. Would argue it's less about "where you are" and more about "how easy it is for you to make new friends" but that's purely anecdotal. I guess if it's about going to bars to make friendships then yes there will be less of that in suburbs (assuming U.S. here). But as you age going to bars is a "need" that seems to generally decrease for most (not all of course) people. How is a suburb inherently lonely exactly?
    • bell-cot 3y ago
      It varies enormously - but some ‘burbs are described as being all 1-2 person McMansions, where everyone has a lawn service, to make sure they can’t meet anyone else while out doing yard work.
      • bluefirebrand 3y ago
        My suburb has houses crammed together so close I can see into my neighbors kitchen if the blinds aren't close. When I do go mow my lawn I have the alcoholic on the one side come out and complain to me about his life and an old retired lawn obsessed guy on the other side come tell me how my lawn is shit and I need to take better care of it. And I'm just thankful I'm no longer in apartments where I have to deal with neighbours screaming matches at 3am, people having parties above me every single weekend, crappy landlords, and all the other shit.
  • olah_1 3y ago
    > Spending my 20s in city, where I could walk to a bar/friend's house/restaurant/ball game, was a wonderful experience. For many, living in a city like that can be just as isolating, if not more. Because being surrounded by so many people and not having any real connections is a different kind of hurt. It's sort of a cosmic joke at that point.
    • dwmbt 3y ago
      taken me a couple of years to figure this out. moved to a medium-large city post uni with a grand delusion that i'd simply make friends and find my wife due to the virtue of living in a denser environment. after a while, it didn't work out like i thought it would. surely, it had nothing to do with me and my inability to socialize properly? nay! i came to the naive conclusion that the city was at fault, or that we were mismated: "it's not big enough and there's not enough to do, or places to meet people. it's really far from the things i like to do, like the ocean or hiking spots." so, i moved to one of the most dense, socially-active cities in the world. been here a while and yeah, it sucks. i think you put it best, feels a bit like a cosmic joke. there's only a few places in the world where so many people are crammed into such a small place. yet, i have no one. i had enough and dished out some $$$ to spend 2 months in a rural town. a real quiet place, one of those towns with a single coffee shop. no whole foods or any amazon shenanigans. i miss some things, but the only times i've felt this at home have been... at home, with my parents. i think i'll move back in with them and give up on the city dream.
      • bombcar 3y ago
        The people who are "naturally social" will be social anywhere, but in a small town you can be the most antisocial person ever made, and people will get to know you, simply because you're one of the only thousand people they ever see.
      • dukeyukey 3y ago
        In my experience moving from a tiny town to London after graduating, is big cities take way more effort on your part, but reward you more for it. Like yeah, in your hometown you'll probably run into people more and gradually get to know them better. In a big city that won't happen nearly as much. But, a big city has _scale_. You wanna give D&D a go? There's probably a club within a mile or two of you. Fancy doing martial arts? You've got a choice of half a dozen with 20 minutes. You're a long-time hobbyist in an obscure type of Japanese figure painting? You might have to travel a bit, but your city has one of only three clubs for that hobby in the country so you win! Basically, put in the effort. It could easily take a year or more. But get out there, be social, take initiative, and you'll find your people.
  • hellotheretoday 3y ago
    In cities things are more balanced like you’ve mentioned but our suburb design is so crushingly isolating. The suburbs that get built now are almost designed to be lonely: here’s 100+ houses all right next to each other so there are no real communal spaces for socialization. We’ve zoned it in a way so that if someone wants to open a pub or salon or whatever they will be refused from the start. If you want that experience you will almost inherently have to drive because the suburbs are often so large that walking is impractical. You either make friends with your neighbors, which most adults only do casually at best, or you just be lonely. This gets into the concept of “third space” or community space, which we often critically lack outside of cities. Living near friends is great if you have them but if you don’t you need some place to make them. Culturally we are in a weird spot for a lot of people. There are church related communities but that’s not helpful if you’re not religious. There’s the bar and club scene but that can be more focus on sex, can be expensive, and is also not for everyone (especially if you don’t drink alcohol). There’s niche interest groups like d&d and board game clubs, figure drawing classes, etc, but these can be hard to socialize in because of things like the group is already tight knit and not accepting of new faces, the class is focused and there’s not much time for socializing thus requiring another social space (eg let’s get drinks after class) which you may not have time for, etc It’s tough, I guess. The articl is a good suggestion but an oversimplification that glosses over these big systemic issues (especially the lack of community spaces that don’t constantly drain us of cash or expect us to be intoxicated). If you can live near your friends you should. But at the same time that’s way tougher than it sounds most of the time. I’d love to live near my friends but we’re all pushing 40 now. Everyone’s everywhere. We were once all in the same city but work took us all over the place and now we live all over the country. It’s hard enough to just stay in touch.
  • Aurornis 3y ago
    > When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I can't help but feel depressed. It's easy to hole up in your suburban home and never socialize, but I know a lot of people who live in dense cities and never leave their house unless absolutely necessary either. Living in a suburb doesn't mean you're isolated from friends, as long as you live within a reasonable drive. It does mean everyone has to plan ahead and allocate a little more travel time, but that's not really a big deal when people are in their 30s with more obligations, work, and possibly kids. Living in the suburbs actually creates a different set of opportunities because now you have more space and likely a yard, too. Cramped parties in someone's apartment are fun when you're in your 20s, but in my 30s it's much nicer to head to someone's backyard BBQ or house that comfortably holds 40 people inside. There's also room for kids to play, room for outdoor games, and other things that weren't happening at parties in my 20s. If you're trying to project your exact current lifestyle on to suburban living then it's going to be disappointing. If you instead look at it from the perspective of being different rather than worse, you start to the possible upsides.
    • bombcar 3y ago
      I think there's a real difference depending if you "fit" where you are. In a city, no matter how weird your interests, you'll likely find a group nearby that is also interested in that. In a small town or suburb if you're the "odd man out" it can be much harder. But when I "lived in the city" as a younger man, I was often traveling out to the suburbs where friends lived as they had the space and the things to do.
  • notatoad 3y ago
    >It's a shame so much of our built environment reduces socialization. i don't think you can really blame the built environment, when that's the whole reason people built the environment that way. not being forced to interact with anybody other than the people you specifically choose to interact with is the whole reason people move to the suburbs, or avoid public transit. the isolation is the point.
    • brewdad 3y ago
      And yet so many of us turn to social media to avoid feeling isolated. Urban, suburban, and rural life all have their pros and cons. Having lived in all three at various points in my life, I'm uncertain which lifestyle to choose as I begin to plan for retirement.
  • Tiktaalik 3y ago
    > When I talk to young people who live in some generic suburb I can't help but feel depressed. I see this with the youngest workers at my company. When I was their age I moved to the city for $750/month and got a cheap apartment and lived in the thick of things, a 15 minute bike ride to the office and walking distance to bars and restaurants. For them to do the same as I did, rent would be $2500/m and so they've been forced into continuing to live in their parents basement way out in the burbs. Remote work has been a godsend for not burning half their day, but they're still resultingly isolated from the vibrant urban social life that I enjoyed. I'm sure there may be a few that prefer the burbs, but it's clear that there's no real actual choices being made here and it is economic conditions that are forcing their living conditions on them. It's really sad that we've allowed this to happen through our inaction and reluctance to allow new homes to be built.
    • zhivota 3y ago
      Absolutely. The decision gets worse and worse as you progress, as well. We spec'ed out living in a city, just about any city, and economically it is such a hit for a family, on top of safety concerns (not just from crime but also just traffic in cities is atrocious in the US), school quality concerns, etc. I'd love to live somewhere walkable but I just don't have the budget to do it without putting our family on a knife edge monetarily.
    • matchbok 3y ago
      Yeah, agreed. It's a shame - we have not spent the resources to build more of the stuff people want, so it keeps getting more expensive.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • kansface 3y ago
    I used to feel this way too, but I'm older and have literally moved on - my perspective has changed. SF has walkable neighborhoods without community, and the one doesn't flow from the other.
• Try1275 3y ago
  I am in the process of a breakup (scare) right now and realizing how much of my social support system is gone when it's attached to your spouse and obviously loyal. Not totally on topic but I have learned my lesson to actively pursue friendships from now on and cultivate them - and the place where you live obviously affects this in a great way.
  • nevi-me 3y ago
    I (M) once got into a relationship with someone (F) who was oddly unfond of my friendships, esp female friends. She in a way isolated me from close friends. When we broke up, it was because she accepted a marriage proposal from her 'friend' whom I kept asking her about. Anyways, it took me time to mend some friendships, some never recovered. > Not totally on topic but I have learned my lesson to actively pursue friendships from now on and cultivate them Yes, spousal relationships can sometimes drain us of other friends because of the exclusivity it comes with. We sometimes have to be very deliberate in keeping that balance. That includes taking on new interests, getting to know our kids' parents, etc. I encourage my wife to meet new people, as she relocated across our country, doesn't have a lot of friends around, and stopped working shortly before kids.
    • geraldwhen 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • spondylosaurus 3y ago
        At first I was gonna say "I don't think this is normal," but I'm not straight and so may not be the best judge of what is or isn't normal in heterosexual marriages. In any case, I don't think this is healthy.
        • profunctor 3y ago
          As a straight person I also think it’s strange. I’ve had mixed gender friends my whole life and I’ve never had an issue.
• deleted 3y ago
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• SwetDrems 3y ago
  Reducing car dependency will increase social activity. Cars are isolating socially and geographically. Everyone should try live car-free and see how much more connected to your community you'll become.
  • TurkishPoptart 3y ago
    In my city (west coast), public transport is simply not safe anymore (especially as a woman) due to lack of law enforcement or deterrents from crime. In my car - I feel safe. I am taking Krav Maga classes, but man, it didn't used to be this bad.
    • asdff 3y ago
      I think the perception of risk is what is off more than anything. LA metro for example saw about 180 violent crimes on it last year. For a system that sees almost a third of a billion boarding a year, the risk of violent crime happening is so low it doesn't make sense to consider. I expect the crime rate is similarly low on other transit systems. https://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/CrimeStatReports/2023-May-CrimeStats.pdf https://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/CrimeStatReports/202...
      • presentation 3y ago
        That said the risk of crazy people ruining your day for no reason is not low. Ultimately the problem isn’t transit (rather it’s part of the solution), the problem is that the US social fabric is messed up.
        • asdff 3y ago
          Its the same risk you face walking on the sidewalk or going in a grocery store though where you are also liable to find these crazy people.
    • JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
      I strongly recommend finding a gym for Brazilian jiu jitsu, judo, muay thai, boxing, etc. They're constantly being testing and evolved through MMA fights, and they'll get you some full-contact, full-intensity sparring experience.
• standardUser 3y ago
  Nice idea if you can afford it, and few can afford to live precisely where they want. I've made a habit of travelling to visit friends, which is easy for me because I'm childless and most of my old friends have kids. At least half of my trips are to see someone I know. That plus that occasional phone call, video chat and a WhatsApp group keeps me closer to these old friends now than in the past. But the idea of uprooting my life, finding a new job, finding a new home and then moving near one friend seems excessive and unrealistic. It's not like all my friends live near each other and are waiting for me to join. But, maybe when I'm old.
  • SquirrelOnFire 3y ago
    While it felt awkward at first, I've been intentionally trying to befriend my neighbors. I've managed it with one couple and am working on a second. Tech helps reduce the barriers between distant friends, but we're wired to value eye contact and physical contact.
  • danenania 3y ago
    Yeah, I also think that unless you are already very close friends or there’s already a group established somewhere, moving somewhere with the purpose of being nearby just one friend could backfire and strain the friendship. Friendships often fall into a natural cadence where you see each other every month or so, every week or so, etc. If you aren’t already in a near-daily rhythm with someone and move close to them with the expectation of establishing that, the other person could feel that you are coming on too strong, so to speak, and pull back, in which case you could feel frustrated that you chose where to live based on a friend that’s not really on the same page as you in terms of what you’re looking for in a close proximity friendship. If you do this, it’s probably better to have low expectations and allow things to develop slowly over time (if at all). In the meantime you can try to recruit others to move nearby and establish a group so that all your eggs aren’t in one basket.
  • titanomachy 3y ago
    Sounds like you might not have all that much life to uproot.
• chaostheory 3y ago
  I strongly feel that VR will help mitigate this problem. Location wouldn’t matter as much, and neither would busy schedules when “meeting up” would be as instant as a phone call. In fact, I was just playing VR ping pong with one of my best childhood friends who moved to Canada the other day. While not perfect, the sense of presence is way better than FaceTime or an audio call. Prior to Apple’s vision reveal, VR’s largest problem is that most adults refused to even try it for both strange and valid reasons (“it’s stupid” “it’s too expensive” “it’s too complicated”). A lot of those reasons have been invalidated with meta’s quest. Standalone VR is the NES of our generation where you have a device that children just intrinsically understand while most adults either scoff at or ignore it. (This is apparent if you ever play an online VR game. Most of the users are children.) Of course, this was reality prior to Apple entering, so we’ll see what happens in 2025-2027 once Vision has more developers building for it and more units available to everyday people.
  • ghaff 3y ago
    And yet people don’t generally want phone calls from casual friends these days. A few people call me but very few out of the blue.
    • fragmede 3y ago
      Be the change you want to see in the world. I used to never talk on the phone, but with a friend's help, I'll now call other friends and "hang out" on the phone with them after work, while I'm doing my dishes or on the treadmill. Sometimes I call them and they're not open to chatting, other times we talk for hours and just catch up. But that didn't just happen. I had to push through some really uncomfortable stuff, and my friends did as well. VR is going to be another step, but Facetime is pretty great.
    • chaostheory 3y ago
      I’m not sure what the problem is. VR isn’t limited to “casual friends”. I don’t call my acquaintances either. I only use it with family or good friends. You’re missing the entire point
• dividefuel 3y ago
  This sounds great, but it's difficult to pull off when career and family can pull everyone to different regions. My core group of close friends formed in university. The school pulled us all in from wherever we grew up, and unsurprisingly after graduating there wasn't anything to pull us all into the same area for work. Many left to return to their home city to be close to family, others went further in their schooling, and some even moved abroad. Even when you live near your friends, meeting up can be difficult. I feel like many of my friend gatherings need to be scheduled weeks in advance because everyone has various other commitments (family events, obligations for their children, hobbies, gathering with other friend groups, etc).
  • aprdm 3y ago
    Yes that's also true. My core group of friends is no longer in my OG city as well for similar reason as me, as aren't most of my cousins. It's more uncles+grand+parents
  • LeanderK 3y ago
    The thing about living close to friends is that it's not as much work to meet. Having to travel for half an hour is already a lot since it might not be worth it to meet spontaneously, it is easier to develop friendships to someone close by.
    • bombcar 3y ago
      This is the real key. You might choose to live near a particular friend-for-life, but you need to work on becoming at a bare minimum friendly with the people you're near.
      • tspike 3y ago
        Sigh. I found my dream house: incredible view, 20 minutes to skiing (a lifelong passion), warm enough and with enough space to garden sustainably, quiet, close enough to the city, great price and interest rate. Unfortunately nearly EVERYONE on the street is 20-30 years older than us, with very different lifestyles and interests. We’re “friendly” with them, but there’s no real community there. Housing costs have skyrocketed and inventory is nonexistent, so even the people who have expressed interest in moving closer are prevented from doing so. Not really sure what to do. This is the only thing missing from the life we want.
• ct0 3y ago
  Be friends with your neighbors...
  • esafak 3y ago
    "Love the One You're With", Crosby, Stills & Nash.
• carbine 3y ago
  Moving back to my hometown to be near my closest friends is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
• slenocchio 3y ago
  My team and I are building an app to help guys make friends. Right now it's basically a bumble BFF clone but we're working on adding a new feature that will put people into small, local groups based on your interests (climbing, chess, board games, you get the idea). FYI the network isn't super big right now, a few hundred scattered across the world. Currently trying to focus on building a network in NYC. Anyway if anyone's interested you can go to our landing page here: https://www.olleyapp.io/ https://www.olleyapp.io/ (it's in progress) or go directly to iOS/Android app store and search for "Olley". Any feedback is much appreciated. Muchas gracias amigos.
  • pchristensen 3y ago
    Other than targeting ("for men"), how does this differ from Meetup?
    • reidjs 3y ago
      If meetup is the bar they will probably do fine. I’m not sure if you used it recently but meetup has become an absolute spam fest/useless for actually organizing events (in my experience). At one point it was great but I think it’s lost it’s community.
    • slenocchio 3y ago
      Right now like I mentioned our app is basically a clone of bumble BFF, i.e. you create a profile and you swipe to match with people you want to connect to. But we think swiping might be a bit of a weird way to make friends so the next major feature we're releasing will help guys find small groups (like 4-6 people) who share a similar interest and live close to each other. Meetup seems like it _could_ do something like this but in my own experience it seems generally catered to groups that are larger and more formal. Also as someone else mentioned it seems like the quality of the network has degraded a lot.
    • fragmede 3y ago
      The friction with Meetup, is that I'm not "a whiskey guy", or a hiker, or a rock climber. I have hobbies, but I'm not defined by them, so meeting up just on that hobby doesn't work. The app needs to detoxify a man going on a date with another man for non-romantic, non-sexual purposes.
• Kiro 3y ago
  I really don't mind living far from my friends and I'm content with only meeting them a couple of times a year. More than that and it becomes exhausting. Surely I can't be the only one who gets completely drained from hanging out with people. With that said, I speak with them every day online.
• tootie 3y ago
  I wonder if this isn't "gaming the system" a bit. I think a lot of the findings are seeing the outputs of being happy people, not inputs. Living near people I know doesn't make me closer to them any more than maintaining friendships make me happier. Being happy makes closer friendships and closer friendships make living close more valuable. A lot of my friendships faded not because I wasn't working on them but because I wasn't enjoying them anymore.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• pabloarteel 3y ago
  "Befriend who live near you" is another way to solve for this. As an adult it's hard, you need a hobby/interest that promotes socializing or has a community around it. One of my biggest hobbies is being a DJ, I get booked regularly locally and nationally, and that's allowed me to meet and make a lot of new lasting friendships in the past years. I've seen people make strong bonds over crossfit, martial arts, religious groups, etc.
  • hinkley 3y ago
    If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.
• seydor 3y ago
  That is why we need the metaverse, so we can live together in our custom-made one-of-a-kind world. Life is all about safety and feeling good until death releases us.
• paxys 3y ago
  The magic solution here isn't to get all your friends to live on the same block (heck housing and schools are hard enough as it is), but rather to connect with your local community wherever you happen to live. That's how people have survived since the dawn of civilization. You were born somewhere, and chances were that that's where you'd be for the rest of your life. You had no choice but to play nice with people around you, because your happiness depended on it. The very idea of having friends in different places across the country and the globe is a fairly modern invention. Regardless of how many people you know everywhere else, if you aren't friends with your neighbors then you will always be lonely.
  • tiltowait 3y ago
    It's hard to overstate how true this is. Even something as simple as a 5-minute friendly chat a week can make a big difference.
  • sneak 3y ago
    I don't think I'm alone in that I find it impossible to find common ground with most normal people. I am a proper weirdo and my neighbors near my current home are basically randomly selected suburbanites. I would struggle to talk to them for 3 minutes. My friends are my friends because they have the right values, priorities, and culture. My culture has almost no overlap with that of the "community" in which I live. They don't know my music, my food, my memes, my values, my lifestyle. We're not even awake at the same time. All we share is geographic proximity. Pretty much every time I talk to random people in the US for more than a few minutes, they drop inflammatory remarks to see how I respond, to identify which side of the culture war I am on, so they can (based on my identifying responses) either antagonize or befriend me. I ignore these comments, as I am disinterested in the American culture war and its political sports-teamism. The article is right, and I think yours is a casual dismissal.
    • munk-a 3y ago
      > My neighbors near my current home are basically randomly selected suburbanites. I think that's an understated problem right there - suburbs are awful for fostering good relationships. Some suburbs have gone out of their way to have events like block parties - but most have no real common every-day interaction and the infrequency of common tasks like shifting grocery shopping to a once a week task and minimizing interactions outside of PTA meetings is really hurting our ability to form strong social bonds. I live in a city so my neighbors are a metric ton of randomly selected folks who I pass often walking on the street and doing life tasks - additionally the population density is high enough that I have multiple different board game events hosted by stores and a plethora of choices for D&D groups to choose from. I think that density makes a very big difference.
• CapstanRoller 3y ago
  Neither the words "housing" nor "cost" appear anywhere in this writeup. It reads like "just buy a house and have a community, bro!" It's like the author never considered that the reason people might be isolated is because any community ties get ripped up and scattered to the winds with every rent hike or eviction or job change. After a few cycles of this, why bother making connections? You'll probably never see your neighbors again 12 months from now.
• at_a_remove 3y ago
  This is a classic case of "easier said than done." I live in a transition neighborhood and I take care of my elderly mother, who is rather entrenched. Neighbors come and neighbors go. I made friends with the couple next door and then they left. A long-time friend used to live a scant six miles away and I would walk there on some nights just to visit. Now, he is at a fifty-minute drive. Another friend is about a hundred miles off. We are all at the mercy of our situations.
• KerryJones 3y ago
  It intrigues but doesn't surprise me that most comments are "here's why this is hard/not possible/unfeasible". I think that part is obvious, the reason this article needs to be said is because it makes a significant difference. Prioritize it higher. That won't make the difficulties going away, but as you might prioritize being close to your work, a school for your children, other activities, being close to friends or community is important. I've done both, living alone for long periods of time and living with community houses (which weren't really friends) and living near to close friends. Living nearby to close friends has been vastly more rewarding than any other option.
• legerdemain 3y ago
  Has anyone tried the apps that the author mentions (Saturday, Geneva, BFF)? Are there other ones you had a good experience with?
• danmostudco 3y ago
  Tim Urban has a similar post on this called “The Tail End”, noting that by the time we get to adulthood we often have used up the vast majority of time spent with loved ones - particularly with parents and siblings. https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html My brother and I read this and were touched by it; we lived on opposite coasts and since we were kids always loved hanging out with one another. The idea that in our current arrangement we had already depleted MOST of our time together was a bitter pill to swallow. For years we batted around the idea of living closer to each other. One day we just pulled the trigger and did it. It was enormously inconvenient, took a ton of logistical planning for our respective families, jobs and so on; but we ended up with houses within walking distance of one another and went from seeing each other and our immediate families maybe 10 days a year to 300+. We have accepted going forward it may limit our career options relative to when we lived in top tier American cities but the happiness we gained in the process is more than worth it. I’m still not 100% sure the experiment will work out, but making the adjustment to live closer to family has substantially increased my mental health and emotional well-being. If you have close friendships and have ever talked about this seriously, I’d encourage you to consider what you might be gaining or losing in your current setup. It’s not for everyone but worth exploring!
  • nine_zeros 3y ago
    I loved your post because I have been living away from my younger brother (and parents) for over 10 years. We meet about once every 2 years. Every time we meet each other, I feel - great. Just amazing. We just sit and shoot the shit like nothing changed. We care for each other's lives. Just sitting with beers or staying over at each other's place makes me feel belonged. Our spouses love hanging out with us. We all go on trips together. We explore restaurants, we bash our bosses, we make food/snacks for each other. When we are bored, we just go over to the other's home and watch TV with them. And all this is so much more fulfilling than grinding my life away at work. I keep wondering if this rat race life in a big city is worth more than the pleasure I get by just living close to my brother. Who knows if we will be able to do all this tomorrow.
    • j7ake 3y ago
• bluecheese452 3y ago
  Only 12% have zero friends? I would have suspected more. As an adult it seems you either have friends from childhood/college or you don’t have friends.
  • mikhailfranco 3y ago
    You also make friends with other parents when you have children, especially the first intense childbirth experience, but then also school, sports, scouts, camping, etc. The effect declines as your children get older. After that, I agree, new friendships are rare, but perhaps also unnecessary, depending on your gender and personality (middle-aged autistic males probably have loner superpowers).
  • tasuki 3y ago
    I made plenty friends as an adult well into thirties through a hobby I used to pursue very seriously and now mostly for the social aspect. Now I have a kid and I also meet other people with kids.
• emptybits 3y ago
  Uprooting and moving with work and family is hard and expensive. So, as the Stephen Stills lyric goes... If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. My best friends may live hours away but it's all upside to still befriending those who are physically nearby every day when you walk out the door. You never know where it'll lead.
• willio58 3y ago
  While it's difficult, I fully agree with this idea. Most of my friends are slowly moving to one neighborhood and it's been fantastic. This neighborhood also happens to be one of the few walkable neighborhoods in my city, which helps massively with feeling more connected too. I think while living close to friends is important, we really just need to regularly see friends. It's easier to do so if you live close (or if your city has good public transport like metros or trams).
• andersa 3y ago
  You guys have friends in real life? I don't even know the names of my neighbors.
  • eYrKEC2 3y ago
    Embrace rejection. The worst they could do is reject you and never talk to you, but you're mostly there with them already.
    • hinkley 3y ago
      Nathan Shelley: "Well, that she laughs in my face and says no. And that I scurry away, humiliated, never to be allowed in my favorite restaurant ever again. So that the next time we have some kind of family celebration, I'll just have to... you know... sit on the pavement outside eating take away fish and chips watching you through the window like some Dickensian street urchin."
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • balfirevic 3y ago
    > I don't even know the names of my neighbors. I don't either, but I have plenty of friends in real life (well, all of my friends are in real life). Those two things are not related.
• zw123456 3y ago
  I can definitely attest to this, when I was in my late 20's, my best friend that I met in grad school bought a house, I was still living in an apartment when she called and said the place next door went up for sale, I put in a full price offer immediately. It was the best investment I ever made. For the next 5 or 6 years we had so much fun, her boyfriend knew me and my girlfriend from school and we all just hung out and did everything together. We had the key to each other's front door and would watch out for each other. We had dual house parties and all kinds of things. It was one of the best times of my life. But they got married we got married, jobs, moving to new houses, life happened. You focus shifts over time to work and family. It gets harder. I wish I could live next door to my BFF again. Maybe someday.
  • nthngtshr 3y ago
    Similar story here. Me and my partner befriended another couple through grad school in our early 20s and the next few years were just the best — we would go to bars, movies, horse races, parties, shows — everything together. And we had so much fun. When I look back on that time it almost feels like I'm remembering a movie. Then covid happened, they had to move. Most of my other friends moved away as well. I switched jobs and the new job is 100% remote. My life is hell right now in terms of human interactions and I don't really know how to fix it. I feel like in order to establish new relationships I'd have to spend a lot of time with other people doing something together. But between my job and my family I feel like I just don't have time for that.
    • phendrenad2 3y ago
      This is why I love living in the city. I hang out with my current roommate, my old roommate from college, and my sister's current and previous roommates, mostly at or around a local coffee shop.
  • chronofar 3y ago
    > But they got married we got married, jobs, moving to new houses, life happened. You focus shifts over time to work and family. It gets harder. Life didn't "happen" here, you designed divergent paths. This is I know largely a semantic nitpick, but I think this kind of phrasing belies the most common sort of problem that keeps people from doing things like what the OP suggests. In a way it often feels like "life happens" to us, and certainly in some cases that's largely true (unforeseen health complications or accidents for instance), but marriages and jobs and houses and friends really shouldn't feel like that. And if they do, it probably bears a bit of introspection and deliberation to ensure you're not just hurtling through milestones that seem age appropriate and are instead deliberately moving towards the best life you can imagine designing. Note none of this is commentary on your specifics, of course I know next to nothing about you. I'm only attempting to focus on the phrasing there, and how I think it is indicative of a very common trap we can fall into wherein we can tend to relinquish agency and thus without thinking slide away from the things we cherish (such as friends close enough to be a kind of soul mate).
• atemerev 3y ago
  Not happening, I moved out from Russia many years ago and have absolutely no desire to go back, as you might imagine. Making close friends in completely different culture speaking different language is hard, but I'm surviving somehow.
• camillomiller 3y ago
  >> Why not live closer to your pals? Oh well easy. In a city like Berlin, because even if you are a high income professional the housing market is so Fubar that you cannot decide where you end up living in the city. You take what comes your way and be done with it. This is true for most other big cities in the world. I guess the answer is don’t live in cities?
• pantulis 3y ago
  It's easier to try and become friend with the people who live near you.
• nuancebydefault 3y ago
  I wonder if it be more effective to (re) interpret the statement as follows: make friends with those living near you.
• klunger 3y ago
  We bought a two-unit house together with another couple, with the same idea in mind. They have a kid the same age as our youngest (18 months) and also do not have any family nearby to help with childcare. It took over a year of planning and searching to find a place that we could all agree on. It was also hard to find a bank to give a loan to 4 adults because it is so unconventional. In my mind, I call it "our modern village". So far, we have only had a couple of group dinners, because we are all so busy with renovations, jobs and kids etc. Modern adult life. So, those are dinners that would not have happened otherwise. Its also great to share chores like organizing the storage shed, mowing the lawn etc. I am really pleased with our decision so far, although I am really looking forward to these renovations being done.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • baliex 3y ago
    Sounds inspired by Huxley’s Island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)
• nmca 3y ago
  Are there tools, processes or organisations that could make this easier? For example, I could imagine: * a blog of success stories * a guide on how to do things like coordinate breaking leases, getting leases aligned, etc * maybe advice on housing searches, etc ???
  • thenobsta 3y ago
    This blog is about co-living with others. It seems a little more connected than you're looking for, but might have some insight nonetheless -- https://supernuclear.substack.com/ https://supernuclear.substack.com/
• ternaus 3y ago
  And when you move to another country, leaving all your friends and family behind, it becomes even more challenging. Rays of support to all immigrants who came to SF Bay Area and are trying to make it a new home.
• karaterobot 3y ago
  It's slightly funny to me that this is presented like something that needed to be discovered, and something for which people have to make apps. This is just a basic thing about being alive, people have known this life hack for about a million years. Maybe some people forgot, or were told something else and believed it, I don't know. Maybe not funny, maybe sad.
  • titanomachy 3y ago
    Very few adults I know can say that they have some of their closest friends within a five-minute walk. I think it’s quite rare in North America, at least outside of a few dense urban neighborhoods.
    • karaterobot 3y ago
      What I'm saying is that people have been living close to their friends and relatives since there have been human societies, as a rule. That has been the default for humans. It's the last hundred and fifty years or so in which that changed, and maybe especially the last few decades. It'd be like if people started sleeping during the daylight, and then somebody said "hey, I just realized there are benefits to sleeping at night, so I built an app to help you do that."
  • digging 3y ago
    This comes off like a really arrogant brag that you, the freethinker, have lived in such perfect community and locality that you're surprised to learn there are others who do not. That you can pretend not to know western society was designed to isolate us from birth to death, because you've so effortlessly flaunted it.
    • karaterobot 3y ago
      That's not how I intended it.
      • digging 3y ago
• bluefirebrand 3y ago
  I moved away from my friends and we lost touch over time. I picked the right time to move though, because all of them started having kids around the same time and frankly as the only single dude of the group I was expecting those relationships to fade eventually anyways. Being in my 30s with no kids is a bit isolating because it feels like everyone else my age is either a parent, or has a friend group already. Hard to convince a person to spend time with you over other friends or their families, which is understandable but lonely. I do have my wife, we're not planning to have children. But I don't think 100% of your social life should come from your partner, and she agrees. But she grew up here and has friends, I don't have many here. I need to get out more I suppose.
• RIMR 3y ago
  Okay, yeah, living near friends is good, but the philosophy behind this project seems broken. First of all, why would I use an app or a website for this specifically? I already know where my friends live, and they aren't all friends with each other, so I would just use existing resources to look for rentals near friends I would want to live near. And chances are that I'm only going to get to live near 1 friend, because my friends live all over the city, so it's just going to be a balancing act between which neighborhoods that my friends live in that I would also want to live in. Nearby amenities and transit are going to also play a big role, so even a cherished friend my not be a good match if they don't live somewhere that meets my needs. Ultimately, if our trend towards further loneliness is to be reversed, we shouldn't be focusing on moving near the friends we have, but making friends in our own neighborhoods, and being a part of our communities. There is a growing antisocial attitude that I think this project helps perpetuate in that people see it easier to remove themselves from their communities to chase existing social connections rather than to build new social connections.
• athenot 3y ago
  Since moving is not an easy proposition, taking the problem from the opposite end can be useful too: Make friends with people who live near you. Even though neighbors (or people in the neighborhood) may not be the "perfect friends" meeting all the common interests, I'm often surprised by really nice people in the area, people who I overlooked because I judged them too fast; cultivating those connections eventually creates new friends. If you had a say in where you're living (as opposed to be forced to live there out of hardship), there are probaly at least some commonality with people nearby. Cultivate the common aspects and look past the differences as much as feasible. Human connections are rich and highly multi-dimensional.
  • aprdm 3y ago
    Yes totally. Join Tennis clubs, Soccer clubs, (other clubs).. have a coffee regularly w/ the ones you get along with.. it's incredible easy to make connections if you put the effort IMO.
• NoNameHaveI 3y ago
  THIS Earlier this year, my dad passed away. We got to spend the last few days together. It taught me what is MOST important in life: time spent with loved ones. We went back home to visit for a week in August. Had more fun in Chicago one week than we did in over a year in a “tourist mecca” (Orlando).
• metadaemon 3y ago
  I swear there was a study in this same vein a few years back that looked into the effects of having siblings in close proximity and the effect it had on your mental health, even if you never visited. I can't find it for the life of me now though.
• om154 3y ago
  How about the inverse - making friends where you live?
• toastercat 3y ago
  I did this, but instead of friends I chose family. Moved away for years for work, career, and a girlfriend. Then realized my depression worsened, and this was exacerbated when my girlfriend and I broke up. The catalyst for me moving back was my uncle dying and realizing I had only seen him three times since I had moved away. I moved back, and now see my parents and siblings on a weekly basis. Housing is more expensive, but I find it infinitely worth it to be able to spend time barbequeing with my dad or taking my mom to the beach every week. Needless to say, my depression became far more manageable.
• xrd 3y ago
  The world can be divided into people who care about friends, and those that don't. Be careful who you marry.
• tneely 3y ago
  I feel like this should be inverted: make friends with those who live near you. I understand we can’t be friends with everyone, but chances are there’s 3-4 people in your immediate area that you’d get along great with. I think it’s a failing of community that we aren’t closer to our neighbors. Sure living close to high school / university friends would be great, but as many posters have noted, circumstance isn’t always that convenient. We need more events that promote socialization amongst neighbors in the hopes that some of those interactions will result in meaningful friendships.
• Arubis 3y ago
  You can flip the ordering: live somewhere sufficiently dense and walkable, then make friends there. I’m not sure if this works for especially transient cities (SF, DC), but it’s my story in Denver, and I gather works well in a lot of mid-tier cities (or anywhere you could conceivably buy housing where it’s dense instead of rent forever, always moving). (Caveat: this is in retrospect and certainly wasn’t my original intention. I thought I’d be here two or three years tops and then leave the states again.)
• arthurofbabylon 3y ago
  Alternatively: make friends with everyone nearby. I've been traveling full- or part-time for the last 10+ years, and I've adopted the strategy of rapidly developing friendships. The person who sells bread, the person I see on walk after walk, the person I'm meeting for the first or 4th time... I'm just open-minded and open-hearted, genuinely curious, generous with my time and attention... and it's awesome. With just a few interactions, I feel like I am with my people, that I am valued, that I am around people I appreciate. Occasionally I'm met with suspicion (some people don't believe that I am seriously that curious/excited about XYZ that we are doing together), but overall most people seem to appreciate the ready camaraderie. Occasionally I get burned by forming too deep of a connection too quickly with someone who turns out to be untrustworthy, but time has proven that that is a worthwhile risk to take on. I think of community as a pyramid – there are infrequent acquaintances at the base, and best friends and family at the top. All of it matters. My strategy is basically to respect the entire pyramid, showing up as fully as possible for everyone. Forming friendships rapidly is not easy – it has taken me many years to learn to soften myself and open the mind, but I do keep getting better at it, for everyone's benefit. It greatly helps to share projects (in my case, mostly rock climbing). Note that walking (to the grocery store, when bored, when the sun is setting) is a phenomenal way to feel connected with nearby people.
  • monktastic1 3y ago
    Sounds amazing! Would love to hear about your stories and learnings should you ever choose to write about them :)
  • calderwoodra 3y ago
    Totally agree with this - almost everyone in my apartment with a dog goes to the same nearby dog park. It's really pleasant to see and talk to them everyday.
  • klyrs 3y ago
    Agreed. If I read the article too literally, I'd rewrite the headline: "never crawl out of the pit you were born in." The set "your friends" must change over your life. And it's great if you can hold on to people, and even better if you can stay a 5 minute walk away, but that's an ideal and not a realistic goal.
• rconti 3y ago
  I used to live near friends, and commuted by car 20-30 minutes each way to work. I actually enjoy driving and enjoyed the commute, generally, but recognized it was a chunk of time out of my day. (Granted, once I lived closer to work, I bike commuted instead, so while it was a shorter-distance commute that was healthier for myself and the environment and my wallet, it didn't really save me a ton of time) So, I reasoned, why not live closer to work and only "commute" on those occasional times when I gather for dinner or other social events with friends? After all, it's far less frequent, and happens off-hours sometimes. Of course, what actually happened was socializing and maintaining those connections felt like a LOT more of a chore. (You want me to drive WHERE? At rush hour? Just for dinner?) Turns out, the obvious incentives tied to one's livelihood are stronger than the obvious incentives of friendship/socializing.
• presentation 3y ago
  I moved to Tokyo several years back and got married here, and have come to appreciate the effect of being in a city that isn’t a revolving door in a country where most people intend to live in the same city. My spouse’s friends all live here, so does her family across multiple generations, and the city is well connected so by default she has plenty of friends around all the time. Coming from a US flyover state where practically nobody who I know except for my parents still live there, it makes me not want to raise my future children in a place like that nor in a US big city where most people only intend to stay for several years max.
• AlbertCory 3y ago
  The last thing I'd want to do is to throw cold water on this. On the other hand, there are far more families than you think where two or more members are permanently estranged. "Overcoming your upbringing" is the pertinent struggle for lots more. And "spending more time with family" is a good way to destroy their mental health. Not me, of course /s But hey, if that works for you, then great.
• deleted 3y ago
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• tapvt 3y ago
  There’s something to be said for having a “local.” Lots has been written about having a “third-place,” though I can’t remember who coined the phrase. There’s a bar and grill near where I live, I pop in frequently and almost always see someone I know. There’s a coffee shop next door that is about the same. Something about a handshake, a hug, a “How was your day,” etc. goes quite a long way. That’s especially true for one living alone, as I do.
• m463 3y ago
  There's a fun book by steven pressfield called "put your ass where your heart wants to be" In it he talks about stuff like this, with respect to your work. In it he says things like move to where you need to be. This is like that with respect to your personal life, and I think it's powerfully true.
• totallywrong 3y ago
  In my early 20s I experienced communal living. We must have been around 120 young people, from everywhere, immigrants in a foreign country. The deal was that we took over 2 small empty buildings and made them ours. You'd spend the entire day with other people, everyone did what they could. Some cooked, some did repairs, some played music, whatever. I was a student at the time, was there for about a year before going back to real life. I've never been happier, that's truly what humans are designed for.
• zwnow 3y ago
  How would you achieve this with most apartments being unaffordable? We are currently living in a time where you simply have to survive. Sacrifices to live close to friends aren't easy to make.
• ws3829 3y ago
  [flagged]
• sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago
  >Deep and meaningful friendships are integral to a happy and healthy life. Not something I can agree with.