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> Matt said a lot of wonderful things about me and our friendship during our conversation, but one thing meant the most. “In my mid 20s, I was really selfish,”

> Matt said a lot of wonderful things about me and our friendship during our conversation, but one thing meant the most. “In my mid 20s, I was really selfish,” he said. “But I’m currently at a point where I don’t really care about things for myself. Now that I’m almost 30, my loved ones and my friendship are all that really matter.” Not to discount anyone else's story, but Matt's is probably the most prevalent. It's a shame we spend 18ish years making friends, then in our 20's more or less have to make a mad dash to establish a place to live, a career, a partner, etc. Everyone loses touch "temporarily" in what goes by like a blur, and by your 30's you still remember everyone, but it feels weird to reach out because of how long it's been.

munificent 1y ago
In the US, I think we should consider that many people go through four socially traumatic transitions: 1. Moving away to college. 2. Moving for work. 3. Getting married. 4. Having kids. Each of those tends to sever many friendships in ways that are more painful than a lot of us realize or acknowledge. We might even consider what it says about us as a people that we seem to value all of the points on that list more than we value being a member of a community with deep social ties. When I graduated high school in Louisiana, I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of my small suburb. Then I dropped out of college and couldn't wait to get out of Louisiana entirely. I looked down on everyone who stayed in my home town and got a job at Shell or Entergy. I still believe I did the right thing by leaving—the community there goes against many of my most deeply held values. But as I've gotten older, I realize more what the people valued and kept by staying there: a consistent set of close ties and community maintained throughout their entire lives.
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  Are you from New Orleans or Lafayette? Edit: holy shit I had no idea you’re from Louisiana.
  - munificent 1y ago
    Lived 10 years in St. Charles Parish, then another 4 in Baton Route.
    - selimthegrim 1y ago
      If you ever come to New Orleans, I’m sure the Tuesday night tech meetups would love to have you
- reactordev 1y ago
  5) Divorce 6) Rebuilding post divorce. 7) Lack of opportunities due to age.
  - munificent 1y ago
    I haven't reached those ones yet. :) The upcoming one I really worry about is retirement. The statistics are grim if you look at retired men in terms of number of close friends, mental health, and suicide. The whole "live in a high cost of living area with good jobs and then move somewhere cheaper when you retire" pipeline makes a lot of sense economically. But I worry that is disastrous when it comes to community and connection right at the time when people need it most.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      Oh it is however, most of your neighbors will be in that very same boat so to speak so really it’s up to you to get outside. Also retirement plans go out the window if you hit milestone 5. By the end of milestone 6 (if you make it) will be just a cabin in the woods with a dog, because that’s all you can afford.
  - brookst 1y ago
    5.5) Layoffs 6.5) Layoffs
  - Yizahi 1y ago
    8) War
    - reactordev 1y ago
      But that can happen in any chapter. As horrible as it is - it’s probably the appendix or preamble. “Everything you’re about to read is due to X” warning label or something. Both as a solider in it, and as a civilian facing it. It’s awful. Maybe an asterisk on the end like they did for Roger Maris in ‘61 for beating Babe Ruth’s homer record in a single season.
- edm0nd 1y ago
  Hello fellow Louisiana folk. Those plant workers make bank though. Esp the ones in Laffy, Lake Chuck, BR, or NOLA.
- tharkun__ 1y ago
  I still believe I did the right thing by leaving—the community there goes against many of my most deeply held values. But as I've gotten older That is probably also relatively prevalent in HN circles I would presume. Especially if one was "the odd one out. "Community" is not everything. A lot of "small town" stuff and "values" aren't really only positive. Everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone? Great, right? No it's not. I prefer my relative anonymity in the overall scheme. Nothing to look down upon. But some people just don't prefer that sort of "the community dictates your life" environment, while others may thrive in it. Like, think, Sheldon Cooper if he had stayed in Texas. That weirdo atheist in a small Texas town? Not fun.
  - munificent 1y ago
    > That weirdo atheist in a small Texas town? Yes, that was also me before I became a weirdo in Lousiana. I lived in a bunch of places in the South. The religiosity I could deal with, but the racism, homophobia, and authoritarianism less so.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- cafard 1y ago
  Traumatic or dramatic?
  - munificent 1y ago
    Traumatic, in terms of severing them to an often large degree. I'm describing it as mostly inflicting trauma on a person's social network itself and perhaps less so it being emotional traumatic to the person. But I suspect that in many cases, the latter does follow from the former.
jasode 1y ago
>It's a shame we spend 18ish years making friends, then in our 20's ... I think the thing we don't like to say out loud is that the "friends" we made as children and up through high school were really friends created by geographic proximity which is a shallow foundation -- rather than -- deep shared interests related to our passions. So, yes, I remember the friends I went to the U2 concert with when I was 16. What was the true basis of that friendship? Why did we all drift apart? It was inevitable because our shared interests were based on shallow things like being in the same high school, liking U2, and all of us making fun of the same teacher wearing funny clothes. The later adult friendships that are based on founders starting a business, athletes on pro sport teams, co-workers on intense projects, etc. Those are the types of friendships formed on deeper passions that can survive future marriages, children, divorces. Of the friends I know, none of us are interested in reconnecting with our high school friends. The later adult friendships based on professions or hobbies are more "natural" to maintain.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Even as adults, the overwhelming factor in who your friends are is just proximity. Who do you see every day?
  - jasode 1y ago
    > is just proximity. What I didn't emphasize enough is that the high school teen years is really _just_ proximity. But adult employment adds more than proximity because you choose what kind of place to work at. (E.g. you studied 4 years for Computer Science so you end up at work alongside other programmers.) Many times, people undo the proximity effect by literally relocating across the country to find a job that fits their criteria. Kids don't really choose their high school (setting aside isolated situations like magnet schools.) The randomization of interests caused by clustering kids into high-school district maps basically guarantees shallow childhood friendships that won't last into late adulthood.
- vjk800 1y ago
  Well, the same geographic proximity also shapes us so much when we are kids that it makes sense that it's a determining factor in friendship. It's not shallow at all since geography determines almost everything in our lives when we are young. And it used to determine much more in our lives in as adults before we had internet or even mass media. I have older relatives who have lived in the same village all their lives. What they talk about with their friends is local stuff. Who opened that new restaurant in the village? Who is he related to? What kind of food do they have? What's going on with [some local guy they all know] lately? I don't get how anyone can think that stuff is shallow. If something is shallow, it's talking work projects or office politics, etc. with friends you know from work. In a few years time, the work project has ended, one of you doesn't work there anymore, even the company might not exist anymore. I guess it's about what you value in life, but I find all of that work stuff so incredibly ephemeral and inconsequential that it's just boring to talk about it, let alone let it define your friendships.
vjk800 1y ago
> then in our 20's more or less have to make a mad dash to establish a place to live, a career, a partner, etc. What is weird, from the historical perspective, is that we need to do all those. I come from a rural village and almost all of my older relatives just continued living near where they were born (some even in their childhood homes) and having the same job their parents had (which was some kind of farming for most of them). They basically had their life figured out at the age of 20, after which they started having kids. Also, most of their friends and acquaintances are people they knew already when they were children. If you think about it, it's not really surprising that friends get left behind when you move, change jobs, and basically everything in your life changes. If an old friend of mine used to know me at the age of 20, he doesn't know me anymore at the age of 37 since everything in my life has changed. We might not even like each other anymore.
mikepurvis 1y ago
I think it's partly also that a lot of people's 20s go at different speeds. Like, I was married at 24 and had a first kid at 25, so that put me on kind of a different track from people I knew in university and high school who started their families 3, 5, even 10 years later than that. Yes, I'm now 39 and have indeed reconnected with some of those people, especially as they've started to "catch up" and we have contemporary experiences in common again, but basically it's really hard as a parent of young children to keep up with the social expectations of unattached or childless people; you just can't drop everything for that last minute beach day or road trip, and if you do make the extra lift so that it can happen, you can still end up feeling like you're holding back potential further spontaneity, if it's with a group where no one else really "gets it". The instinct is to gravitate toward socializing with other people/families who are in a similar life stage.
9rx 1y ago
> then in our 20's more or less have to make a mad dash to establish a place to live, a career, a partner, etc. Life is full of surprises and doesn't always work out the way you thought it would, but who isn't at least trying to resolve those things long before their 20s? The "mad dash" may be someone's ultimate fate, but being the norm seems a bit off.

munificent 1y ago

In the US, I think we should consider that many people go through four socially traumatic transitions: 1. Moving away to college. 2. Moving for work. 3. Getting married. 4. Having kids. Each of those tends to sever many friendships in ways that are more painful than a lot of us realize or acknowledge. We might even consider what it says about us as a people that we seem to value all of the points on that list more than we value being a member of a community with deep social ties. When I graduated high school in Louisiana, I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of my small suburb. Then I dropped out of college and couldn't wait to get out of Louisiana entirely. I looked down on everyone who stayed in my home town and got a job at Shell or Entergy. I still believe I did the right thing by leaving—the community there goes against many of my most deeply held values. But as I've gotten older, I realize more what the people valued and kept by staying there: a consistent set of close ties and community maintained throughout their entire lives.

selimthegrim 1y ago
Are you from New Orleans or Lafayette? Edit: holy shit I had no idea you’re from Louisiana.
- munificent 1y ago
  Lived 10 years in St. Charles Parish, then another 4 in Baton Route.
  - selimthegrim 1y ago
    If you ever come to New Orleans, I’m sure the Tuesday night tech meetups would love to have you
reactordev 1y ago
5) Divorce 6) Rebuilding post divorce. 7) Lack of opportunities due to age.
- munificent 1y ago
  I haven't reached those ones yet. :) The upcoming one I really worry about is retirement. The statistics are grim if you look at retired men in terms of number of close friends, mental health, and suicide. The whole "live in a high cost of living area with good jobs and then move somewhere cheaper when you retire" pipeline makes a lot of sense economically. But I worry that is disastrous when it comes to community and connection right at the time when people need it most.
  - reactordev 1y ago
    Oh it is however, most of your neighbors will be in that very same boat so to speak so really it’s up to you to get outside. Also retirement plans go out the window if you hit milestone 5. By the end of milestone 6 (if you make it) will be just a cabin in the woods with a dog, because that’s all you can afford.
- brookst 1y ago
  5.5) Layoffs 6.5) Layoffs
- Yizahi 1y ago
  8) War
  - reactordev 1y ago
    But that can happen in any chapter. As horrible as it is - it’s probably the appendix or preamble. “Everything you’re about to read is due to X” warning label or something. Both as a solider in it, and as a civilian facing it. It’s awful. Maybe an asterisk on the end like they did for Roger Maris in ‘61 for beating Babe Ruth’s homer record in a single season.
edm0nd 1y ago
Hello fellow Louisiana folk. Those plant workers make bank though. Esp the ones in Laffy, Lake Chuck, BR, or NOLA.
tharkun__ 1y ago
I still believe I did the right thing by leaving—the community there goes against many of my most deeply held values. But as I've gotten older That is probably also relatively prevalent in HN circles I would presume. Especially if one was "the odd one out. "Community" is not everything. A lot of "small town" stuff and "values" aren't really only positive. Everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone? Great, right? No it's not. I prefer my relative anonymity in the overall scheme. Nothing to look down upon. But some people just don't prefer that sort of "the community dictates your life" environment, while others may thrive in it. Like, think, Sheldon Cooper if he had stayed in Texas. That weirdo atheist in a small Texas town? Not fun.
- munificent 1y ago
  > That weirdo atheist in a small Texas town? Yes, that was also me before I became a weirdo in Lousiana. I lived in a bunch of places in the South. The religiosity I could deal with, but the racism, homophobia, and authoritarianism less so.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
cafard 1y ago
Traumatic or dramatic?
- munificent 1y ago
  Traumatic, in terms of severing them to an often large degree. I'm describing it as mostly inflicting trauma on a person's social network itself and perhaps less so it being emotional traumatic to the person. But I suspect that in many cases, the latter does follow from the former.

jasode 1y ago

>It's a shame we spend 18ish years making friends, then in our 20's ... I think the thing we don't like to say out loud is that the "friends" we made as children and up through high school were really friends created by geographic proximity which is a shallow foundation -- rather than -- deep shared interests related to our passions. So, yes, I remember the friends I went to the U2 concert with when I was 16. What was the true basis of that friendship? Why did we all drift apart? It was inevitable because our shared interests were based on shallow things like being in the same high school, liking U2, and all of us making fun of the same teacher wearing funny clothes. The later adult friendships that are based on founders starting a business, athletes on pro sport teams, co-workers on intense projects, etc. Those are the types of friendships formed on deeper passions that can survive future marriages, children, divorces. Of the friends I know, none of us are interested in reconnecting with our high school friends. The later adult friendships based on professions or hobbies are more "natural" to maintain.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Even as adults, the overwhelming factor in who your friends are is just proximity. Who do you see every day?
- jasode 1y ago
  > is just proximity. What I didn't emphasize enough is that the high school teen years is really _just_ proximity. But adult employment adds more than proximity because you choose what kind of place to work at. (E.g. you studied 4 years for Computer Science so you end up at work alongside other programmers.) Many times, people undo the proximity effect by literally relocating across the country to find a job that fits their criteria. Kids don't really choose their high school (setting aside isolated situations like magnet schools.) The randomization of interests caused by clustering kids into high-school district maps basically guarantees shallow childhood friendships that won't last into late adulthood.
vjk800 1y ago
Well, the same geographic proximity also shapes us so much when we are kids that it makes sense that it's a determining factor in friendship. It's not shallow at all since geography determines almost everything in our lives when we are young. And it used to determine much more in our lives in as adults before we had internet or even mass media. I have older relatives who have lived in the same village all their lives. What they talk about with their friends is local stuff. Who opened that new restaurant in the village? Who is he related to? What kind of food do they have? What's going on with [some local guy they all know] lately? I don't get how anyone can think that stuff is shallow. If something is shallow, it's talking work projects or office politics, etc. with friends you know from work. In a few years time, the work project has ended, one of you doesn't work there anymore, even the company might not exist anymore. I guess it's about what you value in life, but I find all of that work stuff so incredibly ephemeral and inconsequential that it's just boring to talk about it, let alone let it define your friendships.

vjk800 1y ago

> then in our 20's more or less have to make a mad dash to establish a place to live, a career, a partner, etc. What is weird, from the historical perspective, is that we need to do all those. I come from a rural village and almost all of my older relatives just continued living near where they were born (some even in their childhood homes) and having the same job their parents had (which was some kind of farming for most of them). They basically had their life figured out at the age of 20, after which they started having kids. Also, most of their friends and acquaintances are people they knew already when they were children. If you think about it, it's not really surprising that friends get left behind when you move, change jobs, and basically everything in your life changes. If an old friend of mine used to know me at the age of 20, he doesn't know me anymore at the age of 37 since everything in my life has changed. We might not even like each other anymore.

mikepurvis 1y ago

I think it's partly also that a lot of people's 20s go at different speeds. Like, I was married at 24 and had a first kid at 25, so that put me on kind of a different track from people I knew in university and high school who started their families 3, 5, even 10 years later than that. Yes, I'm now 39 and have indeed reconnected with some of those people, especially as they've started to "catch up" and we have contemporary experiences in common again, but basically it's really hard as a parent of young children to keep up with the social expectations of unattached or childless people; you just can't drop everything for that last minute beach day or road trip, and if you do make the extra lift so that it can happen, you can still end up feeling like you're holding back potential further spontaneity, if it's with a group where no one else really "gets it". The instinct is to gravitate toward socializing with other people/families who are in a similar life stage.

9rx 1y ago

> then in our 20's more or less have to make a mad dash to establish a place to live, a career, a partner, etc. Life is full of surprises and doesn't always work out the way you thought it would, but who isn't at least trying to resolve those things long before their 20s? The "mad dash" may be someone's ultimate fate, but being the norm seems a bit off.