That is not how people actually talk in real life.
> ...and me, to join the kids at the back of the bus, literally and figuratively.
People really do not make other people the main character like this. "My crew were shy introverts who were hilarious once we got going" is how people describe themselves: more description, adjectives and familiarity. "You were doing your own thing with the party crowd" is how people describe others: vague and sparse in descriptive detail.
This passage inverts that.
And some of those will say things like that with one or more levels on top. Such as if they know the person they're talking with will get the reference or archetype, or the allusion they're making, and they're really saying something more. Like (just one example) it means: "I like you, and there's some literal truth to what I'm saying, but you get the real thing I'm saying, because we get each other, like not everybody can, and also you should remember to have a sense of humor, and I think you needed me to say it this way".
(But I'm highly skeptical of people on social media, claiming "my young child just said: [something sounding like a speech crafted by the poster]".)
Such a person certainly can do so, but also really ought to know better.
Ever wonder about why articles in Sports Illustrated go off on politics? Same reason.
These writers, by and large, went to Ivy League schools. Their classmates were hired at the New York Times (serious) or Saturday Night Live (funny). They want to point out hey, I have a great vocabulary and know art and such, too. Even if I just nominally write about clothes or baseball.
Lack of mutual effort 4
Diverging values 3
Miscommunication 2.5
Geographic distance 2.5
Emotional disengagement 2
(Since article is lacking a conclusion - or the conclusion is a weird direction, "should I talk to my ex" - I guess I'm not the target demo)
If we ever find a way to delay puberty without delaying formation of the prefrontal cortex, I think humanity will be in for a better time. You’ll get a few more years of being able to have kids after you know who you are.
"Who you are" is not a stable thing, nor is it a mystery suddenly revealed at a certain advanced age: it is something you continuously construct and reconstruct all your life. I suspect that marriage and family play a massive role in that ongoing psychological construction rather than being independent states that might be invalidated by some sudden discovery of "who you are."
Others collapse their lives entirely, which can be shocking for the person who saw something in you that you’ve now abandoned.
It was historically more of a family obligation than a promise.
We have made it more about individual choice in the intervening years, so you might see that as a promise, but these days it still isn't so much a promise to stay together, rather a promise with regards to how to deal with division down the road (e.g. promising to split the assets 50/50). Not staying together is the assumption.
It’s not perfect, but nothing is. Life happens whether or not you’re paying attention.
You have to be open, honest, and willing to listen to the other person while laying your own ego aside. This is something that many people really struggle with. It becomes a power game and trying to prove who's right instead of trying to genuinely solve problems with each other.
I don't get it.
Source: married at 21 and decades later, we're very, very, very different people than we were, but still very happy together.
I think the problem with that is: having kids both induces a lot more learning about who you are—as well as changes who you are.
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.
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.
6) Rebuilding post divorce.
7) Lack of opportunities due to age.
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.
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.
6.5) Layoffs
Those plant workers make bank though. Esp the ones in Laffy, Lake Chuck, BR, or NOLA.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All friendships start due to proximity of some kind. But without additional effort, they all end up just temporary
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.
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.
- Keep a semi-regular communication channel. For me this is easy, it isn't a chore for me to just text people. I know some people find this harder. If I see something I think they would find funny, I send them a link. If I start wondering about something I know they're knowledgeable about, I send them a question. If we have a shared hobby, I talk to them about it. Texting someone even just every other month can be the difference between keeping a friendship alive and letting it rust.
- Make sure to care about them and where they're at. Keep track and a week later ask "how did that interview go?" (for example.) Ask about their lives and sympathize with it, and make an effort to remember. Don't just tell them about you. One really easy way to make a difference is to keep track of people's birthdays, by the way. Just write it down in a text file somewhere if you have to. I know the birthday of everyone in my life - it actually takes borderline zero effort to write it down once and check that file once a month - and I think that makes a difference.
- Meet people where they're comfortable. Some of my friends are happy to jump in discord and just chat. Some would rather phone call every couple months. Some do neither but will respond to texts daily. Don't think like "this method works for my other friends, why are you being difficult?" Figure out what fits them. (And there are some people out there who won't want to do any of these things, and those people can be harder to keep up with. And that's just how it goes. But in my experience those people are very rare. I only know one, personally.)
- Getting along with their chosen significant other is paramount. I've lost two formerly-very-close friends to spouses who I'm not compatible with. You don't have to be good friends with them, but you do have to avoid insulting them or going against their values when you're around them. Eventually you may sometimes have to answer a question for yourself: do I value my friendship with this person enough to accept being around this person I really don't like? And sometimes the answer is no, and again...that's life.
- Over time part of why relationships fall apart is that you're not sharing experiences together anymore. You don't live together in college anymore, for example, so you no longer have that shared experience to bond over. You live a thousand miles apart and don't know any of the same people, so you only care because it's happening to them, not because you're experiencing it too. It can make a huge difference to plan trips together when possible. "Let's go hiking together." "Let's go to Disney together." "Come stay with me for a few days, I'd love to just have a guest. You can work in my spare room and we can hang out at night and make dinners." WHATEVER. ANYTHING. You don't have to go to Disney, you can just go grocery shopping together. That's still a shared moment. Maybe the cash register will be rude and you'll both be taken aback. That's a new shared memory.
And having shared memories is the biggest key.
The friends that make 0 effort however I cut out. You gotta give me something to work with...
There were cases where the lack of reciprocation was their way of telling me they were done with the friendship, and so it ended. That happens. Happened to me about 5 times.
But there were a lot of others who were just bad at it or distracted and just needed time and needed me to be patient and not hold it against them, and who came back strongly later on.
There was one who I could tell would never change, who just didn't care and didn't know how to be a good friend, and in their case I slowly stopped reciprocating myself and replied less and less until eventually it was just dead by natural causes, me having accepted the loss of the person I wished they were.
And lastly there was one who was going through such a bad time that they kept pushing everyone away during that period, and in the end they overdosed and died. I wish I had done more, even though I tried actively - I could have tried even harder.
I think it just takes life experience to tell the different cases apart without the benefit of hindsight. Life experience and charitable assumptions.
My tips:
- Hobby group chat, group chats generally.
- Linked to the above, a lot of these friendships work because of the network effect. We're looser than we were, but we're still a crew. It's self-reinforcing, we can always (lovingly) gossip about each other! Do your best to keep the collective running smooth.
- Show up to stuff. I got on a plane for a friend's 40th the other week. So worth it.
- I don't do this enough, but I've gone through spells of having people's names in my calendar for calls. Had a friend contact me out of the blue recently, he was doing the same. My Mum used to do this and she was phenomenal socially.
I had to read this sentence four times before I even considered that 'other' could be a verb!
Added in November 2017 according to https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/other-as-a-verb
I hate it as much as I hate MBA wankers using "ping" as if they're ICMP compliant...
We do get a couple of new ones though, from my wife's side. They are very good people and very fun to stay with. I have to admit that I enjoy staying with my wife's friends more than she does with mine, but that's fine with me. Maybe I'll get a few days off and coffee chat with my side of the friends.
Plus, although we were friends at one point due to common interests, shared environment, etc., we grow up and apart. If chances collide, we will cross paths with some of them.
During my thirties, I felt a bit guilty about not keeping in touch with most of my friends from high school and college. As I reached mid-forties, I have learned to live with the above realization. I think I'd have a good chat with some of my old friends when I meet them by happenstance again.
This is clearly false as plenty of long-term long-distance friendships exist. It does make it harder, but there's a difference between "harder" and "impossible".
I have several multi-decade friendships where we have no friends in common and either never met in person or met only a few times.
That's because people tend not to make new friends in middle age. That trend begins in the mid 20s.
No matter your age, learn the trick of making, and keeping, new friends. Of all ages, sexes, cultures, types. It is extremely vital to your mental and physical health.
The trick is having time and energy. The challenge is finding the time and energy in your mid-20s and beyond when things like your career, children, etc. come crushing down upon you, all while, at the same time, your body starts to lose is youthful vitality.
So am I. I spent the majority of my early childhood, bouncing around a number of nations.
It has given me the "ability" to drop even very intimate relationships at the drop of a hat. I've heard that this is a characteristic of "military brats."
I will not have talked to someone for a decade, then, when I see them again, I assume that we can just pick up where we left, and they are like "Who the hell are you? No way!".
I've learned to correct for this. It means that I need to make the effort to stay in touch, but I have also learned that some folks aren't interested in reciprocating, so I have learned to let those go.
No, almost certainly not. This is difficult for many people to accept but once you do a lot of weight comes off your shoulders. You're no longer thinking about what you do in terms of how others perceive it, and not seeking approval or validation from them.
This article made me aware of that, not sure if I’ll do something about it though
Other people, you become friends with due to some shared situation. School, work, place you live, the places you go/frequent, etc. Once that changes (you graduate, switch jobs, etc.), your friendship can change.
And, of course, your other responsibilities will influence how much time you can use on people. Especially children can have a huge impact on that - kids just take up so much time, and combined with work and other things, it is really difficult to prioritize other things. It is not at all uncommon that once people get kids, they disappear for a solid 5-10 years, and will want to catch up again when things calm down.
As young adults, most people have few responsibilities, and impulsivity is high. What I miss about being a young 20-something was how easy and willing everyone were to do stuff. Go on a hike, go watch a movie, go on a pub crawl? Sure, just give me 15 minutes. Book a trip to some other country? Could do that just a couple of weeks ahead.
These days you'll have to check your calendar 3 months in advance to just shoot the shit.
I think the change started when me and my friends started nearing 30 / late 20s. That's when people were really bogged down with work, met their future spouse / partner, and started focusing on self-realization (working out, hobbies, side hustles, whatever), and of course - kids.
Now that most of us are in our late 30s, things are a bit easier. Those that got kids have more spare time, as the kids have grown older. Seniority at work means they aren't giving it all for the sake of promotions. More financial freedom. Things more stable, and people can catch up again.
With that said, some days I really do miss the days of youth.
As an adult, friendships are hard to grow for the same reason. Grabbing dinner with someone is not going to leave the same impression as, say, getting shot at. The adult friendships I have that are close I attribute to: 1. Friend's dad died shortly after we met, and we bonded throughout that time. 2. I went on an impromptu Vegas trip with friend 3. We went through grad school stress together 4. We spent a lot of time together at chess club. Nothing was intense, but frequently seeing this person solidified our relationship. Oh, he was teetering on divorce at one point, it could be that too.
I do still have these friends. But the bond is not the same, and I am completely fine with it. Life has its seasons.
"Since I moved to Kenya why am I not still friends with people who are now 10,000 miles and 12 hours behind me."
Uhhh does that required 5,000 words to figure out?
glxxyz•2h ago