I knew a guy who made a boatload of money off of the dotcom bubble. He kept doubling down and doubling down, then at right about the peak he told himself "I have as much money as I'll ever need if I cash out now. There's no reason to take any more risks." In other words, he timed it perfectly (based on his own situation - he wasn't genius and he would freely admit that)
So here he was, a multimillionaire who'd spent the last five years or so working and playing the market to the exclusion of everything else. He was one of those people who had unconsciously believed if he just had enough money he could find a way to be happy. When he finally had the money he realized relationships with other people are what make you happy. But at that point he didn't have any friends and didn't know how to make them.
He was, without a doubt, the most miserable guy I've ever met. He was always willing to buy a round or lend people money. He'd go to Vegas and pay for five or six people to go with him. So there were always people around. There were always women willing to sleep with him. But they were there for the money and he couldn't delude himself into thinking otherwise. The money actually added to the problem, because it meant even when he wasn't paying, people had a motive to hang around. So he became cynical and a bit paranoid.
Eventually he got into drugs and ended up eating a whole bottle of pills. I've always wondered if any of those hangers-on went to the funeral.
"So there were always people around. There were always women willing to sleep with him. But they were there for the money and he couldn't delude himself into thinking otherwise."
For some reason people seem to think that someone wanting to be around because of a person's fame or money is less pure than other reasons because it's not real.
Generally when people want to be around someone it's because they give them something the other person needs. It could be humour it could be looks, it could be prestige, it could be they went to a college you admire, it could be because they are in awe of the person, or their profession, or their power. There is always a reason that a person is attractive to others. Money is certainly one of those things. Sometimes it's because they are angling to gain something from the person and sometimes it's just the halo that makes the person more attractive or respect for what they have done.
I understand the whole idea of people who are successes attracting people and not knowing of their motives. But the fact that someone liked you "way back" when you were nobody doesn't mean their current attraction is entirely pure either once you gain something else that is of benefit to them.
I've read these stories of guys who are big successes and manage to still play ball with the same guys from high school who are "regular" guys. Do you think the successful person's status has nothing to do with the fact that the high school friends all manage to want to get together and maintain ties? I think it does. For one thing it gives them something to talk about with others (say at the office) that elevates them. "Oh, yeah, I played soft ball with my friend from high school Robert DeNiro this weekend and was at his house, anyway..."
Obviously there are people who can't do this (Zuckerburg, and plenty of much smaller examples too) but I don't see why, if you have the choice, you'd let people know how rich you are. Of course, unless you live the life of someone much poorer people can always guess ("hey, nice house you've got there..."), but people who talk about how rich they are, or show off with the money... just seems stupid to me.
I have a couple of wealthier friends and one that is getting wealthier by the day.
The way I solved this problem between us is that I refuse to accept "mercy" gifts. I will accept an earnest gift when It is presented out of kindness. Also I demand that our financials be thoroughly transparent with me covering my fair share.
It works exceptionally well, allowing for our friendship to develop at its own and sincere pace. Besides, being around him and having such a friend/mentor is a gift that keeps on giving, more than a paid this or that ever could.
The "Rich guy not made happy by wealth after all" story is so old that I am surprised anyone is still surprised by it. Every other novel they made me read in middle/high school had this as its message. I am very reluctant to use the term "smart" for anyone that runs into this problem.
Ya allah! And the solution was so simple, too: invest his millions and live off the interest/dividends, which would be a modest income. A more modest income would have kept gold-diggers away, and he would have figured out that while the security of a personal trust fund is nice to have, you don't need millions to make friends.
> Thayer Prime, a 32-year-old strategy consultant who lives in London, has even developed a playful 100-point scale (100 being “best friend forever”). In her mind, she starts to dock new friend candidates as they begin to display annoying or disloyal behavior. Nine times out of 10, she said, her new friends end up from 30 to 60, or little more than an acquaintance.
Whoa. I would never want to be acquaintances with this person.
And yet that's not too far off from what I - and I think most people - are doing. Sure, I don't have a scale. But I'm sizing people up. If I had that cynical, narrow-minded approach back in high school, I don't think I'd have the life-long friends I have now. I'm working on shutting that inner voice up, but I think it's something that slowly creeps in over time.
But that's just part of the problem - the other is that, especially with big moves, there's no obvious support structure for making new friends. Having moved across the country a few months ago, I'm still trying to figure this one out. Any idea HNers?
"Whoa. I would never want to be acquaintances with this person."
Thinking of specific numbers is very cynical indeed, but I agree with the point made though.
For example, there's a former colleague I've had a few lunches with, every 3-6 months or so, since the startup we were working at folded. We clicked well when working together and we enjoyed talking about ideas. However, during the past few lunches, I've been more and more annoyed at the fact that he's been mostly interested in talking about his own stuff, not caring at all about mine. (granted, I've wondered if I could be just like him, since I want to talk about my stuff… :)) Overtime, I realized that I won't be seeking lunches with him anymore.
So unconsciously, every bad interaction kind of knocked some points off.
Friendship is really like any kind of relationship: you're expected to give and to receive. If it goes only one way, it will eventually stop going any way at all.
> Having moved across the country a few months ago, I'm still trying to figure this one out. Any idea HNers?
Take up a hobby, more or less unrelated to what you do for a living. Maybe it's rowing or rock climbing or fencing or writing. Find something you think you'll enjoy that draws in people from all walks of life.
I think it's especially important now, when the only thing in your life is your work, to avoid trying to make friends there. In my mind deep friendships start with sharing personal things, which starts from sharing everyday things. Someone you're around all the time will share just enough experiences that you won't be able to talk long enough to open up.
When I read this, I honestly wasn't taken aback by it. Rather, it seemed to me a pragmatic realization that often, our friendships are self-selecting. If someone doesn't call you back, you naturally won't get closer to them. If someone does call you back, you probably will naturally get closer.
One part is actually meeting people with whom you click. Unless you go to a lot of meetups and similar events, overall, you won't be meeting that many new people besides co-workers. And meetups tend to have a theme other than just having fun, whereas that's what most college activities are about. So you meet people in a serious context, and you need to bring the fun with you.*
So, you first need to come across someone with whom you click, and then you have to fuel that relationship. What's difficult there is that you need time. Once married with children, grabbing a beer after work is not as simple. You also have that awkwardness as pictured in "I love you, man" (and I believe a Louis CK sketch in his TV show): you have to acknowledge pretty fast that there's something going on and that you feel you could indeed become friends! It's one meetup, you're awkward now with that guy who seems cool, or you might never see him again.
But as you grow older, you also lose a lot of that casualness that you had before: you don't just invite them over after work to play video games. Now that you're a "grown-up", it's "a dinner". And since you're a grown-up, your home has better be somewhat clean, and you can't just serve pizza. What was a spontaneous interaction before is now a whole event that needs planning, some cleaning, some cooking, etc. (until of course, you become real friends) So these happen less, and friendships can be like making mayonnaise: if you don't make it go right now, you'll never make it go at all.
* I'm not saying meetups are no fun, just that it's not the end-game for everyone. Some people are there only for "professional" reasons and you need to figure out what people are looking for.
> But as you grow older, you also lose a lot of that casualness that you had before: you don't just invite them over after work to play video games. Now that you're a "grown-up", it's "a dinner". And since you're a grown-up, your home has better be somewhat clean, and you can't just serve pizza. What was a spontaneous interaction before is now a whole event that needs planning, some cleaning, some cooking, etc. (until of course, you become real friends) So these happen less, and friendships can be like making mayonnaise: if you don't make it go right now, you'll never make it go at all.
That is so frustrating to me. I don't really want a Do when I get together with people, I just want to kick back.
I agree with your description with how a lot of people feel, myself included, especially the part about meetups. However, 'you' don't have put up with grownupness and dinners and clean houses and fancy meals if you don't want to. If you like the grownupness then by all means get into it, but you make it sound like it is a required pain ... If you don't like it find friends that also don't like it.
I moved to Los Angeles in 2004. The next year I organized a softball team, mostly coworkers at the time. There are six of us that have been playing since we started, going on seven years now, even though we've almost all since changed jobs. Even though it's "just softball" (and our league is about as uncompetitive as possible without being totally beer-league), we've all made attempts to make it to games that bordered on absurd. I'm talking like, having a game end like 90 minutes before a flight I had booked, so I brought my luggage to the game, planned for a cab to arrive right as our game ended, and changed in the back seat of the cab on the way to the airport. Sure, I could have just skipped the game. I don't know if it's as contrived as "not wanting to let the team down." But these guys were my friends and I wanted to be there. Outside the six of us, we've had countless guys come in for a season or two, and then kind of fall off and stop playing. Almost all my post-college "good friends" -- the kinds of guys I invited to my wedding, for example -- have played on this softball team.
So I've thought about this a lot. I guess I've concluded that male friendships in particular are more easily forged in some environment of "commitment." In the "you've been there for me, so you're a good guy, so I can feel comfortable about opening up to you about subjects you only bring up with your good friends," sense. Also, I don't think this happens overnight, at least not for me. We were playing for two years before we'd do something like get dinner after the game. It was another long while before we'd talk about deeper friendship stuff like career advice, girlfriend problems, etc.
Hopefully I'm not making this sound like you can only make friends when you're a "bro" who plays sports. When we're younger, these organizations exist everywhere: high school, college, school clubs, sports teams, whatever. Just any place where you're expected to give more than what may be convenient and everyone else does the same. Going back to the softball team, let's say I get two emails the day of a game. One guy says, "hey my boss wants to pull me in a meeting that probably run long, I managed to tell him I have a hard stop at 7:00pm, but I may be like 10 minutes late to the game." Another guy says, "hey, I had a big lunch, I'm gonna skip the game." Which guy am I going to end up being friends with?
So I suppose my conclusion, at least for me personally, is that it's usually not enough to find people I have something in common with, but something in common that we're both committed to. It's tougher to find that after high school and college, but it's not impossible.
There's none of the financial worries, pecking orders, or time constraints of workplace friendships, plus more of the freedom. You do it, supposedly, once a week, or more. There's no pressure to make small talk because you're there for another purpose as well, so if you get uncomfortable, you can just leave. As you get more involved, you start joining committees, planning events, coaching teams, going on retreats, leading the local Boy Scout troop, participating in Bible studies, etc and are able to bond with adults there. As long as you're set on your denomination, there's no reason to leave while you're still in the geographical area. Your kids can encourage interaction with other parents, and if they stop being friends, they'll probably still be forced together through sports/school/service events. And you're operating on the same general life philosophy as all of them--supposedly.
When my parents moved, their "friends list" literally became a subsection of the church directory.
Church literally fills every requirement in the article, since it's a very social event with a purpose besides being social for its own sake. I'm amazed the author didn't mention it. Well, not too amazed, since there's nothing more socially unsexier than church groups. I know most people here aren't too warm on religion but it sure knows how to built community.
I think the main problem is that we live in an increasingly secular society, but nothing has actually replaced church. And the people who are still at church, at least at many churches, are right-wing nutjobs.
Unfortunately we need to replace church with something that people can do together for the point of being together.Church may still have a role in the US, but over here in Europe it's hardly an option anymore.
Could there be a startup opportunity in this space?
Churches are an amazing way to meet people. When I moved abroad for a while I went to a Sunday service, immediately got introduced to a few people who I ended up becoming good friends with. I didn’t make any friends outside of church and wouldn’t have known where or how to. It was a small city with hardly anything but pubs and churches.
Of the few hundred people I've met past casual acquaintance here in the UK, only a couple have ever talked about going to church as if it were normal. Even as a fairly passive atheist these days, I wouldn't be able to go, it'd just be very disingenuous play acting.
In the spirit of the comment I agree that something needs to replace church in secular societies. In fact, I think this is the root of the problem, there's not something to force you to see neighbours regularly any more.
Yeah, but everybody you'll meet will be religious. I often think that "atheism" needs to set up structures to care for the lonely, too. Basically I think that is what the church is (among other things), they are a company catering to lonely people.
Of course lots of my friends are (moderately) religious, too, but it always leaves me uneasy. Because the things I am really interested in (evolution theory, science, artificial intelligence, science fiction, economics...) are incompatible with their beliefs. So I'll never even try to start any deep conversations with them.
1. It helps to volunteer regularly for a non-profit cause that you believe in, or at least approve of. You likely will get to know some "nice" people; once you establish that you're actually committed to whatever the cause is, and not just on the prowl, then you can establish lifelong bonds.
2. It also helps to be cheerfully unembarrassed about taking the lead in organizing groups to do stuff. People are often secretly grateful to be able to follow someone else. They'll often reject you. They'll say yes but then flake out on you. You'll feel mortified; you'll be certain that everyone else thinks you're a dork. That's OK; keep at it. (This is good practice for customer development and sales work, come to think of it.)
3. A lot of churches and synagogues have active single-adult programs. I grant you, tech people often don't go for religious dogma. Neither do I.
I've been fairly happy in the Episcopal Church (I "married in") for reasons described at http://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse..... Among other things, that post recounts how a priest's citation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a discussion about my inability to assent to dogma about God, had a real impact on my religious views, such as they are.
As the article says, it is not hard to MEET people - I meet plenty of people mostly through work and a few through book clubs, running clubs, bike clubs or just at the coffee shop. And a lot of them are actually legitimately cool people that I would have become friends with if I met in college or grad school.
The challenge is converting those people into FRIENDS. Basically you have to hang out together a ton in order to build that comfort level and familiarity. And modern adult western life simply doesn't facilitate this very much.
The one exception I can think of is a small town or village where people bump into each other all the time without having to consciously plan to do so.
So it is a bit paradoxical: Living in a city there are a ton of interesting people to meet, but precisely because of the density it is unlikely for you to randomly end up spending enough time with someone for you to become good friends.
It won't be long until gaming is mainstream for adults. It makes striking up a conversation pretty casual. "Dude, you gotta help me kill these zombies. And let's talk about those Q3 results..".
This rings very true. In fact, I turned 29 eleven months ago and I moved here (to another country, albeit culturally similar) eight months ago.
I have zero friends.
My coworkers are vastly different from me. I work with two people the most; one is a younger guy who goes clubbing and is interested in getting laid, and the other is a 40-something woman who is most likely menopausal and hates everything in her life.
I'm married to boot.
All my friends and wife are back home. My immediate family is here but we couldn't be any more different. My situation is complicated, but for all intents and purposes, you can say I was adopted.
I moved here for a better job, yet it happens to be a city I hate; a city in which driving and huge cars is a fact of life, yet I absolutely despise cars. I am used to taking public transport, cycling, walking, and even running. I run 5 times a week. The air is so bad here I had chest pain yesterday after running. I still do it.
I observe the people in this dreadful city and feel they are either extremely superficial, cliquey, and stereotypical or go-getters who do nearly anything to go up the corporate ladder in a dog-eat-dog 'world'.
Where is the substance?
If you've not guessed already, I'm trying to get out of here, but it would be nice to have meaningful conversations or form some type of meaningful relationships along the way.
Most Americans (and maybe Canadians) will guess what city I'm in, and as others have mentioned, the American west coast just works differently, especially the southwest. It's definitely not me.
(Sorry if this sounds like a soapbox, corny or like I'm wearing my 'heart on my sleeve' - I know it's not a social norm. It wasn't my intention and I hope someone can extract something useful out of it.)
You don't even need to me approaching middle age. I'm in my 20s and moved halfway across the country recently, and am continually amazed at how hard it is to make good friends of the same gender. Given all the websites/events/groups dedicated to meeting people to date I've found it far easier than ever to get dates, but more difficult to make friends. It's a weird reversal. There's probably an opportunity for a little business there, but I haven't quite worked out how it would work.
I've found it far easier than ever to get dates, but more difficult to make friends
That's interesting and kind of profound.
I guess when you're arranging dates on match.com, the intention is clear. You're out to meet someone for a relationship. It's the goal.
A meetup to discuss Ruby on Rails or something is all about the subject of the meetup. Most are there just to talk about Rails and get help with a bug, not to make close friends.
How would you find activities where the specific goal is for people new to an area to make friends, or maybe for people who aren't new to an area but they want to make friends?
There's probably an opportunity for a little business there,
There has to be someone already doing this... maybe?
That's the premise of Grubwithus - connecting people over meals so you can get to know new people in a casual environment where the focus isn't an activity where conversation is sort of restricted to that event (like most Meetups). Have you tried one out?
I'm older now and I have been going through the same thing.
I made a lot of lifelong friends when I was in the East Coast. When I was in my late 20s, I decided to move out West. My friends were my support system back in the East Coast and now I don't have them.
Starting over when you're older is hard. Most people my age have established their own circle of friends. It feels out-of-place trying to join an existing circle.
Any chance you're in the Bay Area? I just moved out here from Philadelphia and am stuck in the exact same situation. Either way, feel free to shoot me an email (in my profile).
you should make dates with prospective friends. we fall in love a little with guy friends, so instead of the outcome being 'let's explore a romantic chemistry' it is 'let's explore a friendship chemistry', but the mechanics are the same: one on one meetup with a stranger.
At first I and my best friend regarded each other as assholes, but we were forced together by a casual bridge game. One afternoon I arrived at his house to discover the game was off -- he'd been accused of date rape and he and his housemates were processing the news. He'd slept with a friend of his girlfriend and this story was her excuse to the girlfriend.
I remember leaving the room, looking out a window and thinking "This guy isn't as big a prick as _that_." (I had seen something like this before.) And I went back in and said, "what are we going to do about this?" I had enough standing among this larger circle to help slow down the rumors and witch-hunting until things got sorted out, which happened quickly after Friend of GirlFriend admitted it was just a lousy story. (He was never accused of this again, and never had been before.)
We ended up living together for years, and I helped him move to university for his masters. It turned out that we had similar interests and enjoyed similar arguments and enjoyed picking stuff up off one another. He introduced me to all sorts of music, and, a Jew, learned from me to give up ice cream for Lent. (I got more from this friendship than he did.) When a friend's boyfriend moved into town for her, we took him as a roommate, and cut her out when she dumped him two weeks later -- we hardly knew the guy, but she had friends in town, and he didn't. There was the day he yelled at me for suggesting something _he_ did all the time, because it wasn't something _I_ believed in.
Unfortunately, he was killed in a freak car accident, returning from completion of his masters'. That was a long time ago. I've never come close to anything like him.
In your twenties you live with more drama. You're figuring yourself out, you do stupid things, people do stupid things to you. It's easier to see who and what people are, and you need people more to bring you through all the noise. As we age as we figure out our basic choices and move on from there. The drama recedes and the volume goes down. We get more complicated and it becomes harder to read us. Confessions that made sense as we were figuring stuff out start to seem a lot more demonstrative and overwrought. Let's face it, many of us make soul-deadening choices and become much less interesting.
As we "grow up" the stuff that was questioning and exciting starts looking like instability. The raw threads of personality that can be woven into another person get woven up into others and ourselves and tucked out of sight. For lots of people this is actually good, there is less chaos and more enjoyment and more creativity. But it does become harder to make friends.
tldr; Cherish your friends. You can lose them, and they're very hard to replace.
A while back, I came across this advice below (which could touch a nerve with some of you - because you may reject what it implicitly is saying - that you need to put yourself out there - be willing to be rejected):
"It takes relationships to make relationships. And, in general, to make relationships, you have to allow vulnerability. Vulnerability is the difference between a conversation that starts, "How about this weather we're having?" and a conversation that starts, "Oh my God, let me tell you about how I just fell in a puddle in front of a group of nuns." The former is so boring that it makes listeners want to crawl under a table; the latter creates a spark and a list of follow-up questions. These are two extreme examples, but generally, the more of yourself you put out there, the more others will have to connect with.
As for your list of "nevers": they may feel big to you, but in the scheme of things, they get a shrug. Each of us is on an individual and separately-terrifying trajectory. Ultimately, you are not behind. Self-discovery is vital at any age. A lot of people couple up, get married, and have kids without ever having to look inward. Those are often the people who cave later in life. Get that introspection out of the way now, and you'll set yourself up well for the future — angst-Tumblr or no...
Pursue activities you are passionate about: passion is an attractive quality, and others will pick up on it...
Friendships will be made when your attention is elsewhere."
It's a cynical, 'sharp', critique of 'modern' social struggles; written for people who wish to think of themselves as cynical, sharp and modern. A cookie cutter article describing a very common social ailment (loneliness) in a way that panders to people's sense of self importance and social status.
In reality, to make a friend - you simply need to reflect what you feel honestly in the company of someone else who's doing the same. Do that enough, and soon enough you'll find someone who thinks in a way that meshes well with your own mode of being .. and at the risk of making a NYT journalist's 1000 words redundant, that's actually as difficult as it gets.
I hadn't really ever given this much thought, but now if I categorize the overwhelming majority of my friends, they fall into the following buckets:
High-School Friends (who I still stay in touch with, although only peripherally, as I don't still live where I grew up)
College Friends (which includes a subset of High School friends, who I do a better job of staying in touch with, but who also mostly live back where I went to school)
Work Friends (the overwhelming majority of my friends are people I've worked with at one time or another. Reservations about mixing work with pleasure aside, people in my line of work tend to have a lot in common)
Photography School Friends (I suppose similar to college, but they are more recent, and local. This group is unusual in that the entire class ended up becoming really really close)
For whatever reason, I've never had trouble meeting people. What has proven to be a lot of work is actually committing to spending time with people (as my natural state is to never want to leave the house under any circumstances).
I've found online presence exacerbates that, as it's easy for me to convince myself that I'm being social merely by responding to people's Facebook posts (which doesn't really cut it).
The why is so much more interesting. Part of it is a product of topology, visualize this pattern: home, car, work, car, home. There's not a lot of surface area in there to meet someone. This is a product of America's lack of streets, we have roads not streets. Roads are for cars, streets are for people. Some good reading on this subject is, "The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community", and of course "Streets for People, A Primer for Americans".
You make friends the same way you meet someone to date - by doing something.
You will not make friends sitting at home. You will not make friends at a bar full of people.
Join a club or sports team. I've met most of my adult friends through ski club trips and sailing teams. Or join a volunteer organization, or attend local meetups, or take a photography/art class.
It is difficult to make friends at work, but not impossible. You have to find common ground outside of work, because no one wants to hang out with people where the only topic of conversation is work. I surf with one guy from my office and ski with a few others.
The friendship is not from the activity - the activity could be solo (like surfing). The friendship comes from the 3 hour car ride up to the mountain you share BSing about stuff. Or hanging out in a bar after racing sailboats with the rest of the crew. Or looking at the surf forecast in the office all day hoping its good that evening.
Somehow the conversation grows from 'what mountains do you like to ski' to 'man I'm having X, Y, Z problems in my life'. That doesn't always happen, but I've probably met 15 people over the last 2 years that I regularly do things with outside of work and I'm actually friends with 3 or 4 of them.
I've long been of the opinion that the decline in local socializing (in the physical realm) is due to the advent of air condition, radio, and later television.
Previously people sat on their porches in the evening to escape the heat of the house and thus saw their neighbors nightly. Now we're all in our climate-controlled cocoons.
After moving to this city a few years ago where we had no friends or family, I just started stopping at neighbor houses when I saw them working on something and offered to help. Establishing this pattern of behavior triggered most of them to do the same not only to me but also to other neighbors and now we have a very tight-knit group of people whose only real initial "shared interest" was physical proximity.
When one of the neighbors was diagnosed with terminal cancer, some of the others were wondering what we could do to help. I suggested we ask him what things he wanted done for his house so that he could not worry about such things and focus on his last months with family. So we spent a lot of summer weekends painting, roofing, doing general house repairs. Along with that his teenage boys got to hang around a group of men in a setting where we would naturally banter and tease without any social climbing or the like.
Close to the end of his life my neighbor told several of us that he was happy to know that there were going to be men around his family that would take care of things and serve as role models for his boys. I can't think of anything that would give me more comfort if I was in his position.
So basically, get off your butt in the evenings and walk the neighborhood. Look for someone doing something and offer to help. If nothing else you'll feel good about being able to help someone out and it just may start the chain reaction necessary to build an entirely new social group.
I wonder how much of the challenge of making friends as an adult varies by the city you live in...
I moved to NYC last year from Rochester, NY and have found that people in NYC are so "busy" all the time that it's much more difficult to make new friends (the recent NY Times article on HN called "The Busy Trap" summed that up perfectly). People in NYC also seem to treat new connections from the perspective of "what can you do to help me advance somehow."
In Rochester, people seem to live more balanced lives (for example, they generally leave work right at 5) and therefore have time to make new connections. They're also less on guard about people, which could have a lot to do with the size of city compared to NYC.
Granted, this is just my observation of the differences between one small/mid size city and a very large one, but anyone else notice this as well?
This reminds me of a time, last year, when I needed to fill out some paperwork that asked me to list four friends and I couldn't list one (I ended up listing my wife's friends instead).
Sadly, these days, I don't often meet anyone with similar interests. The people who I do meet and find interesting are often female, which leaves me confused about how friendly to get without causing people and my wife to think I am cheating.
This is much better than the average lifestyle piece, or at least I guess it is. I couldn't read it - it's too painfully accurate. I'm very sad that our society works this way.
This is a real problem that should be tackled in itself, rather than suggesting friendmaking as a side effect of joining a class or sports group etc. There's a prevalent view that people don't make friends when older because only children and young adults do that. That's so wrong it's sad, people shouldn't be shy to say they want to make friends. There used to be institutions and venues that made it natural for people to bump onto each other again and again (from the church to the pub to the barber), then modern life, competition and individualistic culture came along and now people only listen to their i-pods. It seems to me that this is a transitory (lonely) period until we find our new social venues.
[+] [-] tsotha|13 years ago|reply
So here he was, a multimillionaire who'd spent the last five years or so working and playing the market to the exclusion of everything else. He was one of those people who had unconsciously believed if he just had enough money he could find a way to be happy. When he finally had the money he realized relationships with other people are what make you happy. But at that point he didn't have any friends and didn't know how to make them.
He was, without a doubt, the most miserable guy I've ever met. He was always willing to buy a round or lend people money. He'd go to Vegas and pay for five or six people to go with him. So there were always people around. There were always women willing to sleep with him. But they were there for the money and he couldn't delude himself into thinking otherwise. The money actually added to the problem, because it meant even when he wasn't paying, people had a motive to hang around. So he became cynical and a bit paranoid.
Eventually he got into drugs and ended up eating a whole bottle of pills. I've always wondered if any of those hangers-on went to the funeral.
[+] [-] larrys|13 years ago|reply
For some reason people seem to think that someone wanting to be around because of a person's fame or money is less pure than other reasons because it's not real.
Generally when people want to be around someone it's because they give them something the other person needs. It could be humour it could be looks, it could be prestige, it could be they went to a college you admire, it could be because they are in awe of the person, or their profession, or their power. There is always a reason that a person is attractive to others. Money is certainly one of those things. Sometimes it's because they are angling to gain something from the person and sometimes it's just the halo that makes the person more attractive or respect for what they have done.
I understand the whole idea of people who are successes attracting people and not knowing of their motives. But the fact that someone liked you "way back" when you were nobody doesn't mean their current attraction is entirely pure either once you gain something else that is of benefit to them.
I've read these stories of guys who are big successes and manage to still play ball with the same guys from high school who are "regular" guys. Do you think the successful person's status has nothing to do with the fact that the high school friends all manage to want to get together and maintain ties? I think it does. For one thing it gives them something to talk about with others (say at the office) that elevates them. "Oh, yeah, I played soft ball with my friend from high school Robert DeNiro this weekend and was at his house, anyway..."
[+] [-] corin_|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JanezStupar|13 years ago|reply
The way I solved this problem between us is that I refuse to accept "mercy" gifts. I will accept an earnest gift when It is presented out of kindness. Also I demand that our financials be thoroughly transparent with me covering my fair share.
It works exceptionally well, allowing for our friendship to develop at its own and sincere pace. Besides, being around him and having such a friend/mentor is a gift that keeps on giving, more than a paid this or that ever could.
[+] [-] sopooneo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0th87|13 years ago|reply
Whoa. I would never want to be acquaintances with this person.
And yet that's not too far off from what I - and I think most people - are doing. Sure, I don't have a scale. But I'm sizing people up. If I had that cynical, narrow-minded approach back in high school, I don't think I'd have the life-long friends I have now. I'm working on shutting that inner voice up, but I think it's something that slowly creeps in over time.
But that's just part of the problem - the other is that, especially with big moves, there's no obvious support structure for making new friends. Having moved across the country a few months ago, I'm still trying to figure this one out. Any idea HNers?
[+] [-] Timothee|13 years ago|reply
Thinking of specific numbers is very cynical indeed, but I agree with the point made though.
For example, there's a former colleague I've had a few lunches with, every 3-6 months or so, since the startup we were working at folded. We clicked well when working together and we enjoyed talking about ideas. However, during the past few lunches, I've been more and more annoyed at the fact that he's been mostly interested in talking about his own stuff, not caring at all about mine. (granted, I've wondered if I could be just like him, since I want to talk about my stuff… :)) Overtime, I realized that I won't be seeking lunches with him anymore.
So unconsciously, every bad interaction kind of knocked some points off.
Friendship is really like any kind of relationship: you're expected to give and to receive. If it goes only one way, it will eventually stop going any way at all.
[+] [-] awj|13 years ago|reply
Take up a hobby, more or less unrelated to what you do for a living. Maybe it's rowing or rock climbing or fencing or writing. Find something you think you'll enjoy that draws in people from all walks of life.
I think it's especially important now, when the only thing in your life is your work, to avoid trying to make friends there. In my mind deep friendships start with sharing personal things, which starts from sharing everyday things. Someone you're around all the time will share just enough experiences that you won't be able to talk long enough to open up.
[+] [-] PakG1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Timothee|13 years ago|reply
One part is actually meeting people with whom you click. Unless you go to a lot of meetups and similar events, overall, you won't be meeting that many new people besides co-workers. And meetups tend to have a theme other than just having fun, whereas that's what most college activities are about. So you meet people in a serious context, and you need to bring the fun with you.*
So, you first need to come across someone with whom you click, and then you have to fuel that relationship. What's difficult there is that you need time. Once married with children, grabbing a beer after work is not as simple. You also have that awkwardness as pictured in "I love you, man" (and I believe a Louis CK sketch in his TV show): you have to acknowledge pretty fast that there's something going on and that you feel you could indeed become friends! It's one meetup, you're awkward now with that guy who seems cool, or you might never see him again.
But as you grow older, you also lose a lot of that casualness that you had before: you don't just invite them over after work to play video games. Now that you're a "grown-up", it's "a dinner". And since you're a grown-up, your home has better be somewhat clean, and you can't just serve pizza. What was a spontaneous interaction before is now a whole event that needs planning, some cleaning, some cooking, etc. (until of course, you become real friends) So these happen less, and friendships can be like making mayonnaise: if you don't make it go right now, you'll never make it go at all.
* I'm not saying meetups are no fun, just that it's not the end-game for everyone. Some people are there only for "professional" reasons and you need to figure out what people are looking for.
[+] [-] pnathan|13 years ago|reply
That is so frustrating to me. I don't really want a Do when I get together with people, I just want to kick back.
[+] [-] dwiel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhashem|13 years ago|reply
I moved to Los Angeles in 2004. The next year I organized a softball team, mostly coworkers at the time. There are six of us that have been playing since we started, going on seven years now, even though we've almost all since changed jobs. Even though it's "just softball" (and our league is about as uncompetitive as possible without being totally beer-league), we've all made attempts to make it to games that bordered on absurd. I'm talking like, having a game end like 90 minutes before a flight I had booked, so I brought my luggage to the game, planned for a cab to arrive right as our game ended, and changed in the back seat of the cab on the way to the airport. Sure, I could have just skipped the game. I don't know if it's as contrived as "not wanting to let the team down." But these guys were my friends and I wanted to be there. Outside the six of us, we've had countless guys come in for a season or two, and then kind of fall off and stop playing. Almost all my post-college "good friends" -- the kinds of guys I invited to my wedding, for example -- have played on this softball team.
So I've thought about this a lot. I guess I've concluded that male friendships in particular are more easily forged in some environment of "commitment." In the "you've been there for me, so you're a good guy, so I can feel comfortable about opening up to you about subjects you only bring up with your good friends," sense. Also, I don't think this happens overnight, at least not for me. We were playing for two years before we'd do something like get dinner after the game. It was another long while before we'd talk about deeper friendship stuff like career advice, girlfriend problems, etc.
Hopefully I'm not making this sound like you can only make friends when you're a "bro" who plays sports. When we're younger, these organizations exist everywhere: high school, college, school clubs, sports teams, whatever. Just any place where you're expected to give more than what may be convenient and everyone else does the same. Going back to the softball team, let's say I get two emails the day of a game. One guy says, "hey my boss wants to pull me in a meeting that probably run long, I managed to tell him I have a hard stop at 7:00pm, but I may be like 10 minutes late to the game." Another guy says, "hey, I had a big lunch, I'm gonna skip the game." Which guy am I going to end up being friends with?
So I suppose my conclusion, at least for me personally, is that it's usually not enough to find people I have something in common with, but something in common that we're both committed to. It's tougher to find that after high school and college, but it's not impossible.
[+] [-] fecklessyouth|13 years ago|reply
There's none of the financial worries, pecking orders, or time constraints of workplace friendships, plus more of the freedom. You do it, supposedly, once a week, or more. There's no pressure to make small talk because you're there for another purpose as well, so if you get uncomfortable, you can just leave. As you get more involved, you start joining committees, planning events, coaching teams, going on retreats, leading the local Boy Scout troop, participating in Bible studies, etc and are able to bond with adults there. As long as you're set on your denomination, there's no reason to leave while you're still in the geographical area. Your kids can encourage interaction with other parents, and if they stop being friends, they'll probably still be forced together through sports/school/service events. And you're operating on the same general life philosophy as all of them--supposedly.
When my parents moved, their "friends list" literally became a subsection of the church directory.
Church literally fills every requirement in the article, since it's a very social event with a purpose besides being social for its own sake. I'm amazed the author didn't mention it. Well, not too amazed, since there's nothing more socially unsexier than church groups. I know most people here aren't too warm on religion but it sure knows how to built community.
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zerostar07|13 years ago|reply
Could there be a startup opportunity in this space?
Relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html
[+] [-] president|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjmulder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmanser|13 years ago|reply
Of the few hundred people I've met past casual acquaintance here in the UK, only a couple have ever talked about going to church as if it were normal. Even as a fairly passive atheist these days, I wouldn't be able to go, it'd just be very disingenuous play acting.
In the spirit of the comment I agree that something needs to replace church in secular societies. In fact, I think this is the root of the problem, there's not something to force you to see neighbours regularly any more.
[+] [-] Tichy|13 years ago|reply
Of course lots of my friends are (moderately) religious, too, but it always leaves me uneasy. Because the things I am really interested in (evolution theory, science, artificial intelligence, science fiction, economics...) are incompatible with their beliefs. So I'll never even try to start any deep conversations with them.
[+] [-] cgoddard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dctoedt|13 years ago|reply
2. It also helps to be cheerfully unembarrassed about taking the lead in organizing groups to do stuff. People are often secretly grateful to be able to follow someone else. They'll often reject you. They'll say yes but then flake out on you. You'll feel mortified; you'll be certain that everyone else thinks you're a dork. That's OK; keep at it. (This is good practice for customer development and sales work, come to think of it.)
3. A lot of churches and synagogues have active single-adult programs. I grant you, tech people often don't go for religious dogma. Neither do I.
I've been fairly happy in the Episcopal Church (I "married in") for reasons described at http://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse..... Among other things, that post recounts how a priest's citation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in a discussion about my inability to assent to dogma about God, had a real impact on my religious views, such as they are.
[+] [-] rweba|13 years ago|reply
The challenge is converting those people into FRIENDS. Basically you have to hang out together a ton in order to build that comfort level and familiarity. And modern adult western life simply doesn't facilitate this very much.
The one exception I can think of is a small town or village where people bump into each other all the time without having to consciously plan to do so.
So it is a bit paradoxical: Living in a city there are a ton of interesting people to meet, but precisely because of the density it is unlikely for you to randomly end up spending enough time with someone for you to become good friends.
[+] [-] smokeyj|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ayush_gupta|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kafkaesque|13 years ago|reply
I have zero friends.
My coworkers are vastly different from me. I work with two people the most; one is a younger guy who goes clubbing and is interested in getting laid, and the other is a 40-something woman who is most likely menopausal and hates everything in her life.
I'm married to boot.
All my friends and wife are back home. My immediate family is here but we couldn't be any more different. My situation is complicated, but for all intents and purposes, you can say I was adopted.
I moved here for a better job, yet it happens to be a city I hate; a city in which driving and huge cars is a fact of life, yet I absolutely despise cars. I am used to taking public transport, cycling, walking, and even running. I run 5 times a week. The air is so bad here I had chest pain yesterday after running. I still do it.
I observe the people in this dreadful city and feel they are either extremely superficial, cliquey, and stereotypical or go-getters who do nearly anything to go up the corporate ladder in a dog-eat-dog 'world'.
Where is the substance?
If you've not guessed already, I'm trying to get out of here, but it would be nice to have meaningful conversations or form some type of meaningful relationships along the way.
Most Americans (and maybe Canadians) will guess what city I'm in, and as others have mentioned, the American west coast just works differently, especially the southwest. It's definitely not me.
(Sorry if this sounds like a soapbox, corny or like I'm wearing my 'heart on my sleeve' - I know it's not a social norm. It wasn't my intention and I hope someone can extract something useful out of it.)
[+] [-] majormajor|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crusso|13 years ago|reply
That's interesting and kind of profound.
I guess when you're arranging dates on match.com, the intention is clear. You're out to meet someone for a relationship. It's the goal.
A meetup to discuss Ruby on Rails or something is all about the subject of the meetup. Most are there just to talk about Rails and get help with a bug, not to make close friends.
How would you find activities where the specific goal is for people new to an area to make friends, or maybe for people who aren't new to an area but they want to make friends?
There's probably an opportunity for a little business there,
There has to be someone already doing this... maybe?
[+] [-] hv23|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannyr|13 years ago|reply
I made a lot of lifelong friends when I was in the East Coast. When I was in my late 20s, I decided to move out West. My friends were my support system back in the East Coast and now I don't have them.
Starting over when you're older is hard. Most people my age have established their own circle of friends. It feels out-of-place trying to join an existing circle.
[+] [-] mahyarm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peter_l_downs|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] katovatzschyn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carerra|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chernevik|13 years ago|reply
I remember leaving the room, looking out a window and thinking "This guy isn't as big a prick as _that_." (I had seen something like this before.) And I went back in and said, "what are we going to do about this?" I had enough standing among this larger circle to help slow down the rumors and witch-hunting until things got sorted out, which happened quickly after Friend of GirlFriend admitted it was just a lousy story. (He was never accused of this again, and never had been before.)
We ended up living together for years, and I helped him move to university for his masters. It turned out that we had similar interests and enjoyed similar arguments and enjoyed picking stuff up off one another. He introduced me to all sorts of music, and, a Jew, learned from me to give up ice cream for Lent. (I got more from this friendship than he did.) When a friend's boyfriend moved into town for her, we took him as a roommate, and cut her out when she dumped him two weeks later -- we hardly knew the guy, but she had friends in town, and he didn't. There was the day he yelled at me for suggesting something _he_ did all the time, because it wasn't something _I_ believed in.
Unfortunately, he was killed in a freak car accident, returning from completion of his masters'. That was a long time ago. I've never come close to anything like him.
In your twenties you live with more drama. You're figuring yourself out, you do stupid things, people do stupid things to you. It's easier to see who and what people are, and you need people more to bring you through all the noise. As we age as we figure out our basic choices and move on from there. The drama recedes and the volume goes down. We get more complicated and it becomes harder to read us. Confessions that made sense as we were figuring stuff out start to seem a lot more demonstrative and overwrought. Let's face it, many of us make soul-deadening choices and become much less interesting.
As we "grow up" the stuff that was questioning and exciting starts looking like instability. The raw threads of personality that can be woven into another person get woven up into others and ourselves and tucked out of sight. For lots of people this is actually good, there is less chaos and more enjoyment and more creativity. But it does become harder to make friends.
tldr; Cherish your friends. You can lose them, and they're very hard to replace.
[+] [-] wallflower|13 years ago|reply
"It takes relationships to make relationships. And, in general, to make relationships, you have to allow vulnerability. Vulnerability is the difference between a conversation that starts, "How about this weather we're having?" and a conversation that starts, "Oh my God, let me tell you about how I just fell in a puddle in front of a group of nuns." The former is so boring that it makes listeners want to crawl under a table; the latter creates a spark and a list of follow-up questions. These are two extreme examples, but generally, the more of yourself you put out there, the more others will have to connect with.
As for your list of "nevers": they may feel big to you, but in the scheme of things, they get a shrug. Each of us is on an individual and separately-terrifying trajectory. Ultimately, you are not behind. Self-discovery is vital at any age. A lot of people couple up, get married, and have kids without ever having to look inward. Those are often the people who cave later in life. Get that introspection out of the way now, and you'll set yourself up well for the future — angst-Tumblr or no...
Pursue activities you are passionate about: passion is an attractive quality, and others will pick up on it...
Friendships will be made when your attention is elsewhere."
http://www.nerve.com/advice/miss-information/miss-informatio...
[+] [-] lwhi|13 years ago|reply
In reality, to make a friend - you simply need to reflect what you feel honestly in the company of someone else who's doing the same. Do that enough, and soon enough you'll find someone who thinks in a way that meshes well with your own mode of being .. and at the risk of making a NYT journalist's 1000 words redundant, that's actually as difficult as it gets.
[+] [-] m0nastic|13 years ago|reply
High-School Friends (who I still stay in touch with, although only peripherally, as I don't still live where I grew up)
College Friends (which includes a subset of High School friends, who I do a better job of staying in touch with, but who also mostly live back where I went to school)
Work Friends (the overwhelming majority of my friends are people I've worked with at one time or another. Reservations about mixing work with pleasure aside, people in my line of work tend to have a lot in common)
Photography School Friends (I suppose similar to college, but they are more recent, and local. This group is unusual in that the entire class ended up becoming really really close)
For whatever reason, I've never had trouble meeting people. What has proven to be a lot of work is actually committing to spending time with people (as my natural state is to never want to leave the house under any circumstances).
I've found online presence exacerbates that, as it's easy for me to convince myself that I'm being social merely by responding to people's Facebook posts (which doesn't really cut it).
[+] [-] iterationx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pnathan|13 years ago|reply
This is a problem, that's for sure.
[+] [-] klipt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krschultz|13 years ago|reply
You will not make friends sitting at home. You will not make friends at a bar full of people.
Join a club or sports team. I've met most of my adult friends through ski club trips and sailing teams. Or join a volunteer organization, or attend local meetups, or take a photography/art class.
It is difficult to make friends at work, but not impossible. You have to find common ground outside of work, because no one wants to hang out with people where the only topic of conversation is work. I surf with one guy from my office and ski with a few others.
The friendship is not from the activity - the activity could be solo (like surfing). The friendship comes from the 3 hour car ride up to the mountain you share BSing about stuff. Or hanging out in a bar after racing sailboats with the rest of the crew. Or looking at the surf forecast in the office all day hoping its good that evening.
Somehow the conversation grows from 'what mountains do you like to ski' to 'man I'm having X, Y, Z problems in my life'. That doesn't always happen, but I've probably met 15 people over the last 2 years that I regularly do things with outside of work and I'm actually friends with 3 or 4 of them.
[+] [-] fallous|13 years ago|reply
Previously people sat on their porches in the evening to escape the heat of the house and thus saw their neighbors nightly. Now we're all in our climate-controlled cocoons.
After moving to this city a few years ago where we had no friends or family, I just started stopping at neighbor houses when I saw them working on something and offered to help. Establishing this pattern of behavior triggered most of them to do the same not only to me but also to other neighbors and now we have a very tight-knit group of people whose only real initial "shared interest" was physical proximity.
When one of the neighbors was diagnosed with terminal cancer, some of the others were wondering what we could do to help. I suggested we ask him what things he wanted done for his house so that he could not worry about such things and focus on his last months with family. So we spent a lot of summer weekends painting, roofing, doing general house repairs. Along with that his teenage boys got to hang around a group of men in a setting where we would naturally banter and tease without any social climbing or the like. Close to the end of his life my neighbor told several of us that he was happy to know that there were going to be men around his family that would take care of things and serve as role models for his boys. I can't think of anything that would give me more comfort if I was in his position.
So basically, get off your butt in the evenings and walk the neighborhood. Look for someone doing something and offer to help. If nothing else you'll feel good about being able to help someone out and it just may start the chain reaction necessary to build an entirely new social group.
[+] [-] pnathan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tchock23|13 years ago|reply
I moved to NYC last year from Rochester, NY and have found that people in NYC are so "busy" all the time that it's much more difficult to make new friends (the recent NY Times article on HN called "The Busy Trap" summed that up perfectly). People in NYC also seem to treat new connections from the perspective of "what can you do to help me advance somehow."
In Rochester, people seem to live more balanced lives (for example, they generally leave work right at 5) and therefore have time to make new connections. They're also less on guard about people, which could have a lot to do with the size of city compared to NYC.
Granted, this is just my observation of the differences between one small/mid size city and a very large one, but anyone else notice this as well?
[+] [-] RexRollman|13 years ago|reply
Sadly, these days, I don't often meet anyone with similar interests. The people who I do meet and find interesting are often female, which leaves me confused about how friendly to get without causing people and my wife to think I am cheating.
This definitely used to be easier.
[+] [-] gruseom|13 years ago|reply
I think I'll go walk the dog.
[+] [-] zerostar07|13 years ago|reply