Posted by surprisetalk 4 days ago
"Faith comes from trust, which comes from time, and experience"
With the Internet, and social media, it can feel like we have friends when we really don't. But what social media etc. has robbed from us is that before, we had to spend time with people, we had experience with them, and over time they led to trust, and friendship. That's how people made friends before. Now we don't put that much effort into friendships because we think we already have friends because we see them on Facebook.
>It could be that I had my second kid in 2024 or that 2024 marked 5 years of working remotely.
The kids vs. single divide is real, and I don't think it needs much more elaboration.
Working remotely definitely has its costs, though. There's lots of discussions these days about 3rd places, and remote work more or less removes your "second place". We don't just drop by people's houses unannounced anymore, so that leaves zero places for friendhips to naturally form post school. It's definitely one thing I miss most about an in-office job.
To coworking initiative is a nice way to get some "company", but I imagine most people will still ultimately be focusing on doing work. So it's not quite the 2nd nor 3rd place the author desires.
As for me, it's pretty straightforward: I'm underemployed and am spending any down time applying to jobs. Not much time to hang out. I'm busy trying to survive first.
Language can be a barrier, but not insurmountable.
Also that lockdown destroyed many social connections and it is up to each and every one of us to take the initiative instead of expecting it to happen to us.
In myself I find I can't seem to muster the motivation to spend enough time with someone that it would take to form a friendship. I want to have friends, but I don't care to know any of these people. I just don't like anyone that much. The question is, am I just inherently a cynical asshole? Or, has modern life done something to me that it has also done to everyone else?
it's a mix of life moves and mismatched schedules, as well as some people simply being flaky. It's hard to make friends if you're always moving around for your job, and jobs are less stable than ever (be it willfully with job hops, or unwillfully with layoffs). So it happens a lot more.
And yeah, I think "flake culture" makes it harder to form gatherings when you're still forming that friendship. Some people just have other stuff in life (be it in or out of their control), but they never bother communicating it. So with that radio silence, you can't do much.
It's not "more considerate" - you can ignore a phone call the same you can ignore a text. It's merely asking other people to optimize for you convenience only. That's perfectly fine to ask for, but it doesn't help with making friendships easy.
FWIW, when I do make the occasional unexpected call, I make sure to start the call with "sorry to interrupt, everyone's fine, got a sec?" or similar.
Contra the other commenter's assertion, phone calls to friends and family are typically NOT as easily ignored as texts, precisely because they're not screened. Close friends and family leave themselves open to direct contact largely to account for potential emergencies. Their phone is going to ring and/or buzz, and (for at least some number of seconds) they won't know why. During which time they might reasonably fear it's terrible news. So you're starting the interaction by having interrupted and scared them. For no good reason. Failure to understand this is maybe just a sign of immaturity. Live long enough to be on the receiving end of such calls and it'll hopefully register.
>It's merely asking other people to optimize for you convenience only.
no, it's compromise. Maybe they're free right now. maybe they are swamped all day with work or errands. Calling out of the blue is asking people to optimize for my convenience.
It's just needlessly anxiety-inducing. Not to mention it's a major inconvenience to interrupt someone randomly for a chat.
There are also heaps of people that love getting phonecalls, or love to get a nice voice message.
There's a whole other world of people that call and enjoy calling!!!!
Why let a subset of people rule your behaviour towards others not in that subset?
When people call, I try to encourage that. Unless I'm busy or they're too needy, so I don't answer.
I am especially encouraging towards anyone that struggles with text messages (one of my oldest friends was illiterate, and I've got other friends that would call themselves dyslexic).
I undermine that by messaging when I should call, because I like the written word.
It's them who initiate 90% of the calls too, and nobody cares.
Also, AI acceleration the last few years. most of the calls I do answer are clearly fake voices trying to sound real, as opposed to some TTY.
Texting is fine. We can schedule a call or meetup from there. But life as is is already so spontaneous, I don't need even more stuff to come up.
Is it? I think the exact opposite is true. Most people's life is a walking calendar. these days if someone can't "schedule" something they're losing their minds. Life was spontaneous when people didn't monitor every second of their day, when someone walked up to your house and asked you a question to your face, there wasn't a "I'll reply in ten minutes when I'm comfortable" button.
We're living in a comfort obsessed society where, when you can't run away and plan your reply, people have a panic attack. Dating for young people is terrible because it's about as spontaneous as a legal appointment.
You can either have deep friendships XOR children.
All of them are either still without children, or are by no means valuable friends anymore.
Sorry, but that's just how it is.
I agree that making new friends across the “kids barrier” is hard. You just live in different worlds.
I also sing in a small choir that is as much a friend group as it is a music ensemble. Most of us have kids, but not everyone; while I can't speak for those in the group without kids, I think one reason it works so well is because none of us have parenting responsibilities while we're together as a choir (we joke that rehearsals are a great time for us to escape from our families).
That's not really a single vs. married divide there. That's just how you prioritize your energy in life.
At the same time, that very much is cultural. We think we need to raise children alone, and that's very much not the case in many societies. Good friends (even single) would be part of the family and help out with looking after or playing with the kids. Basically an uncle/aunt.
Presumably they don't want to engage in discussion, which is precisely what this topic is about!