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Comment by no_wizard | Hacker News Reader

A somewhat modern feeling I have is also that it’s hard to make close friends as an adult. There’s less willingness to interact with strangers or even the possible idea of having a good interaction with someone that’s a stranger.

I think that would also help alleviate the problem significantly is if we were able to meet people in safe spaces somewhat randomly without people feeling like it’s an affront or something

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Its unclear if you are talking about yourself or making a general observation about people around you, but in case its the latter: I believe this to be very much subject to strong confirmation bias. You dont open up because you believe thats just not what people do. But I find that to be false 9/10 times I break through the fear and show genuine interest.

Safe spaces would include anywhere people that share a common interest gather, for me thats a climbing gym I go to regularly. Volunteering is also great in regards to meeting people that share similar values.

The issue with being friends is that it mostly works if it's actually present continuous, not present perfect.

That is, to be friends means to be able to find time and interesting stuff for each other with some regularity, on a scale of weeks, not years. Adult life often leaves little time for that, especially now that various forms of easy-to-reach entertainment compete with friendships. Another obvious bottleneck is having (young) kids. To open up is actually a non-zero effort and a noticeable time expenditure; plus you have to allocate time to listen to your friend, too :) Without regular nurture a friendship withers. (Ask me how I know.)

Kids just have so much more time in their hands. (Unless they are also overloaded like tiny adults, then they also have trouble finding friends and, importantly, hanging out with them.)

This is all true but at the end of the day its on you to make that time. If you try and make it happen, people will try and make themselves available or try and reschedule. Especially if they have kids, they are probably chomping at the bit for excuses to hang out with adults.

I discovered that I can be instantly be close and talks about relatively deep subjects with most other foreign workers. ( I am too and it’s obvious )

Being severed from your own culture create a link.

And with people sharing a language, it’s even quicker.

A common ice breaker is to gently make fun of American.

Interesting point: I would probably never have talked with those folks back home. And they would have not either. It’s actually refreshing. We see each other back home as well.

—-

My actual point: when I come home, I started to behave the same way. And .. it kinda works.

Having something (but not everything) in common is the root of most friendships. The common thing can be club membership, location, interest in weed, some hobby, or almost anything. Without something to connect over it’s hard to get past small talk.

The paradox is that LOTs of people feel this way (me included), and lots of them would be willing to put some real effort into developing new friendships. Yet it still doesn't happen. Now, what could be behind that? (Not rhetorical, genuinely interested)

Are you out there putting in effort to find and make friends?

Of course!

Nice work!

For me its mostly projecting my own insecurities onto others. Being in a space where you are guaranteed a shared interest with others (places hobbies get practiced at, volunteering gigs) is a great way to aleviate the fear of rejection, looking like a weirdo, creep or whatever.

It's nice that you know what kind of things you can improve on, that's like 90% of the road traveled.

"You're not uncool. Making friends as an adult is just hard" - https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/11/10/making-friends-ad...

Hey, we sort of became friends last month :D

We are friends, friend! :)

"Friendship" doesn't happen in a vacuum. You need dependence and value exchange between two "friends." Technology has replaced most of our needs and dependence on other people, with great economic benefit. The downside is it eliminates the need for other humans, and consequently removes the potential for fulfilling relationships.

Just two example out of millions: Uber reduces the need to have friends drive you to the airport. ChatGPT reduces the need to ask your friends about their areas of expertise.

This comment puts into words what I feel. For example, my parents generation immigrated to the US, and are very close as a diaspora/tribe. They can go to any city and visit a friend of a friend’s house and be considered friends themselves. But they all went through the same immigrant struggle of establishing themselves in a foreign nation, relying on their network to be able to vacation and travel since they did not have enough money to stay in hotels or eat out or fly.

However, ALL the kids of that generation have none of that connection to each other. We would feel like we are imposing if we called a cousin’s friend in a different city to hang out or stay over. We prefer to stay in nice hotels, and fly to exotic destinations. And I don’t think we can re-create the type of relationships our parents had with their extended tribe, no matter what, since we are all very independent.

Counterpoint: my parents came to the US when I was a child and they have none of those things. Their family ties weren't strong enough to last. Their ties to family back home deteriorated. There is no diaspora of extended family in other cities. Their own relationship was toxic and abusive, and they divorced. They are now living out old age alienated, isolated, and alone. They're not rare, they're just not nearly as vocal as the "my big, fat Greek wedding"-type people.

in fact - that's the reason advice can backfire. modern day online friends can end up being somewhat incompatible when moved closer together

I've always thought about the fact how it used to be super common to ask a stranger for directions somewhere, something that would be completely ridiculous today given the ability to find anything yourself. So now when I happens I recognize that they aren't strictly just looking to get somewhere, but to talk to someone.

I spent a few years running a startup that was tackling this very issue. Sadly getting $ for "solving social isolation in America's cities" was hard to do, but I am still confident that the approach the company was taking would have worked for at least a double digit % of people.

tl;dr friendship is formed when there is alignment of values/personality (but not in the way people always expect), and also when a lot of time it put in.

The time thing is powers of 10. IIRC, 10 hours to get to know someone as an acquittance, 100 hours is a casual friend, 1000 hours is a good friend, and 10,000 hours is a lifelong friend you can really depend on.

The way to fast track this process is to create a shared feeling of oppression. Military boot camps rely on this technique to rapidly form group bonds. It is the same idea behind quite a few team building outings as well. It is also why college dormmates can form long lasting relationships, lots of time spent together during a period of high stress.

Same goes for people working at high pressure startups together.

An argument is that friendships are rarely planned, and involve a variety of unexpected, fortuitous encounters. It's easy to make friendships in high school or college, as you really get to see a bunch of people over and over again, and eventually a few will become your friends. A long enough tenure at a job can do something similar.

But look at how we have life set up in a US suburb, where all our travel is in an environment where we cannot talk to anyone, most of our commerce is done in places designed to get you in and out as fast as possible, and where employees rotate often enough it might not be all so easy to ever make them register as people, much less build relationships with you. Stopping anywhere is inconvenient enough that that few people spend a significant amount of time lounging anywhere other than their home. So where are you, exactly, supposed to make friends? You have to be trying pretty hard.

People's best bets is to pick up a hobby where people meet regularly, like an exercise class, or a boardgame meetup. Then you have enough people that the probabilities of finding someone compatible go up.

The last two people my partner has tried to make friends with have turned out to be utter scum.

I also seem to attract utter scum, I had to tow some crack heads off the local beach and tow them to work, I got their number and could have been friends with them but who wants to be friends with crackheads?

The other people my partner could be friends are in completely different stages of their lives (e.g. gonna be grandmas soon).

At this stage in my life (36) I've become weary of humans.

It’s definitely harder after a certain age. Friends come ready made when you’re in school or college and to an extent when you’re young and in your first jobs.

The idea of safe spaces implies that the existence of unsafe spaces. If you’ll excuse me pontificating for a moment, it might be useful to try to reframe this outlook; if you wait to feel safe before taking chances with people you’ll miss out on many potential interactions and relationships.

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