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Comment by delfinom | Hacker News Reader

Do I come from an alien universe where people in committed relationships still have friends?

How do you have time for friends besides your spouse after you do jour job, chores, fitness, sleping, education, side projects and random tasks which emerge every now and then? I do have some great friends but only meet them a couple of times a week even though they live very close to me.

Only a couple of times per week? I found this statement kind of funny. Now that I'm married with kids, and my best friends have kids, im lucky if I see them once every few months! Right now I spend more time with my kids' friends families than I do my personal friends.

> only meet them a couple of times a week

You're very, very lucky

Why you place your side projects above your friends?

i always get a kick out of how HN people talk about their "side projects" rather than their "hobbies". just let your hobby be a hobby instead of turning it into a pseudojob.

seriously

hobbies can be serious! i take all my hobbies more seriously than my career at this point.

but they're for fun.

For me it's not a pseudojob, I code tools for myself to help me in my endaevours. Perhaps I will publish some someday, maybe I won't.

Firstly - because I'm an introvert and I more often feel like doing something interesting or necessary alone or together with my spouse, secondly - this list is not really sorted by my priorities, I actually put my education (which mostly is self-education in areas mostly unrelated to my job) much higher.

You send them memes regularly.

Serious. I have a bunch of social circles that I keep live just by doing this from time to time.

Seeing your friends a couple of times a week is more than what I think most people do.

I feel like I have an abnormally large group of close friends and I basically only see them on weekends.

Propably. Also, I do consider my spouse to be a lot more than a spouse, you know like also a friend on top of everything else.

i'm not saying you will - but you might be surprised about that friendship after you broke up.

So far I lost more friends in my life than spouses, but I get your point. If it ever comes to that, I at least hope any break will be more or less amicable. No huge interest in finding out so!

losing friends is in my experience a somewhat dynamic and historically plausible process while break ups turn a switch in a woman's brain. i know this won't fare well with many folks to put it that way - but men don't have that switch. a woman turns from one minute to the other into someone else the moment the relationship is over and the only thing you have left to hope for is that this someone isn't going to be your new archenemy - especially if you have a divorce looking forward to.

So, you think only women have difficulties with break ups? Men don't? What are we, emotionless rocks or ice cubes?

How many data points are you using to come to this conclusion about “men” and “women”?

Depends how much she misses you.

I had quite the opposite experience. We're still friends since we ended our 6 year relationship. She is still the person I trust the most, and no one knows me as well. It requires a lot of honest communication. If one betrays the other, obviously that doesn't help.

Relaitonships are complex and diverse and there are many counter examples to what you describe.

I broke up with women after being together for years, and we're still pretty close friends. We just realized it wasn't working for us but we still found each other's company pleasurable and stimulating, and we knew so much about each other... why would we give all of that up?

So, I'm sorry if it went horribly wrong in your case, but even assuming you handled everything perfect (behavior, communication), extrapolating to all women is really not reasonable.

> like also a friend on top of everything else

I'm happy you have this, it is the fundamental quality a relationship needs to work IMO. Having a child only needs animal magnetism, falling in love helps too, speaking from experience.

Many people have friends but I think it’s probably true for most people that these relationships are not nearly as deep as the marital one.

No, you're just reading an article written by someone in a tiny social bubble, common among the single, middle-aged in large urban centers.

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