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Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

> 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.

You can sometimes make friends in such settings if they're regular enough, informal enough, and smallish groups. I initially met one current friend via the SF Wikipedia meetups, for example. But they have a somewhat deliberate "social outing" tone, where it's expected some Wikipedia business will be discussed, but not in any organized way.

A friend used to say that OkCupid sucks for dating, but is great for finding friends.

It makes sense as most people want partners that complete them but friends that are like them.

I've found it far easier than ever to get dates, but more difficult to make friends

People have ridiculously high standards for friendships than dates. This sounds weird, even writing it, but I've found it to be true again and again. Many many people would have no problems dating absolute jerks, but wouldn't hang out for 15 minutes with a genuinely nice person (of the same gender). May be people are just desperate to hang out with people of opposite gender? I dunno.

There's probably an opportunity for a little business there,

I doubt that. How could you do this as a business? Arrange volunteer activities/"friend dates"/hang-outs with the primary aim of making friends? Make a website like lookingforfriends.com (just made up the name)? Most people just can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes getting to know another person, unless there is something in it for them (that is why it is easier to get dates, than friends). It just boils down to, people are just plain selfish, at least most of them.

May be people are just desperate to <strike>hang out</strike> <i>have sex</i> with with people of opposite gender

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?

Ah, that looks very interesting. The ones currently closest to me seem about an hour's drive away in LA, but I'll keep an eye on it.

And yeah, that's the thing I've run into with Meetups. Great place to find a particular activity, harder to find people looking to meet people beyond just the activity.

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.

There's another factor. In my observation, people on the east coast make truer and deeper friendships than people out west. I'm a lifelong westerner and when I first started spending time in the east I felt, in this respect, like I had come home for the first time. People I met (socially, not on the street) would actually do things like make eye contact, listen to what each other said, and respond to it. They were noticeably more contactful.

On the west coast, things don't work that way. People seem nicer on the surface but it's a cool sunniness. They don't really mean the friendly things they say and they shy away from deeper connection. It's an alone-together vibe. The social ecosystem is less hospitable to bonding.

That may be less a West Coast / East Coast thing and more a California thing in particular. I say that because my family hosted a couple of exchange students from France who were really struck by the veneer of friendliness here, and the very real distance that people maintained beneath it.

Later, when I went to France, I found that there was an initial aloofness that I mistook for vague dislike. But after a while, this went away and what I found instead was a much more substantial and very real affinity.

This is sometimes called the Peach and Coconut model (1). As a Brit living in Cali, I subscribe to the idea. Have a nice day!

1. http://martinsbusinessenglish.blogspot.com/2012/02/small-tal...

I'm not sure how general my experience is (Santa Cruz is the only place I've lived in California, and it's a bit odd). But I tend to think of it as being about compartmentalization more than veneers. There are a reasonable number of people I'd chat with semi-regularly because we were both regulars at the same coffee shop, for example, but we didn't regularly socialize outside that setting. It wasn't superficial interaction in the sense of chatting just to keep up appearances or be polite or something. There is also some of that that goes on, but the people I chatted with regularly were because I actually enjoyed our conversations, and found them personally and/or intellectually fulfilling. I might even look forward to them, or visit a particular coffee shop more often if there was someone I found particularly interesting who frequented it. But I was fine leaving them at that; coffee-shop conversation partners who occupied a certain niche in my life, which didn't necessarily need to get all mixed up in other niches (and vice versa).

It's not just a California thing. We have the exact same thing here--we call it the "Seattle freeze".

Apologies, accidentally down voted you on my phone..

Anyway, having grown up on the east coast then spending time both in Seattle and back east off and on, I can vouch for the Seattle freeze being rather real.

And to a certain extent I actually find myself liking it. Moving around too much makes forming deeper relationships risky, they end up being more baggage. I see the freeze as a sort of defensive mechanism against that.

It might be a San Francisco thing. I moved to California (Los Angeles) when I was young, and recently moved to the East Coast (New York). I don't have many friends back home, but we(~6) keep up with each other (especially back home) on all sorts of events/happenings. I actually had problems when I first moved that while I was sincere about being friends, people (on the east coast) did not believe I was serious.

Or maybe my circle of friends are not the norm in Cali.

Damn, I missed my chance to add that this distinction was captured perfectly by the late great John Callahan in his cartoon "The Difference Between LA and NY":

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanfeeley/5551037426/

... except that that's a censored version. In the one I remember, "Drop Dead" was "Fuck You", as it should be.

You mean that's the whole West Coast? God, I thought only Seattle was frozen-hearted.

my solution: travel

1) you meet a lot of people while traveling (quantity)

2) you and them are out of context (and out of existing social circles)

3) all are a little bit more relaxed

4) you start pretty fast talking about things that are interesting without (social circle / insider) background information - you can filter them for quality (if they are interesting enough for do friendship follow ups)

from the last 5 years about 80% of the new people i now call friends i met during traveling

I've met friends travelling but the problem is I ended up making friends in cities outside of the one I moved to.

Traveling is impractical for many people especially when they have wife and kids, and even if they did, it might be hard to have interactions with people like you mention when you're with family. A simpler step would be joining a gym, or a yoga class or any other physical activity in a group setting.

The issue with this, and I've moved around like a gypsy, is that while traveling, your new friends are either traveling too or you are meeting them where they live. I've made great friends in my travels and through moving a lot but they are only great when they are with me. After they move or I move it becomes "that time in our lives". There are so many variables for friendship that it really is amazing when things fall into place with any one person.

I'm in the bay area in my mid 20s, and it's quite the opposite for me, lots of same gender friends, not a lot of dates.

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).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efWTPuc6YAA

Meetups? The vast majority of them are not designed to find people to date.

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.

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