The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting
263 comments
·April 26, 2025dm03514
For the us, I feel like it’s late stage individualism. This is what happens I think when people prioritize themselves over their communities, I think we have less dependence on our communities than ever thanks to the internet and being able to physically avoid community. We have less interaction than before. We can order grocery pickup and not even have to be physically around people for basic life tasks. We order next day delivery on Amazon and don’t even have to go out in the world and be in the physical presence of others :(
The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships
I’m grappling with this myself, it requires a lot of energy to form adult friendships. I keep seeing my neighbors out at the playground, I reach out and say hey and hi and ask them how they are doing but stop short of investing the time necessary to form real friendships with them and I know deep down that it’s perpetuating late stage individualism
kace91
It’s not only lack of dependence, but also lack of idleness.
Most of my friend interactions would come from things like having a moment with nothing to do in the bus, realizing I have no particular plans this weekend and reaching out to a couple friends to see if they’re available.
Now those moments are instantly drowned by opening instagram before a thought bubbles up. And when the weekend eventually comes and there’s no plan, Netflix is just a button press away.
We need moments of boredom and reflection to push us into action, the attention economy is robbing us from that.
I’d even say the increase in anxiety related symptoms is due to this lack of idleness. The mind feels as if it’s super busy moving from active task to active task when in reality there were hours of just defaulting to reels.
paulryanrogers
It's not only modern technology taking up time. I foolishly bought a project house and have spent nearly every weekend and some weeknights doing repairs and improvements. My SO also tends toward time consuming hobbies like gardening and aquariums. Add young children and every free moment in between is precious.
kace91
That is true, but real hobbies will rarely take up your micropauses - going to the bathroom, coffee break at work, commuting, waiting between sets at the gym, and so on.
You won’t do social stuff in those micropauses anyway, that’s true, but I think those moments are where you’d normally “mentally review”. Wondering how a friend is, feeling like you miss a connection, etc.
Without that, I think we mentally drift away from social connections.
bilsbie
You could involve friends in those hobbies. In fact men do better hanging out if they have a goal.
My stepbrother has declined hang out invitations for decades but the minute I need the most minor house or car repair he’ll drop everything and be there all day.
BigGreenJorts
On one hand I'm inclined to believe this particular example relies on personality. My aunts and uncles had their home hobby projects and so did they're friends. They'd help either other out on their projects and then take a break over a beer or cigs, chatting the rest of the evening away.
FollowingTheDao
But you see the Amish, they just rebuilt a whole lumber sawmill in only eight days.
https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1915121027820159414
Your project house was an individual pursuit when it should be a collective one.
creata
I don't think it's just the attention economy. I think the Internet was bound to replace a lot of the time that people spent with friends. There's just too much interesting stuff too conveniently accessible.
siquick
I’ve got a feeling that if you looked at the average persons average internet usage it would not be full of interesting stuff.
highstep
you're right. Now delete that app!
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ryandrake
> The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships
Yea, this tracks my observations. A lot of adults make connections in their community through their kids and kids' friends. Kids pick their friends and their parents and guardians just go along for the ride, so when the kids play together, it kind of forces the parents to meet and interact.
Without exception, the parents I meet in the 25-40 age range are what I'd charitably call totally anti-social. Not actively mean (although some are), but just not interested at all in even saying a word to you to pass the time when the children are playing together. They just sit there on their phones trying to get through the experience. In general, these parents project outward an attitude of vague grumpiness and annoyance.
A few of the kid-friends are evidently raised by the 50-70 year old grandparents (never even seen the parents), and these folks tend to be much more social and will shoot the shit with you while the kids play. Much more pleasant and willing to interact while we're forced together. My relationships with them have been civil at worst and friendly at best.
Of course, this is just one person's observations, and yea they are a crude generalization. I'm in my mid-40s so don't have that much in common with either of these groups, but the attitude and behavior difference has been stark!
tdrz
Maybe they are not anti-social, they are just not being social to you! They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.
pesus
> They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.
This is a really cynical and negative way to view basic human interaction, the cornerstone of our species and civilization. I've been seeing it a lot lately online, and it doesn't surprise me that people are lonely and aren't making friends if they adopt an attitude like that.
Bootvis
In the proposed setting I’d say that’s just anti social behaviour. If you need to be obligated to act socially, you’re within a hairs width of antisocial.
pdonis
From the GP's description, they're not being social with anyone. They're on their phones.
mjevans
What community?
Many of us still can't afford housing anywhere near where the jobs are. How could we possibly put down roots and be a real part of a lasting community worth investing time, effort, and possibly savings in?
Braxton1980
What if you can afford the housing but don't want what you can afford? How many immigrant families lived in 2 bedroom apartments in brooklyn while working in the city?
sltr
> it requires a lot of energy to form adult friendships
My experience corroborates this. Reminded me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618
redczar
The less dependence on community started with desegregation. There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free. These things and more all ended with desegregation. Now we live in a society in which people don’t walk and don’t have places in their neighborhood where others congregate. Kids rarely play in the street anymore. The notion of it taking a village gets laughed at and as you say get individualistic. We live in a deeply unhealthy society from a social standpoint of view.
graemep
If that was true it would only be a problem in the US. It is not. The same has happened where there never was segregation.
paulryanrogers
Having talked to folks from the segregation era, you may be thinking of red-lining and white flight. As folks realized cities and schools were desegregating many moved out of urban environments to suburbs and rural areas, then excluded POC through zoning.
Even if we accept that as the primary cause (which I don't) that would mean cowardice and racism are the root cause. An irrational fear of people who don't look and talk like us.
redczar
Redlining and white flight definitely happened. It also happened that cities stopped funding municipal pools and other services. Things like Elks Lodges went into long term decline when women and blacks had to be admitted.
BigGreenJorts
> There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free.
I live in place where this is still true. The rec centers are barely solvent and it's mostly retirees and summer camps (cheap daycare) that keeps them afloat.
derefr
Is it us, or is it corporations?
Look at a specific microcosm: dating. Dating is "awful" now (according to people both young and old), in a particular way that it wasn't even ten years ago. And sure, this is in part because we do everything online these days, and online dating has a few inherent problems with it. But not as many as you'd think; online dating used to "work" at least alright, in a way that it very much doesn't today / with none of the particular pathologies that it has today.
Dating sites and apps used to do things that actually helped people meet — vaguely optimizing for relationships. So people increasingly gravitated toward using dating apps. And for a while (peaking, I'd say, around the early 2010s), this actually increased the number of people meeting and getting into relationships.
And then one company, Match Group, came along and gradually bought up every "good" dating site, and enshittified them all, in a particular way that maximizes user retention + profit margins (and thereby minimizes the chance of a successful, happy relationship being formed.) They made dating apps bad at being dating apps. But there are no good dating apps — so people now feel stuck/confused, flailing around trying to make "online dating" work when there are only bad options for doing so.
I posit that online social networking in general went through the same evolution. Not because of one asshole company buying up and enshittifying everything, mind you; more because of market consolidation under a few companies who were all willing to copy one-another's homework in advancing the frontier of enshittified social experiences.
Facebook (and Facebook-like experiences) used to be a place you'd turn in the expectation of seeing updates from your actual literal friends, and engaging with those updates. Now it's radioactive for that purpose — and so is abandoned to being a sea of advertisements (and memes from boomers too inattentive to realize when the people they're talking at have left the table.)
And Instagram and even Snapchat have just copied TikTok's enshittified-from-the-start model of "personalized TV but all programs are 10 seconds long."
I have many friends I met in the 2000s and 2010s, where I recall heavily relying on social media as a fit-to-purpose tool to maintain and deepen those friendships. But I can't imagine what social network I could lean on to serve as that kind of tool for me today.
---
Yes, IM and group-chat apps always existed and still exist today. But that's not what traditional social networks got you.
It's funny that I even feel the need to explain this, but here's what social-networks-as-tools had to offer:
1. profile pages — like dating profiles or LinkedIn profiles, but from a lens of "this is what I want potential friends to know about me"!
2. "walls" — a specific semi-public place, attached to a person's profile, to leave a message "performatively" for not only that person, but also anyone else who looked at that person's wall, to see (think: birthday wishes.) Critically, walls are owned and therefore moderated by the profile they're attached to — so, unlike a feed, you can't really (successfully) cyberbully someone on their own wall. They can just delete your message; block you (which will block you from posting to their wall); or disable non-friends from posting to their wall entirely.
3. a home page view, that is simply a dumb chronological view of anything your direct friends have posted to their own walls. Not including friends-of-friends content. It was a social norm, back in the heyday of social networking, that you'd always be caught up on on everything your friends have posted — because it shouldn't add up to much. Nobody could "share" anything out of its originally intended broadcast audience (the poster's friends), and thus there was no benefit to "posting performatively, as if for a mass audience" — and therefore, posts were sparse and personal, making it practical to truly inbox-zero your feed in maybe 20 minutes per day.
Modern social networks don't have profile pages (at least, not that anyone populates with anything — Facebook has vestigial ones nobody uses), owner-moderated public walls, or non-re-shareable "just for mutuals" posts. They have none of the tools that we originally associated with the category of "a tool that makes it easier to network socially." And yet these apps that do not successfully accomplish social networking, are what we today refer to as "social networking apps." And are what everyone therefore thinks to turn to when trying to network socially online.
No wonder, I think, that people find it hard.
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prhn
I'm not sure what caused this, but I think the expectations of modern friendship have become unrealistic.
Maybe it's movies and TV, where a "close friend" is more or less a non judgemental therapist that will throw down in a fight for you.
What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends.
In my experience, most friends come and go. That's OK. People change. Circumstances change. One person is always putting in more effort than the other. Some friends will always be aloof. Some friends will pretend they are independent and don't need friendship "like everyone else does," but they're generally full of it. Some friends will seem clingy.
Just roll with it.
The other challenge is finding people, especially as you get older. I've posted this before, but as you get older you really need to seek out established communities. Sports, trivia nights, things of that nature. Something where you can hop in and immediately meet 5+ people. Then you need to show up, over and over. That's how friendships form.
At that point, it's on you. People are out there and in my experience they are excited to meet new folks.
We can write a huge dissertation on why we think The Friendship Recession has happened, but it's quite simple. Inertia is human nature. It takes effort to learn something new and join a community where people are practicing that thing. It takes vulnerability and effort. It's kinda scary.
It's a lot harder than turning on YouTube or flipping through TikTok. And most people understandably don't want to do hard things, especially after the stresses of work and life.
zug_zug
>> What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends.
I've come to this same conclusion, but rarely express it because it's possible I'm just different. And I'd even go one step further, I think what a lot of people say friendship is, isn't actually what human friendship is in practice. I think these unrealistic expectations undermine real-world friendships because they always fall short.
Theoretical friendship:
- Completely perfect and devoid of all realities of life
- No jealousy, no competition, no negative feelings
- Timeless and immortal
- No effort involved
- Completely balanced and healthy for everybody at all times
- Able to talk about every topic
Realistic friendship:
- Temporary at first, may or may not build into something more
- Often starts with a simple exchange of banter on common interests
- Multiple opinions/topics that are mutually avoided
- One person often tries harder, one person often values the relationship more
- The relationship may or may not even be mutually healthy
- Many will hit a point where they become more effort than they're worth and end (e.g. moving)
- Some will never grow out of one or two common things to bitch about
closewith
These don't represent real or Hollywood friendships at all.
> - Completely perfect and devoid of all realities of life
Friendships are relationships that stand the test of time and hardship. You work through problems, illnesses including mental health struggles, deaths, employment and money problems, family and relationship problems, legal problems, all sorts.
> - No jealousy, no competition, no negative feelings
There are obviously always mixed emotions, but generally you won't harbour serious ill will towards your friends. This is something you can work on, though, as jealousy and envy are personality traits that can be controlled. Healthy competition is a positive, though.
> - Timeless and immortal
Friendships change and sometimes have to be ended, even when you like the other person. I think this is quite common and almost a trope of Hollywood movies.
> - No effort involved
Short of family and maybe employment, friendships require the most work in life. This one is particularly baffling from a Hollywood perspective, as going a friend in need is like the all-time Hollywood trope.
> - Completely balanced and healthy for everybody at all times
Obviously this isn't true, but this isn't portrayed either. Flawed characters are the only compelling characters in Hollywood.
> - Able to talk about every topic
Again, changing the uncomfortable topic trope is an ultra-trope.
Your "realistic friendship" section fits acquaintances rather than friends.
>I think these unrealistic expectations undermine real-world friendships because they always fall short.
I think some self-reflection is in order here, as this is projection.
zug_zug
I don't know, that seems like a rather defensive response to me. Perhaps self-reflection is in order.
Is the idea that friendship might be transactional too scary a thought to consider head on?
Here's some science on the topic that is food for thought: https://www.thecut.com/2016/05/half-of-your-friends-probably...
Braxton1980
>The relationship may or may not even be mutually healthy
My best friend of 30 years now met me because I distributed warez in Junior High. He hung around because I had something useful and wanted to maintain a relationship with me. This grew into something more meaningful
subpixel
I don’t disagree but I do have a friendship that matches your theoretical definition and I appreciate how rare a thing it is.
closewith
With respect, I think this is quite a sad and revealing comment, but your Hollywood definition of a friend fits my friends. I wonder if you maybe never experienced friendship but rather just acquaintances.
michaelt
The friends who would throw down for you in a fight at age 19
when you reach age 40, will have families to look after and a lot more to lose than they used to have, like a nice house and a good job
or they'll be at the far end of a skype link / international flight
or they'll have discovered a new chill side to themselves now they don't have 19-year-old energy and hormone levels
and you'll realise you don't want your boy to fuck up his custody arrangements by getting sent to jail over some dumb brawl
They'll still support you in the face of life's challenges, but it'll be support of a very different kind.
zemvpferreira
I’m 40. I didn’t throw down for my friends when I was 19, but I support those same friends through divorces, cancer, deaths now. They’ll do the same for me.
Some friends are closer than family. That’s luck, but also intention.
benfortuna
>The other challenge is finding people, especially as you get older. I've posted this before, but as you get older you really need to seek out established communities. Sports, trivia nights, things of that nature. Something where you can hop in and immediately meet 5+ people. Then you need to show up, over and over. That's how friendships form.
The article follows similar lines, but I feel "forcing friendships" just leads to shallow "friendships" with little meaning. In fact so many modern friendships are sustained by small talk, which Carl Jung derides as meaningless..
dartharva
Have I been watching the wrong movies? Because from my perspective Hollywood's depiction of friends is a rather sorry benchmark - most depictions are of exemplarily bad friends.
barry-cotter
> If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends.
I’m probably bottom quintile for social skills and I have done some extremely unwise things for one of my friends who was there for me when I needed a hand. The Hollywood idea of “close friend” is a great deal nearer to my own life experience than its representation of many other important relationships.
jvanderbot
Friendships that started in 20s often include this kind of dynamic. Friendships that started in 30s at least talk the talk. In 40s I can't imagine we would bother. I haven't experienced life beyond that but the trend of "evaluating friendships against the expectations of our 20s" sure seems like a losing proposition.
BlueTemplar
I did a double take on that "ten or more close friends"... wouldn't that be a very small fraction of the population in the first place ?
I doubt even popular school / university kids manage to sustain that many actually *close* friends for long !
oddthink
I don't really get where people with kids found these 6.5 hrs / wk to spend on friendships, or even the quoted current averages of 4 hrs / wk.
On a workday, there isn't much time. I roll out of bed at 6:30, get the kids up and fed breakfast and out the door. I finally get actually working at 8:30-9:30, depending on if I exercise or not. Stop work in the 5:30-6 range, switch into making dinner, getting kids to eat dinner, policing screen time and homework. Then bedtimes and such, following up on the zillion school emails, PTA newsletters, scheduling. If I have 45 min of downtime, typically in the 10-11pm range, if I'm lucky.
On weekends, there's all the deferred housework, like cleaning and laundry. Kids have swim and sports. Visits to grandparents, from grandparents. Every now and then we have someone over for a games afternoon, or someone is visiting from out of town, but I really doubt that adds up to 4 hr / wk.
bentt
One technique that I think needs to come back into fashion, which was familiar to us Gen Xers, is to drag your kids along when socializing for you. Instead of prioritizing their play dates and sitting in the corner on our phones, we should be bringing the kids to our friend's house and they can wander around and be bored while we sit and talk as friends.
The problem we have as a parenting culture is that we're not comfortable ignoring our kids. We need to teach kids that ignoring them is not the same as not caring for them. In fact, they need to feel the sensation of not being the most important thing for once. It's better to get some attention from a happy parent than all of the attention of a sad parent.
dottjt
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I generally hated being dragged to the friends houses of my parents. It was just needlessly boring.
On the contrary, it sometimes was okay if that friend had children. I think the issue in the modern day however, is that less people are having children, so there simply isn't the opportunity. For example, I'm the only person in my friend group who has children.
hollerith
Interesting. Did you also hate it when your parents hosted a party for adults in your home?
dwayne_dibley
That’s true, I regularly remember going to pubs, friends houses and sporting events that I was far to young to be at, but was just there because my parents where doing a thing.
mikemcquaid
I have 2 young kids, run a widely used open source project and a startup, eat dinner with my kids 6/7 nights a week and do this. Here’s some ways how:
My best friend comes over once a weekend and we watch the TV that my wife doesn’t want to.
I participate in a sport (powerlifting) where I’ve made friends and there’s room to socialise while exercising.
I chose to move back to my home town and also go to college there.
I go to metal gigs with friends when the kids are asleep.
I’m happily married, my wife is training for a marathon and sees friends too.
We pay for a cleaner.
Don’t know that this is 6.5 hours in person with friends every week but I’d say it’s at least a couple of hours each.
It’s doable, it just might require not doing some stuff you already do and enjoy. There’s a bunch of stuff I did pre-kids that I don’t any more and would like to find time for again one day.
xiande04
You just said all the things that you do while raising kids. What is it that you are doing differently that allows you to do all those things? Is it simply just a matter of hiring a cleaner?
Because otherwise, as the father of a 1 and 5 year old, I completely agree with OP and find your story unbelievable. Like OP I work/exercise/do chores from 6 am to 10 pm. I'm on HN right now only because it's Saturday and I'm relaxing.
Aurornis
I have kids in similar ages and I also find time with friends. Even on some weekdays.
> Like OP I work/exercise/do chores from 6 am to 10 pm.
I hear this a lot, but let’s be honest: You don’t need to exercise and do chores every single day for the entire time outside of work, do you? Would it be the end of the world if you met up with a friend one night instead of going to the gym? Could you invite a friend to the gym?
The house doesn’t need to be spotlessly cleaned every night. If you’re cooking dinner, switch to recipes that are easy to prepare and then double them so you can have leftovers.
It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of doing things constantly until they expand and fill all of your time. Becoming more efficient and flexible about the things I did outside of work opened up a lot of free time.
mikemcquaid
You’re on HN because it’s Saturday and you’re relaxing. I’m in an Uber to go see some gym friends because my kids are in the bath and almost ready for bed. Another night this week: I’ll do the same for my wife.
Zero judgment here, genuinely, but: I keep hearing people say my life is impossible and it doesn’t seem like it.
chasd00
Young kids are a different story but that doesn’t last forever. My kids are older, 13 and 15, and there’s a lot more time for personal interests and friends. Also, as kids get older you begin to have mutual interests. I’m watching/helping my 15 year old play an Indiana Jones game on his ps5 while typing this and have no desire to do anything else.
1123581321
You’re working too much and/or misorganized at home. Happens to many people. Unless you’re a single parent you can make a plan this weekend to at least alternate the days when someone has to do chores nonstop after work. I have kids those same ages.
jjulius
I'm similar to the person you are directly applying to. I also have a 5 and 3yo.
Unlike the first OP, I don't get involved with the PTA and we don't really email with the school at all. I don't understand the emailing constantly with school thing, but to each their own and I'm sure there's a valid reason for those that do.
We, like the person you're replying to, also pay for a cleaner, but that's for deep cleaning and only happens once every two weeks. I've somehow settled into a routine that has me doing basic cleaning right after dinner.
My wife and I share chores and swap out tasks evenly. This allows one of us to clean and have some "me" time while the other bathes the kids/does bedtime, before we meet together and hang out for a bit in the evening before bed. Sometimes during the week we'll have a friend over during this time. Our weekend hours are limited in the evenings, because I have to get up early for work, but we make it work.
On the weekends, we are good about balancing our fun time. Grandparents come over and watch the kids as we go out together, or, just for one example, my wife will handle dinner/bedtime (or breakfast, if I go to something dance-musicy that runs late) while I go out to a show. I'll do likewise for her if she wants to go out with friends.
Also on the weekends, we often meet up during the day with friends of ours who also have kids. We get to hang out with our friends while our kids play together.
Additionally, my work has a gym and my work schedule is earlier than most - 6 to 3PM. I work out before and after work, and then go pick my kiddos up, make dinner and play with them after cleaning. I also chose a job that insisted they prioritize family and work/life balance and I leaned into that, and they leaned back! No notifications hit my phone after 4PM and in the four years I've worked here, I have never had to work a weekend nor been pressured to do any work outside of when I'm at the office.
My wife is also super nice about letting me go on 3-4 day backpacking trips multiple times through the summer.
We prioritized finding some time for us for our own sanity, and kinda naturally settled into this schedule. It might not work for everyone, and I feel very fortunate to have space for us.
Edit: Don't get it twisted, though... I'm tired. I can't get a full 8 hours of sleep on a regular basis, closer to 7, sometimes a bit less. The daytimes are also constant in order to ensure we get time at the end. It's hard.
Edit 2: We also prioritized ensuring our kids were great sleepers from day one. They go down for bed anywhere between 7 and 8, and don't wake up until ~7AM. We're also very lucky in that they've never really come into our bedrooms in the middle of the night and stay in their beds until we get them in the mornings. I don't know how we got fortunate there, but /shrug.
treis
Y'all sound like the people in an infomercial that can't pour juice without spilling it everywhere or they get egg in ridiculous places when they try to crack it. With dishwashers, instapots, roombas, microwaves, and so on modern life just isn't that hard. Or, more accurately, it's mostly as hard as you make it.
h2zizzle
>We pay for a cleaner.
Buried lede.
phil21
Depending on where you live this is pretty affordable for even an average midwestern senior dev salary. Especially in a two income household. As in cut out daily Starbucks level affordable.
It’s the first “luxury” I pay for when able to right after air conditioning, and I did it even when I was single with a roommate.
Costs where I live are $200 or so twice a month to have my entire place cleaned top to bottom and I live in an above average sized house.
It’s not nothing, but it’s affordable enough to prioritize. The best thing you can buy with money is time, and I’ve found this is one of the largest RoI possible in terms of dollars per hours given back.
Others will prioritize different spending but overall I find it a better return than even taking a vacation.
Aurornis
I don’t pay for a cleaner and still have plenty of time for friends.
I think people overestimate how much time a cleaner saves. It’s helpful if you can afford it but IMO it’s not the life-changing improvement that you hear about on Reddit and other places. Someone who comes once per week to spend an hour or two cleaning could give an hour or two back (usually not 1:1 because they clean deeper than you would yourself most times to show that a good job was done). It’s not going to make the difference between having tons of time to spend with your friends if your scheduled is already packed though. That is, unless you plan to pay for a daily cleaner which is a different level of expense.
mikemcquaid
£3.2k a year here. Most people on HN have tech jobs. I don’t drink coffee. I barely drink alcohol. I’ve never bought a new car. Again: it’s probably possible for many people here but some people prefer to convince themselves it’s impossible. Learned helplessness.
toomuchtodo
You have resources many parents don’t. Congrats on the luck (genuinely, no snark), but the median is having a much worse time.
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/parents-under-pressu...
mikemcquaid
I don’t live in the US so have no idea about that. I have friends who are parents who make below the median household income in the U.K. who make time for hobbies and socialising (including with me). Resources help but I know many people with far more resources than I who would say on forums like this my life is impossible.
api
If you moved from a high cost of living city back to your home town, how much did that have to do with it? In HCOL cities the crazy rent or mortgage costs keep everyone running and cut into discretionary funds for assistance.
mikemcquaid
I live in Scotland. HCOL here is not very H, despite living in the most expensive city.
Part of the reason I don’t live in America is I see a lot of people on salaries 2-4x mine who seem to be unable to have time to see their friends.
9rx
The more interesting question is: If people in HCOL areas are so poor that they can't even afford to make time to bask in friendships with the people the city has to offer, why are they still there?
zeroonetwothree
Are you a single parent? If so then yeah you have it hard, no doubt there.
But if not shouldn't your spouse be doing some of this? Why are you getting the kids ready and making dinner and doing all the homework/school stuff and working full time?
Why not have grandparents watch the kids when they visit (or you drop them off)? Why do you need to be there at all? Great time to go meet a friend for lunch. Or grandparents can take the kids to sports. Or you make friends with other parents at those sports activities so you can interact while the kids are there.
nikhizzle
I have a rough idea of my friend’s schedules, and I call them when I’m driving the kids around, or we text. Staying in constant contact with a few very close friends about my mental health has floated me through my mid-40s.
A tip I got from a friend in his 60s was that even when you lose friends, life is great because you constantly have the opportunity to find new ones. I am in a new close friends renaissance in my 40s, just be vulnerable and don’t take rejection personally.
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01HNNWZ0MV43FF
I'd definitely be better off if I didn't take rejection personally
But it's hard for me to draw the line between being vulnerable and say, oversharing or dumping
Lyngbakr
This is almost identical to my experience. And during that brief sliver of time that I do get to myself, I simply don't have the mental energy to engage with others. Instead, I usually decompress by working out or reading or something else solitary, because for me socialising requires effort.
api
I am the same and I’m an introvert. That’s kind of the definition of an introvert: socializing is effortful.
Still, it’s healthy. Working out is also effortful but healthy.
jedberg
There are two key things to making this work:
Money and locality.
Money: You pay people to do things that take up time.
We have a house cleaner. That's a few hours right there. When the kids were little, we had a nanny. But the nanny didn't just watch the kids. She also washed and folded the laundry, tidied the house daily, and sometimes cooked dinner. In fact, now that they are in school, I'm thinking of hiring a home helper to do those things because those chores get neglected right now (although the kids can almost do it now instead).
Locality: Visit people who live nearby.
Most of my friends that I see regularly are either my wife's brothers and their families, since they all live locally, or the parents of our kids friends, who all live nearby since we go to the local school, or the neighbors who we like. We have family dinner a few times a week, either at someone's house or out to eat (see point one about money), and especially on weekends and summer break, we hang out a lot with the neighbors.
I don't however see my college friends or work buddies much anymore. That is what I had to give up when I had kids. We have some group chats and will occasionally get together, but that requires arranging babysitting, or one of us going on a trip with those friends (see the point about money again). But both my wife and I try to do that at least once a year (go on a friends trip).
sathackr
It used to be possible in most areas to raise a family and kids on a single middle-class income. So that left one person free to handle domestic tasks instead of them being split between two people in the spare time they have after the kids are all in bed.
It still may be possible now but that will require reducing your standard of living to what was common then. Think no stone counter-tops. Not driving a 0-3 year old car with $10,000 just in electronics. Having linoleum floors instead of high-end tile. Eating Hamburger Helper, spaghetti, not ordering door dash 5x a week. Resisting the constant stream of social media, influencers, advertisements that are telling you everyone else lives better than you and making you feel bad about it, which causes you to spend money on things you don't need but raise the aesthetic of your life and make you feel like you're living better.
I'd bet that if someone was happy to live in the standard of living that was 20-30 years ago, it could still be done on a single middle class income which would allow for the leisure time required to spend 6.5hrs+ with friends [citation needed]
standardUser
Invite your childless friends to come visit you. I'm childless but all of my oldest friends have kids and all of those kids know me. It's probably easier for them to travel and if they stay a few nights you'll have time for both family time and adult time. Plus, I think it's great for kids to interact with adults who are trusted but aren't an authority figure.
zkmon
Back in the day, more children meant more wealth and prosperity for the family. More friends meant more support, bigger communities were stronger against others. It was need based, as they have a need to support and survive by themselves.
The nation concept now drains out the need and viability of communities, families and friendships. It's like a whale swallowing animals. Animals can no longer keep their own structure and identity once they are inside the whale. They will be disintegrated into individual molecules and become citizens of the whale. Nations do the same. The existence and strength of a nation requires disintegration of internal structures and autonomous bodies. Communities, families and friendships all go against the individualistic nation concept. The best citizens are individual workers with no connections and no opinions and maybe no gender.
daseiner1
Capital is a destructive force just as much as it is a productive one.
dazzawazza
I love heavy metal. So I go to metal pubs. I meet people, we talk and listen to each other. I've been talking to the same people for 30+ years but I meet new people EVERY time I venture out. I may see them again, I may not. Who cares?
We lend PHYSICAL copies of albums, video games and books to one another. This increases trust, knowledge and love for one another. We share stories about all sorts of things. We create stories by doing things together.
This is how friendships are formed and maintained. This is humanity. This is who we are and how we behave.
Poverty is the digital world.
See you out there!
lawgimenez
I’m more of a hardcore guy but stopped going to shows when I got out of college and got a job. I’m in my 40s now, well my point is it’s amazing how you are still going to shows.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
I never heard of such a thing as a metal pub. Not in small town USA anyway :(
dazzawazza
Luckily I live in London, UK. There are many metal, rock and alternative pubs. Most cities will have at least one. Small rural town will not though :(
But the metal pub is really just an example. Any activity where people regularly come together just to chew the fat is better than online for creating friendships.
Take care.
NalNezumi
The article already mention physical changes (car dependent suburbs, lack of 3rd places) and cultural shift (work as identity and nuclear family) but I think the two last things can be expanded to: we now have higher expectations of friends/people we meet.
I recently moved back from Asia to Northern Europe, famous for being a place hard to make friends. I made a new friend, when I one day went to the local swimming pool and just started to talk with an old, pensioner guy.
He reached out to me later, we set up a coffe chat and now it's a biweekly routine.
It was a fun story so I told it to friend & partner/families. All of my women friends first reaction was caution. "what does he want? Be careful with your drink!". My guy friends were more perplexed on why I'd even bother befriending someone almost 50+ year older than me. What's there to be gained.
I realized a few years back that meeting people with absolute zero expectations is the most fun way. It even worked good on online dating. As long as I enjoy taking to the person (a low bar) it's not time wasted.
Time is not to be wasted. Everything needs a goal/reason. Most people cultivate this mindset and the added expectations on new connections, to me seems like a cultural shift that happened as a result of what the article describes. One can remove that sentiment even with the work/nuclear family stuff. (not sure about the physical constraints)
ryandrake
> It was a fun story so I told it to friend & partner/families. All of my women friends first reaction was caution. "what does he want? Be careful with your drink!". My guy friends were more perplexed on why I'd even bother befriending someone almost 50+ year older than me. What's there to be gained.
It's pretty sad and telling that people's first reaction to something as wholesome and positive as making a new friend is suspicion and selfish apathy. Illustrative of the widespread anti-social mental illness that we somehow have managed to normalize.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
> What's there to be gained
What are you gaining then? It must be something right?
dlivingston
Shared experiences, conversations and connection with another human being?
MattGaiser
> The government slowed down its investment in and construction of third spaces—such as community centers, parks, and coffee shops—which has left fewer places for organic social interactions.
My anecdotal impression is that people don't really use those that are available very much and the drop in investment is because of that.
I have organized a few events in community halls over the past few years and I have been struck by just how available the event spaces we looked at were. No conflicts, no competing priorities, nobody using any of the other rooms at the same time, etc. Some communities are no longer bothering to have community halls at all, as nobody really uses them.
Where I live, the local community centres are not heavily used. Community social events have dwindled due to being poorly attended. The coffee shops, bars, and pubs have cut seating and replaced it with dedicated pickup areas for those who send in orders or are buying it through a delivery app. Schools have cut all manner of parent activities as the parents don't participate.
Same thing for anything that isn't a flagship park or flagship sports facility. Sure, the top city parks are crowded, but most are pretty empty even on sunny days.
So I have to ask, is there actually much demand for more social interaction? As it seems that the drop is mostly in demand, not supply.
haswell
I think this is less about demand, and more about habits.
I’ve personally become aware of the fact that I need more social contact. I want to attend events, but never really built the habit of organizing. My ex was always the social instigator, and I didn’t realize how much I relied on that (we were together for most of my adult life).
The more people I talk to about this, the more I hear them lamenting the lack of in-person gatherings.
I think social media has kind of filled the need poorly, and this has changed habits. It’s not what people want, but it has them hooked, and IRL gatherings have suffered as a result.
It reminds me of some of the comments from the younger crowd about TikTok. “I hate it, but I can’t stop using it, because everyone else is on it”.
I really think people want real social interaction but have gotten caught in this social media habit that just barely meets the need. Junk food vs. a nutritious meal.
I suppose at the end of the day you could still say this means demand is down, but I think there are more layers than that.
intended
Junk food is the example I use for much of social media.
redczar
Government slowed down its investment into 3rd spaces as a result of desegregation. White men immolated the social fabric of the nation when people of color and women were forced to be allowed to participate. We are experiencing the long term consequences of this. There is no demand now for such places but I think that has to do with lack of familiarity with them. Just like there is no demand in the U.S. for walkability. People just don’t think of how absurd it is that they can’t walk to get groceries.
em-bee
you got cause and effect wrong. desegregation is not the cause. racism is. it takes a lot more than laws to root out racism.
redczar
I think it’s clear that the reason desegration was the starting point is racism.
barry-cotter
This reminds me of a tweet I saw in 2023, during the height of the Floyd Riots, that has since unfortunately been deleted, that said approximately that suburbanisation was a long term bet on the inability of the US State to keep order in urban areas. Basically, once a generation (last one before the Floyd riots were the Rodney King riots) the US has massive riots, everyone learns of remembers that if you don’t live in walking distance of an urban centre you’re safe from having your house burned down by a mob and after that there’s a durable uptick in desire for suburban rather than urban property.
redczar
White flight of the cities occurred after desegregation of schools. Since then media in the U.S. have reinforced negative connotations of cities. Hence terms like “inner city” and “ghetto kids”.
One thing whites did when they flooded the suburbs was make sure those suburbs did not have communal things like municipal pools.
subpixel
I agree with all the points made in the article, and chuckle to see some comments here (let bad communities fail!) that are manifestations of the lack of vulnerability brought about by living in online, single-player mode.
But in my experience, friendship quality is much more important than quantity.
I’m only truly friends with people I admire and am interested in, and grow to care about. Some of these friendships happen fast and others are slow burners - they aren’t all alike. But they are definitely hard to come across, particularly in middle age.
I believe those friendships give me the kind of benefits that experts suggests we lose in isolation. These are the kinds of friendships you carry with you wherever you are - often wondering what those friends would or do think about the things you are experiencing.
On the other hand, I have many acquaintances, some quite longstanding, where the friendship switch never got flipped. Perhaps I am viewed as a bit stand-offish. I am never not gracious but I just don’t have the small talk gene.
rorylaitila
I'm way out on the edge of the bell curve in terms of desire for 1 on 1 quality time with friends. Almost everyone enjoys time when it is given to them, but almost no one is proactive. I hear "Thanks so much for reaching out I am so bad at it" from practically everyone. I've concluded that most people simply don't have the executive function to manage and overcome such a disconnected social environment.
mindwok
Almost across the board in western countries, people have less friends, weaker friendships, and there’s less dating, sex, and marriage happening.
IMO this is the biggest challenge ahead of us. What’s the point of all this amazing life enhancing technology if we’re lonely, sad, and severed from our tribes.
ivanjermakov
> while the percentage of those with ten or more close friends has fallen by nearly threefold
I genuinely think it's not possible to maintain close friendship with this many people, especially if they're not in the same group. Or perhaps my definition of a "close friend" differs from an average american, both now and back then.
Sorry, shareholder have not deemed this valuable