I live in Barcelona, and during last year’s blackout I wandered through the city. As I passed by the Baix Guinardó gardens, I came across something that felt like a "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" brought to life: the park was full of families socialising the old way, children running everywhere, the whole place buzzing with chatter and energy.
Later that day, walking home through darkened streets, I noticed small groups, maybe a dozen people at a time, gathered around certain spots. For some reason, a few closed shops still seemed to have working free Wi-Fi (backup generators, maybe), and people clustered there, drawn in like mosquitoes to light. Their faces glowed in the dark, lit only by their screens, and they stood in near-total silence. It’s hard to describe the feeling, it was surreal. You had to be there.
I’m no Luddite, but I went to sleep that night wondering how on earth we get ourselves out of this.
Have you ever seen those videos filming London streets in the 1970s? They are absolutely packed with groups of two or three people, not going places, but just standing there, chatting, as if they have nowhere else to be. It is something most of us have never experienced in any form and the change has happened over long enough timescales that we are used to our streets of strangers just going about their lives, the external world just a physical inconvenience to traverse as quickly as possible, not the real world where one just exists.
My perspective is very simple: our homes are simply a lot more comfortable than they used to be.
We have better heating/air conditioning, endless television/video games/entertainment, large refrigerators, lower density, etc and so on.
Back then, home covered a narrower set of needs - so the default option was to spend time elsewhere, even if it was just to escape the noise/heat/smells/smoke of home for a minute.
I think a lot of it comes back to cars: many people traded longer commutes for suburban houses, which has advantages but comes at the cost of not having much to do without driving somewhere and less free time around other people. This is especially bad for parents when they don’t feel comfortable letting their kids walk / bike around the neighborhood since that means more time spent playing chauffeur.
London in the 70s (which GP was talking about) already had long commutes (large suburbs and lots of commuter towns) and most households had cars. Roads are much safer and public transport is good so kids can get around by themselves.
One big difference is that more women work: stay at home mums used to strengthen communities - doing voluntary work, organising things. Now that is mostly done by retired people so the pool is smaller and fewer households have someone directly involved. Another way to look at it is that the working hours for a similar household has increased greatly so the household as a whole has less time to contribute to the community.
Another factor is that people move around more. Again, very noticeable in London where a lot of people have moved out because of high house prices. People do not near people they grew up with.
I think an undersung and underquantified factor here is how much less time people have. For reasons psychological and socioeconomic, across class lines, it seems we all have a mental calendar and todo list in our heads now, a tyrant that will always point out that aimless chatter is not appropriate, lest we fall even further behind.
I always wondered how commoners (?) could afford to go to a pub every day to socialize, or if it was cheap, how the pubs could survive with a bunch of people who were just hanging out day after day.
I have plenty of such scenes in my city still, but these people are usually either pensioners, or local unemployed drunks who have an entire day to fill. People with jobs don't hang outside, unless they're with their kids.
You are conflating skin colour and culture. A non-white immigrant who speaks fluent English, and is from a country with a common law legal system and British influenced culture can integrate far better than someone from a European country who does not speak good English. There are more people in London whose "main" language is Romanian, Spanish or Polish than any other languages.
Only 4% do not speak English well. London has had a large foreign born population and a lot of immigration for a long time and was fine in the 1990s so i doubt things have changed as much as you think in recent years.
By this logic, people should still be hanging out in the streets in all those villages where the master race dominates. And yet, we still only observe the bums and the retired hanging out with a day to fill. Any idea how that impacts your hypothesis?
In the past 3 years I got married and got a kid. Both mine and my wifes social situation went 180, and now we are one of those couples you saw in the park. The kids and kid problems become new shared interest, you meet bunch of people, with similar shared experience, and you end up connecting on other fronts as well. eg - I m in high rise, parking next to an interesting winter beater every day for 2 years, and now I know the guy because our wifes meet on the playground. Turns out he also likes 3d printers and CNCs and has many ideas :)
But even before this, through wife and her hobbies (dance, pottery etc) I had chance to meet many people and their partners and through them their friends etc. Then it becomes a choice whether you will get up and go see others or pick your screen.
You are very fortunate. When I took a career break to become daddy-day-care for our child I went to "Parents & Toddlers" groups and found them unwelcoming and suspicious.
Going back to work was a relief, because I was able to actually talk to adults without feeling that they were judging my reasons for being there.
I m 6'4", bearded, and as my wife says, with "constant bitter brooding face" - most people in every day life are unwelcoming and suspicious towards me xd, and while having very cute daughter for sure helps immensely, just interacting with kiddos the right way ultimately lowers peoples guard, and even if kiddos are not around, you have to win over the trust & respect. To some it comes easy, others have to work for it, but it does get better, and you build the social circle. Don't get left out over initial resistance! Bring your kiddo and bring extra snacks
Your story reminds me of working pre-pandemic, and going on an afternoon walk with a coworker. He was into pokemon go and he wanted to attend an event (raid?) before we walked. I followed him down the street where he stood at a certain deserted spot and waited. All of a sudden, people just started appearing, some from cars, some coming from between the bushes, some walking down the street.
the raid started, they all silently stared at their phones, and at some point they all looked up, looked around and walked away.
all mostly in complete silence.
who knew this was a precursor to more of the same, maybe throughout society.
This is an interesting post (and also a very well written one!). It touches on something that does slightly irk me about the wider friendship/loneliness conversation that it feels we've been having for a decades now.
Its the "we" in "how on earth we get ourselves out of this." The bluntness of the "we" conflates it into a bigger problem than it is. If you walk past many parks & gardens across cities you'll find that same picture of families socialising in the old way without a blackout, but also people glued to their phones too.
People who are intentional of having classic socialising are still doing it, people who choose not to either through their own intention or, i suspect and hope, in a very ambient non-intentional way are the ones who may need to get out of it. Yes there are more of the latter now than before but the former groups are still a huge part of society. And if they can do it even with the same distractions and phones and access to social media etc. why can't others?
Yup, I'm a Spaniard and had a similar feeling. I'm pretty sure that, if the government had proposed an intentional weekly blackout, there would have been a large majority in favor.
I'm currently trying to reduce internet usage by a simple rule: no feeds (try to avoid places where I could even see them).
It's extremely difficult.
YouTube receives you with a feed, every social network as well, even the online version of a newspaper is arguably a feed. It's usually not possible to use a service without having one in frequent sight. Even my weather app tries its best to offer a feed of weather related news, the photo gallery app shows one of memories....
Yes, managing relationships needs time, but there is another problem I see nowadays. When I was young (I'm in my sixties), it was normal to have friends who could be very different from you. They might have had qualities you didn't like at all, but you could still be very good friends. If I look my students (highschool and college level) now, they are extremely intolerant for differences compared to what I remember from my youth. One "I don't like it" problem is enough to dump any relationship. Why? I guess it's because of a lack of practice – you don't really need to interact with so many different people nowadays and interacting with people who are very different from you is just plain terrifying for many.
It may be terrifying, but it's also terribly important. If the friendship can't survive differences, you're going to silently censor any points of differences (real or imagined) and soon you're just pretending to be the people you think the other expects you to be. No depth of connection, no growth.
You want someone to be friends with you, as you actually are. And that means you need to be friends with them, as they actually are, even if you worship different brands or vote for different movies.
I’m curious if you think viewpoints have also gotten more extreme in this period. It feels like the gap in political ideologies has widened a lot since I was younger.
The gaps in views are certainly widening in societies in general, but my point wasn't exactly that. It was more about differences which always existed. When I was young I was often dumped into large family gatherings which lasted days (birthdays of (grand)grandparents, funerals, weddings etc). I had to practice handling cousins etc who might had very different family backgrounds than me since very early age. We had to find things we had in common and accept our differences. We learned that differences are manageable. It's not common nowadays. Many people don't have relationships with relatives at all and kids don't meet another kids with different background until school. And even then distance is kept often because of overprotective parenting.
I agree with where you're coming from. I think its the continuing rise of individualism to a degree; sports team mentality politics/the internet/phones/social media have likely accelerated it but feels to me we'd been moving that way even prior to that. There's probably something there, too, about how more wealth gives people an out to not have to engage with broader society in a way where lower wealth or less unequal distribution of wealth doesn't.
Margaret Thatcher got quite a lot of stick for her quote about how there is no society and its just individual people that look out for themselves first and foremost before anything. But I'd say there's more truth to that than I'd want to believe. What stops that from being true to my mind is people being very intentional about creating a society by engaging with others.
I'm always interested in people's stories about adult friendships or loneliness crisis etc. and what I tend to see is that when people start being intentional about engaging, it usually ends up with them finding new friends. It's just easy to sleepwalk, with everything going on, into not engaging. Newish parents are very apt example of this
>Why? I guess it's because of a lack of practice – you don't really need to interact with so many different people nowadays and interacting with people who are very different from you is just plain terrifying for many.
It’s not any more or less terrifying than in previous times, but as you wrote “you don’t really need to interact with so many different people”.
I would shorten that to “you don’t need so many people anymore”. Another factor is you can easily find more agree-able people (or bots) to spend time with, such as on this website rather than a neighbor.
I see this exact thing right now to me and some (former?) friends, we’re all in our early to mid-40s. And, yes, it does involve politics, and more generally how one sees the world, but I personally find it quite baffling nonetheless. It’s like people really do feel the need to continue living in their intellectual bubble-balls, no dialectics involved, no contradiction, and hence no real (intellectual and not only) move forward.
I can’t and don’t see an easy solution for it, to be honest.
Depends? Are those more narrow one’s better and people have a better idea of what ideal looks like?
I’m kind of horrified at people saying they had/have to work at their best friendships as with my best friends, everything is seamless.
There are no misunderstandings. We never have to forgive each other. We never even need to clarify things for each other much, as we are that well aligned.
Granted it may not be possible, but ideally go find a better match in a friend.
The axes are independent. You can have seamless friendships with people who are very different from you, and contentious relationships with folks who are just like you (but doing it wrong!)
There's nothing wrong with having to work at friendship. For years I had a friend that I looked up to (and, as it turned out looked up to me). We were both constantly striving to justify the other's faith and respect. It was a lot of work but incredibly valuable for both of us.
You're absolutely right! Nobody in the 60s or 70s thought that the police should terrorise minorities or that women were beneath them. These are entirely new problems that have only arisen since 2020 or so.
They knew not to say the quiet part out loud back then. That decorum is gone now.
Or in many cases (not mine since I don't use them), there wasn't the world's largest bathroom wall to go sound off on... Except you sign every message off with your name. The kind of stuff people post in their real name that I would take to my grave is insane.
One thing I read on IG that one couple decided to do in NL was what they call "stoepen" ("stoep" is the Dutch word for sidewalk). They'd get some chairs to their front yard, which is connected to the sidewalk, and they'd greet people and start chatting with them. When vibes clicked they'd invite them to come sit with them, until people got in the habit of sometimes coming by and sitting with them.
So there's that. Obviously there are other ways, but thought it'd be fun to share.
Also research on self-disclosure might help. Long story short: be the first to reveal some details about yourself and progressively go deeper to the level that you want, it's kind of a tit for tat type of thing. There was one popular article about it so you could "fall in love" but IMO it's not love, it's simply building a deeper connection. Check it out [1].
I used to be really interested in topics like this, so if you want to know more about it or brainstorm, feel free to reach out. My email is in my profile.
I wonder if that's actually related to the Afrikaans word "stoep", where it's used in the sense of verandah which is obviously where you'd sit outside the house and watch the word go by. Both meanings ultimately come from the original meaning of the word as "step".
Before the big cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario in Argentina got somewhat dangerous, this is what life was like. I remember in the 90s my family having mate and cookies in the afternoon outside their home on the sidewalk and everyone else would wave in and out their homes doing the same. It wasn’t like a cult where everyone did it at the same time, it would vary. Kids would meet after school and run around for a bit, decompress from sitting all day. It was nice.
I would strongly encourage everyone to choose two or three friends and say “hey - I want to chat with you, but it’s hard to schedule calls. I’m just going to try calling you sometime when I have a few minutes free. If you can talk, great! If you can’t, no sweat. Sound OK?”
I lowered the stakes for calling/answering/not answering, and I actually catch up with my friends more often.
> I’m just going to try calling you sometime when I have a few minutes free. If you can talk, great! If you can’t, no sweat. Sound OK?”
I do it all the time. And unfortunately this still only builds shallow relationships or keeps them alive for longer than they would. Proximity is the only thing that keeps things alive. Physical proximity is obvious, but there are other forms of proximity. Regular (almost daily) texts builds online proximity. Being financially in a similar boat brings financial proximity. Being in similar stages in life brings lifestyle proximity. The more you start drifting away (lose proximity in one or more areas), the more the relationship dies. Married people with kids who own houses rarely stay in touch with single people who are traveling the world.
I'd hate that. I have a (small) group of friends, and we play games (almost) every weekend morning for 1-2 hours while on voice chat. I really enjoy that time but we have to schedule it in advance, we all have stuff going on. But we've been pretty good at making time for each other once a week for that time. Most of us are in different countries now so can no longer meet up in person, and this has been something that works for us.
If I'd get randomly called I'd actually just end up being annoyed, I need a sense of structure in my life lol.
"Don't ask to ask, just ask" is great in general, but if I tell someone this, I'm not trying to schedule a single call. It's more asking for permission to call whenever. Depending on who you and your friends are, it can be necessary to give this heads-up at least once so that, as another user put it, they don't get a panic attack from an unexpected phone call. As an older Gen Z, it feels like no one my age really calls each other out-of-the-blue, and you need something like this to establish it.
I realize there are generational differences but I still default to the assumption that calling people whenever (outside of 10PM-7AM for non-emergencies) is fine, unless someone specifically tells me otherwise
No, I don't need something like that to establish anything. My friends are relatively sane it appears. Neither do I expect such a behaviour from anyone. I have a phone, feature of that is you can call me. Complaining about that is weird. If you don't want calls, turn the thing off... But yeah, I realize in other parts of the world, there seem to be different "rules". However, still very weird to me.
I have found there’s a reciprocal nature to it. If I keep trying here and there, the friend more often than not does try me back in turn.
Many of us have kids/demanding jobs - so feeling free to just call when I’ve got ten minutes alone in the car means - at minimum - one of us is free at that time.
I hate this. Yes: I want to talk to you. No: I don't want it to interrupt me and I don't want to miss the chance to talk to you either. So it's lose-lose for me.
I just call them. I dont think you have to reach out and send a “hey I have question is it okay to ask”-style entering-the-chat messages. The overarching problem is that everyone started treating communication as a formal business letter.
I agree, but the social norm (for a lot of young people) is not to call spontaneously - at all, ever. Giving people a heads up helps, and then consistently following through, is a step that helps make it happen.
Nah, just call them randomly and leave a message. I’m not going to have a whole social protocol for sending a phone call. If they don’t answer or call back it’s a lost cause communicating with them.
I once dated someone who “didn’t just leave the house for any old outing” and it became exhausting trying to figure out the protocol for what qualified as a worthwhile outing. It was easier to just dump the person instead of playing this little “no you’re holding it wrong” game of comms.
You’re underthinking my counter-reccomendation. What you’re proposing “respond or don’t” is already a given if you send the preemptive message or not. Therefor a waste of time because you could just be initiating the relationship instead. People aren’t more likely to respond because you send them a “i wanna talk” message.
>If they don’t answer or call back it’s a lost cause communicating with them.
I mean, people are busy and schedules don't always align. Seems like the onus is on you if you expect another friend to answer whenever you feel like calling. Even with my parents we will check with each other via text before we call (being on a time zone difference doesn't help)
- making new friends does take a massive amount of time, not just in finding friends but also in spending time with them until you can call them long-time friends
- so you need to invest time in hanging out with people! Even when you don’t know what to say to them or when it’s awkward or when you’re not sure if you like them much. We weren’t picky when we were kids making friends, we just hung out a lot with whoever wanted to hang out
- this also means make yourself available. Romantic partners, new jobs, as well as kids basically destroy your free time, but lots of it is self inflicted. Make sure you don’t seclude yourself and prioritize hanging out with people
- also, it’s a number game, you should meet a lot of people if you want to eventually have a strong group of friends
- one trick is to organize a house party or some gathering once a week, on the same day, and invite everyone you know, and ask them to invite more people as well
- make sure you also spend time doing nothing with friends. Like watching tv and sitting on the couch. That’s how you used to create friendships as a kid, you just “hang”, you didn’t “go to the restaurant and went home afterwards”
idk about a house party once a week, but I do like the idea of having my friends invite their other friends. As I age, it becomes harder to find new friends just by happenstance. Friends of Friends usually end up becoming friends after meeting them.
It doesn't have to be a whole-ass house party, but a good low effort method is picking a tv series, putting out some snacks and watching an episode at the same time every week with an open door policy.
- making new friends does take a massive amount of time
I think the solution to this is to enjoy the journey. There's not a line that someone needs to cross before you can enjoy spending time with them. Just reach out and learn and enjoy people from the beginning.
I've just moved to a new town, and my social life is kicking.
Found a local computer club, crew of lads tinkering and using open source software. Really nice, smart bunch. I'm learning loads and appreciating their company.
OP found this lacking, because it's not working fast enough and he's not getting enough time with people.
I totally agree putting in time with old friends is always worth it (maybe not through surprise calls) but on a local level, I'd encourage patience.
Things take time, friendship isn't something you can just switch on. It takes years, and that's the point. It's a journey, not a destination.
I've never made a lasting connection with anyone I've met online. Not once. It's not that I didn't hang around on BBS's and IRC when I was younger, I did. And I did meet people from there IRL, but no friendships formed. The whole concept just seemed (and still seems) alien to me.
But I did have a point after the end of a 12 year relationship ended, around the time of the pandemic and lockdowns when I realised most of my old IRL friendships hadn't gone ... but those people had moved away, and we didn't talk as much any more.
I still have old friendships with high school friends, old girlfriends, old friends from bands I played in from years past. But about a year ago in a particularly lonely and tragic period I started a pub trivia group on an unnamed IRL meetup platform, which has grown to over 300 members in less than a year (guessing a lot of those are bot accounts).
About half a dozen core members that come to play trivia at the pub almost every week, and then another 10-20 that attend less regularly, rotating in and out.
It can be hard work to build yourself a new social group, but it can be done, and I now consider I have some good friends that come out of it and there are friendships forming between members of the group as well.
At 50 years of age, they're not the kind of friendships that I would count on to last forever, but they're there, people to chat with sometimes, people to catch up with for the odd drink or to go out dancing with. It can be done. And I'm much better off for it.
My wife and I are in Costa Rica for six weeks to see what it would be like to live here part of the year. We plan to do this at least once a year. This is my plan b to establish residency here if I ever need to do independent consulting instead of working for a consulting company.
Before we even got here we got on Ex pat Facebook groups and once we did get here, we went to a meet and greet and got connected to a few people that we arrange to meet for dinner outside of the official meetup.
The ex pat community is really cool and welcoming.
On a second note, I really don’t want any new “deep connections”. My closest friends I’ve known from between 15-35 years. I am always willing to meet and talk to people just to hang out
Make a friend. Keep talking to that friend. Put reminders, say good morning, or write it. Call them, ask how it's going.
Send them a 5 minute audio about something interesting in your day. Schedule a meet up, like you did as kids. "Lets hang out after ~~school~~ work today".
It's not as easy to make friends when you don't meet new people all the time, and it's hard to keep them when you're not forced to see them every day (because of school or something).
Make a friend or maybe two, and do this. It takes effort, but you'll be more fulfilled.
It's okay to just meet up, hang out, watch some YouTube together, play a game, go on a walk, or do legal drugs (coffee, beer, whatever)
The call to action at the bottom managed to actively give me anxiety. I don't know why I don't tend to call people very much. Anyways, back to making my flyer for community egg hunt. I'm practicing some of the suggestions in the article, let's celebrate small wins.
I think there should be less "how to solve friendship" posts, which see our social interactions as "problems" to be solved, and more reflection about how this is a consequence of a market oriented, inequality driving system. If the problem is that friendships need time, we should demand less working time and more free time to establish friendships.
I have thought alot about making friends and why it's so hard. I keep coming back to the same question.
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?
I’ve made better friends later in life than I did earlier.
I think the thing is to have fun first. If people aren’t on the same wavelengths it’s ok. It’s also good to have a fun thing to do which does involve other people or even a competitive scene.
> 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.
When I was about 10 years old it dawned on me that "friendship" is a really unclear, mutual agreement, and if you consider someone your friend, they might not consider you theirs (or at the very least, not on the same level of "friendliness") and vice versa. What does it even mean to be or have a "friend"? It's such a silly thing, but it permanently changed the way I looked at social connections. I never had "friends" ever since and don't feel like I am missing out on anything.
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.
I read an outstanding quote in a Brad Thor novel that I think speaks volumes about how to make friends:
"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.
I'm surprised that this article that has so much of an AI smell gets such a positive reception.
I thought HN didn't go in for AI slop? I suspect that this kind of thing has people feeling more alienated than ever, what with even the articles online lacking any level of human connection.
That is a low key point the author touched on but never really expanded upon.
>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.
I started a "mans group" - just a bunch of my local male friends in the neighborhood, doing 'man things' - actually there's no need to pitch it this way, we're just all men and so far thats how we describe ourselves, but it'll change the instant we get some diversity.
We take care of each other, meet every week to shoot the shit and do stuff. So far the group has caught pinball fever (we even have members of the group doing tournaments now), we have movie nights where some of us recommend strange and obscure movies for everyone to enjoy - this has been very successful in terms of lifting everyones spirits - and we have jam sessions, woodworking sessions, table tennis and other racquet-based game events, and so on.
It just snowballed organically. I was in a bar with a mate deliberating on whether there was anything else we could be doing except getting drunk in shady bars, and I noticed a pinball sticker. So we looked into that, caught the pinball fever, and things snowballed. Soon enough, there are 8 of us attending the regular pinball sessions in our city .. and in so doing, we've established some great bonds between us.
Its now at the point where if anyone of us needs something, we just ping the group chat and within minutes there is usually a show of helpful hands.
Wouldn't have happened if we hadn't discovered an activity that united us all, brought us together, and gave us the group context to add many other fun activities to the list.
We even have our own (cult-like) language and slang for things, its kinda funny to observe it evolve over the last 6 months .. and also to see new members adopt our strange language for things. Really amusing!
Unfortunately many people now strongly dislike receiving unexpected phone calls. You may (i have) genuinely upset some people by calling them. Yes, I’m rolling my eyes too, but that’s how they feel
That was my first thought as well, and I am one of those people. I strongly dislike being called, especially unexpectedly, and much prefer a quick text message to maybe meet up in person, if the opportunity presents itself (e.g. if one of us happens to be in the town of the other one)
Yeah, that's one of the reasons calls out of the blue are mostly reserved for emergencies in my family and friend group. Texts eliminate that factor, and are more polite. A phone call represents immediacy / urgency ("this merits interrupting whatever you might be doing right now"). A text like "hey are you free for a quick call?" lets the recipient pivot from what they're doing and engage on their terms. IMHO it's more considerate.
You're about one step away from sending an email to ask if you can send a text to ask if you can make a phone call.
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.
Disagree with this. Sending a text saying "Can we call when you're free" is more considerate of the other persons time than a random call. It sounds like you're trying to make it sound absurd by your 'send an email to send a text', rather than focus on _why_ the text makes sense.
Thanks, yes, exactly. (I didn't respond to parent bc borderline trolling.)
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.
texts and emails are asynchronous. If they want to email me to call me, sure. I'd find it weird, but it's just as accessible as a text.
>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.
100% this. Apart from my SO and scammers, no one randomly calls me. If my brother would call me out of the blue I'd assume the worst. (Also, the one random call I vividly remember getting the past years is my mom calling me to let me know my grandfather unexpectedly passed away).
It's just needlessly anxiety-inducing. Not to mention it's a major inconvenience to interrupt someone randomly for a chat.
That’s the reason I started reaching out to old friends. A friend had died and I knew no one else would tell them. One I even had to track down through email and ask for their new phone number. But now that I’m in regular contact I find calling easier and I don’t have worst-case-scenario fears anymore.
Spam phone calls have become so horrendously common here in the US (multiple a day) that I just keep my mobile on do not disturb 24/7 with exceptions for those in my core contact group. Maybe I'll miss a call or two that actually had substance, but I'd rather be slightly more isolated than constantly annoyed. Find me on various online platforms with text chat, voice or video if you really want to reach me. Or don't.
Same here. Spam calls have really picked up these last couple of years, I also get multiple per day. Here in Switzerland you need to register with your ID to get a mobile phone number, but somehow these spam callers still manage to appear to be calling from a mobile phone, which used to be a strong signal for “not spam”.
It’s gotten so bad that I completely ignore unknown numbers, except if I’m expecting a call. This has its own downsides of course.
Tragedy of the commons. :-(
Maybe call screening can help, but at least on iOS it isn’t available yet here.
Bill 936 which would have required 1:1 expressly written consent to call was struck down in the 11th circuit court of appeals right before it was set to go into effect in Jan 2025 [1].
Trump flipped the 11th circuit by making a number of judge appointments in Jan 2020 [2]. As you correctly guessed, these two things are not unrelated.
For me it's been down the last couple years, compared to a surge under the previous president. That means he's responsible, right? Or it could be I bought a house and financial institutions leak phone numbers like a colander
It cooled under Biden for me, but who am I to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if current admin stop prosecuting against the spam callers. Some times these outfits are connected to politicians. Have you seen the 3-part documentary, Telemarketers?
Did you get laid off over the year? My spams always skyrocket on a job search. Just shows you what they are really doing with your resume (despite my LinkedIn profile being 15 years old and mostly updated. It's not hard to get my resume).
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.
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.
N=1 here but I love getting out of the blue phone calls from the couple of friends that do it. If I can't pick up, or am too busy to chat, I just swipe up on of the prebaked "sorry, can't chat now" SMS responses.
It's them who initiate 90% of the calls too, and nobody cares.
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.
many people are now unable to discuss personal things at all, as I have a small business that is growing, I have interviewed hundreds of people seeking employment, and flat out refuse to even talk about resumes or past qualifications, as what counts in this case is an ability to comunicate verbaly about a combination of technical specifications, and then the mundane details of achiving them, so a verbal interview,that focuses on there full skill sets, and youth, mentors, and other influenced, many choke and hand up, sputter and repeat the speel they have practiced, one in 50 can
roll with it cheerfully.
I wonder what is driving this. I too sense that people are really guarded these days. For me, I work remotely and it's hard to build true rapport through Slack.
Why would I open up on a company chat? I don't want my life on record to be used against me by HR later on. I'll tell some friendly coworkers about vacation details, but certainly not on a paper trail.
Lack of barrier breaking. Fewer people call and talk outside of slack so it becomes the norm to not talk outside of slack. When you do it seems weird. Break the norm.
I feel that's more an issue in a job interview. You want to use every minute to make yourself look good, and the general "wisdom" is that employers don't care about your hobbies or social life or passions. They want someone to do the job right now.
Here’s what I do:
Spend time at my local marker space. It’s easy to bond with people when you have such similar interests. It’s really amazing how exactly aligned I am with a set of the people there. Being in SF already biases people towards certain interests. But going beyond that to the inner circle of tech obsessed nerds, makers from all over the world that moved here with a purpose, gives me a form fitting community that probably only exists in a handful of locations on Earth.
Play social deduction/deception games. I have a free social club of 100+ people that meets at least once per week. We all practice lying to each other and reading each other. Yeah it’s only a couple hours per week but it’s highly focused on social muscles we often only exercise infrequently elsewhere.
No social media. Pretty much no long distance friendships (outside of stints where I play a lot of video games with someone). I genuinely do not give a damn what’s happening to people I haven’t seen in years even if I could know everything by looking at their feed. If I want to catch up I’ll make plans to have them visit me or I will visit them. There are people I do this for on a regular basis, but it’s a short list. I do not comprehend the appeal of social media. All of my social brain is exercised on face to face interactions.
I think the biggest factors here are living in a city (I was pretty isolated when I lived in the suburbs) and having enough free time.
For me, kids have had a “filtering” effect. Where previously I had a lot of friends (including shallow ones), having less time and being less flexible in general compressed my circle of friends to just a few people with whom I share both a deeper connection and a mutual understanding that the pressures of life sometimes get between us, and that’s ok.
And as another commenter mentioned, kids do grow older…
You might confirm or not. As far as I observe it, the "deeper connection" is virtually always with other parents. And this is exactly the connection. Without children, it's neither possible nor attractive to be one of these persons.
It’s true for me, and probably for most parents, that connecting with other parents via the shared experience of haing kids is easy: there’s always something to talk about. But I also find that for me, both parties having kids is simply not enough for it to click!
I knew my close friends from before I had kids, the connection was already there.
I agree that making new friends across the “kids barrier” is hard. You just live in different worlds.
We've become really close friends with a couple of families on our block. It definitely helps that we all have kids the same age, but a big reason for this is that our kids entertain each other, freeing the adults (most of the time) to interact with each other.
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).
If it helps, I've found hosting a pizza night to be a really easy way to have some good hang time with friends. I make the pizza and it's good enough to be free dinner for them. The kids get to participate by customizing their pies. We all catch up for an hour or two in the kitchen, watching me scramble and make a mess. If somebody brings over a bottle of wine, even better.
Well, quite often I think this way but resist to say so. This time it's even more obvious, though: They all know that I'm right. Everybody knows. That's not the point why they downvote.
Or perhaps people down voted because absolute statements on social relationships are often not absolute at all. Or maybe they even have a personal experience that is contrary to your statement. I say this as a childless person whose closest friend has a child and a significant other whose two closest friends have children. And yes, I would describe all those friendships as deep.
Yes, let's agree it all depends on the definition of a deep friendship, I'd say.
If your definition includes regularly spending time together with your friend, not as appendix to her/his family, but with activities that connect you and your friend (e.g. with activities that you had before). With your friend focus on you then, instead of constantly being involved in other things. Ideally without the constant need to plan it months in advance.
As far as I've seen it, parents are usually far away from that. In terms of possibility, and also in terms of mindset. At some point in time, they seem to completely lose the understanding of what all these words could even mean.
It might work better if you have a more abstract or otherwise different definition. Yes.
Parents by necessity need to prioritize their kid. Hard to relate when you're single. So I understand why parents seek out other parents; they have a common talking point built in for an icebreaker.
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.
I live in Barcelona, and during last year’s blackout I wandered through the city. As I passed by the Baix Guinardó gardens, I came across something that felt like a "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" brought to life: the park was full of families socialising the old way, children running everywhere, the whole place buzzing with chatter and energy.
Later that day, walking home through darkened streets, I noticed small groups, maybe a dozen people at a time, gathered around certain spots. For some reason, a few closed shops still seemed to have working free Wi-Fi (backup generators, maybe), and people clustered there, drawn in like mosquitoes to light. Their faces glowed in the dark, lit only by their screens, and they stood in near-total silence. It’s hard to describe the feeling, it was surreal. You had to be there.
I’m no Luddite, but I went to sleep that night wondering how on earth we get ourselves out of this.
Have you ever seen those videos filming London streets in the 1970s? They are absolutely packed with groups of two or three people, not going places, but just standing there, chatting, as if they have nowhere else to be. It is something most of us have never experienced in any form and the change has happened over long enough timescales that we are used to our streets of strangers just going about their lives, the external world just a physical inconvenience to traverse as quickly as possible, not the real world where one just exists.
My perspective is very simple: our homes are simply a lot more comfortable than they used to be.
We have better heating/air conditioning, endless television/video games/entertainment, large refrigerators, lower density, etc and so on.
Back then, home covered a narrower set of needs - so the default option was to spend time elsewhere, even if it was just to escape the noise/heat/smells/smoke of home for a minute.
> our homes are simply a lot more comfortable than they used to be.
Yes. And public spaces are significantly less comfortable (and more expensive) than they used to be
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I think a lot of it comes back to cars: many people traded longer commutes for suburban houses, which has advantages but comes at the cost of not having much to do without driving somewhere and less free time around other people. This is especially bad for parents when they don’t feel comfortable letting their kids walk / bike around the neighborhood since that means more time spent playing chauffeur.
London in the 70s (which GP was talking about) already had long commutes (large suburbs and lots of commuter towns) and most households had cars. Roads are much safer and public transport is good so kids can get around by themselves.
One big difference is that more women work: stay at home mums used to strengthen communities - doing voluntary work, organising things. Now that is mostly done by retired people so the pool is smaller and fewer households have someone directly involved. Another way to look at it is that the working hours for a similar household has increased greatly so the household as a whole has less time to contribute to the community.
Another factor is that people move around more. Again, very noticeable in London where a lot of people have moved out because of high house prices. People do not near people they grew up with.
I think an undersung and underquantified factor here is how much less time people have. For reasons psychological and socioeconomic, across class lines, it seems we all have a mental calendar and todo list in our heads now, a tyrant that will always point out that aimless chatter is not appropriate, lest we fall even further behind.
Were streets the real 3rd places?
I always wondered how commoners (?) could afford to go to a pub every day to socialize, or if it was cheap, how the pubs could survive with a bunch of people who were just hanging out day after day.
Wages were much lower. As were property prices. Legislative demands were also simpler.
Laws are only simpler in hindsight
I have plenty of such scenes in my city still, but these people are usually either pensioners, or local unemployed drunks who have an entire day to fill. People with jobs don't hang outside, unless they're with their kids.
That's because London was 92.6% white and they shared a common culture, which London doesn't have anymore.
You are conflating skin colour and culture. A non-white immigrant who speaks fluent English, and is from a country with a common law legal system and British influenced culture can integrate far better than someone from a European country who does not speak good English. There are more people in London whose "main" language is Romanian, Spanish or Polish than any other languages.
https://data.london.gov.uk/download/vqlo7/c3df8c46-b070-439c...
Only 4% do not speak English well. London has had a large foreign born population and a lot of immigration for a long time and was fine in the 1990s so i doubt things have changed as much as you think in recent years.
By this logic, people should still be hanging out in the streets in all those villages where the master race dominates. And yet, we still only observe the bums and the retired hanging out with a day to fill. Any idea how that impacts your hypothesis?
In the past 3 years I got married and got a kid. Both mine and my wifes social situation went 180, and now we are one of those couples you saw in the park. The kids and kid problems become new shared interest, you meet bunch of people, with similar shared experience, and you end up connecting on other fronts as well. eg - I m in high rise, parking next to an interesting winter beater every day for 2 years, and now I know the guy because our wifes meet on the playground. Turns out he also likes 3d printers and CNCs and has many ideas :)
But even before this, through wife and her hobbies (dance, pottery etc) I had chance to meet many people and their partners and through them their friends etc. Then it becomes a choice whether you will get up and go see others or pick your screen.
You are very fortunate. When I took a career break to become daddy-day-care for our child I went to "Parents & Toddlers" groups and found them unwelcoming and suspicious.
Going back to work was a relief, because I was able to actually talk to adults without feeling that they were judging my reasons for being there.
I m 6'4", bearded, and as my wife says, with "constant bitter brooding face" - most people in every day life are unwelcoming and suspicious towards me xd, and while having very cute daughter for sure helps immensely, just interacting with kiddos the right way ultimately lowers peoples guard, and even if kiddos are not around, you have to win over the trust & respect. To some it comes easy, others have to work for it, but it does get better, and you build the social circle. Don't get left out over initial resistance! Bring your kiddo and bring extra snacks
That is pretty nasty of them and horribly sexist.
However, you were not daddy day care, you were being a parent. if you were a woman would you call it mummy-day-care?
On top of that, is looking after your child a substitute for day care rather than vice-versa?
Your story reminds me of working pre-pandemic, and going on an afternoon walk with a coworker. He was into pokemon go and he wanted to attend an event (raid?) before we walked. I followed him down the street where he stood at a certain deserted spot and waited. All of a sudden, people just started appearing, some from cars, some coming from between the bushes, some walking down the street.
the raid started, they all silently stared at their phones, and at some point they all looked up, looked around and walked away.
all mostly in complete silence.
who knew this was a precursor to more of the same, maybe throughout society.
IMO Pokémon go was the trendy app that actually bucked the trend of social media isolation, I talked to so many randoms that summer
I recently read that the Pokémon franchise is more profitable than Star Wars.
I was astounded as I know very little about it.
Not only that, Pokemon is the most profitable franchise of all time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...
>but I went to sleep that night wondering how on earth we get ourselves out of this.
I'm sure HN will suggest another layer of technology will fix all of this.
Technology and/or regulation
This is an interesting post (and also a very well written one!). It touches on something that does slightly irk me about the wider friendship/loneliness conversation that it feels we've been having for a decades now.
Its the "we" in "how on earth we get ourselves out of this." The bluntness of the "we" conflates it into a bigger problem than it is. If you walk past many parks & gardens across cities you'll find that same picture of families socialising in the old way without a blackout, but also people glued to their phones too.
People who are intentional of having classic socialising are still doing it, people who choose not to either through their own intention or, i suspect and hope, in a very ambient non-intentional way are the ones who may need to get out of it. Yes there are more of the latter now than before but the former groups are still a huge part of society. And if they can do it even with the same distractions and phones and access to social media etc. why can't others?
Yup, I'm a Spaniard and had a similar feeling. I'm pretty sure that, if the government had proposed an intentional weekly blackout, there would have been a large majority in favor.
I'm currently trying to reduce internet usage by a simple rule: no feeds (try to avoid places where I could even see them).
It's extremely difficult.
YouTube receives you with a feed, every social network as well, even the online version of a newspaper is arguably a feed. It's usually not possible to use a service without having one in frequent sight. Even my weather app tries its best to offer a feed of weather related news, the photo gallery app shows one of memories....
What last years blackout in Barcelona???
Barcelona has an extremely well oiled social scene.
Look up "2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout", the whole of Spain and Portugal had no electricity for a whole day.
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Yes, managing relationships needs time, but there is another problem I see nowadays. When I was young (I'm in my sixties), it was normal to have friends who could be very different from you. They might have had qualities you didn't like at all, but you could still be very good friends. If I look my students (highschool and college level) now, they are extremely intolerant for differences compared to what I remember from my youth. One "I don't like it" problem is enough to dump any relationship. Why? I guess it's because of a lack of practice – you don't really need to interact with so many different people nowadays and interacting with people who are very different from you is just plain terrifying for many.
It may be terrifying, but it's also terribly important. If the friendship can't survive differences, you're going to silently censor any points of differences (real or imagined) and soon you're just pretending to be the people you think the other expects you to be. No depth of connection, no growth.
You want someone to be friends with you, as you actually are. And that means you need to be friends with them, as they actually are, even if you worship different brands or vote for different movies.
I’m curious if you think viewpoints have also gotten more extreme in this period. It feels like the gap in political ideologies has widened a lot since I was younger.
The gaps in views are certainly widening in societies in general, but my point wasn't exactly that. It was more about differences which always existed. When I was young I was often dumped into large family gatherings which lasted days (birthdays of (grand)grandparents, funerals, weddings etc). I had to practice handling cousins etc who might had very different family backgrounds than me since very early age. We had to find things we had in common and accept our differences. We learned that differences are manageable. It's not common nowadays. Many people don't have relationships with relatives at all and kids don't meet another kids with different background until school. And even then distance is kept often because of overprotective parenting.
I agree with where you're coming from. I think its the continuing rise of individualism to a degree; sports team mentality politics/the internet/phones/social media have likely accelerated it but feels to me we'd been moving that way even prior to that. There's probably something there, too, about how more wealth gives people an out to not have to engage with broader society in a way where lower wealth or less unequal distribution of wealth doesn't.
Margaret Thatcher got quite a lot of stick for her quote about how there is no society and its just individual people that look out for themselves first and foremost before anything. But I'd say there's more truth to that than I'd want to believe. What stops that from being true to my mind is people being very intentional about creating a society by engaging with others.
I'm always interested in people's stories about adult friendships or loneliness crisis etc. and what I tend to see is that when people start being intentional about engaging, it usually ends up with them finding new friends. It's just easy to sleepwalk, with everything going on, into not engaging. Newish parents are very apt example of this
>Why? I guess it's because of a lack of practice – you don't really need to interact with so many different people nowadays and interacting with people who are very different from you is just plain terrifying for many.
It’s not any more or less terrifying than in previous times, but as you wrote “you don’t really need to interact with so many different people”.
I would shorten that to “you don’t need so many people anymore”. Another factor is you can easily find more agree-able people (or bots) to spend time with, such as on this website rather than a neighbor.
I see this exact thing right now to me and some (former?) friends, we’re all in our early to mid-40s. And, yes, it does involve politics, and more generally how one sees the world, but I personally find it quite baffling nonetheless. It’s like people really do feel the need to continue living in their intellectual bubble-balls, no dialectics involved, no contradiction, and hence no real (intellectual and not only) move forward.
I can’t and don’t see an easy solution for it, to be honest.
Depends? Are those more narrow one’s better and people have a better idea of what ideal looks like?
I’m kind of horrified at people saying they had/have to work at their best friendships as with my best friends, everything is seamless.
There are no misunderstandings. We never have to forgive each other. We never even need to clarify things for each other much, as we are that well aligned.
Granted it may not be possible, but ideally go find a better match in a friend.
The axes are independent. You can have seamless friendships with people who are very different from you, and contentious relationships with folks who are just like you (but doing it wrong!)
There's nothing wrong with having to work at friendship. For years I had a friend that I looked up to (and, as it turned out looked up to me). We were both constantly striving to justify the other's faith and respect. It was a lot of work but incredibly valuable for both of us.
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You're absolutely right! Nobody in the 60s or 70s thought that the police should terrorise minorities or that women were beneath them. These are entirely new problems that have only arisen since 2020 or so.
They knew not to say the quiet part out loud back then. That decorum is gone now.
Or in many cases (not mine since I don't use them), there wasn't the world's largest bathroom wall to go sound off on... Except you sign every message off with your name. The kind of stuff people post in their real name that I would take to my grave is insane.
One thing I read on IG that one couple decided to do in NL was what they call "stoepen" ("stoep" is the Dutch word for sidewalk). They'd get some chairs to their front yard, which is connected to the sidewalk, and they'd greet people and start chatting with them. When vibes clicked they'd invite them to come sit with them, until people got in the habit of sometimes coming by and sitting with them.
So there's that. Obviously there are other ways, but thought it'd be fun to share.
Also research on self-disclosure might help. Long story short: be the first to reveal some details about yourself and progressively go deeper to the level that you want, it's kind of a tit for tat type of thing. There was one popular article about it so you could "fall in love" but IMO it's not love, it's simply building a deeper connection. Check it out [1].
I used to be really interested in topics like this, so if you want to know more about it or brainstorm, feel free to reach out. My email is in my profile.
[1] https://36questionsinlove.com/
I wonder if that's actually related to the Afrikaans word "stoep", where it's used in the sense of verandah which is obviously where you'd sit outside the house and watch the word go by. Both meanings ultimately come from the original meaning of the word as "step".
I mean...
they are written the same...
And given that it is Afrikaans, I guess so. Afrikaans always reads as "Dutch but it's a puzzle!" to me.
Very similar to this "stoop coffee" concept
https://supernuclear.substack.com/p/stoop-coffee-how-a-simpl...
It's still common parlance in New Amsterdam (New York) today. 'Stoopin it' with friends/strangers is thankfully quite alive.
Although it unfortunately has a downscale connotation, to the point that there are racial slurs referencing it.
Before the big cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario in Argentina got somewhat dangerous, this is what life was like. I remember in the 90s my family having mate and cookies in the afternoon outside their home on the sidewalk and everyone else would wave in and out their homes doing the same. It wasn’t like a cult where everyone did it at the same time, it would vary. Kids would meet after school and run around for a bit, decompress from sitting all day. It was nice.
Ah Nice! I read about a couple in I think the Bay Area doing this too, to great effect
I would strongly encourage everyone to choose two or three friends and say “hey - I want to chat with you, but it’s hard to schedule calls. I’m just going to try calling you sometime when I have a few minutes free. If you can talk, great! If you can’t, no sweat. Sound OK?”
I lowered the stakes for calling/answering/not answering, and I actually catch up with my friends more often.
> I’m just going to try calling you sometime when I have a few minutes free. If you can talk, great! If you can’t, no sweat. Sound OK?”
I do it all the time. And unfortunately this still only builds shallow relationships or keeps them alive for longer than they would. Proximity is the only thing that keeps things alive. Physical proximity is obvious, but there are other forms of proximity. Regular (almost daily) texts builds online proximity. Being financially in a similar boat brings financial proximity. Being in similar stages in life brings lifestyle proximity. The more you start drifting away (lose proximity in one or more areas), the more the relationship dies. Married people with kids who own houses rarely stay in touch with single people who are traveling the world.
I'd hate that. I have a (small) group of friends, and we play games (almost) every weekend morning for 1-2 hours while on voice chat. I really enjoy that time but we have to schedule it in advance, we all have stuff going on. But we've been pretty good at making time for each other once a week for that time. Most of us are in different countries now so can no longer meet up in person, and this has been something that works for us.
If I'd get randomly called I'd actually just end up being annoyed, I need a sense of structure in my life lol.
Remember the old IRC rule? "Don't ask to ask, just ask."
"Don't ask to ask, just ask" is great in general, but if I tell someone this, I'm not trying to schedule a single call. It's more asking for permission to call whenever. Depending on who you and your friends are, it can be necessary to give this heads-up at least once so that, as another user put it, they don't get a panic attack from an unexpected phone call. As an older Gen Z, it feels like no one my age really calls each other out-of-the-blue, and you need something like this to establish it.
I realize there are generational differences but I still default to the assumption that calling people whenever (outside of 10PM-7AM for non-emergencies) is fine, unless someone specifically tells me otherwise
No, I don't need something like that to establish anything. My friends are relatively sane it appears. Neither do I expect such a behaviour from anyone. I have a phone, feature of that is you can call me. Complaining about that is weird. If you don't want calls, turn the thing off... But yeah, I realize in other parts of the world, there seem to be different "rules". However, still very weird to me.
This is great, thanks for recommending me. Not sure if it'll work given how people could be quite busy, but nothing wrong with trying. No sweat.
I have found there’s a reciprocal nature to it. If I keep trying here and there, the friend more often than not does try me back in turn.
Many of us have kids/demanding jobs - so feeling free to just call when I’ve got ten minutes alone in the car means - at minimum - one of us is free at that time.
I hate this. Yes: I want to talk to you. No: I don't want it to interrupt me and I don't want to miss the chance to talk to you either. So it's lose-lose for me.
I just call them. I dont think you have to reach out and send a “hey I have question is it okay to ask”-style entering-the-chat messages. The overarching problem is that everyone started treating communication as a formal business letter.
I agree, but the social norm (for a lot of young people) is not to call spontaneously - at all, ever. Giving people a heads up helps, and then consistently following through, is a step that helps make it happen.
Nah, just call them randomly and leave a message. I’m not going to have a whole social protocol for sending a phone call. If they don’t answer or call back it’s a lost cause communicating with them.
I once dated someone who “didn’t just leave the house for any old outing” and it became exhausting trying to figure out the protocol for what qualified as a worthwhile outing. It was easier to just dump the person instead of playing this little “no you’re holding it wrong” game of comms.
You’re overthinking my recommendation. It’s a one-time comment to set expectations. Nothing more.
You’re underthinking my counter-reccomendation. What you’re proposing “respond or don’t” is already a given if you send the preemptive message or not. Therefor a waste of time because you could just be initiating the relationship instead. People aren’t more likely to respond because you send them a “i wanna talk” message.
>If they don’t answer or call back it’s a lost cause communicating with them.
I mean, people are busy and schedules don't always align. Seems like the onus is on you if you expect another friend to answer whenever you feel like calling. Even with my parents we will check with each other via text before we call (being on a time zone difference doesn't help)
If the schedules align they will pick up, if not they will see the missed call and call back when they have time.
Then call them again! It doesn’t have to be a one time lottery.
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Yea me too. Calling with my friends is actually a big part of my friendship
Really good post! My own thoughts:
- making new friends does take a massive amount of time, not just in finding friends but also in spending time with them until you can call them long-time friends
- so you need to invest time in hanging out with people! Even when you don’t know what to say to them or when it’s awkward or when you’re not sure if you like them much. We weren’t picky when we were kids making friends, we just hung out a lot with whoever wanted to hang out
- this also means make yourself available. Romantic partners, new jobs, as well as kids basically destroy your free time, but lots of it is self inflicted. Make sure you don’t seclude yourself and prioritize hanging out with people
- also, it’s a number game, you should meet a lot of people if you want to eventually have a strong group of friends
- one trick is to organize a house party or some gathering once a week, on the same day, and invite everyone you know, and ask them to invite more people as well
- make sure you also spend time doing nothing with friends. Like watching tv and sitting on the couch. That’s how you used to create friendships as a kid, you just “hang”, you didn’t “go to the restaurant and went home afterwards”
idk about a house party once a week, but I do like the idea of having my friends invite their other friends. As I age, it becomes harder to find new friends just by happenstance. Friends of Friends usually end up becoming friends after meeting them.
It doesn't have to be a whole-ass house party, but a good low effort method is picking a tv series, putting out some snacks and watching an episode at the same time every week with an open door policy.
- making new friends does take a massive amount of time
I think the solution to this is to enjoy the journey. There's not a line that someone needs to cross before you can enjoy spending time with them. Just reach out and learn and enjoy people from the beginning.
I've just moved to a new town, and my social life is kicking.
Found a local computer club, crew of lads tinkering and using open source software. Really nice, smart bunch. I'm learning loads and appreciating their company.
OP found this lacking, because it's not working fast enough and he's not getting enough time with people.
I totally agree putting in time with old friends is always worth it (maybe not through surprise calls) but on a local level, I'd encourage patience.
Things take time, friendship isn't something you can just switch on. It takes years, and that's the point. It's a journey, not a destination.
Society is getting materialistic and cynical to toxic levels as the standards of living and the perspective of future further deteriorate.
People feel overworked, tired and out of money.
This general malaise spills on almost every type of social interaction, including friendships unfortunately.
Society has never been less materialistic and cynical than it is today
I've never made a lasting connection with anyone I've met online. Not once. It's not that I didn't hang around on BBS's and IRC when I was younger, I did. And I did meet people from there IRL, but no friendships formed. The whole concept just seemed (and still seems) alien to me.
But I did have a point after the end of a 12 year relationship ended, around the time of the pandemic and lockdowns when I realised most of my old IRL friendships hadn't gone ... but those people had moved away, and we didn't talk as much any more.
I still have old friendships with high school friends, old girlfriends, old friends from bands I played in from years past. But about a year ago in a particularly lonely and tragic period I started a pub trivia group on an unnamed IRL meetup platform, which has grown to over 300 members in less than a year (guessing a lot of those are bot accounts).
About half a dozen core members that come to play trivia at the pub almost every week, and then another 10-20 that attend less regularly, rotating in and out. It can be hard work to build yourself a new social group, but it can be done, and I now consider I have some good friends that come out of it and there are friendships forming between members of the group as well.
At 50 years of age, they're not the kind of friendships that I would count on to last forever, but they're there, people to chat with sometimes, people to catch up with for the odd drink or to go out dancing with. It can be done. And I'm much better off for it.
My wife and I are in Costa Rica for six weeks to see what it would be like to live here part of the year. We plan to do this at least once a year. This is my plan b to establish residency here if I ever need to do independent consulting instead of working for a consulting company.
Before we even got here we got on Ex pat Facebook groups and once we did get here, we went to a meet and greet and got connected to a few people that we arrange to meet for dinner outside of the official meetup.
The ex pat community is really cool and welcoming.
On a second note, I really don’t want any new “deep connections”. My closest friends I’ve known from between 15-35 years. I am always willing to meet and talk to people just to hang out
Make a friend. Keep talking to that friend. Put reminders, say good morning, or write it. Call them, ask how it's going.
Send them a 5 minute audio about something interesting in your day. Schedule a meet up, like you did as kids. "Lets hang out after ~~school~~ work today".
It's not as easy to make friends when you don't meet new people all the time, and it's hard to keep them when you're not forced to see them every day (because of school or something).
Make a friend or maybe two, and do this. It takes effort, but you'll be more fulfilled.
It's okay to just meet up, hang out, watch some YouTube together, play a game, go on a walk, or do legal drugs (coffee, beer, whatever)
The call to action at the bottom managed to actively give me anxiety. I don't know why I don't tend to call people very much. Anyways, back to making my flyer for community egg hunt. I'm practicing some of the suggestions in the article, let's celebrate small wins.
I think there should be less "how to solve friendship" posts, which see our social interactions as "problems" to be solved, and more reflection about how this is a consequence of a market oriented, inequality driving system. If the problem is that friendships need time, we should demand less working time and more free time to establish friendships.
I have thought alot about making friends and why it's so hard. I keep coming back to the same question.
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?
I’ve made better friends later in life than I did earlier.
I think the thing is to have fun first. If people aren’t on the same wavelengths it’s ok. It’s also good to have a fun thing to do which does involve other people or even a competitive scene.
> 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.
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When I was about 10 years old it dawned on me that "friendship" is a really unclear, mutual agreement, and if you consider someone your friend, they might not consider you theirs (or at the very least, not on the same level of "friendliness") and vice versa. What does it even mean to be or have a "friend"? It's such a silly thing, but it permanently changed the way I looked at social connections. I never had "friends" ever since and don't feel like I am missing out on anything.
Meet in person. Rule no. 1.
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.
I read an outstanding quote in a Brad Thor novel that I think speaks volumes about how to make friends:
"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.
I'm surprised that this article that has so much of an AI smell gets such a positive reception.
I thought HN didn't go in for AI slop? I suspect that this kind of thing has people feeling more alienated than ever, what with even the articles online lacking any level of human connection.
I for one am here to talk about how to get friends. I didn't read the article. The comments is the content.
https://simianwords.bearblog.dev/it-doesnt-matter-if-the-pos...
That is a low key point the author touched on but never really expanded upon.
>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.
I started a "mans group" - just a bunch of my local male friends in the neighborhood, doing 'man things' - actually there's no need to pitch it this way, we're just all men and so far thats how we describe ourselves, but it'll change the instant we get some diversity.
We take care of each other, meet every week to shoot the shit and do stuff. So far the group has caught pinball fever (we even have members of the group doing tournaments now), we have movie nights where some of us recommend strange and obscure movies for everyone to enjoy - this has been very successful in terms of lifting everyones spirits - and we have jam sessions, woodworking sessions, table tennis and other racquet-based game events, and so on.
It just snowballed organically. I was in a bar with a mate deliberating on whether there was anything else we could be doing except getting drunk in shady bars, and I noticed a pinball sticker. So we looked into that, caught the pinball fever, and things snowballed. Soon enough, there are 8 of us attending the regular pinball sessions in our city .. and in so doing, we've established some great bonds between us.
Its now at the point where if anyone of us needs something, we just ping the group chat and within minutes there is usually a show of helpful hands.
Wouldn't have happened if we hadn't discovered an activity that united us all, brought us together, and gave us the group context to add many other fun activities to the list.
We even have our own (cult-like) language and slang for things, its kinda funny to observe it evolve over the last 6 months .. and also to see new members adopt our strange language for things. Really amusing!
Try it, its a great way to make friends.
Unfortunately many people now strongly dislike receiving unexpected phone calls. You may (i have) genuinely upset some people by calling them. Yes, I’m rolling my eyes too, but that’s how they feel
That was my first thought as well, and I am one of those people. I strongly dislike being called, especially unexpectedly, and much prefer a quick text message to maybe meet up in person, if the opportunity presents itself (e.g. if one of us happens to be in the town of the other one)
At this point in my life if someone I actually know irl calls out of the blue, it induces anxiety as it's a very non-zero chance someone has died...
Yeah, that's one of the reasons calls out of the blue are mostly reserved for emergencies in my family and friend group. Texts eliminate that factor, and are more polite. A phone call represents immediacy / urgency ("this merits interrupting whatever you might be doing right now"). A text like "hey are you free for a quick call?" lets the recipient pivot from what they're doing and engage on their terms. IMHO it's more considerate.
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You're about one step away from sending an email to ask if you can send a text to ask if you can make a phone call.
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.
Disagree with this. Sending a text saying "Can we call when you're free" is more considerate of the other persons time than a random call. It sounds like you're trying to make it sound absurd by your 'send an email to send a text', rather than focus on _why_ the text makes sense.
Thanks, yes, exactly. (I didn't respond to parent bc borderline trolling.)
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.
texts and emails are asynchronous. If they want to email me to call me, sure. I'd find it weird, but it's just as accessible as a text.
>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.
100% this. Apart from my SO and scammers, no one randomly calls me. If my brother would call me out of the blue I'd assume the worst. (Also, the one random call I vividly remember getting the past years is my mom calling me to let me know my grandfather unexpectedly passed away).
It's just needlessly anxiety-inducing. Not to mention it's a major inconvenience to interrupt someone randomly for a chat.
Man, this is the opposite for me. I'm filled with a great sense of relief any time my phone rings and I recognize the number...
That’s the reason I started reaching out to old friends. A friend had died and I knew no one else would tell them. One I even had to track down through email and ask for their new phone number. But now that I’m in regular contact I find calling easier and I don’t have worst-case-scenario fears anymore.
Spam phone calls have become so horrendously common here in the US (multiple a day) that I just keep my mobile on do not disturb 24/7 with exceptions for those in my core contact group. Maybe I'll miss a call or two that actually had substance, but I'd rather be slightly more isolated than constantly annoyed. Find me on various online platforms with text chat, voice or video if you really want to reach me. Or don't.
Same here. Spam calls have really picked up these last couple of years, I also get multiple per day. Here in Switzerland you need to register with your ID to get a mobile phone number, but somehow these spam callers still manage to appear to be calling from a mobile phone, which used to be a strong signal for “not spam”. It’s gotten so bad that I completely ignore unknown numbers, except if I’m expecting a call. This has its own downsides of course. Tragedy of the commons. :-( Maybe call screening can help, but at least on iOS it isn’t available yet here.
Ridiculous how that ticked up in frequency (at least for me) after the last Potus election.
Bill 936 which would have required 1:1 expressly written consent to call was struck down in the 11th circuit court of appeals right before it was set to go into effect in Jan 2025 [1].
Trump flipped the 11th circuit by making a number of judge appointments in Jan 2020 [2]. As you correctly guessed, these two things are not unrelated.
1. https://www.consumerfinancialserviceslawmonitor.com/2025/09/...
2. https://www.wiley.law/newsletter-Trump-Flips-Eleventh-Circui...
For me it's been down the last couple years, compared to a surge under the previous president. That means he's responsible, right? Or it could be I bought a house and financial institutions leak phone numbers like a colander
It cooled under Biden for me, but who am I to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if current admin stop prosecuting against the spam callers. Some times these outfits are connected to politicians. Have you seen the 3-part documentary, Telemarketers?
Did you get laid off over the year? My spams always skyrocket on a job search. Just shows you what they are really doing with your resume (despite my LinkedIn profile being 15 years old and mostly updated. It's not hard to get my resume).
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.
One alternative is voice recordings on whatsapp!
This is the worst: people who use them hate the receiver
So what?
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.
N=1 here but I love getting out of the blue phone calls from the couple of friends that do it. If I can't pick up, or am too busy to chat, I just swipe up on of the prebaked "sorry, can't chat now" SMS responses.
It's them who initiate 90% of the calls too, and nobody cares.
For my demographic (late millenial), calls imply urgency. Like, if I see a call from a friend out of the blue I'm worried something dire happened.
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.
>But life as is is already so spontaneous
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.
many people are now unable to discuss personal things at all, as I have a small business that is growing, I have interviewed hundreds of people seeking employment, and flat out refuse to even talk about resumes or past qualifications, as what counts in this case is an ability to comunicate verbaly about a combination of technical specifications, and then the mundane details of achiving them, so a verbal interview,that focuses on there full skill sets, and youth, mentors, and other influenced, many choke and hand up, sputter and repeat the speel they have practiced, one in 50 can roll with it cheerfully.
I wonder what is driving this. I too sense that people are really guarded these days. For me, I work remotely and it's hard to build true rapport through Slack.
Why would I open up on a company chat? I don't want my life on record to be used against me by HR later on. I'll tell some friendly coworkers about vacation details, but certainly not on a paper trail.
Lack of barrier breaking. Fewer people call and talk outside of slack so it becomes the norm to not talk outside of slack. When you do it seems weird. Break the norm.
I feel that's more an issue in a job interview. You want to use every minute to make yourself look good, and the general "wisdom" is that employers don't care about your hobbies or social life or passions. They want someone to do the job right now.
Here’s what I do: Spend time at my local marker space. It’s easy to bond with people when you have such similar interests. It’s really amazing how exactly aligned I am with a set of the people there. Being in SF already biases people towards certain interests. But going beyond that to the inner circle of tech obsessed nerds, makers from all over the world that moved here with a purpose, gives me a form fitting community that probably only exists in a handful of locations on Earth. Play social deduction/deception games. I have a free social club of 100+ people that meets at least once per week. We all practice lying to each other and reading each other. Yeah it’s only a couple hours per week but it’s highly focused on social muscles we often only exercise infrequently elsewhere. No social media. Pretty much no long distance friendships (outside of stints where I play a lot of video games with someone). I genuinely do not give a damn what’s happening to people I haven’t seen in years even if I could know everything by looking at their feed. If I want to catch up I’ll make plans to have them visit me or I will visit them. There are people I do this for on a regular basis, but it’s a short list. I do not comprehend the appeal of social media. All of my social brain is exercised on face to face interactions. I think the biggest factors here are living in a city (I was pretty isolated when I lived in the suburbs) and having enough free time.
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One thing that I've learned from my friends in the last 10 years:
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.
For me, kids have had a “filtering” effect. Where previously I had a lot of friends (including shallow ones), having less time and being less flexible in general compressed my circle of friends to just a few people with whom I share both a deeper connection and a mutual understanding that the pressures of life sometimes get between us, and that’s ok. And as another commenter mentioned, kids do grow older…
You might confirm or not. As far as I observe it, the "deeper connection" is virtually always with other parents. And this is exactly the connection. Without children, it's neither possible nor attractive to be one of these persons.
It’s true for me, and probably for most parents, that connecting with other parents via the shared experience of haing kids is easy: there’s always something to talk about. But I also find that for me, both parties having kids is simply not enough for it to click! I knew my close friends from before I had kids, the connection was already there.
I agree that making new friends across the “kids barrier” is hard. You just live in different worlds.
We've become really close friends with a couple of families on our block. It definitely helps that we all have kids the same age, but a big reason for this is that our kids entertain each other, freeing the adults (most of the time) to interact with each other.
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).
If it helps, I've found hosting a pizza night to be a really easy way to have some good hang time with friends. I make the pizza and it's good enough to be free dinner for them. The kids get to participate by customizing their pies. We all catch up for an hour or two in the kitchen, watching me scramble and make a mess. If somebody brings over a bottle of wine, even better.
Yes, I'm sure that works. It's just not my cup of tea. Instead of doing that, I could just watch TV. And I'm really not a TV enthusiast.
>Instead of doing that, I could just watch TV.
That's not really a single vs. married divide there. That's just how you prioritize your energy in life.
Hang in there. As the kids get older, "XOR" can turn into "WITH".
Parents want to hang out with other parents.
Disappointing somebody has seen fit to "drive-by" downvote your post that simply describes your truthful personal observations.
Presumably they don't want to engage in discussion, which is precisely what this topic is about!
Well, quite often I think this way but resist to say so. This time it's even more obvious, though: They all know that I'm right. Everybody knows. That's not the point why they downvote.
Or perhaps people down voted because absolute statements on social relationships are often not absolute at all. Or maybe they even have a personal experience that is contrary to your statement. I say this as a childless person whose closest friend has a child and a significant other whose two closest friends have children. And yes, I would describe all those friendships as deep.
Yes, let's agree it all depends on the definition of a deep friendship, I'd say.
If your definition includes regularly spending time together with your friend, not as appendix to her/his family, but with activities that connect you and your friend (e.g. with activities that you had before). With your friend focus on you then, instead of constantly being involved in other things. Ideally without the constant need to plan it months in advance.
As far as I've seen it, parents are usually far away from that. In terms of possibility, and also in terms of mindset. At some point in time, they seem to completely lose the understanding of what all these words could even mean.
It might work better if you have a more abstract or otherwise different definition. Yes.
Parents by necessity need to prioritize their kid. Hard to relate when you're single. So I understand why parents seek out other parents; they have a common talking point built in for an icebreaker.
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.