People want immediate gratification, and friendship is like dating.
Often, I'm the first to take initiative inviting people out... This is fine. I don't care about that. But sometimes, i'll invite someone out I don't click with 100%
And this is... okay. Even if I spent money and time on that attempt, I always have a decent enough time, and finding friends requires work.
People today don't want to do the work. They barely want to do it for dating but sexual desire provides an itch they need to satisfy so they ultimately figure it out (as well as parental pressure I presume).
Making friends is a long process requiring strategy and continued effort.
For example, we just moved to a new area. We've been going to a few events consistently (children's soccer practice, church, etc). My wife and I both make it a point to speak to as many people as possible. After a few months of doing this, we'll casually ask for a number. Usually it's something like.. "Oh, you like to do <activity X>? I love doing <activity X>... I just read a great article about <activity X>... do you want me to send it to you? CAn I have your number?"
Anyway, after a few more weeks go by with some more interactions, and hopefully a few text messages back and forth, we'll casually ask for them to come over for drinks, dinner, etc.
Does this sound contrived and 'social engineering'y? It absolutely is. My wife and I have spent a good few hours strategizing how to ask people to do various activities, and making lists of people to invite to various things. This is a lot of work that few are willing to do. Even mentioning it can make people think you've gone nuts. But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend.
I don't think it was more effort in the past, it's just we (especially for the middle class up) made everything else much more effortless (in the service economy), so this eventually bubbled up to the list of "hard" things.
I know we are talking far away from something that can be proven with data, but I can't imagine that friendship ever wasn't a function of time an effort.
Well, at least personally, it was easy to make and maintain friendships in school where I was seeing the same people over and over again, naturally and spontaneously. It was a function of time, but that time came effortlessly and automatically.
Except it always was. We belong to a very close knit catholic parish, and it takes constant effort to keep it up. I'm a part of the men's club, and we're always doing work -- like actual work -- to make sure the social aspects of the parish work and people can meet friends. We work to encourage friend making, dating, etc. For example, the men regularly wake up before the first mass (so we're talking before 7 AM) to get breakfast ready. That's work. It means getting up early on a saturday morning to foster the kind of social environment we want.
This is not a new thing. In fact, it was more prominent in the past. Knights of Columbus councils like the one i'm in are smaller than ever. Growing up, our knights of columbus was huge, and the guys there again did actual work to keep the community going.
That's group friendship. My parents kept a few friends individually and again... this is also work. My mother would regularly cook large elaborate meals for the sole purpose of having people over... even friends she didn't like. She'd complain about her friend for hours and hours and hours (mainly about political differences) but still invite them over, because to her it's better to have friends than to cut someone out, and anyway... she could barely cut out her friends from her life, much less her family. These days, people cut people off because they aren't on the same page politically, don't have the same taste, etc. Some people literally won't meet up with friends because they have a better thing to do... it's so individualistic as to be toxic.
This is not to say my mother was a pushover by any means. My parents did cut out people from their lives, including family, but it had to be for egregious reasons. For example, my dad's sister and her husband were cut out because they enslaved my parents, but unless someone's going to go to that level of depravity, I don't think my parents could cut someone out of their life.
Yes. Sponsored to work in this country by his sister. The brother in law owned a few restaurants. My dad was made to work by family pressure. It was reported he was making x amount to the government to keep him here but he never saw the money. He 'worked' for a few years like this
He was driven to various Indian restaurant locations in southern California. Forced to work more than eight hours a day, then driven back to sisters house.
When he married my mother and she immigrated she saw what was going on and ran away and took my dad. We don't talk about the sister any more. I didn't realize my father had two sisters until much later in life.
The scary thing is how open this was. If you're familiar with fancy Indian restaurants in orange, la and Riverside county you'll likely have eaten there. Sister and brother in law were otherwise respectable doctors (including one in public health believe it or not) and otherwise beyond reproach...
There was no hope getting the wages back. My mom and dad started from nothing after several years in the country.
Frankly this sort of slavery is very common, especially among south Asians and is rarely discussed. My parents know a few other full on slaves who were never released to their knowledge. You might ask... Shouldn't we help them... Well we could certainly help them in america, but brother in law is a high caste indian so he would punish the family in India.
There's nothing we could do. This is something the state department and ice need to solve.
> It absolutely is. My wife and I have spent a good few hours strategizing how to ask people to do various activities, and making lists of people to invite to various things. This is a lot of work that few are willing to do. Even mentioning it can make people think you've gone nuts. But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend.
Why can't we just skip to the drinks part?
Even in places like NYC where there are so many people that fear of rejection is not a factor, there is always in the back of your head the thought of "stranger danger", and the worst is the realization that the other person has that too; but the actual worst is that the both of you know that the other person knows that you know they have "stranger danger" fears.
Honestly it's draining because communities which are wealthy and in which there is no "stranger danger" are the most closed ones.
Well if COVID didn't exist, I would have invited everyone we knew to a large baptism party, but given that we can't do that and are basically resolved to socializing in our homes, we can only invite one family over at a time. Thus, we have to prioritize, and frankly, the ones we believe are most likely to turn into friends get priority.
Thank you for linking this, I had a great experience reading it and discovering the same problem that the author had. I didn't even consider it was possible to directly and intentionally have an emotionally vulnerable conversation! I love when I have them, but I always thought of them as 'happy accidents' that just occur sometimes.
It's never even popped into my head that these are avenues in a conversation that you can take with intention.
In my experience the best way to have a vulnerable conversation is just to put yourself out there. And have a back up. Once in a while, I'll say something and clearly it's not desired, so it's always nice to fall back to 'Hey did you want some more cookies / can I get you another beer?'.
Haha thanks. Yes... there's a benefit to being a socially awkward kid raised in a culture of close friendship in that my parents taught me in very clear terms how to make friends, that I use to this day (to apparently much greater success than 'normal' kids I know).
I especially liked the article's details on maintaining friendships. Being a good friend is like having a marriage. We have this couple we're friends with. The husband and I get along and my wife and his wife get along (and of course, we all get along with each other). But his wife and my wife fought for a bit (And I mean really fought), and we had a 'falling out', but then I took the initiative to reach out to the husband, and for a while, we'd clandestinely go out with each other, until we both decided it was time to get the wive's to reconnect and everyone to make up (which they eventually did). It was hard emotional work... but it's all worth it. I think a lot of people drop friends they don't like. I notice a lot of people today do it over differences in politics, which I frankly find unfathomable.
I suggest learning more about these western values, where they came from, why, and how long they have been around. I think you will be surprised and find a very enjoyable rabbit hole. One spoiler: most things people consider an inseparable part of their culture (any culture, not just western) are a few generations old at best, and are usually borrowed from another culture.
> And it’s really jarring to have so many things in common and then discover they’re promoting the destruction of western values …
I dunno who your friends or acquaintances are, but if your view of them is that they want to destroy western values and your way of living, then that's a problem on you, not them. Most likely, they don't want to hurt you or your way of life... they just want to be able to live theirs, so I would suggest not approaching this is a problem of 'my friend basically wants to destroy my country'.
I mean on the other hand, if you're surrounded by people who literally want to destroy your country, well then I'd suggest moving, I guess. I don't honestly believe there's many parts of america, other than certain cult compounds, that would share that view though. More likely, you are the one reading ill intent into other's politics.
I have a friend who's still waiting for his 'true love' to fall into his lap. I have lots of other friends who are happily married now with kids who chose to be deliberate.
Often, I'm the first to take initiative inviting people out... This is fine. I don't care about that. But sometimes, i'll invite someone out I don't click with 100%
And this is... okay. Even if I spent money and time on that attempt, I always have a decent enough time, and finding friends requires work.
People today don't want to do the work. They barely want to do it for dating but sexual desire provides an itch they need to satisfy so they ultimately figure it out (as well as parental pressure I presume).
Making friends is a long process requiring strategy and continued effort.
For example, we just moved to a new area. We've been going to a few events consistently (children's soccer practice, church, etc). My wife and I both make it a point to speak to as many people as possible. After a few months of doing this, we'll casually ask for a number. Usually it's something like.. "Oh, you like to do <activity X>? I love doing <activity X>... I just read a great article about <activity X>... do you want me to send it to you? CAn I have your number?"
Anyway, after a few more weeks go by with some more interactions, and hopefully a few text messages back and forth, we'll casually ask for them to come over for drinks, dinner, etc.
Does this sound contrived and 'social engineering'y? It absolutely is. My wife and I have spent a good few hours strategizing how to ask people to do various activities, and making lists of people to invite to various things. This is a lot of work that few are willing to do. Even mentioning it can make people think you've gone nuts. But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend.