Discussion

Overcoming the Friendship Recession

hrdwdmrbl: 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

specproc: 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.

drzaiusx11: 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.

germinalphrase: 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.

righthand: 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.

metalman: 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.

charlie0: 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.

righthand: 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.

righthand: Ridiculous how that ticked up in frequency (at least for me) after the last Potus election.

baby: One alternative is voice recordings on whatsapp!

mettamage: 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/

giant_fern: Very similar to this "stoop coffee" concepthttps://supernuclear.substack.com/p/stoop-coffee-how-a-simpl...

obscurette: 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.

MarkusQ: 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.

lowdude: 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)

drzaiusx11: 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...

chrisweekly: 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.

groby_b: 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.

Insanity: 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.

Zealotux: 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.

sph: 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. 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.

Insanity: 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.

paganel: 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.

pino83: 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.

alex_suzuki: 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…