
How Friendships Change Over Time (2015) - DiabloD3
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/how-friendships-change-over-time-in-adulthood/411466/?single_page=true
======
110011
Birds of a feather flock together. The truth of this old adage never hit me
until my late twenties by which time I had changed places and jobs a few
times. Growing up with an ill defined idea of who a friend was, I imagined I
would have friends of all kinds around me who would challenge my thinking and
perceptions by simply being who they are. Like some carefully assembled
bouquet of exotic flowers I thought I would, of course, have a hippie friend,
a nerd friend, a gothic friend, whatever, but over the years I learnt that the
people I like talking to and the people whose company and conversations I
enjoyed were almost exclusively a subset of the people I went to university
(and later, graduate school) with. I found that people I knew from an earlier
period in my life, like a neighbor or a high school friend, came to see me as
being different because of the wildly different path I had taken later in
life. I would like to imagine that close friends from a young age don't just
fade away because you went to a different school or took a different job, but
that's how it has played out consistently in my life. In brief encounters with
such friends I learnt that they treated me differently and were too eager to
put me down, either out of some deep insecurities, afraid of who I was or
simply from an effortless nastiness that came to them. I think this (late
twenties) is a time when some people become acutely perceptive of keeping
score and start playing the status game etc. I uniformly avoid such idiots
from my social life, when I just want to hang out without the specter of my
career looming over every conversation.

~~~
pm90
Unfortunately, I seem to have had a similar experience. Perhaps it is bound to
happen in this economy when a lot of people are struggling to find decent jobs
on the one hand, and you have this group of people involved with Tech who are
doing incredibly well...I've made the decision to always live with roommates
not in the tech sector, and I made the mistake of revealing once how much I
make. Instantly, my roommate's (and his friends') attitude changed after that.
I've learned to never make that mistake again.

~~~
gautamnarula
How did their attitudes change?

~~~
hfsktr
I am not him but in my case my friends and roommates say things like "You make
enough to pay for this/that/whatever", "Why would you look for another job you
make good money?" etc.

I do make good money for this area or compared to them but that doesn't mean I
don't have to be responsible with it.

------
pingou
Reminds me of this poem, I think I read it first time on hacker news.
[https://allpoetry.com/Around-The-Corner](https://allpoetry.com/Around-The-
Corner)

------
mattbgates
I wish I could know.. I went away to college... years away. It was hard to
leave friends, but I knew I'd see and talk to them again someday. Two of my
best friends, within weeks of talking to them, they passed away. Both
incidents happened years apart, but both died exactly the same way. And both..
I had just recently gotten in touch with again... only to lose both just weeks
afterwards.

Even sadder.. I had premonitions of "losing a best friend" and I did nothing
to warn either of them, ignoring it like it was just a dream, when in reality,
it was a vision.

But when I did speak to them, it was as if we picked up right where we left
off. For the one friend, I hadn't spoken to him in over 4 years. The other
friend? At least 6 years. I still call them my best friends because I grew up
with them. Life happened and it caused us to not talk as much anymore, but
like I said: When they are your best friend.. you pick up right where you left
off, no matter how many years apart you were.

Both losses caused me to write what was in my heart.

One Life, Old Man ... [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/one-life-
old-man/](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/one-life-old-man/)

The Loss of a Best Friend ...
[http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/loss-best-
friend/](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/loss-best-friend/)

Certainly a pain that no one should ever have to endure... it is as painful as
losing a family member. I cannot call them up. I cannot change what happened.

~~~
mgkimsal
> Certainly a pain that no one should ever have to endure

And yet... almost everyone does, at one point or another, endure that sort of
pain.

Perhaps it's better to not have to go through that sort of pain in your youth,
but when older and you have more perspective and experience, which may help to
put the pain in to a context which may help alleviate it some?

------
kornish
> In a set of interviews he did in 1994 with middle-aged Americans about their
> friendships, Rawlins wrote that, “an almost tangible irony permeated these
> adults discussions of close or ‘real’ friendship.” They defined friendship
> as “being there” for each other, but reported that they rarely had time to
> spend with their most valued friends...

To what degree does friendship have to do with quantity of time spent, as
"being there" suggests, versus quality of time spent?

Anecdotally, it seems that people can share deliberately quality time, as
determined by some arbitrary and subjective metric, and remain fulfilling
friends with each other. It also seems that many conflate quality of time with
quantity because spending lots of time with someone (or someones) will yield
some moments of that formative quality.

Does this observation break down after the social 20s, when people start
families and move away? Have you found that raw amount of time spent with
someone matters more or less as you grow older?

~~~
pm90
I think its a case-by-case thing. I have friends I hang out with all the time
and yet I would never expect to e.g. take me to the ER room at 3am in the
morning. And others who I see once a month and can reliably expect them to. At
some point, you have a fuzzy mental ranking of all your relationships along
certain attributes. So the first friend ranks high on "fun" but low on
"dependable", while for the second one it is opposite.

~~~
ido
As someone who recently needed such assistance, you might be surprised by who
will gladly render that support when you actually need it.

------
erikb
Honestly, I was really surprised how little of it is new knowledge.

That's not criticism, but maybe the realization that there isn't much more
knowledge to gain about friendships, if science knows exactly the same stuff
as someone who is in a totally different department.

I think maybe it becomes interesting when combined with other relationships
like colleagues. If you spend the prime time of your day with someone for 10
years, you also expect them to be dependable to some degree. However in a
mostly formal relationship people can get quite surprised about how little
they actually can count on their coworkers when sh*t hits the fan. And at the
same time many people may spend more time, energy and money into their
coworkers than into their dependable friends.

~~~
matt4077
I've read that "friends are the new families", taking on roles that were
traditionally reserved for families such as lending money or sharing the
burdens of childcare.

~~~
erikb
In which area of this planet? I wish friends and I would support each other in
final struggles, but it's a huge taboo in my country in central Europe.

~~~
Onewildgamer
From India here, lending money to friends in times of urgency is quite common
and is not considered as a taboo. In fact, some of my friends jumped to help
me in need. Also I feel it considerably strengthens the friendship.

~~~
zeroer
Is it really that common for people in India to live so close to the edge
without savings that they regularly need help?

I know my friends and I (in the US) all have buffers of at minimum a few
months of expenses. I guess it's not inconceivable that someone might have an
emergency that requires more, but that would end up being a rather substantial
of money. In my friend circle, I've never heard of someone borrowing money.

~~~
ido
It may help to remember that the average _yearly_ wage in India is about
$3000[1].

[1] [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-annual-salary-
in-I...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-annual-salary-in-
India/answer/Praveen-Venkiteswara-Annu)

~~~
zeroer
I realize there are income differences, but I don't think it's terribly
relevant. Even if I have low income (and concomitant low expenses), then my
choice is to save money consistently when times are good and then spend extra
money during some time period; or I can not maintain any savings, spend extra
during some emergency by borrowing money, and then spend less afterwards to
put money toward my incurred debt. Both of these financial life plans earn and
spend the same amount of money, but one of these plans seems much more
stressful than the other. None of the preceding is at all related to the
amount of income or spending, only the timing.

~~~
dilemma
Income differences are terribly relevant. How could you think otherwise? If
you make more, fewer times will be emergencies. They will just be normal
events.

~~~
zeroer
It's certainly true that making more money will lead to an easier life
(otherwise what would be the point?), but I don't think you're addressing my
central argument.

Whether someone saves money prior to an emergency and then spends their
savings, or they borrow for the emergency and slowly pay it back over time,
the person still earns and spends identical amounts of money. The difference
is the ordering of events. No matter how poor the person, if he or she is
capable of repaying loans after the fact, then he or she is capable of saving
money before the fact.

I've of course read the statistics that 30-50% of Americans couldn't handle an
unexpected expense of some moderate magnitude, but I admit I don't really
understand the psychology behind it. You're going to get to spend all the
money you earn in your life either way. Why not time it to maximize happiness
and/or reduce stress?

Some other commenters have correctly guessed that my income is higher than the
median and for some reason think that this is a reason why I can't or
shouldn't have an opinion on the matter. But this wasn't always the case. All
through my twenties I was poor, but even still I always strived to have 6
months of expenses in a savings account. The only times I didn't have 6 months
of expenses in cash were the times I had emergencies or a couple times I
bought a cheap used car with cash.

------
johnny_reilly
Fascinating and particularly relevant to my recent life experience. I wrote
earlier this year about the realisation that friendship changes, people move
on.

[https://reillysontour.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/away-we-
go.html](https://reillysontour.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/away-we-go.html)

Upon reflection I think that's ok. You just have to realise that's how life
goes. Accept it. Embrace it. Make the best of it.

You can't really change it. But, as long as you're at peace with that, well
it's fine. C'est la vie

~~~
rpazyaquian
...Which is why it's important to get in as much as you can while you're
young. Unfortunately, not everyone has the foresight to socialize at that age.

------
Lausbert
3 month = 0.25 years; 0,25 years / 10 years = 1/40 :)

