
Why is it so hard to make friends after college? - patrickarenson
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrzrxkqfxf6ewf2/Pingwheel%20HN.pdf?dl=0
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eesmith
The document at given link does not answer that question. It's a marketing
piece for a "Tinder for friends" site. The piece implies that people with
similar interests become friends, but doesn't say why it's harder after
college.

patrickarenson has only posted three times, all related to this site.

I'll take a crack at answering the question. My working model is that when you
share transformative experiences with others, then it's more likely that
you'll become friends.

This can include college, military service, growing up together as kids, jail,
a road trip, etc.

I recently watched a couple seasons of the reality TV series "The Great
Swedish Adventure" about people from the US who are the descendants of Swedes,
and want to learn more about their Swedish heritage and meet their unknown,
distant relatives. The game show aspect of it had people formed into two
teams, at random, to collaborate, and the losing team then had individual
competitions to determine who drops out.

In the interviews during the season they talk about how they have all become
friends, and some of the post-season interviews talk about how they are still
in contact. They also talk about how they feel like being a participant
changed them. I think the structure of the competition helped them become
friends in a way that simply jetting 12 people to Sweden wouldn't have gotten.

So, why is it hard after college? Because college is at a peak transformation
time for most, and most people there are going through the same sorts of
transformation.

Another major transformation is parenthood, which is also when people make
entirely new sets of friends.

