I found this article strange, because the author seemed to be reversing cause and effect. Isn't "shared context" — trust, loyalty, love, belonging, safety — the result of friendship rather than the cause of friendship? How can you trust and be loyal to someone you just met?
"We can’t help but desperately compete in this unwinnable game of having the best collection of attributes to show off." I don't get it, because friends don't need each other to be the best person in the world at any given thing. Having things in common seems to be enough, no? Does anyone need to be "unique", a special snowflake in the world? In some sense friends are interchangeable, in that it's a total accident of circumstances which few of the billions of people on Earth you happen to hang out with. But I'm not clear on why "global uniqueness" is necessary for friendship. That seems to be an impossible standard, and it's not the basis of any friendship I've ever had.
"In my early attempts to make friends, I tried inviting people with shared interests to activities like sailing or grabbing brunch". I think the missing ingredient here is simply time. It's hard to become friends in just a few hours.
[Edit:]
"One way to create a shared context is through shared struggle. This is why many organizations implement ritualized hazing to initiate new members, but the important thing is not the hazing, it’s the sense that you are working together with your fellow humans to achieve a super-human goal."
The super-human goal of getting your butt paddled by a frat boy? No, hazing is just a perverse power play, nothing more. They do hazing because they can, and get a kick out of it.
>How can you trust and be loyal to someone you just met?
Duty. that's what the military often is like and my experiences with military friendships overlap a lot with the idea that long lasting friendships are build around context, although I think 'shared sense of purpose' describes it somewhat better.
Starting a business together or going through disease or really anything where people have real skin in the game and there's something at stake is where people can form deep, meaningful bonds quickly.
Are you close friends with everyone you served with, though? Isn't there someone in the military you didn't like? ;-)
AFAICT the formula for friendship is pretty simple: time + shared interests + personality/chemistry. The military is a good way to spend a lot of time together, and maybe a shared interest too.
I'm actually still close friends with a lot of them, and importantly that includes people I didn't really "like" intuitively but I relied on for a long time.
I don't think it's that simple really. Chemistry and personality are overrated. Sacrifice and obligation are what really binds people together and if we want to extend the discussion a bit, I think modern marriage which has shifted from being framed as something that's about duty and family towards shared interest and chemistry is an example of how frail this is as a basis for relationships as well.
The article author was basically asking "How can we make new friends?" and mentions sailing, brunch, and borrowing a neighbor's wifi. Whereas you're talking about... going to war. It just feels like you're discussing something quite a bit beyond the article.
I had some close friends among schoolmates, but I wouldn't characterize our relationship as "sacrifice and obligation". What does that even mean to a 12 year old? What does it mean to a college undergrad? I can understand what it means in the military, but that's a rather unique situation in life.
> The article author was basically asking "How can we make new friends?" and mentions sailing, brunch, and borrowing a neighbor's wifi. Whereas you're talking about... going to war. It just feels like you're discussing something quite a bit beyond the article.
He also says "one way to create a shared context is through shared struggle."
> I had some close friends among schoolmates, but I wouldn't characterize our relationship as "sacrifice and obligation". What does that even mean to a 12 year old?
I think it's pretty clear that there are multiple paths to lasting friendships, and some of those paths might not be available to twelve year olds.
Though even at twelve, I'd still expect a certain about of "sacrifice and obligation" from friends (e.g. if they got hurt, I'd be obligated to help them, and vice versa).
It's why joining a fraternity was one of the smartest decisions I made. We were a struggling chapter, too, which only added to the intensity of the bonding as well as the payoff when the chapter's future started to look bright again.
Hi! Author here - thanks for the feedback. I added the following footnote to the article to clarify:
> I use the term "hazing" broadly to mean any way of excluding members from joining an organization. For example, a job interview is a form of "hazing".
In response to "How can you trust and be loyal to someone you just met?" I'll provide a personal example: I recently travelled to a different city, and asked a friend of mine for sightseeing recommendations because he used to live there. During the conversation, he mentioned that his ex-girlfriend still lives there, and offered to put me in touch with her. I then asked his ex-girlfriend (who I had only one prior interaction with!) to be my emergency contact while I was on my trip, which she agreed to, because of the shared trust they had established in their prior relationship, and their familiarity with me in our mutually overlapping social circles. This is what I mean that a person's entanglements are more important than their attributes.
> I use the term "hazing" broadly to mean any way of excluding members from joining an organization. For example, a job interview is a form of "hazing".
I agree that whiteboarding is ritualized hazing. ;-)
But otherwise, you can't just take a term that everyone understands in a certain way and then claim that it means something completely different. Job interviews aren't ritualized hazing, they're part of the hiring process.
[Insert reference to Wittgenstein's private language argument.]
I just don’t find it plausible that only certain people are capable of love, trust, loyalty, etc. and we should be looking for those kinds of people. It seems more likely that this level of investment is costly and people already have these kinds of relationships.
The argument seems tautological. A good friend is someone who is loyal, trustworthy, etc., so look for these traits. But in reality, everyone has these traits, they just reserve them for a small number of high investment relationships. So the claim is that to make good friends, look for someone who wants to be your friend. Which isn’t that helpful at the end of the day.
Time is the missing factor. People aren't patient enough to build a relationship. I think it's 90% familiarity.
1. Bunch of strangers
2. bunch of strangers with afew people I recognize
3. started to be familiar with afew of the people who are there all the time
4. friendship blossoms
This happens naturally in school and in early adulthood. Later when you have children, spouses, jobs, and other interests it happens less. You an absolutely make it happen if your lonely, just be patient and don't be creepy.
"We can’t help but desperately compete in this unwinnable game of having the best collection of attributes to show off." I don't get it, because friends don't need each other to be the best person in the world at any given thing. Having things in common seems to be enough, no? Does anyone need to be "unique", a special snowflake in the world? In some sense friends are interchangeable, in that it's a total accident of circumstances which few of the billions of people on Earth you happen to hang out with. But I'm not clear on why "global uniqueness" is necessary for friendship. That seems to be an impossible standard, and it's not the basis of any friendship I've ever had.
"In my early attempts to make friends, I tried inviting people with shared interests to activities like sailing or grabbing brunch". I think the missing ingredient here is simply time. It's hard to become friends in just a few hours.
[Edit:] "One way to create a shared context is through shared struggle. This is why many organizations implement ritualized hazing to initiate new members, but the important thing is not the hazing, it’s the sense that you are working together with your fellow humans to achieve a super-human goal."
The super-human goal of getting your butt paddled by a frat boy? No, hazing is just a perverse power play, nothing more. They do hazing because they can, and get a kick out of it.