I've been thinking about friendship obsessively for months (I kinda blame you for that). About its nature, what kind of friend I am to others, why did I left some dear friendships that grew apart in the frizzer instead of making an effort to keep the spark alive, who are my "real" friends and why, and so on.
A friend of mine -one of my closest, or I thought she was- broke my heart recently (real hard... I mean I feel like weeping writing this). And I still feel a bit lost 'cause I don't know how to handle it. How to move from that feeling of disappointment, sorrow and mourning, and where to place that friendship in a new shelf it belongs to. I think that situation was related with the reciprocity you are talking about. And non-aligned expectations. We all have different needs and styles of communication, yes, but also we all have different ways to show love and care. And must times we expect that our friends (and our family or our partners) show us their love a certain way and it's hard when that doesn't happen, no matter how many hours of therapy we have on our records.
Anyway, as you said "there is something beautiful about the midlife search for deep, immersive friendships". Love having this conversation with you, my brilliant friend.
Those first two end notes are critical: the first for obvi reasons and the second because I was thinking "OOOOhhh D R A M A" when word gets out. And you quoted Maya Angelou 🥰. I will push back that AI will never replace friendships, and if you are a person who does replace friendships with AI, then you don't know how to be a friend. Similar argument for VR headsets replacing traveling to see friends, then you don't understand and appreciate the point of travel. The silver lining of both AI and VR headsets is that they are going to remove the fake players from the real ones in life, thus less bullshit for me to wade through.
I've been thinking about this on and off for years. Recently, my changes in opinion and worldview have led friends to drop me (women, primarily). That said, those are all people I met in my 30s or late 20s, so we didn't have a shared milestone. I've found that my closest friends were all made between the ages of 18 and 22, which means that college is your prime time to make a network. If you don't, good luck. Because friendships not based on milestones for me have been the weakest of all aspects of my network. At the same time, there is a benefit of maintaining weak ties in the sense of a professional network. But friends you try to make after your 20s are stronger than the weak ties of former colleagues but weaker than the strong ties of friends you made sharing milestones. So, I don't know how to square this, because it seems like people who have known you in your formative years are most able to go along with the multiple versions of yourself that show up after those years.
Oh man, so many thoughts on this one.
I've been thinking about friendship obsessively for months (I kinda blame you for that). About its nature, what kind of friend I am to others, why did I left some dear friendships that grew apart in the frizzer instead of making an effort to keep the spark alive, who are my "real" friends and why, and so on.
A friend of mine -one of my closest, or I thought she was- broke my heart recently (real hard... I mean I feel like weeping writing this). And I still feel a bit lost 'cause I don't know how to handle it. How to move from that feeling of disappointment, sorrow and mourning, and where to place that friendship in a new shelf it belongs to. I think that situation was related with the reciprocity you are talking about. And non-aligned expectations. We all have different needs and styles of communication, yes, but also we all have different ways to show love and care. And must times we expect that our friends (and our family or our partners) show us their love a certain way and it's hard when that doesn't happen, no matter how many hours of therapy we have on our records.
Anyway, as you said "there is something beautiful about the midlife search for deep, immersive friendships". Love having this conversation with you, my brilliant friend.
Those first two end notes are critical: the first for obvi reasons and the second because I was thinking "OOOOhhh D R A M A" when word gets out. And you quoted Maya Angelou 🥰. I will push back that AI will never replace friendships, and if you are a person who does replace friendships with AI, then you don't know how to be a friend. Similar argument for VR headsets replacing traveling to see friends, then you don't understand and appreciate the point of travel. The silver lining of both AI and VR headsets is that they are going to remove the fake players from the real ones in life, thus less bullshit for me to wade through.
that looks like a wholesome crew :')
I've been thinking about this on and off for years. Recently, my changes in opinion and worldview have led friends to drop me (women, primarily). That said, those are all people I met in my 30s or late 20s, so we didn't have a shared milestone. I've found that my closest friends were all made between the ages of 18 and 22, which means that college is your prime time to make a network. If you don't, good luck. Because friendships not based on milestones for me have been the weakest of all aspects of my network. At the same time, there is a benefit of maintaining weak ties in the sense of a professional network. But friends you try to make after your 20s are stronger than the weak ties of former colleagues but weaker than the strong ties of friends you made sharing milestones. So, I don't know how to square this, because it seems like people who have known you in your formative years are most able to go along with the multiple versions of yourself that show up after those years.
The questions "who can you be when you are with me?" and "who can I be when I am with you?" - from Nora Bateson - came to mind when reading this.
We are who we are, in relationship with others. Ubuntu, in African terms.
I find these questions helpful when thinking about friendships and relationships.
https://twitter.com/NoraBateson/status/1645862167143501825