I think I’ve got right around there where I’m living now; that’s part of what makes it hard to contemplate leaving the country, even though this place (US) is turning pretty terrifying: I know if I leave it’ll take years to build up friendships like that again, if it ever even happens.
Comment on ‘An uphill battle’: why are midlife men struggling to make – and keep – friends?
treadful@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Those reporting 10 or more close friends decreased from 33% to 13% during the same period.
Do “normal” people really have 10 or more close friends? I’ve never had that many close friends my entire life.
boatswain@infosec.pub 4 days ago
ChexMax@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Our friend group sits at around 17. It ebbs and flows with girl/boyfriends coming and going (though mostly all married now). I hate to say it, but the key is low standards. We don’t all agree on anything. We don’t all have the same hobbies or even sense of humor. But we don’t kick each other out over stupid fights, and everyone is always welcome at everything. If you cut people out when they don’t agree with you, or when they screw up, your friendships disappear. You just have to treat it like family.
Saleh@feddit.org 4 days ago
“i can have a bbq with you” is not what i would call “close friends”. A close friend is someone i can bitch to about my personal problems and trust him not to pass any of it on. A close friend is someone on whose couch i could crash in an emergency with little to no questions asked.
From your description i would have thought more of the first category, but maybe i am wrong and you all stick it out for each other like that. In this case props to you all and i hope it lasts.
ChexMax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I think I could show up at their doors and ask to stay the night in an emergency. They would clothe and feed me and let me cry on their couch. They absolutely will tell the other friends it happened though. My oldest friendship in the group is over 25 years at this point, and the other friendships have all trickled in, the youngest is maybe 6 years, and I only warmed up on one of the guys like 2 months ago.
Our politics aren’t the same. Our religions aren’t the same. Our morals don’t align. One of them I hate. Some of them are kinda sexist. That’s all I mean by low standards. That you can’t kick your friends outta bed because you want to stick to your morals above having friends.
LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
That doesn’t sound like low standards to me, sounds sane and inviting
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Do “normal” people really have 10 or more close friends? I’ve never had that many close friends my entire life.
Yea, I’m going to have to call monkeysphere theory on this one.
ragas@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
What is that?
nomy@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Monkeysphere theory, or more appropriately, Dunbars Number is a “suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.”
ragas@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Ah! Never heard it as monkeysphere before.
Croquette@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I have had the same 15ish friends for more than 20 years and we live in different cities, a few hours away from each other.
We don’t see each other frequently because of the distance, but we usually spend weekends together and it feels like we have not missed a beat since the last time we saw each other.
I think it is natural to have more than 10 close friends, it is like having a small community, but modern life made it very hard to keep close friends like that. And it sucks.
ragas@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Well the upper 13% are by definition not normal.
However it feels normal to have that many close friends. We have lots of regular game nights or movie nights.
It is however noticable that games are often not made for big groups to play together or that restaurants have a hard time to accomodate your group of ten or more people.
It also depends on your definition of close. I’d consider some people close friends that I haven’t seen in over a year.
ThunderLegend@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Do you guys have friends?!
loomy@lemy.lol 4 days ago
they do.
they also pay them money for sex.
tburkhol@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yeah, I feel like their “close friends” in 1990 were probably just the guys at the Lodge or the bowling league. I’m not sure those relationships are any deeper than the parasocial relationships we form online. Just a bunch of guys with nothing else to do on Wednesday nights, so they just go down to some social club and roleplay.