I agree that friends can come from work. But I don't consider work friends real friends. Friends are people who spend time with you because they want to, not because they have to. If your work "friends" only talk to you at work, only go to lunch with you at work, and they never come to your house or go out with you after work, to me they're not friends. They're just people I work with.
Adults pair off, have families, and their adult lives turn into cocoons with the children at the center. They have no time or need for new friends, and if you're single and don't have kids, you're not even on their radar.
I'm comfortable without false friends. I only let people into my life when I'm fairly sure I can count on them. As an adult, I've developed more friendships from online encounters than real life encounters. Some are local, some geographically distant. But these are all friendships that are important to me.
Not all children make friends easily. I was not liked in public school and was bullied.
@FectionKitty I can relate to that 100%
This thread has been so validating and meaningful to me. @krys1 ~ I so appreciate you starting this one and the content it's inspired. Thank you for you ~ 💓
@pmvines
"It is not realistic to consider that it could possibly be as easy to make and keep casual friendships as an adult."
100% disagree. I'e made casual friendships just on this site. For example, there's a thread where me and another member just talk boxing during fight nights.
@BlueIris
"They have no time or need for new friends, and if you're single and don't have kids, you're not even on their radar."
Again, not true from my experience. I'm single, never married, no kids, but still get invited to all the birthdays and dinner parties and Godfather to three.
Again, don't mean to sound like I'm flexing. I do put a lot of effort into friendships because they are my purpose. It saddens me to see so many people having such a hard time with connecting to someone and the reasons they think why. I didn't expect to have my heart broken on a Sunday because of perspectives. I'm sorry.
@FectionKitty and @JoyfulHeart I was also one of those kids who struggled with making new friends. I was different and I was short (I still am, LOL), so the bullying was real. I usually found myself elbows-deep in a pile of books, watching scifi movies, or engrossed in computers while the other kids wanted to play football. I'd find other kids with similar interests and would find myself instantly calling them my 'best friends' only to find in most cases I was only an acquaintance to them. Sadly, as a kid, I was far more mature and was one of those children who'd easily recognize when a relationship was one-sided. Most of my actual, true friends were female cos it seemed at that age most of the girls were more emotionally mature and less likely to bully me. As an adult, it's harder. In addition to the stresses of trust, expectations, and compatible interests, you have to balance it with schedules, responsibilities, and often finances. I do have a small close-nit group of friends, but making new ones still seems a struggle.
@FectionKitty @JoyfulHeart @jaswbrown I believe the OP was talking moreso about toddlers or super little kids who tend to make insta-friends at the playground. Past that stage though, I'm with you guys.
~ Sunset Snuggles
The key to adult friendships is repetitive and consistent exposure to other human beings.
The gym and work are the two places I spend the most time. Overtime you get to know and like people and friendships naturally develop.
@SunsetSnuggles True, life and friendship was so much simpler as a toddler.
@MCcuddles2 True dat.
@jaswbrown Can I just go back, pwease? 🥺
Adults have eaten of the poisonous fruit, and have learned fear, mistrust, prejudice, and self-loathing.
Because kids don’t overthink things, lol.
As people grow older they run into a collective consciousness trap. The people around them point out things that they think they cannot do. Cognition, memory, or in this case the ability to make friends all come into question. The hard part is when their life long friends experience set backs and it throws up a red flag which says "I'm old. That is happening or is going to happen to me." I ran into one such trap until I took a college radio slot and found my cognitive and memory skills to be on the same par with UC Irvine students. They all have the same abilities and inabilities that I do. In finding this out I also created a shit load of new, much younger friends, one of which became a girlfriend.
Most certainly older people do experience age related issues, but a lot of it is based on false input from the people around them and what they tell themselves about that information.
Adults should be more particular about who they befriend than kids simply from life experience.
Adults are also a little more discerning with how they spend their time and energy ,and who they spend it with
glances at internet
Um, perhaps a VERY little bit, but hard to prove it.
@GoodRightHook
"Quiet for a drummer.
Polite for a nerd."
I love this.
Too many people out there with bad intentions
I think part of it is that adults try to find a lot of their ideal friend-traits+hobbies in a single person, rather than finding singular things in common with many individual people.
Not to mention socialization skills are especially down for those who grew up during the pandemic and age of the internet.
"I have a 5 yr old child who turns total strangers into friends quickly. It's totally normal for a child to say, "hey will you be my friend?". But for grown ups, it requires shared interests, being in the same social circles, and really getting to know someone almost by accident. Why do grown ups over complicate things?"
Um... it technically works the same way for children. They generally hang out with other kids who have the same interests, belong to the same social circles, and really getting to know someone almost by accident. That's how I made friends when I was 5 years old... well not me exactly I didn't really exist then but in order to function as host I had to have some vague memories of a past.
Anyway, kids make friends around their neighborhoods or at school. Cliques exist in schools even in Kindergarten, not really sure how exactly they form but they exist.
The one big difference between making friends as a kid and making friends as an adult is as a kid it's common to just go sleep over at a friend's house but as an adult typically you both have families to take care of and work different hours so you just drift apart and don't really talk to each other unless you accidentally run into each other some day and even if you do find time to hang out it's only for a few hours and then you part ways again. Funny enough my dad's best friend from when he was in school has two daughters who happen to be about the same ages as me and my brother and his older daughter even seems to have some of the same mental health problems as my older brother. Though I never really found any similarities between the younger daughter and myself other than just being the same age. Anyway they lost touch for YEARS and only reconnected again because I happen to look exactly like a younger version of my dad and his younger daughter recognized me from some old photos her dad had with my dad. So she gave me her number to give to my dad so they could get back in contact again... and then they kind of lost contact again cause I guess their work schedules just conflicted so they rarely ever got together. I still run into him some times though I haven't actually seen either of his kids since we all graduated.
I reconnected with a high school friend a few years ago and went over to his house a few times. We ran into once on accident at the store. Though I kind of lost contact with him again... His wife was pregnant at the time that I met up with them the first time and I met their daughter once or twice after she was born but then they got busy with the whole being new parents thing and I got busy taking care of my kid more often after my ex injured her shoulder (which was only suppose to be temporary while she healed but turned into a permanent situation some how.) And then the whole Covid thing happened so even if I had time to go over there to see them again social distancing protocols told me I shouldn't.
I made friends in Theater seemingly MORE easily than I ever did in school but since I haven't been working I've kind of lost contact with them too. I occasionally talk to people on FaceBook but it's like when we aren't forced to see each other every day because of work or school it's harder to find anything to talk about.