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Comment by wallacoloo | Hacker News Reader

What about my rock-climbing partner, and my musician friends (some of the stuff we do can be done over the 'net, but we can't jam remotely)? I guess these all fall under the category of "take a plane"? It certainly contradicts the spur-of-the-moment environment facilitated by cellphones though, whereby we tend to make plans just a few hours before meeting up.

Keeping in touch is definitely possible, but those types of friendships would become nearly unrecognizable if we're separated by a plane flight.

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If a friendship revolves around being able to do some similar thing together, it's probably not a friendship. In a friendship it's about the other person and it doesn't matter if you can't climb/surf/jam together because it's not about doing. People I hang out with because of a hobby are pals, peers, even acquaintances. A friend is a couple of steps above that: a friend I would see outside the usual circumstances. I go have lunch with my colleagues but it's only one or two I actually meet outside of work, and those are potential friend material. Test of true friendship is when you don't have any other other excuse to meet except yourselves, and you still meet.

This seems highly subjective to me, and to be honest, I can't help but be mildly offended - you just discredited the vast majority of my friendships, and yet I don't even understand what you're trying to get at.

I don't connect with people via words. I've always felt people are primarily defined by their actions, so it is very much about the "doing" for me, and it's through doing things together that I make connections with others. Obviously, my friend with whom I rock climb isn't just my rock-climbing partner - we do other things as well, many of which are unplanned and are new experiences. But it's the possibility of playing out our spur-of-the-moment ideas, as well as the other regular hobbies, that make our friendship even remotely interesting. Without being able to do those things together (which is way, way more difficult when you have to take a plane ride to visit), neither of us would be able to glean any meaning from the other's existence.

I don't know - was I really far off in how I interpreted your comment? What is a friendship, to you?

Not GP but I think he means friends are those folks that are there for everything, from the birth of your kid to picking you up drunk at 5 am from the pub kind of thing. If the interaction you have with someone is 95% based around a single activity, they are more in the real of acquaintance than friend.

This is very subjective and each person will define a 'friend' differently. I personally, if I don't count my wife, I can count the number of friends with just my fingers, but for me, the word friend means someone that are there for you for whatever, that even after not seeing each other for a few years, there is no awkwardness and you can pick it up from you left. For others, someone you see regularly, have a few beers are considered friends.

Those that I consider my closest friends right now, we mostly only see each other once a week and play board games with each other.

I'd say 90-95% of what we do is play board games together, but I know what's going on in their lives and they do mine, and I've attended their special events like birthdays and housewarmings and weddings, and helped them out when they needed it and supported them in their endeavors.

If that's not being a friend because we mostly just do a 'single activity', then I very much disagree with your definition.

I do agree about not having seen each other for years and there's no awkwardness when you get back together being a mark of friendship though. I have that with my old high school friends, and I'm sure it'd be the same with my main friends today.

You have been to their birthdays, housewarmings and weddings and helped them out when they needed.

This is very different from 'these are people I only play boardgames with them'. I have tennis 'friends'. These are people I only see in relation to tennis (either playing, practise or even go to watch a match with) but wouldn't get invited to their wedding or be asked to help them move for example. Sure, when we are at the club we chat a lot and are very friendly, but when I'm looking for someone to take care of my kid or lend me his car because mine broke, I won't be calling them (doesn't mean they can't turn to people I would in the future, but pretty sure for that to happen the friendship would have moved off the courts)

   If a friendship revolves around being able to do some similar thing together, it's probably not a friendship.

I think that is a rigid enough view to be nearly useless. People have different types of friendships all the time.

I think it is fair to say that some kinds of friendships are much more likely to survive moving apart, but that isn't even an indication on the "value" of the friendship, just its nature.

Like someone pointed out, it is highly subjective obviously but the scale of friendship has to start somewhere, and "friend" is generally a person at the very end of that axis.

If there was a better word for a friend, which I understand to be a person who you bond with regardless of common hobbies, location, or phases of life then I'd gladly use that. Calling someone "a close friend" or "a true friend" doesn't really express the bond I'm talking about.

On the other hand, there are a lot of words to describe people who aren't quite as close as those who we call friends: they are buddies, pals, mates, etc. So clearly there are steps towards more distant acquantainces on the axis. But towards people closer to you than friends? Maybe there is a specific word I don't know about.

> If a friendship revolves around being able to do some similar thing together, it's probably not a friendship.

WHAT? I would argue the opposite, if you aren't doing similar things together, why are they your friends? Just grew up together or what?

I agree with your last sentence, I enjoy my friends company even when we are just shootin' the shit. There's no reason that should preclude having hobbies with "real" friends though. It can help to have someone mutually passionate about something.

WHAT? I would argue the opposite, if you aren't doing similar things together, why are they your friends? Just grew up together or what?

Most of my real/true/close/best friends (i.e. the people who I consider "friends") don't have that much in common with me when it comes to things to do.

Different jobs. Different hobbies. Different lives. Different locations, most of the time. Different interests as well. Some I've known for decades and some only for a handful of years. Some I've stayed in touch regularly and with some I've had a few years in between but we continued where we left the previous time.

And when we meet, we meet simply because we want to see each other.

Earlier, we sometimes did arrange some activities but those were merely concocted as an excuse to meet. But now we've just mostly dropped all that bullshit. We knew we'd agree on a game night so that we would meet. Now we go to the point directly and just meet.

I'll see my friends in a cafe or go have dinner. We take a long walk, maybe hours and hours. Or we sit indoors and do nothing. It doesn't really matter how we choose to meet. Then we talk about our lives, life in general, our plans, what is good and what is bad. If I had to come up with a "similar thing to do together" it would be enjoying the company of the other person tremendously.

A lithmus test for friendship is whether you'd stay friends if the common activity were to be discontinued. If some friends change when your hobbies change, maybe they weren't friends really, and even if you knew what happened in his/her life your friendship somehow did revolve more around that activity rather than the bond between you two. Maybe if you didn't have that weekly poker night with your friends from college you wouldn't eventually see them that often, or would even stop seeing them.

That's what I meant by a friendship that revolves around some activity. If the friendship is about being friends itself, then the form of external things and activities don't matter. You might do something for fun but you both know you'd stay friends even if you didn't or couldn't have them anymore.

Ouch, I guess I don't have any friends then. Well shit.

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