Research indicates that only about half of perceived friendships are mutual
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
After letting my mind spin in a tight loop about it for a while I decided that really it doesn't matter that much, because I'm happier liking people, and I can like someone and be friendly even irrespective of if they like me or not. Of course I'm not going to push my company on people who are clear that they don't want it, but it doesn't really do any good to second guess who actually cares for me and who is being polite.
Ironically, this has made me appreciate the people who are openly jerky at work. At least they're open with the biases. There's probably something to be said about white collar workplace culture's default of "aren't we all just friends and teammates?" It seems to empower only the worst political players. At this point, I'd probably rather work with a bunch of jerks who are open with their biases than a bunch of 'office friendly' people who are only friendly because it serves them. There's a certain level of honesty with the jerks.
I also see this in myself. I've learned how to play up false modesty and the whole "Aren't we just pals" attitude, and I don't like it now that I'm self-aware of it. I don't know if I'm ready to become an full-on office jerk, but I'm probably half-way there now and life seems a lot easier when you're more open with your biases and honestly accept that most of your coworkers are adversaries, not teammates. I'm sure I'm more disliked, but disliked by people who would just turn on me anyway if push came to shove. I also invest much less mental energy into trying to be everyone's buddy and instead focus that on the work itself, anti-burn out strategies, leisure time, my creative projects, planning my next career move, etc.
I used to laugh at the grumpy gray-beards in IT. Now I see where they are coming from. The sooner the automation/robot revolution comes the better. Work is a zero-sum game that best serves the extremely dishonest. I don't know why we're so worried about moving into a post-work and post-scarcity society. The status quo is pretty terrible if we're being honest about it.
This isn't a white-collar thing; it's specifically a SV/startup culture thing, and one of the reasons why I no longer desire to work in that kind of environment. Grownups don't have to be, or pretend to be, friends with each other, in order to work well together.
That-guy-who-shouldn't-be-mentioned-on-HN would say that this is us tearing one-another down by refusing to get good at politics as a class, making us subservient to a management class that doesn't really do much well beyond being really good at playing politics. "Meritocracy" is only possible if the smartest people are willing to build and use political capital. Control won't be given freely from without.
This use of the adjective originates in the philosophical concept of "ontological parsimony", which is basically Occam's Razor with lots of the sort of added complexity you generally find in epistemological analysis.
I tend to take the former approach, but experience has taught the latter works better. Inflicting pain on a friend, even with their best interest at heart, is a good way to lose friends.
That really doesn't follow. I've had to maintain a pleasant working relationship with folks I've cordially loathed (and I'm certain the feeling was mutual). In every situation, we were friendly, pleasant and worked together well — but at the end of the day, we couldn't stand one another. Sometimes you don't get to choose your colleagues: your only choice is to quit or to continue.
Seriously, the world isn't all fluffy fuzzy happiness. Sometimes people honestly dislike and even despise one another, but they can still produce good work together. Gilbert & Sullivan are a good example.
Edited to expand: I already sandbox my personal and work lives thoroughly, so it's not going to cost me anything of significance beyond the job if I lose the job - not that that's not significant, but it's not my whole life, either. If, to a good first approximation, everyone where I work hates me, then I'm already going to lose the job, because with that many people looking to put a knife in my back, someone is going to succeed.
The odds that knowing this is true will make it possible for me to change it are effectively negligible; on the one hand, if everyone where I work hates me because of my own behavior, I'm not equipped to change anyone's mind, and on the other, if everyone where I work hates me because of something that isn't actually under my control, everyone where I work still hates me and I'm literally the last person in the world who's going to be able to do anything about that. Either way, I'm screwed in a way that foreknowledge isn't going to do anything to help; the best that'll happen if I find out ahead of time is nothing, and the worst is that I'll make my situation even worse. So where's the benefit in being told?
Either OP changes his behaviour to better-please his colleagues, thereby improving their work dynamic, or he cuts them, thereby improving his circumstances. Without accurate information, he's unable to make an informed decision.
I personally believe truth to be more important than happiness, and I would want to know the truth even if it made me unhappy. Other people might prefer happiness to truth, which is fine, but that's not what I would choose for myself.
That is extremely mature, and shows great perception of the complications of our perceptions and social interactions. Congratulations on reaching that conclusion.
Ina semi related note, I try to keep my distance with coworkers. The added factor of work responsabilities and possible conflics would be harder to manage with a friendship or more added to the equations.
But I tend to compartmentalize my relationships, so there's that.
It's honestly all I think about at work - how to get the job done. When somebody tries to connect with me on a personal level, I feel like we're wasting time and that I'd rather be having this conversation with the job already done, at home, with somebody I already have a relationship with but can never find enough time for because I'm always at this stupid job helping chisel money out of suckers for scum.
I've never managed to make friends with a co-worker at the time I was working with them. I've become friends with several after working together, though. It's so irritating when somebody tries to be friendly at the job (unless we're waiting on something that can't be hurried - I've had friendly conversations that sprang from shared frustration) that I don't find it friendly.
It's important to live up to my username periodically, but I'm actually being honest here and not baiting. I'm pleased with everyone at work who does their job moderately well, and I'm nice to everyone who isn't selfish in a way that other people have to take on extra work to enable their laziness (even if those non-selfish people are incompetent.)
Wow, really? You honestly find it irritating when someone perceives you might have a mutual interest in something only tangentially related to work, so strikes up a conversation with you? Or someone likes the cut of your jib when they first meet you and suggests you walk across the road to the sandwich place together? Or offers to grab you an espresso whilst they're getting theirs? You find all of that... irritating?
edit: to be a little clearer - when it comes to coworkers, I mistake how pleased I am with how they do their jobs with whether I like them or not. In real life, I would actually like many of the people who were horrible at their jobs and dislike some of the people who made me happiest with their work.
edit 2: I don't even like working with people who are already my friends unless they can find a way to let it go at the job. All things being equal, I'd prefer to work with a stranger.
Charles then tells Alice that Bob dislikes her which surprises Alice. (and is not actually the truth)
I got an opportunity to research workplace relations in depth and one of the courses cautioned about third party information for exactly this reason. They had surveyed several people and their supervisors about whether they "approved" or "disapproved" of one of their peers. When the survey was completely anonymous they got one answer but when the survey was said to be for their supervisor, the results skewed toward the supervisor's biases. The inference was that if a person's supervisor dislikes someone, the people they supervise are more likely to say they dislike that person to, regardless of their actual feelings. It can be seen as a loyalty reflex, or kissing up, it doesn't really matter, but if some supervisor tells you the people that work for them dislike you, the only information that offers is that the supervisor person dislikes you.
Remember that it's a supervisor's job to take the bullet for members of their team, so if someone on their team really does have a problem with you but doesn't like dealing with conflict, it's their duty to raise it with you.
I feel like this also dovetails with the advice that "If somebody hates you, it's probably a problem with them. If everybody hates you, it's probably a problem with you." Not exactly the same situation - in this case, if everybody talking to a person hates you, it's probably a problem with that person - but in both cases, you get very useful information out of the specificity of the complaint.
Is there any "truth" about such things? Maybe I get sociopathic when I get philosophical, but it seems to me that my opinion of people is entirely due to who I'm around at the time, and "the person by themselves" is just one such group. There's no "there" there, under the set of masks; I don't really have any opinion on people when I'm on my own.
That seems like quite a small sample, and I wouldn't expect business management students to be representative of the population as a whole.
It might still be true, but it's probably a bit early to write off all of your perceived friends as shallow fakes.
If you asked me to name a group with the largest percentage of fake friendships, "college business management class" would be right up there with "popular clique in high school". So the topic is worth talking about, but I'll bet the number is skewed way to the high end.
I'm objecting to yet another popular article that treats a narrow study of a non-standard sample like it's ground truth. Generalizing from classmates to friend groups (which are more elective and full of closure/network effects) is totally unsupported, and while that doesn't invalidate the study it certainly cripples the article.
This was the part I found most interesting. They describe people you're in touch with daily or weekly as being in the "close friends" category.
Personally, I'm fortunate to have deep, meaningful, long-term friendships with my wife and one other friend, and a few other friends and family members I consider close even if we talk something more like "every couple months" - when we do, it's about important stuff. We freely say that we love each other, we hug, and I feel more relaxed and happy around them.
I'm tempted by stuff like being liked on social media, but when I think about it, it's pretty meaningless compared to these few relationships. Given X hours for maintaining friendships, I'd rather have fewer and better.
The problem to me seems to be Facebook's pervasive "friend" lingo (certainly not true in most cases) and a heavy cultural bias in that article.
I'm sure I don't have more than five of the "most intense" sort of friends, but there are a lot more people than that who I care deeply about. Relationships that are very close when 'active' are presumably a different category - I think most of us have old friends and family who we feel strong connections to, but don't actually talk to on a daily or weekly basis.
Time places hard limits on how many people we see frequently and at length, but frequency and quality are fairly independent axes. I'm assuming "most intense" requires a high score on both.
Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I have never read the book mainly because I remember one time in high school, I saw the guy sitting next to me in math class flipping through it.
We had just started the class and we were still trying to figure each other out and befriend each other at the time.
I sort of lost respect for him after seeing him flipping through the book. The title always suggested to me that it was filled with manipulative tactics to get people to do what you want.
No thanks.
It is actually quite funny and old-fashioned because most business examples are coming from the 30's or 40's. ("Mr Smith from the typewriter company...")
I'm not exactly sure what the GP meant, but my take is that if you find the book to be revealing it probably means you were buying into middle-class Christian-Judeo ethics anyway, or are good at faking them. If both parties believe in a win-win solution, then they'll probably find it. So its self-fulfilling in a way. The problem is that is highly competitive environments win-win negotiation is a non-starter and these kind of strategies won't work.
Its something of a relic in my opinion. Maybe it made sense in terms of a door-to-door salesmen like Carnegie was, but I can't imagine it being particularly useful today, especially for those looking to run a tech startup. I'd look at books like "Getting to Yes" or various startup specific books instead as a better use of your time.
It got more popular than that, because the basic premise of the book is that it's a good idea to be genuinely interested in others, and that the best way to get people to like you is to like them. Which is actually fairly insightful.
I'm a basically a leftist bomb throwing communist and I think the book is pretty uncontroversial.
Perhaps contradicted by the study under discussion...
(I understand - and used to subscribe to - the other side as well, that this feels fake, like you're just being manipulative. But that presupposes black & white motives and zero-sum interactions. You can want others to feel good and to do good for them and to do well for yourself all at once, and in most situations there will be no contradiction between all of these. And if there is no external contradiction between them, the only thing that prevents you from making everyone better off is your own psychological hang-ups.)
Also...what if someone just wants more friends in their life, because they're lonely, and don't really know how to be more personable? A book on winning people over seems like a really useful book to have, if you want to, you know, develop relationships with people and aren't very good at it yet.
You have to be well equipped mentally and somewhat socially to not let things like this bend your head.
I also haven't read Carnegie (I really need to get to it), but I would expect it to be full of things like that, rather than being a treatise on abstract evolutionary sociology.
Like sales, in a past life I was selling stuff. I did sales for about 9 months before cracking open a sales book. I recognized that I'd learned to do, through blundering around, about 1/5th of what the book was telling me. Reading about that other 4/5ths really opened my eyes. It gave me stuff to think about and work on. It didn't replace experience, but guided it.
Same with a book about making friends, I think, especially for people who didn't make a lot of friends as a kid, but want more in adulthood.
Now, respect is another matter. If I had to choose, I'd rather be respected than loved.
I came to that conclusion around 13 or 14. It's been a very pleasant and if I had to put it one way or the other, I'd say most people do like me.
> Now, respect is another matter. If I had to choose, I'd rather be respected than loved.
Love is good, respect is great, but fear is the one that gets results!
It's more amazing that the majority of people, both online and in meatspace, prefer to sweep reality under the rug.
What's sociopathic about being able to recognize and deal with these types of situations as they come up in your life?
What amazes me is that you are open about it. Most sociopaths try to hide that fact, because once people realize they are being manipulated you lose control.
> What amazes me is that you are open about it. Most sociopaths try to hide that fact, because once people realize they are being manipulated you lose control.
Ha! Who said I'm like that?
I'm talking abstractly. When your circle of friends intersects with a friends circle, you get to see a lot of interesting dynamics. One of those is fear and, speaking frankly, it's pretty disgusting. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I'd give the parent commenter the benefit of the doubt that they're sharing an idea to debate (which we are), or just being facetious by quoting Machiavelli.
I'll charitably presume you have a medical education and are qualified to make that diagnosis up close.
It doesn't take special qualifications to make a basic observation.
The whole idea of having a good friend is that there are no "results". Its someone you know, that knows you, that you can feel comfortable hanging out with and spending time with, that you want nothing from and that wants nothing from you.
I don't think I've done anything of this sort. My comment is based on observations of the world around me. Not just me and my friends, but them and their friends, their interactions etc.
In the corporate world, I've seen fear be a very motivating factor. Whether it's keeping your job, keeping your bonus, being assigned to a team, or avoiding a crap assignment, fear is definitely a factor. You can see it people and it's not uniform.
In the social world, I've seen people extend invitations out to parties to people they genuinely cannot stand. Not because they want to, but because if they don't, they're afraid the person is going to talk shit about them.
(See my response to the sibling comment on koolba for the discussion if you wondering what I am talking about)
Driving out fear (of colleagues, of management, etc) was one of his key principles in creating quality for the organization.
http://www.quality-assurance-solutions.com/Deming-Point-8.ht...
I agree with you, in the sense of "I respect him, he knows a lot, he's good at what he does, he's kind and faithful and so on".
And also fear. Some fear. Enough to make people think twice when they're planning on backstabbing you, pulling you from the cliff, etc.
Without getting too philosophical, I would say mutual respect is a more sincere form of love, anyway, so there isn't much difference.
I guess we had better draw some general conclusions from such a robust sample then, shall we?
I have professional colleagues whom I consider good friends where we've established level of mutual trust, but our "closeness" is defined by what/where we're going things -- we have a level of trust that is very meaningful, but we mutually "pop" up/down to a higher/lower levels of friendship.
And now I have other friends nearby that I care about more and make an effort to hang out with on a regular basis.
And for that reason (amongst others), I am very hesitant to move away from this place, even though there are better job opportunities elsewhere in the country. I'm friends with quite a few people here, and I know I won't maintain those friendships hardly at all once I move away.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. You can always make new friends, and if you put in the effort, you will.
The whole nonsense about true friends is kind of silly. Friendship is 95% proximity and 5% compatibility. You can get that anywhere and the history of your friendships really doesn't add value.
This is a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy that a lot of people fall into. You've got to do what's best for yourself in the long run, excluding your sunk costs (in this case, time building relationships). Imagine how silly you'll feel if all your friends move away and you waited around for nothing.
Could I do it from scratch again? Sure, and perhaps I will in a year or two, especially now that I've found a significant other that fits into my life so well.
But I really like the geography of where I live, the people where I live, the culture in close proximity to where I live, and I have job with a good dev culture that pays a respectable amount for the region and looks good on a resume, so I'm not exactly in a hurry to leave quite yet.
I'm not waiting for my friends. The pasture is pretty green where I'm at, and I'm not entirely convinced the pasture is just as green on the other side of the fence, even if it might pay more.
If you have kids and your friends don't, expect that to put a strain on your friendship because you won't have time to spend the way you did once upon a time. You will plan more because your time is no longer free, just borrowed from your spouse or whoever else is watching your children. You will lose those serendipitous moments that form the contours of your relationship.
As an entrepreneur, I have found it really difficult to make friends. I have a business partner and a distributed team, it is extra hard to make new friends. If you work in an office, you come across people. I always found it easy to make friends at work and took it for granted. Now, it's nearly impossible to do. Then again, my mom has exactly zero friends and gets by so I have to imagine friendship is not a necessity.
After 2 years we moved back. The friend issue was not the only reason, but was a big driver.
The only way around it is to go waaaay out of your way to reverse it. Throw parties and shit even though you're way too old to stay up past 10pm. ;-)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/people-lose-friend...
My advice, don't try to be friends with your kids, at least when their young. Try to guide them and instill a value system and a desire to learn and love.
Maybe when they become adults they can be your friends. That is where I am now. One is 24 and the other is a very mature 18. We still have a parent / child relationship but we can goof around like friends. Even drink a glass of wine together (with the 24 year old). The 3 of us go to stupid movies. We all 3 love stupid movies and kids movies and adventure movies. My wife like drama movies which I tolerate.
I have other friends but not nearly as close. I have "friends" as work but we don't socialize together except for a private music party once a year. We respect each other. Maybe have a drink together once and awhile.
I don't think folks do this intentionally, however. Things change in life over time, and often it is difficult to keep on the same page. Over time, you just aren't there.
On the other hand, I'm not sure 'true' friends are all that common for anyone, so perhaps it is better to find a group that fills different sorts of needs instead. I have my spouse, who is my friend. Took some time after moving to make other friends, who might not be "true!, but they all add something positive to my life. I'll take that.
So many times I've heard that you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, but then if you suck and go hang out with 5 awesome people all the time, don't you bring down their average?
Unless there's some kind of friendship time ponzi scheme where you can spend little time but still be top 5...
I'm also old enough not to care if someone does not like me. Life is too short to be fake friendly, and some people just do not get along. I'm okay with that.
I have many connections, but very few real friends. I'm totally fulfilled by that though, and can't imagine having enough time (or the desire) to nurture more friendships. But when everyone has 500+ "friends" on Facebook, does 5 no longer seem like a large enough number to tell a researcher?
I also don't have any social networking accounts (besides LinkedIn), neither do my "real" friends. This could be because our anti-social(-network) temperaments are a part of what draws us together, but it could also mean that social(-network) butterflies are spreading themselves too thin to keep up with their expanded group of acquaintances.
Eh, anecdata, take it for what it is.
I mean, there's plenty about my friends I actively dislike but we have more binding us together than tearing us apart.
TIL I literally have no friends.
Why? Well, understanding implies there is something to understand, that implies feelings, generally. Big thoughts, sincere troubles. And "mature and adult" people are not about feelings, they are about business. They don't show their feelings and don't put their nose into others'. Especially in western, "civilized" countries: you are supposed to smile, you are supposed to be happy…ish. Everybody knows that "we don't need toxic people in our company", right? If you don't sport bright fake smile that's already "gloom", maybe impolitely so.
And now, with facebook and stuff everybody you need to speak occasionally to is a "friend". And I don't really mean it in a bad way (well, maybe a little I do): "friend" is just a word, it means what people mean by it, not what some psychologist (or even a dictionary) defines it to be.
So maybe you just need to use another word to suit this definition. I mean, if you say you don't have a "soulmate" it doesn't sound as surprising, right? Maybe sad, but not surprising, really.
Ugh, this headline asks a question that's not very fun to ponder. Especially considering Betteridge's law [1].
When it comes to male friends, I think part of the problem is that men—especially straight men—are bad at/afraid of expressing intimacy in platonic contexts, probably because of social conditioning and subconscious homophobia.
When I thought about the answer to the headline's question for my friends, the only "I don't know"s were men. My female friends have made it clear that they value my friendship; most of my male friends haven't, and I think I'm bad at expressing that to anyone of any gender. Of course, maybe I'm just overgeneralizing my own experiences and/or my female friends are just better friends than my male friends.
Either way, good article. A lot of the not-news NYT stuff that gets posted on HN is crap, to be honest. This one really got me thinking and got me to churn out something wayyy more personal than I'd normally ever post here.
> Others point to a misunderstanding of the very notion of friendship in an age when “friend” is used as a verb, and social inclusion and exclusion are as easy as a swipe or a tap on a smartphone screen.
I realize it's just fluff for the intro of the article, but this is typical kids-today-and-their-loud-music-get-off-my-lawn garbage. Social media does in general make people more aware of more people's lives, but I doubt anyone actually believes that every single one of their Facebook friends is actually their friend.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
Honoré de Balzac
I think HN loves anti-US anecdotes, but this is weak sauce even by our low standards.
that.. is not.. my friend!
...Oh. Because the OP has a female user name, and that's all the evidence you need.
Classy.
However I was only so thoughtful to her, because of the user's female username.
A big part of that problem was not being taught, and demonstrated, as a child, how such things work. My family was very disfunctional.
I suspect I'm not the only one, here...
And, it has direct bearing on my intellectual and technical performance. When I'm not happy, and not social, I'm not much of anything... including in those spheres.
YMMV