It’s your friends who break your heart | Hacker News Reader

It’s your friends who break your heart

theatlantic.com

179 pointswallflower164 comments

One of the smartest things I ever did was to just sort of quietly quit putting so much effort into pleasing all the people I used to depend on to reinforce my self-esteem or sense-of-self or whatever-it-is. I kind of died, and was reborn as myself. It's way better. But the self I am is much smaller than the one I wished I was or thought I could be or whatever... the one I conceived of. (There is no limit to what we can conceive of, so it's not super impressive to dream up a big version of yourself. Just be who you are and forgive yourself for not being the outsized caricature.)

The emptiness in your life will never go away. The error lies in thinking there ought to be more. More more more, it ought to ring a bell, and be recognized as a form of greed. Trying to fill the hole with friends is just as bad as filling it with drugs or booze or work. Just let it be empty. What's the big deal? It's empty, so what? Don't dwell on it, because that's the same thing, except you're trying to fill the emptiness up with an obsession about the emptiness itself. That isn't going to work, the emptiness will just grow to accommodate itself and eventually swallow you too. Get back to work. It's the one thing everyone has to do to survive, even if you're rich and it's just the work of showering once in a while. But don't try to fill the emptiness with work either. Just be like an animal (the animal you actually are). Get a dog if it helps you remember.

> Get a dog if it helps you remember.

my dogs gave me much needed contrast to compare my outsized ego against. made me realize how insignificant my struggle was to the lightness of what I imagine it is to live in the moment like dogs/cats (animals).

loved every sentence of what you wrote on embracing emptiness. thanks for sharing.

This just gave me a newfound perspective about myself that I had been trying to find for so long. Ever since I started my job and COVID started weakening, I realised that I don’t need a lot of people I thought I did. Spending more time with the people I actually like was far more enjoyable than distributing it among all the people I expected to stay friend with.

I had a friend who put it best once when someone got mad at her for always going hiking/climbing/etc instead of hanging out - “I only have so much free time so if I can spend it doing something I enjoy AND hangout with friends of course I’m going to tend towards that vs just sitting around chatting”

And it’s true, most my good friendships are built around activities (even ones like cook dinner and watch a movie) as it’s an easy way to sustain them

You reminded me I really really want to get a cat. I have to ask my landlord for permission though and I'm afraid of them rejecting it.

It's worth it, you'll be glad.

I keep a tiger-worm farm. I don't cuddle them (oh, come on!), but I do look in on them several times a day, and say hello.

A cat is worth moving for. Cats are amazing companions, mine has always been there for me no matter what.

Get a cat. Be kind to your future self.

I don't think there is an error thinking there ought to be more. I think we need to find what fills that emptiness. Something that gives life, your life, a sense of purpose and meaning. For me, it's knowing that I chose to come to this planet. It's knowing why I choose to come, what I'm supposed to do while I am here. And when I do what I know is right, I feel the emptiness fill up and I become much more than I could ever alone.

It can be double edged sword, overly focusing on results may lead to postponing life into a theoretical future and forgetting to dance in the now.

Out of curiosity, what other planet(s) would you have chosen if earth had been unavailable?

That's a more poetic way to say "was so busy searching for life's meaning that they forgot to do anything meaningful"

There certainly are constructive responses to it, nothing wrong with that. For me, I'm just a little wary of letting the need take over. I try to reduce the sense of need so that the stuff you're talking about ends up coming from a sense of play, not from need. Like a good analogy would be enjoying every job interview for the conversation because you don't happen to need the job.

I would not feeling an emptiness even if I would be alone for a long time. I always think about things, I have books to read, things to do.

Are you going through a depression?

I was going to say, same here, I have my spouse, my hobbies, my friends, work I like, what's there to be empty about?

Which country do you live in, by the way?

EDIT: After some light stalking, you aren't in the US. I wonder if life in the US is more alienating, that's certainly what I hear from lots of friends who moved there.

>I wonder if life in the US is more alienating

I have the impression that it is, without relying on cold data. I think society is a bit selfish, friendships a bit formal, enthusiasm a bit false and people lack aspirations which aren't career related and life models. But I think these points are valid for the Western hemisphere in general compared to 20 or 30 years ago.

It depends on the country, definitely true for England, maybe true for France, not true for Spain, for example. I think it's mostly northern countries and their colonies. The Mediterranean peoples are very different.

> I wonder if life in the US is more alienating

That's been my unscientific observation as well, compared to my stints in other countries. It is the flip side (dark side?) of the highly individualistic culture.

No, and I'm comfortable being alone too. Being content with things as they are means you have already tamed it.

What happens when the dog dies? If a pet is giving you the only love you know, it's going to destroy you to watch it pass. I'm saying that from experience.

And we're very unlike animals too. Intelligence is unlike any other force in nature. We're the only thing that can drastically and intentionally shape the world around us, find and preserve knowledge for thousands of years. Even language itself is incredible, and nothing like what we see with animals.

You're not wrong about shallow relationships and striving for approval being a trap though. But there is an alternative to being swallowed by emptiness. It's not the most popular thing to talk about, but when people refer to "saving faith", that emptiness you describe, is what they are saved from.

No emptiness to report over here, people will suck you dry until you are empty with their insatiable desires for novelty, entertainment and financial assistance. Being alone is more sustainable for me.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” -- C.S. Lewis

Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty, without holiness.”

I can't articulate why at the moment, but your second paragraph gives me the same feeling as I had when I first heard of the story about the Feynman interpretation of QM. When asked what the meaning of the spin tensors (or whatever) was and how much underlying reality there was behind the theory, Feynman replied, "shut up and calculate".

Actually, let me amend the previous statement. It's the Feynman interpretation of QM combined with the adage "there are exactly two mandatory activities in a life: taking your first breath and taking your last breath. Everything in between is optional"

>> The emptiness in your life will never go away.

I used to feel like this, that I just had to put up with my constant feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness and that all these activities I saw other people doing and supposedly enjoying were just futile attempts to get away from their own emptiness or pain.

Then I figured out that I have "complex PTSD" from being abandoned and mistreated as a child. My feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness were my mind blocking out more painful feelings of fear and anger which came from my early childhood. After working on this for some years I now feel much more emotionally whole and basically relaxed.

One of the things that I noticed that when I lived in India and England, I never felt lonely . It was more walkable and there was less of a comparing salaries and lifestyles and more of hanging out and ‘chilling’. Maybe I was younger . But moving to the US has been bad because how isolating it is - cannot get out of the house and walk to a place or a market or bar except NYC . Most social connections are around an activity like playing board games or running . No one wants to just hang out and talk without discussing jobs and salaries. People from different classes and jobs and lifestyles rarely mix . I do regret moving to the US from a social and friends perspective.

I moved to a mid-seized US city 6 months ago for grad school and I wholeheartedly agree with you.

The bit about hanging out in particular surprised me. I live in such a beautiful neighborhood, yet I almost never see any people outside. People are either walking their dogs or going from their door to car. I never saw a group of child randomly running around, teenagers doing teenager things, or bunch of old people just hanging about- sights I'm so used to. It's even more weird because these people are so friendly when you do get to interact with them.

Since you’re in grad school perhaps it’s because you are living in an American college town? Where I spent my pre-college school years we would run around pretty frequently.

How many children live where you live? I think there may be major difference between countries for this, but also, when I lived in an inner ring suburb in the US, there would be kids running all over the neighborhood every day, playing catch across every front lawn on the block, no worries about whose property was what, but then I moved into the city proper I never see them outside of school grounds. But it's pretty easy to deduce why, I have met every person on my block, none has a child older than 3 or younger than 16. I suspect there are lots of interesting patterns emerging if you mapped presence of children house by house in a metro area. Not sure what it would look like, but it feels like it oscillates.

There is a huge decline in birthrates nationwide, so the situation is the same in suburbs. Combined with living much longer than in previous decades, plus a decrease in number of people in each household, it can only mean you see children less frequently relative to non children compared to previous decades.

https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop2.asp

Add on top children staying inside more due to different entertainment options and increase in riskiness of vehicle collisions due to height of vehicles being higher and number of miles driven being much higher, and it all lends to the same phenomenon.

Supposedly, Marshall McLuhan said that North Americans may well be the only people who go outside to be alone and inside to be together. There does seem to be some truth to that, though one should remember that McLuhan was Canadian, and the weather there can limit one's outdoor socializing for much of the year.

I see a fair bit of my neighbors, because I like walking around the neighborhood. Of course, I saw more of them during the pandemic, when I was working from home. It is true that I see less of them in colder weather.

he mentions it in this video https://youtu.be/mq2mcwtyjEA At one minute and 21 seconds, if it gets you any insight like subscribe share and espouse how it’s a wonderful resource for all things to do with McLuhan, thanks

> Most social connections are around an activity like playing board games or running . No one wants to just hang out and talk without discussing jobs and salaries.

Think in major cities like NYC, LA, San Fran, London are like this. In some places in Seattle and Portland in some groups you will find more people like that ones your were hanging out in India. However, this is one of biggest problem of USA. People live to work, where else in Europe (or in India it seems also), people work to live. Think what you find in India is also true in many places in Europe. Especially in smaller cities.

Don't think that's true. I lived in the PNW and people are even colder than the east coast. I remember in college the first time I invited friends over for my bday, people started asking me what we'd be doing. I was like wdym, it's a party, we're going to hang out, talk, drink, etc. anyway...

After living in the US for 35 years (my whole life) I finally live in an area where I can walk for 98% percent of my needs including markets, bars, restaurants, book shops, some good little museums, libraries and even a little indie video game store. For whatever its worth its Sacramento and the only other remotely walkable city I lived in was New Haven.

I didn't find New York, LA or SF very walkable at all. But I was super poor when I lived there.

Writing this I realize that homelessness has been most problematic in the walkble cities I've lived in. Maybe it's obvious but I'm wondering if theres a more complex connection there.

And weirdly I've had kind of a hard time adapting to having no meditative reflection time during long commutes. Not that I would ever go back to that insanity.

Places that are habitable when you don't have a car tend to absorb the people who don't have cars.

Car dependence is a much more palatable strategy than police violence for keeping things “nice.”

What a strange irony. I spent my teen years in the suburbs of Sacramento, and hated that place for its car-focused sprawl. It is a quarter-century later but I still feel some revulsion. I suppose you are living in Midtown? It didn't really exist until recently, but I must confess I enjoyed cruising around on jump-bikes and not really driving much when I visited last. I can see how one could have a good life there, now.

I think it may be better in the middle of the country among blue collar folks. That probably has its own set of problems though. On the coasts I definitely feel that people constantly size you up and try to find out how successful you are. It makes socializing way less fun.

> No one wants to just hang out and talk without discussing jobs and salaries. People from different classes and jobs and lifestyles rarely mix . I do regret moving to the US from a social and friends perspective.

Interesting. I just ask my friends to hang out and they say yes, with no specific activity in mind. They're also all I vastly different jobs and classes. Maybe it's just a case of YMMV.

I can't stand how USA is built, with the exception of few cities (nyc, boston, philly, dc....) rest is horribly desolated place where to do anything you sit in isolated in cars and only human contact is around commercial areas.

Take for example a middle-east or european town/city. Lot of housing/buildings built side by side or so close only a person can walk through, within these narrow streets you have also got all sorts of shops (small grocery store, pharmacy, printing shop, laundry, accountant, cafe, ice-cream shop....) and then there are "car" streets, where you park and drive the car through to the "road".

Kids play in these streets without worrying about cars ever coming in, you can walk to most shops in less than 3 mins, people can sit outside of their house and talk to neighbors, go to cafe at the corner to eat with friends, and more.

I once had to go to suburbs for the job, and everything you do, even buying a gallon of milk required 8+ mile drive to walmart. No parks, no pavements, no sense of community, no shops, just drive drive drive... Literally felt like i was stuck in some sort of weird space ship waiting for the landing to destination and had to endure sitting in my seat for meanwhile.

The sad thing is, city design and housing like this affects, mental health, economical mobility, social life, and everything else..

To contrast what I said

How usually the cities are: https://earth.google.com/web/@41.39383041,2.16478558,31.9819...

How most of USA is: https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9718179,-82.4868834,3a,75y,1...

But on the flip side, i can walk to a bubbling stream that's right in my back yard. I have never gotten mugged, never had to worry about shitty neighbors yelling loud enough to hear through the walls of my house, never needed to thread my way through panhandlers or beggars, never had shit stolen from me, and can see deer and wildlife sometimes even walk through the streets at night.

People seem to think a lack of privacy, quiet, and safety is this massive benefit.

you have safety, privacy and quiet in those areas as well. And instead of backyard you have open parks with soccer, tennis and basketball courts in walking distance.

Things have changed so much in the past 25 years. The music industry use to drive a vibrant social scene revolving around art, music, dance, theater. All of that is just a shell of what it was two decades ago.

Every city use to have a Village Voice free paper knock off that would list all kinds of social events going on. In my city, they don't bother with the paper anymore. Now it is all online with no social events and just political ranting opinion pieces.

Anything left was killed by Covid. If I was young, I would find a new country.

People are basically content at this point at the average to leave their home as little as possible.

That's a cultural difference that makes it hard for me to like certain areas of the US (L.A. and Silicon Valley specifically, can't say if the whole US is like that). Lot's of the people I talk there feel very shallow, measuring each other by what they did and who they know (Silicon Valley people love name dropping so much!). In contrast in most of Latin America or Europe I feel there is a more deep interaction between people. Conversations seem more real and people seem much more interesting. My guess is that in these cities people (generally) feel the need to create and cultivate a fictitious persona and hide their idiosyncrasies to meet the cookie-cuter expectations of a successful human being (which must be very tiring).

This article rings true.

I'm 64 and I've only kept one life long friendship going on 30 years. All the others are gone and don't want to haven anything to do with me. Thinking about it now, I've kept the one friendship for a few reasons. 1) He hasn't changed much in 30 years. He's a remarkably stable individual 2) The interests that are the bedrock of our friendship are still there 3) our opinions about various controversial topics still match up 4) He's a remarkably tolerant individual of my many flaws

The reasons I've lost the others include

- They became fanatics about a topic that didn't interest me. For example, a person got really into Non Violent Communication and wanted me too as well, implying my communication was violent

- They became an author with a fan club and our adventures in the past would embarrass them if they came to light

- They went into the oil industry and became a climate change denier

- They became wealthy and high status and my adventures on the wild side of life were embarrassing to them (I've led a Jack Kerouac kind of life, except one that straightened up)

- He became a woman and in her case (not all cases) became less interesting to me

- And of course the recent tragic one: Politics

Some people believe that "people don't change" but I disagree with that. People do change and it's rare to keep a friend for the long term

This article annoyed me with its focus on the pair of women who message each other like Tumblr pals and apparently find themselves the most interesting people on the planet.

But it grew on me, if only through the gravity of schadenfreude, and I read the whole thing.

What stood out to me the most was this:

> as American life reconfigures itself, we may find ourselves rethinking whether our spouses and children are the only ones who deserve our binding commitments

This brought to mind a pair of entertainers[] who:

* Have been close friends since 1st grade

* Are now in their 40s

* Have been creative partners for about 2 decades

* Have been business partners for over a decade

* When they were teenagers, performed an actual blood oath (cut themselves and mingled their blood) promising that they would create something great together

* Now have dozens of employees and a loyal following of millions

* Alternately describe their friendship as a brotherhood and as a "second marriage".

I am deeply inspired by and jealous of their relationship, and think that this "friendship as commitment" model is dreadfully important.

We might benefit from formalization of this type of relationship through institutions (think fraternal organizations--but instead, "philial organizations").

[] Rhett & Link https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DNxju3SrXATFdhd1SzH1A

You don't need fraternities. You need to stop mocking people who treat extended family as important or base their personal decisions on relationships.

> stop mocking people

Not sure where this is coming from.

> who treat extended family as important

I'm glad for you if you have an extended family whom you can be close with.

> or base their personal decisions on relationships

This is compatible with what I am advocating for.

> Not sure where this is coming from.

The American culture is fairly big on mocking people who treat extended family as important. It is considered immature to base your decisions on wish to be close to parents, extended relatives or long friends. Maturity is interpreted as caring about small direct unit. Same goes for needs of those. If a guy lives with disabled parents who he helps, he is seen as looser - by his peers who see him as less then and by romantic partners. Same goes for any living with parents, even if you do your shares of chores, have good relationships and pay them rent. It is being treated as invalid option, even if all involved are happy and save money on the setup.

The fraternity is creating unit you will prioritize over everything else. That primary means over wife and kids, but also over extended family and friends outside of fraternity. It is more of the same, except even more extreme.

The chill out in the evening socialization is something that does not exists and is treated as being lazy. Meanwhile, chatting in office till late hours is seen as being hard worker because you are at work a lot. But then, your social network are your competitors and it disappears when you are sick of change work. I have seen multiple people see regular family visits or partying over certain age or just communal hanging around as immature or somehow weird.

The socialization outside of work, where families socialize as families, across age groups, is considered unimportant. Specifically on HN, extended family is seen as source of free childcare, but never as someone worthy of help.

I think you misread the parent's post. Your response is strangely antagonistic and defensive, and is nearly non-sequitur.

You can find it in religion. The men in the church from 18 to 108 :) all form a quorum, united in belief and brotherhood, finding ways to serve each other and others outside the organization.

I find the relationship/friendship with my wife most enriching in my life. And when SHTF (as it does in any relationship), she stood by my side, my greatest ally, and champion.

> You can find it in religion

Interestingly, although they have now come out as non-Christian, religion factored heavily into the first 2 decades of Rhett & Link's relationship.

Oh interesting. I only saw their videos a few times a while ago and my Christian-radar def went off.

"Friendship as commitment" sounds a lot like marriage.

I think we in the West have basically sabotaged the social structure that happened post 30 for most people. We should be looking to each other for wisdom and understanding since we are not kids anymore, and not protected from life's frailties. It seems like we have so much access to information through technological means that we totally neglect the personal means that support us emotionally.

I don't think it is a coincidence that the decline of Americans attending churches (any church) corresponds with increased feelings of isolation, depression, anxiety. The positive outcomes of the social networks of religion are not easily replaced with virtual hangouts and social media posts.

There was something about people being able to transition seamlessly between these groups in different cities, wasn't there? So if you uprooted, you found good soil to plant in. Is there something wrong with the soil?

Well said.

Outside of the 18-35 mainstream culture demographic, it feels like there’s a gap.

I have been struggling with terms like friend, close friends and ‘people I know’ for a long time now. I have all of those for my definitions but the definitions for these are wildly different for different people. Like ‘I invited my closest 1000 friends to my wedding’ to ‘I don’t have 1 close friend’. In both camps I have seen that in the former people have 3-5 close friends, 10-20 friends and the rest are acquaintances if using my definitions; in the latter exactly the same when using my definitions. I have been wondering for decades what makes you happiest; my current definitions make me happy and both other ways would make me unhappy but I find the subject matter interesting, also because I am apparently an exception who makes new ‘best’ friends after 40 and removes others because circumstances changed.

Nobody has 1000 close friends

No one has 1000 friends either, no matter close or not and yet there are quite a lot of people who say that.

Counterpoint: I know someone who has a 1000+ friends and they've always maintained contact with basically EVERYONE. I always took note of this because I am very selective, but I honestly see her interacting with hundreds of people daily on social media, so I know she probably literally does have 1000+ people who would consider her a friend. I also know people who went to schools in Los Angeles and have literally hundreds of friends, but again not all super close. I think your friend network is more of a function of how many people you are introduced to and in close proximity with and how outgoing you are.

Being among a person's social media contacts seems like about the shallowest definition of "friend" that there is. It's not much different from getting birthday cards from your financial advisor or insurance agent.

Yeah I have friends like that and you talk to them for 10 minutes and its great until straight away they're off to catch up with someone else.

I would not call those friends though: hence my original comment. What makes a friend a friend? For me 'interacting daily on social media' means very little. What would these people do for you and you for them? But it is all about definition: for me close friends would basically die for you and vice versa and friends would go above and beyond to help you out when in need. Nothing has to be about money, but it is easy as example; would your friends front you (whatever amount) when you need it? Mine would. Close friends would give a kidney. But again: that is how I feel. I know these people who have 1000 friends, maintain contact etc but none of them would lift a finger, even in a basic case like 'I really need a heart to heart right now!' 'Sorry, I am busy' type of thing. That is not a friend and defo not a close friend.

> but none of them would lift a finger, even in a basic case like 'I really need a heart to heart right now!

I need hearth to hearth right now is not really basic case. It is quite ask and it is OK to truthfully answer that you are busy. Basic case is "I need to borrow a tool sometimes next week" or "I need help with X, if youbcan please tell me when it suits you".

And quite a lot of very sociable people with a lot of friends will in fact respond to these.

> Basic case is "I need to borrow a tool sometimes next week" or "I need help with X, if youbcan please tell me when it suits you".

Sorry but people who I met 1 time will do that. That has nothing to do with friendship for me. I keep mentioning that this is probably different for different people. But that (borrow tools or help out with whatever) really is something literally everyone, even complete strangers, do here.

Maybe a close friend is someone who you can confide in about an icky physical or mental condition, like a genital wart or clinical depression?

With material comfort and at the stage of life I am in, it is less likely to need your friend's help whereas in the past, simply providing monetary help to someone in distress was a good indicator of a reliable friend.

So I agree and disagree. I wouldn't call this person a close friend--it's someone I went to school with and spent time growing up with. She lives in another state. She's a friend as in someone who if I saw them I would talk to them and they wouldn't be a stranger or mere acquaintance. I have only a handful of close friends and I am not someone with hundreds of superficial friends, but I think there are some people who do make an enough of an effort to stay in contact and be nice towards enough people over time to have 1000+ friends--even if not super close any longer.

It's just hyperbole.

"It gets harder to keep friends as you get older."

I find that curious. When I was in my 20s we all bounced around, and there were no social networks, so there was no easy way to stay in touch. A lot of people were my best friends for 2 years, and then they were gone and I never heard from them again. Adults make more of an effort to hang onto their friends. My friendships have become more stable with age, and I assume this will remain true till old age starts killing them off.

That was true for me during my 30s, but people have a way of disappearing after they reproduce. I'm 45 now, and my community of friends has collapsed; people are still around, but they don't seem to do very much anymore, and it is therefore difficult to keep in touch with them, as a group.

Keeping up with a few individual friends is still possible, but it's a much lonelier existence.

I've started losing friends to marriage and children. We used to make time to visit each other at least once a year, but then they go and make finding love their #1 priority over their old friendships and disappear off this planet.

It's not impossible to schedule a visit one-on-one, but getting the whole group together for a weekend to pretend we're all still in college just doesn't happen. The peripheral friendships in that college dynamic were what made it truly special instead of merely having a collection of 5 close friends. It was those 5 close friends plus two dozen friendly hangers-on.

One thing I discovered about friendship is that it is a total illusion. Go inside any jail or prison and talk to the inmates. Anyone who has been incarcerated will tell you that 99.9% of your so-called dearest friends will immediately disappear and never call, write or put money onto your commissary account.

Then as soon as you get out they want to be friends again as if nothing happened and you weren't missing for years.

I know of the hundreds of friends I had, only one contacted me in the eight years I was locked up for being poor. Several of them even had the money to have me released on day one.

Friendship is not what you think it is. It is depressingly fickle. Friendship seems to be based entirely around what you can do for the other person, and once you're incarcerated it is clear you are of no social value. It sounds like I'm being hypercynical, but that's the reality of it.

Two months ago, a homeless guy I have never met in my life, driving from Florida to Ohio, with a beater car, a mutt, and $300 to his name runs out of gas in Alabama. Walking in the dark with a gas can, the cops stop him, call an ambulance, and have the guy taken to the hospital for a psyche evaluation. He ends up in the hospital for 3 days. Car is impounded (he doesn't know where), dog taken to a shelter (he doesn't know where). While trying to find his car and dog, gets the cheapest hotel (in my town) he can find while he tries to sort out the mess he's in. To help with the dwindling cash flow, he gets a job at Waffle House near the hotel. Come to find out, Waffle House wants him to start at their other location, some 7.6 miles in a neighboring town. He gets walking, where my wife, who has never picked up a stranger in her life, feels like helping, getting the guy to his job. Next night, while about to sit down to the juicy porkchop I have ever grilled, sidelined by creamy mash potatoes, my wife gets a text from this guy saying he's found his dog and would I please give him a ride across town to get Stevia back. I knew nothing about this guy, his life, his character, and so I hit my knees and asked God if I should help him. And I didn't get an answer from God. I didn't get a 'yes, go help' and I didn't get a 'no, don't go.' And when I don't get a clear answer from God, I know its Him saying essentially, 'it's your choice' So I chose to help (the porkchop could wait). I went and picked up this complete stranger and gave him a ride to the animal shelter, where he signed a promissory note to take his dog back into his care. He shed tears of joy and that puppy's tail was wagging like a Cessna propeller. The next day I help the guy go get his car from the impound. I say all of this not to boast of myself. I tell you this because there are other people out there in the world like me, and we love other people and love to have meaningful relationships.

There are good people out there. I try, but I come up short sometimes.

>A brief word here about the scholarship devoted to friendship: I know I’ve been citing it quite a bit, but the truth is, there’s surprisingly little of it, and even less that’s particularly good. A great deal is dime-store wisdom crowned in the laurels of peer review, dispatches from the Empire of the Obvious.

After wondering about the unusual amount of references and citations of "experts" I finally reach that paragraph, and think to myself: Oh, good, that was really a bit too much. Nevertheless, the writer quietly continues.

I'm baffled as though in the absence of any higher meaning there at least has to be some sort of justification albeit in the unstable and ever changing form of 'social sciences'.

In this deeply buried nihilistic outlook for me as a reader it is indeed a very insightful piece. To be abstract, knowledgeable and articulate about the phenomena of social bonding (here: friendship) is one thing but to be actually good at the art of communication itself (forming, maintaining and parting away) requires an entirely different skillset and dedication. That's why in a sense these essays and its intertexts literally got stuck only revolving around itself.

I count myself very lucky. I have friends from childhood and college that are still very close. We don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like but we do keep in touch and I know they are as there for me as I am for them. Our friendships have survived moves and children.

I've always found it weird how little people prioritize life choices around their friends. Proximity/accessibility of friends is probably the single greatest priority I have when deciding where to live. I'm about to have my first kid, and I have no plans on changing that priority, with the minor exception of being near reasonably good schooling (which would surely also be a priority of my friends).

North American culture is highly individualistic. It is reasonable and expected to prioritize your own personal / professional needs first and have those of your friends be a distant second. Prioritizing life choices around your friends requires you to integrate your life with others in some way which is challenging and often results in conflict. North Americans are incapable of handling such interpersonal challenges as they are trained to be 'selfish' as a default.

The end result of this is we live an atomized existence that is comfortable but oddly "empty". I have experienced living in a different culture so I can at least put this way of living in context but anybody who grew up here can't & this odd feeling of something "missing" can never be satisfied or understood.

Mind you the western approach to living does have a lot of advantages. Not being bound by community strictures makes our societies a lot "freer" and more dynamic. But it wouldn't be intellectually honest to admit that this doesn't come with a cost. Mental health is getting affected and the problem is only going to get worse.

I didn't grow up here and have only spent a few years in the states but I have this exact "empty" feeling that you described here.

I think that the individualist framework is the correct one, and I tend to think that communitarian emphasis leads to all sorts of erosion of identity (among other issues). What I mean to say, in regards to friendship, is that within an individual's things that they'd like to emphasize/prioritize, friends so frequently play second fiddle to things like career. I don't actually think that this has to do with individualism, so much as individualism gives such an unconstrained vision of what constitutes a life that most people simply choose to optimize for things like a career.

Again, I'm highly individualistic, I think the individual is the correct atomic entity by which to reason about society and discuss objectives and solutions, and I still find friendships to be of utmost importance. Individualism doesn't mean "existing as an atomic entity independent of other entities," it means "treating individuals as entities with characteristics unique to themselves rather than existing primarily as members of collectives."

Writing a book/post about friendship is inherently pretty antithetical to a lot of what is nice about friendship. It doesn't take a lot of thought, it doesn't require a lot of explanation, and it doesn't involve other parties. It is mostly physical, and relies heavily on face-to-face communication. You can maybe write advice for one party, but not really two. Alexey Guzey has a good post on friendships but it's mostly about the happy accidents that bring friends together, not relationship managment.

The only thing you need to do is maximize your happy accidents. This is why people giving advice on friendships tell you how to meet friends, not how to keep them. It is assumed that each friend is a friendship is playing a single player game, following rules set by the other friend.

The author, and the cited letters, exemplify violating the rules of those games: Envy for a friend who succeeds, directed focus on sensitive topics, failure to respect the new boundaries of a friend's changing life. This is framed as "something we all secretly do" but you have to question this premise rather than the entire concept of friendship. If your friend realizes you will envy their success, might make his wife mad at him, why should you expect them to stay your friend? This isn't a tragic underpinning of all friendships, this is basic consideration for a friend.

Doesn't it seem naive, almost immature, to avoid considering these things in private? Yes, if you aren't thinking about the other person. From a one-person vantage point it makes sense to prisoner's dilemma everything, that's how prisoner's dilemma works. Even if you find good partners, but still point out defection opportunities, you are losing player. Only way to win is not play, like really not play. Just blend some baseline level of self-preservation + good deeds done for no reason to get a guiding priciple like "embrace the kingly power of choosing to do quiet, unreciprocated good"

There is evidence for this. Studies have found that if you have met the following conditions:

• Proximity: You're around each other regularly.

• Unplanned interactions: You see each other even without putting an appointment on a calendar.

• Privacy: You're in a space where you can exchange confidences.

You are likely to make friendships.

See https://www.businessinsider.com/things-that-help-people-make...

Perhaps a bit over-analysed?

Neil Young: "Yes, only love can break your heart"

He even touches on depressed friends:

  I have a friend I've never seen
  He hides his head inside a dream
  Someone should call him and see if he can come out
  Try to lose the down that he's found

The Saint Etienne version is also really lovely if you enjoy something a little more bubbly and synthy.

I've never had many friends. I'm OK with that - I think handling a lot of friends is more work than I want. Lately though, I have only a couple of them, that I'm rarely in touch with.

I've never had an awkward bust-up with a friend, other than a bad divorce (which wasn't that bad, all told). Mostly my friends and I have just drifted apart. Twice there was a home-move. Once, there was behaviour that led me to simply terminate contact forever.

But this kind of "love you forever, you bitch" thing seems to be a girlie thing, I don't think boys behave like that, for whatever reason. Am I wrong?

> But this kind of "love you forever, you bitch" thing seems to be a girlie thing

It exists for men if you change it to "You are a fuckin asshole", but in an endearing way.

Some of my best friends in Asia still call each other with jerky nicknames - Cunt, jackass, ugly nicknames are all part of a strong friendship.

i lost all my friends to marriage and family life. I choose to remain single and now i cannot relate to any of my friends.

Impossible to find friends as a single man in lat 30's. Kind of resigned to my fate and accepted that this is how things are.

.... but you have your wife .... forever ... lol

No, he doesn't. He's single. His ex-friends have their wives forever. (But they don't, because estrangement, divorce, and death.)

I've made a mistake, I apologise!

I read what the poster said as him saying that he lost his friends to marriage and family life. I obviously did NOT read the bit where he said he chose to remain single.

I actually interpreted the first part as him saying that he had got married etc.

Mea culpa - apologies again.

Happens to everyone!

Similar predicament myself, though I am married without children. My friends all had kids and moved out to the exurbs. Combine that with forced working from home the last couple years and it’s made my mid-late thirties the loneliest part of my life.

I even tried Bumble BFF, but it just further revealed I have no idea how to make friends.

Take a hobby and find an online community for it. If there is something like a discord or messaging group, start there. Best, close, good, any friend starts as an acquaintance. Relationships need not progress anywhere to which both people make it and it's entirely possible for both parties to view the dynamic differently. I went through this and found comfort in just being able to talk with e-friends from gaming groups that I have loose association with when going through life changes.

> Take a hobby and find an online community for it.

I believe you're trying to be helpful but parent poster seems to be content as he is and there is nothing wrong with this. Just as you don't have to be married or have kids or like dogs to be a regular human being.

In late thirties I changed country and joined a coworking regularly. 5 years later I have maybe even more friends than during University times is my feeling (maybe I got lucky). Same could work with joining other kind of communities (hobby, sports etc.).

I agree! Since leaving North America and my married / parent friends -- I found so many great friends and I'm really happy.

Other people should try this as well.

Co-working? You mean like a co-working space where remote workers from various companies congregate? Any recommendations for good ones?

> i lost all my friends to marriage and family life

This I can very much relate with, a lot of my formerly good friends I never see anymore because they have literally negative amount of free time, they are already cutting into their health and sleep just trying to raise 2 kids, a dog, a cat, 2 full-time jobs, and unethical amounts of on-call time. I don't think they are all doing "well" either, honestly, but they don't have time for friends, even if I try to get coffee them they usually end up having to bail in 20 minutes.

I remember when these people would go on long hikes with me, build stuff together, play duets, support each other through sickness and other times of trouble, but that is no more.

I'm okay because I've been fortunate enough to be able to find new friends, but yeah, I understand this phenomenon.

Society is just too demanding of people in general. There used to be a time in history where only one parent worked, and in theory now that both parents work they should only theoretically need to each work half time, but that isn't what reality accepts right now, reality wants both to work full time plus some more.

I have a vanishingly small but nonzero number of friends who seem to manage family life very well, including things like alternating each parent taking over 100% of kid responsibilities for a few days at a time which gives the other parent the freedom to basically do whatever they want or need to do including hobbies or social life, but that number is really quite small, and most of them have money to hire help or have close family in the area.

> Impossible to find friends as a single man in lat 30's

It's much easier if you're in the right place. I can definitely say late 30's is no problem at all to make friends if you're in the bay area.

Interesting. I'm moving to the bay soon and I'm in my late 30s. Any recommendations on where to meet people and how to make new friends?

There are lots of parties and gatherings in SF where if you're late 30s nobody will bat an eyelid as long as you're friendly and approachable.

It may be a bit challenging to discover them at first but once you find one or two and make friends with the organizers, you'll start getting vortexed to many more as long as you are friendly and come off as either good-looking, interesting, knowledgeable, or accomplished (not necessarily all of the above, but friendly is non-negotiable).

Peninsula and South Bay also have plenty of social events but they take a bit more effort to find. Look for interest clubs of sorts and start from there.

If you're joining a large company such as Google or Facebook, they normally have plenty of social events, though it's been much less since COVID.

If you're doing a startup, you'll get invited to various investors' parties and things and you can make friends from there.

But in general ... the bay is much more forgiving of age than most places in the country.

Good tips. Thanks for this.

> even if I try to get coffee them they usually end up having to bail in 20 minutes

I'm guilty of being that guy. I have four kids; two in diapers and one still trying to master the potty. Having "literally negative amount of free time" and "cutting into their health and sleep" is right, and it's good to hear a single person recognize this.

I had an old friend contact me recently because he's getting married and wanted to send me an invitation, but also wanted to catch up. I was interested in catching up, but it was two weeks before I finally found 20 minutes to call him on the phone while at a playground with my kids. Even then, when little kids see you on the phone, they panic because they don't have your attention, so one started tugging on my clothing and screaming "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" Sadly, I usually just tell people to email me, because at least I can write a thoughtful reply when the kids are in bed or randomly absorbed in some activity for a few minutes.

Anyway, before my wife and I had kids, we felt like it was hard to make friends because everyone else had kids. We figured it would be easier with kids. Now I'm not sure. We can hang out with other parents when our kids play together, and we can relate to each other more, but everyone else is just as swamped, so these are just more casual acquaintances. It's also exponentially harder to find a good match between two adults and N kids who need to be similar ages and play well together. My wife still complains of being lonely all the time.

* I wrote this reply over the course of 30+ minutes in 2 minute slices in between responding to my kids' requests for various snacks, art supplies, and changing one diaper.

Interesting. Having two young kids I don't yet see anything that triggers a consistent "give me attention" response. Maybe I'm just on my phone so much they think it's normal.

Still can't imagine having 4 young ones at once. Anymore than two seems unfair to each of them and my SO. There's only so much of my energy/affection/time to go around.

Agree it's hard to have any closer relationships, even with other family because of time constraints. I've tried to stay flexible and be the bridge with neighbor families or friends with kids of differing ages. Peers are great and so are mixed aged friends. A lot to learn and enjoy at least until the "it's not cool to play with babies" culture sets in.

It seems to be specifically talking on the phone. Having a face-to-face, in-person conversation with another adult triggers a similar but more mild response. Just looking at a phone or typing doesn't trigger it, maybe because they've gotten used to that as you said, or maybe because it's easier to interleave that with giving them attention.

There are definitely pros and cons to having the kids bunched together. Mine are all under the age of 7, and I can still take them all to the playground, or give them a box of sidewalk chalk, and they'll all play happily together. So friends don't have to be the same age, but this doesn't work with a much bigger age gap. I don't know how parents properly balance big kid vs. little kid activities and needs. But with a bigger age gap, the older ones would be somewhat independent and potentially even helpful while you're struggling to care for the younger ones.

I do feel like I'm consistently failing to give my wife and kids the attention they deserve, let alone my old and new friends. So yeah, when someone else wants my time, I usually think that I should probably give that time to my family instead.

Same thing happened to me. For most of my 40s my friends were all mid-20s to mid-30s. That was fun for a while, but now I'm too old to keep up. I expect I won't ever have any close friends again, but maybe there will be a resurgence when my generation finally get their kids out of the house and end up divorced. People have kids so late in life now that they're not done actively parenting until their 60s.

If you enjoy their company, I'd suggest getting a dog. There is no easier way to meet like minded people, then to take your dog to the park. You don't even have to make close friendships with the people you see every day, but you will begin to see them repeatedly.

If you don't enjoy having a dog, join a group of some sort. Dance, crossfit, hacker space, HAM radio, sailing club, community clean up crew, church, baseball...you name it.

> Impossible to find friends as a single man in lat 30's.

Not impossible, although often hard. It also depends on how much effort are you willing to put into the search and the friendship.

If you don't mind babysitting and doing kid friendly activities, usually the old friends can stay friends. Better friends, even, in some cases.

> Impossible to find friends as a single man in lat 30's.

This is just not true.

Consider getting a hobby and joining clubs or attending events.

Establishing a friendship is (basically) impossible without:

1. repeated contact

2. a common activity to share

Most people get this through school/university/workplace/partner, but there are plenty of other ways.

Examples:

- Buy a motorcycle. Join a riding club. [0]

- Join a rock climbing gym. Look on Facebook for belay partners.

- Find a maker space near you.

- Learn a musical instrument at a school.

- Play online games. Join a clan.

0: I've never made friends faster than via motorcycles. Literally made friends at traffic lights.

Right, so, I'm doing this and it has worked ok for relatively shallow friendships, but deep friendships still seem to elude me.

What have you tried to deepen friendships?

These things do not happen by accident.

Think of it like a marketing funnel. At the top, meeting people at a club. In the middle, hanging out 1:1. Bottom of funnel is doing something that requires commitment and self disclosure.

> These things do not happen by accident.

This sounds like treating people as means to ends; it sounds rather instrumental - I expect you didn't mean it like that.

There are all kinds of things that can give rise to a close relationship; circumstances, including financial circumstances, interests, emotional needs, fears, etc. These kinds of things can't be engineered with a 'filter'.

But yeah, obviously the more people you meet, the greater chance you'll meet someone you get on with.

> This sounds like treating people as means to ends

I desire deeper relationships. I work to deepen relationships. Discovering and befriending people is a means to that end.

> These kinds of things can't be engineered with a 'filter'

My understanding of a marketing funnel is that it is not primarily concerned with filtering people out actively, but in drawing people towards a goal, who will otherwise self-select out of the process through lack of motivation.

Similarly:

I attend meetings of a club, and gain acquaintances.

I will only have acquaintances if I do not engage in the next step of the process: inviting, or accepting an invite from, someone to lunch. And so on.

> give rise

These things do not happen by accident. You do not enter into financial "circumstances" with another person strictly by accident. You do not talk to someone about your interests by accident. You do not get your emotional needs met by someone by accident.

Forming deep relationships is an active process that must be approached with a problem-solving mindset.

If it were not so, we would hardly be discussing the subject.

It does no good to remain passive, fatalistic, or organic-fetishist (anti-instrumentalist) when we're talking about one of the most important needs we have as humans.

> organic-fetishist (anti-instrumentalist)

Interestingly, the parenthesised "explanation" doesn't explain the meaning of "organic-fetishist"; and I suspect that understanding your final paragraph might throw some light on your earlier remarks. What does it mean?

This sounds to me like the jargon of some cult.

> What does it mean?

I mean don't assume that something is better because you didn't try to make it happen. And I mean that we really need to work to have deep friendships.

> This sounds to me like the jargon of some cult.

I find that odd.

EDIT: I thought about it a little more, and I guess I can see where throwing around a bunch of negative, made-up words ending in "-ist" sounds culty.

It used to happen by accident, so I don't know what to do.

> It used to happen by accident

I doubt that. I bet if you pondered, you would remember having taken all sorts of steps to forming relationships in the past. These might not look like what you're imagining, and certainly you'll have to do something differently now.

But see my reply to another comment below, re: friendships don't happen by accident.

And fwiw, I don't know you, but I believe in you. You can have more close friends in the future. You're capable of the work necessary.

> single man in late 30's.

The good side is there are loads of women in their thirties desperate to date, have kids, settle down. Esp if you didn't relate well to women when you're younger you have more maturity now and the odds are much better.

Ugh. Romances based on desperation are the worst kind. If you want to live in hell, dive in. Hint: there is a reason these women are in their 30s and still single.

You are overgeneralizing a bit. Yes, desperate romances are impulsive and bad but it idoesn’t have to be that way. OP may find someone in the same situation, someone who didn’t want to start a family for similar reason and so on.

Wow that's pretty rude.

It is rude. A woman in her 30s might be single for any reason, and the assumption that she's "desperate" is just incel crap.

Get a dog ... not to have a friend but to get to know new people and be generous and kind. Maybe you find a soul who kinda surfs on your wave (at least sometimes) and maybe another and another. It's work but it pays if you keep up.

I think it depends a lot on where you live. I’m late-40's and in NYC, sort of a Never Never Land where people don't tend to settle into family life so much. Making friends isn't exactly easy, but it happens!

Same happened to me in muy 30s, I'm in my 50s now and it hasn't changed. I have casual acquaintances at work and at the gym, but none are close (as in, we don't get together outside of those settings).

I also am never in contact with friends from school, old roomates, etc. who I did everything with at one time.

When my kids were younger, I was part of another group of adults who were parents of kids involved in the same activities. But now that the kids are done with all that, those adults never kept in touch.

It seems normal to me, honestly. I think friendships are matters of happenstance and cooincidence and when circumstances change the friendships are rarely kept up. People who have long-lasting adult friendships will probably realize that those friends are neighbors or have some other external commonality. If those things would change, the friendship would quickly fade.

I'm a single perpetual manchild like you. However, I look much younger than I actually am. At my age people typically suffer from age-ism in their career, I don't because of the way I look and that has allowed me to gain insights on certain things.

What I found is that my friends shifted over the years, with most being 15 years younger than me nowadays. Some know how old I am, some don't know. But overtime if they get use to you, the age thing doesn't matter.

If you want friends you should find it in younger people. An easy way to do that is to have suite mates or join a team in your job with younger people.

But it also depends on how you look. If you look obviously older, the first impression will take a bit of time to get over. Kids won't be inviting you to parties until they're more familiar with you, so it will take time.

Late 30's? Goodness, young person; that's when I got divorced, and my life began. Courage, mon brave!

>It’s not wholly natural, this business of making our own tribes. And it hardly seems conducive to human thriving. The percentage of Americans who say they don’t have a single close friend has quadrupled since 1990, according to the Survey Center on American Life.

Interesting point. I wonder what the ability to "make our own tribe" has done to us.

I've found the hard way that no friends is better than the wrong friends. I've also come to appreciate casual acquaintances more as I've become older. People you talk with semi regularly but don't have any sort of deep connection with. When I was younger, I found those types of relationships superficial and pointless, but I see it differently now.

Hey could you elaborate a bit. How are the casual acquaintances adding value to your quality of life? I am unable to appreciate them in my own life.

I can add my 2 bits. I know all the staff at my local diner; I chat with the owners and chefs regularly. We talk about food, the weather, their college schedule, vacation plans. Then I eat eggs and potatoes and go my merry way.

It's much better than sitting alone at a corner 1-person table, at least for me.

Any club is the same way - people who are not (all) your friends but you get along with and have something to do together.

Not OP, but some things from my own life that came from casual acquaintances:

* Meeting new friends through them

* shared activities

* Getting new perspectives

* Invites to parties (some very social casual acquaintances have huge parties)

* Business connections

* Fun and laughter

* If at a shared event or location, casual chit chat and friendliness

You get all those with close friends too, but you can have many more casual acquaintances more quickly.

If you’re not getting that it’s possible you’re not meeting the right kind of casual acquaintances or maybe you yourself aren’t the type to attract/benefit from such acquaintances. (Which is fine, you can do perfectly well without casual acquaintances)

A good definition of close friend is anyone with whom you’ve discussed a deep personal issue with within the past year, who isn’t family. (Or that you absolutely would feel comfortable doing so with)

I’m counting things below that as casual acquaintance/loose friendship. It’s possible I’ve set the friendship bar higher using that definition.

Also, casual acquaintances are usually how you develop new friends. See someone in a context enough times, realize you’re getting along, start hanging out more, etc. People complain about a lack of ability to make friendships with age and a big part is losing the contexts that allow for casual acquaintances.

I don't know all the reasons why, but I always notice an improvement in my mood on the days I have interactions with casual acquaintances. (And I'm an introvert.) There have been some studies on the importance of "weak ties" I believe. I think there's just a human need for some amount of interaction, and the weak ties have the benefit of coming with very little in terms of obligation. Which helps free you from some of the major stresses that accompany deep ties.

I'd also vote for 'zero obligation' moment. It's always the weight of being forced that creates problems in relationships. Or to an extent the weird notion of not being able to express oneself more and be freer without feeling you're hurting the other party.

Hang out with them have fun with them and talk to them, but expect them to not be there in your life if something drastic or important happens. If you get cancer, expect everyone to eventually abandon you.

Despite this, you still need these superficial interactions throughout life, it's part of being human.

You may disagree, but like the op, I'm older so hear me out.

The thing with younger people is that they don't realize that they are already doing this. You don't know it yet but 99 percent of your friends are superficial. Not 90 percent, 99. What you will realize is that friends overall are much less reliable and loyal than you thought. Younger people place greater weight in their friendships without realizing the true superficiality behind almost all of it.

One day the realization will hit you and hopefully eventually you'll realize that it's human nature and even you yourself is like this, you just don't realize it yet.

But what's also important to realize is that despite the superficiality of all these friendships it's still important to cycle through them and have them around in your life to be happy.

It's about the moment to moment interactions with people. The illusion of true friendship is what matters here. Accept the illusion knowing that it will fade and that people and you yourself will move on.

That is not to say that "true friendship" doesn't exist. It does, but it is far more rare, and it's not surprising at all for a person to find out one day that they have no true friends at all.

I'm in my 50s now and found this just about 100% matches my own observations, experiences, and conclusions. Almost all friendships are based on circumstances that bring people together. When those circumstances change, those friendships fade pretty quickly.

100% spot on. There's a level of peace that comes from accepting that the majority of relationships are, and always will be, superficial, but then realizing that's okay.

I would suggest considering still being open to deep connections with people, platonic, romantic, or otherwise. There is a cost, but the juice can be worth the squeeze. Embrace the joy of it, and mitigate the cost (emotional fortitude, self confidence).

I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I'm overly cautious about it. Which drastically reduces my chances of forming deep connections, given how hard it can be even for those that are eager for it.

> People you talk with semi regularly but don't have any sort of deep connection with.

Yes, these are the only relationships I have anymore. They may be the only kind I ever had, in retrospect.

> I've found the hard way that no friends is better than the wrong friends

Can you elaborate?

There are certain types of people that will, purposefully or not, suck every bit of joy out of your life.

I can't find any information on The Wellness Letters. Is it supposed to be an entire book? Where can I read the manuscripts found in the article?

How does one read The Wellness Letters? I only read far enough into the article that I wanted the source material but I can’t find them anywhere.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60406234-the-wellness-le...

FWIW I sent an email to Elisa Albert from her website[1] and here is what she replied:

> the wellness letters is buried in an unmarked grave. i am going to turn it into some other book eventually.

[1] https://www.elisaalbert.com/about

I agree that friends can break your heart, but it's not a necessary outcome. It sounds like one or both of these folks was behaving poorly or being disagreeable, and that is what ended the relationship. Treat your friends well and be friends with people who treat you well and there will be no need for heartbreak.

You're young. The problem is this never happens.

People are too complex for things to work out like this. Maintaining a long term friendship is more about mutual acceptance of the flaws, imperfections and transgressions of the people in your life. Inevitably there will be some heartbreak eventually. The key is to not let this heartbreak define the friendship.

I'm as old as the subjects of this story were when their friendship ended. I don't think my age has anything to do with my disagreement with the premise of the article, or with your conclusion.

Then our anecdotal experiences differ. I tend to see your outlook on this topic in people that are younger. Hence my prediction which was wrong for you individually.

I would argue though that my statement applies to a more broader generality. That for most people I would be right and for very few people I would be wrong.

> Maintaining a long term friendship is more about mutual acceptance of the flaws, imperfections and transgressions of the people in your life

Would you accept a flaw of a friend who decided once in his life to start taking loans from each of his friends and then use those loans to pay other friends back?

Would you accept a flaw where someone suddenly decides to become a cocaine addict?

Someone who got some success and suddenly started thinking are better than you? What if they failed down the way and came back telling “they now realise what kind of person they were”.

The problem is, why are you maintaining relationships like that?

Being a friend is not about that much maintenance. You can still be friends with someone who has these flaws in your life.

So it goes both ways. You shouldn't let flaws define a friendship, and you shouldn't let a friendship define your life either.

All of the people you mentioned I would still be friends with. The only thing I would "maintain" with them is keeping in touch or hanging out and maybe being there for them if they have a genuine problem I can help with.. but the help of course has limits...

If I can't help them, it doesn't mean I'm not their friend.

Beautifully put, thoughts captured exceptionally well. The agony of lost friendships, the joy of the ones we cherish today, everything brought to life with words. This is one of those articles which will stick with me and I'll come back to re-read throughout the year. Big props to the author

Where can I read a copy of "The Wellness Letters" by Elisa Albert and Rebecca Wolff, which is repeatedly referenced in the article?

It's not on Amazon, and on Goodreads it has 0 reviews. Google doesn't help either.

FWIW I sent an email to Elisa Albert from her website[1] and here is what she replied:

> the wellness letters is buried in an unmarked grave. i am going to turn it into some other book eventually.

[1] https://www.elisaalbert.com/about

The mistake made by the two obnoxious semi-toxic characters from whose friendship the article draws inspiration is that they want too much and too many things for their friendship. They are needy, one is looking for a daughter and the other a mother, they over-intellectualize, there is no sharing of support or fun.

Even the author, who produced a thoughtful if meandering piece (but it was good meandering) comes across as rather unlikeable, she doesn't really like having friends, "Oh, it's so hard, we're all so busy, I'm so sorry." Not hard at all if you're interested in the other person—a boulder to move with your bare hands if instead you're not interested.

I think it's pretty wild to say there was "no sharing of support or fun" when we see, like, 10 texts total between the two. One of the women literally lived with the other after her divorce. That seems pretty supportive.

All in all, this kind of incredibly dismissive comment doesn't add much but negativity to the discussion.

I agree that it's dismissive and negative, but golly were those characters obnoxious and at least semi-toxic.

It is not dismissive at all. I enjoyed the article, it was well written, engaging, and touches very important points. My points are not negative for the article, are negative for the people involved, and one may agree or disagree.

The "support" was not support, was a selfish desire to fit the other person in a void of affection that needed to be filled by someone. One wanted a new mother and the other a new daughter/mentor. That "friendship" is a case-study in toxicity, when one person had a role that they did not ask for and generates a vortex of endless accusations that cannot have any sort of resolution.

In fact, as far as I understand, they are not friends anymore and they are both better off that way.

I think your first comment still wholly dismisses the reasons that the two women (Elisa and Rebecca) and the author find their respective friendships so difficult.

Yes, the two women are incredibly toxic toward each other. So… why were they friends at all? Why did they spend years writing letters to each other? That is the interesting part of the article, exploring how two people who ended so toxically could begin as deep friends.

By the same token, to simply call the author “unlikeable” and someone who just “doesn’t like friendships” is to defeat the entire purpose. Yeah — she sounds like she’s been kind of a bad friend from time to time, and particularly bad at keeping up with people. She’s telling you that! It’s everything else that’s interesting, and to say “keeping friendships is easy to do, actually” seems very dismissive.

I read the comments on my comment and I don't understand why there is so much overreaction. The author is unlikeable in the context of her article about friendship, not outside of it (at least, I have no idea). Like, she says she's a bad friend, and I imagine many of the readers agree with her definition after reading about how she keeps friends. And yes, being friends isn't hard, like many other things that modern society has determined are actually challenging in the modern world, among which we find waking up. If there is free will, we can keep up with friends if we want to. Then, a mistake that I think many people, and I was among them, make is that they believe that friendship should be encompassing, total, and forever. But it isn't, and in most cases it shouldn't be.

"the reasons why the two women (Elisa and Rebecca) and the author find their respective friendships so difficult."

Maybe I'm overestimating my "detective's eye," but this doesn't seem like a mystery at all; it would be a mystery if they both had to be friends, wanted to be friends, and for some reason, maybe a mutual allergy, maybe pheromones that cause the "receiving" person to be aroused by the other's presence, and the feeling is so overwhelming that being friends is impossible. That would be mysterious.

But reading the exchange between the two, there's only one reader older than 15, and I'm being generous here, who says, "gosh, I just don't understand why they aren't friends anymore," or "I really don't understand what's going on in their dynamic." How can wanting to compare a friend to a mother - a better version of their mother - not lead to extraordinary toxicity? The two should stay as far away from each other as possible.

I enjoyed the article, it made me think about my own friendships.

Live lesson, everybody wants your money.

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