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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

As someone in my 40s with kids, I'll say for sure that the only reason I've survived this WFH experience is because of that. The very few times I tried remote work when I was in my 20s, living alone, it made me stir crazy in a matter of days.

But surviving is all I can say for it. I worked with people that I would call friends, who I haven't seen now in a couple years. I don't want someone to tell me they weren't really friends, either. They were.

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This is what I don’t understand. What is keeping you from seeing them without being compelled into the same office together? I’ve had coworkers who were friends that I have not seen in an office since 2019, but we have made plans to meet for lunch on the weekend occasionally to compensate.

There are a couple of these friends that I do make time to go out for beer with. So I haven't lost all of them. It's just that there is a group of people that I think are more than coworkers, but are still activity-based friendships where the activity is work. We're in the same department, we work in the same space, on projects which are adjacent but not necessarily joined. Take the office environment away, and the relationships fade. Yes that means they don't have the same value as a close friendship. But I still feel the loss.

I think it's similar to many of the people I interacted with in high school/university. They're not close enough that I saw them much outside of school, and I lost touch with them after graduation, but I still thought the interactions I had with them were net-positive and worthwhile.

There's just a lot of research + just my experience that shows forming friendships is mostly about proximity, being in the same place at the same time and talking. Sure I can and do continue to hang out with the people I'm closest to, but there's a whole host of people that I'm not quite close enough with to want to go through the work to organize, but it was nice to see and talk to.

Obviously work taking on the role of social commons isn't ideal and I'm actively trying to grow more places, but it is striking how I'm not friends with literally anyone at work who started after the pandemic, but I am with many of the people who I met in the office

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