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> The good point hidden in the article is that American culture has no real idea of "friendship" in a sense that people from other cultures either now or historically would recognize as such. American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know. But it's something that probably deserves more attention.

I think that is a very interesting point. I have mentioned that as well in the past a couple of times. There was a difference in how friendships worked in my old country (in Eastern Europe) and how they work here. Here "friendships" are just acquaintances as you said. People gather lots of acquaintances but no or few good friends.

I'll propose a couple of reasons:

* People are more mobile. They move more so they don't have time to really make friends. This starts in childhood when kids move with the parents from school district to school district from neighborhood to neighborhood. There is a non-negligible network effect here and that is even if you don't move and live on one street and go to one school, chances are your friend's family will.

* Education system. At some point kids stop being in one class and are allowed to pick individual classes and schedules. So they stop seeing or spending time with the same classmates. There is extracurricular activities of course but it is not the same as starting with 1st grade and potentially being with the same group of people until the 12th grade.

* More individualism. Being a friend means sharing more and means relying on other more. In other words it means asking for help and offering help. This means "being in other people's business" which is a no-no in U.S. But the other side of being too individualistic means never really opening up to a friend. And at the end of the day one can only get so close talking about the weather, after some time it gets boring. So there is the wall that people don't let others through.

* Affluence. I think in countries where it is harder to survive on your own. People will stick together better for support. They have to have a support group to survive. In richer countries people can get by easier living alone and being more independent.

* It is not as much countries as times. In other words in the past, people used to have fewer but closer friends anywhere in the world. And, say, in the last 30 years people started to become more isolated. Could be technology, or globalization (people have to move because of jobs).

* It is not the world it is you. You just got older, more paranoid, and more withdrawn. The perception is that there just aren't that many friendly people around. But maybe other people just don't want to be friends with "you" in particular. They are still people with very good close friends but because you don't have them now, it seems like nobody does.

People gather lots of acquaintances but no or few good friends.

This is not the norm, in my experience.

Worth noting that America is a big place, with lots of variety. You know this of course.

I can see what you describe being the norm in a large city. Where I live now - small town, middle of inner-nowhere - it's not.

> I can see what you describe being the norm in a large city. Where I live now - small town, middle of inner-nowhere - it's not.

Not to be an ass, but to recap your "rebuttal": in the places which are dying this isn't the case, but I could see it happening in the places that are becoming increasingly prevalent and important it might be.

I think the change is undeniable, you're just in one of the last places that will get hit.

in the places which are dying

In what sense do you mean 'dying'? 'Prevalent and important'?

Wealth creation seems to be focussed increasingly on metropolitan areas and the rural manufacturing and farming areas seem to be going through population decline.

rural manufacturing and farming areas seem to be going through population decline.

I will allow this is the case for some areas. It it not universally true.

It sure isn't where I live.

Maybe you are in a real anomaly, but whenever we leave the city, once we get pass commuting distance the number of For Sale signs is astounding (sometimes like 10% of a town or hamlet) while in the city housing is booming.

I don't think I live in an anomaly.

Statewide statistics here: http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.wi.htm

I live in this met region: http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.wi_oshkosh_msa.htm

I don't know - my brother (a good friend) moved 3 hours away. I couldn't go help unload the truck, so I reluctantly saw him off. Then I remembered an old friend that lived in that town - one email later, and she, her husband and her three boys met my brother and unloaded his truck in half an hour! On Easter Sunday!

Is she what you'd call a close friend? Haven't seen her in years. And surprise! I'm a straight guy with a wife and 3 boys of my own.

I think she is very nice and and that was very kind thing to do. I would say that she is very friendly and willing to help. But would you call her at 2am if you feel really down and or your dog had just passed away? Would you spend the weekend at her house fixing her car with her or multiple weekends building a yacht?

Not all of that, no. But I spent 12 years taking her boys camping with mine, once a month, summer and winter.

And I've driven my tractor 12 miles to her place (when they lived nearby) to open her driveway after a snowstorm. And gave her a car when her middle boy needed a way to get to work.

So I guess it works lots of ways, not just the way it did in your home town.

I'm sorry but I disagree. Here's the thing, everything you're saying is true in the context of a big city. However, you come out to the country and none of what you're saying holds true. I've lived in Chicago and I've lived in Iowa for years each. I had lots of friends in both places. I talk to exactly one person from Chicago still, but I regularly keep in touch with all of my Iowan friends even after they've moved.

Yeah I lived in a small town in Midwest and then in big cities. But maybe I never experienced try truly rural US (as in you have to drive 40 miles to do grocery shopping).

I am sort of afraid that the last point holds for me and I just got paranoid and old and people don't want to be friend with me. To me, it might seem like it is a old-world vs US or other such things, but it could be just me rationalizing all along. That is why I am interested in getting others perspective on this.

> we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us

Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim. I think your post would be more convincing without it.

Should probably be rephrased to "We are only sexually attracted to people who we believe are attracted to us"

Which might still be stretching it a bit, but I believe it to be mostly true

A world in which this was even mostly true would have considerably less emotional pain in it. Nice to imagine, anyway.

At my workplace, there are probably 30 or 40 women I come into contact with during the course of my job, out of maybe 60 or 70 people in my area. One or two are over 50, and hence not very attractive to me (I'm 40). One is probably over 400 lbs, and I am not especially attracted to her sexually, but as she's a great person otherwise, she may be the only example of a woman I get along with at work with whom I would not have sex (were I single, etc...). So, I'm sexually attracted to all these women, though of course I have no way to know which are attracted to me -- certainly I hope they have no way to know that I'm attracted to them... it's the workplace, after all.

So, my experience bears out the author's assumption that if circumstances permit, sex would almost always be "in the way" of a friendship between two mutually possible sexual partners. I can only imagine how much more this must be a problem for those who are bisexual.

Really? So you've never felt attracted to a sexy film star? Or the person next door you have a crush on? That flame from afar who doesn't even know you exist?

Agreed. Or perhaps "we are usually only sexually attracted to people who we believe are or might become sexually attracted to us".

My point is that with a very few exceptions[1], apart from the occasional mis-fire or unrequited crush, we go through our life sorting people into "romance target" and "not-romance target", we tend to be very discriminating in our sorting, and gender is not the only criteria used for sorting.

[1]: The exceptions mostly involve very high hormones and/or very poor social skills. Example: A heterosexual male, borderline Asperger syndrome, 19 years old, just off to university to study computer science, far far too shy to actually talk to a girl is very prone to being quasi-obsessively attracted to a large number of inappropriate targets[2]. But this is not really a typical human experience[3].

[2]: Yes, I do speak from experience. :)

[3]: At the risk of stereotyping, it's probably a little more common among the HN readership than elsewhere though. :)

I'm no psychologist, but I think you're correct. Nobody likes to be rejected, so the safest option is to go for people who we think are attracted to us.

Agreed. How about Angelina Jolie? Does this mean I have a chance?!

He means people, not objectified people. I assume his statement was only meant to apply to people you know or meet in real life.

So, if I met Angelina Jolie I wouldn't be attracted to her? Nonsense!

If you were Angelina Jolie's neighbor and ran into her a couple times a day, then yes, you would stop being attracted to her eventually.

That's partly because you're attracted to a cartoon. A star's media image is very carefully crafted. People like that are much less impressive in person.

And that's partly because Lazare is right. You can be eternally attracted to a media image because there's a broken feedback loop. If you were displaying your attraction to an actual person, you'd be getting either positive or negative feedback. Eventually things would either heat up or cool down.

Think about all the people you know that you once felt strong sexual attraction for. How many of them do you still feel that way about? For me, the percentage is tiny.

I'm pretty good at keeping the cartoon in mind, even after knowing someone. Its called fantasizing, its pretty common, and it refutes the author's nonsense about not being attracted to someone who is not attracted to you.

Hrm. In my view, that's still being attracted to the cartoon, not the person. If you paste somebody's face on a blow-up doll and have sex with that, you still haven't had sex with the person. That you confuse your fantasy character with a real person doesn't make the fantasy relationship more real.

Also: continuing to display attraction signals to somebody who isn't interested in you? That comes across as creepy. As would fantasizing about someone you know who doesn't find you attractive. For your sake, I hope they don't find out.

If the author's black-and-white statement still is bothering you, go ahead and insert some nuance. E.g., "normally" or "for non-creepy people".

Wait! There's a huge, insulting assumption in there (or two). Perhaps I'm attracted to her genuine concern for 3rd world peoples, impressed by her large, loving non-standard family and in agreement with her political views! The sex thing is just, you know, gravy.

I think we're dealing with different kinds of attraction here.

>Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim.

Agree.

I'd say as with most things in life it's a gray area: a sliding scale of attractive forces; or a ladder if one might: http://laddertheory.com/ladderconstruction.htm

I went to that website, hoping for something interesting, and was disappointed to see that it's just misogyny disguised as humor (calling women "bitches" and implying that they only date men for their money.) I have to say I'm really disappointed to see something like this on Hacker News; it doesn't speak well of the community members here.

Don't post that douchebag bullshit here.

Shush! You're getting too close to reality. Let's just theorize eloquently instead!

Regarding the hidden point: I think there’s an expectation in contemporary American culture that emotional intimacy is women’s work, i.e., they provide support and counsel and do other semi-therapeutic for their boyfriends, their husbands, and their female friends. Straight men are uncomfortable turning to other men for that kind of intimacy.

In cultures with a greater social separation between men and women, men can have intense and emotionally intimate friendships with other men, because there isn’t the same kind of expectation regarding women, and because a man will understand what another man is going through in a way that women, living in a “separate sphere”, would not.

> Straight men are uncomfortable turning to other men for that kind of intimacy.

I personally don't really want that kind of intimacy from other men. The kind of association I want with other men is more of a "playing on the same team" sort of thing, like you'd get from playing sports together, maybe working on a side project together, or even just forming a group that always meets at the same bar on a certain night. The focus isn't on sitting around talking, it's half having a group identity and half working together towards a common goal.

You've pretty much reiterated his point.

I know? I'm not sure what you mean, I agree with the great-grandparent post and was trying to elaborate on it.

> "The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being sexually attracted to each other", and it permeates the entire article."

What? The author of the article specifically addresses this and does not conclude that the sexual attraction is unavoidable: "But it doesn’t always get in the way." "I don’t see that platonic friendships are actually rare at all or worthy of a lot of winks and nudges." Etc.

> "it's a remarkably heteronormative idea"

Yes, the author agrees: "Close friendships between members of the same sex, after all, are also suspect." He specifically deconstructs the exact issues you seem to be worried about. I'll assume you did actually read the article, because you said you did, but you are radically misportraying the author's claims in order to make your own points as if arguing against his (when actually, he's already made many of them himself).

The thing is, homosexuals can be attracted to heterosexuals. For instance, there's a large section of porn for gay men dedicated to displaying straight men in sexual situations, usually with other men. (Source: http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Wicked-Thoughts-Largest-Experi...)

Yes, some homosexual men have been attracted to heterosexual men (and some heterosexual women have been attracted to homosexual men, etc.), but it is not the norm at all.

And yes, there is some porn aimed at gay men that shows 'straight' men engaging in gay male sexual acts, and there is porn aimed at straight men showing women engaged in same-sex sexual acts (just look for "girl-on-girl"), and there is porn aimed at straight women showing men engaged in same-sex acts (just look for "slash-fic"). The vast majority of porn consumed by gay men is gay male porn though.

It is completely wrong to presume that heterosexuals are constantly at threat of advanced from gay men.

While mutual attraction is self-reinforcing, I wouldn't say that unrequited attraction is rare.

> American's just don't have friends.

Wait, what now? I mean, I'll be the first to admit that most of my ~250 Facebook "friends" are acquaintances of varying degrees, but there's a good 10-20 people who I'd consider great friends, who I feel a great emotional affinity for.

Are you saying this is rare in American culture? It certainly doesn't seem so to me, but of course all I have is my experience.

But most people are heterosexual, it is the "norm", it is a good assumption to make.

There is a difference between assuming an individual is heterosexual if you know nothing about them, and assuming everyone is heterosexual, and hence pretending there are no homosexuals (and others). It is wrong, and damaging to never show or talk about homosexuals, since you're pretending they don't exist.

For example, the majority of the USA is white, and not black. It used to be the case that all TV shows would have fully white casts, and never really have black characters. Sometimes people make this mistake when dealing with homosexuals (etc.)

It's a good assumption to make if someone points out a random person on the street and asks you to guess their sexual orientation.

But in an article about male and female relationships and sexual attraction? It's a pretty bad sign that the author just assumes heterosexuality for everyone, especially when anything else would defeat (or at least greatly complicate) their argument.

Hanging out with people on a team isn't a friendship. For one, teams are ephemeral. More importantly, people generally don't behave like dogs, humping everything in sight... Some folks find themselves "in lust" at first sight. Others take longer to develop the bond that they share.

I think that in any long-term business or personal relationship between two people, you're going to have a point where at least one of the two has some level of attractiveness to each other. Whether that manifests into a sexual relationship depends on the people and their circumstances.

"Apart from a few relatively rare mis-fires, we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us."

I don't know. It seems to me that desire expects to met with desire. There were and perhaps still are quite a few men out there who thought that lesbians simply needed some attention from a good studly guy (themselves) to straighten them out.

"American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know."

I thought it was because we replaced our communities with networks, is that not correct?