I tend to frame friend making, or any relationship for that matter, by asking what I don't want in a friendship. I realized about midway through my 20's that I had made a habit of making friends...
I tend to frame friend making, or any relationship for that matter, by asking what I don't want in a friendship. I realized about midway through my 20's that I had made a habit of making friends that didn't really put much effort into the relationship for one reason or another. But I was always pouring in, giving of my time/energy/heart, until I was just kind of empty. They never cared as much about the state of my life, they didn't offer to inconvenience themselves to help me out, they didn't invest attention into understanding why I am the way that I am. So now, I tend to assess relationships every once in awhile and see what state their in. Sometimes relationships are just one sided, I don't begrudge any friends who are in crisis or amidst change, even just changing into a new person over the decades we've known each other. There needs to be space in friendships for people to not show up. The question is, when some time has passed, when life slows down, when energy reserves are back up, will they do the same for you? But some friends just don't see themselves, they don't see the cycles they're in that take up all the air in the room, they aren't open to input, they are just in survival mode constantly and sucking up any resources near them instead of, or are incapable of, looking inside and making change.
To answer your question directly, if I conceptualized what's important to me:
I want friends who share my most important values or enough of my lesser values, whichever comes first. There are deal breakers, but I try and be open and accepting. No friend is perfect.
They have to be interested in self change, basically a life of always trying to understand themselves better. I can't abide people who are good the way they are, who have some quirk that they make jokes about, that is really just a toxic trait for their childhood. I'm sorting my shit out so no one else has to accommodate it forever, I expect the same.
A heart of generosity. This is huge for me! I enjoy being loved on by people and loving on others, especially when it's a chance to show generosity. When we're generous in any relationship, it makes room for our partner to do the same without fear that they'll pour in and not receive the same treatment. When two people in any type of relationship are generous with each other, it almost becomes a competition to out do each other in a healthy way. This is the core of any healthy relationship, in my opinion. Because it permeates every area of life.
Money shot, this is actually my first and most important rule: befriend only those who are present, engaged and loving friends also when it's not convenient to be such. "Friendship means little...
I realized about midway through my 20's that I had made a habit of making friends that didn't really put much effort into the relationship for one reason or another
Money shot, this is actually my first and most important rule: befriend only those who are present, engaged and loving friends also when it's not convenient to be such.
"Friendship means little when it's convenient", in the words of Koji in John Wick: Chapter 4.
I couldn't have worded this any better. Same situation in my twenties as you mate. I've got a couple of decent friends now, conversation is two way. But I don't see them anywhere near as much as...
I couldn't have worded this any better.
Same situation in my twenties as you mate. I've got a couple of decent friends now, conversation is two way. But I don't see them anywhere near as much as I'd like too.
I've a lot of mates, but very few genuine friends. I'm a lot more guarded and introverted since my brother from another mother passed, I get why... But I'm actually also really okay with it. I'm not the social butterfly I was in my 20s.
It's already hard to navigate friendships as we age and become different people, especially between men who may not be vocal about their emotions and introspective. Add in how fast time passes as...
It's already hard to navigate friendships as we age and become different people, especially between men who may not be vocal about their emotions and introspective. Add in how fast time passes as you get older, because of how busy life is, and I can understand why this has become so hard. But I've also found that the friends who I've maintained relationships with are much easier to stay connected to, because they tend to approach life similarly (Even if our lives are structured totally different). My best friend, who I've known since 5th grade, has a couple kids and is starting a business, he has no time for me at all. But we've both been open with each other about how we don't like our lack of time to talk and we don't let any resentment build up between us, we just realize a few months have passed and we've both been on autopilot, and we hop on the phone for two hours. I just think it's so important to fill your life with people who value the same things in life, because it'll be easier to maintain some parallel growth and you wont experience as much drift. I don't know, maybe that was rambly, but I've spent so many years picking this issue apart for myself and I feel really happy with the direction I'm heading in my mid 30's.
It's a good way to look at things if I'm honest. The people I do have around as 'mates' are just that, they're mates. We agree on a lot, but there are other things we don't agree on. Or we're...
It's a good way to look at things if I'm honest. The people I do have around as 'mates' are just that, they're mates. We agree on a lot, but there are other things we don't agree on. Or we're almost purely social and go for a pint here or there.
I've got a couple of really good friends who we agree on a lot. We've advised each other or we've got really similar (or same) hobbies that we go and attend regularly. One of my closest is 20 years my senior and rides bikes and does archery, love the guy to pieces.
I said this before about where I am with life. It's taken me a while to get back into 'friends' and 'mates' thing, I lost my BFAM four years back and it's wrecked havoc on my perception of those who are good and those who didn't make the cut.
Friendships form by having things in common. Closer friendships form by sharing experiences, especially intense ones. Friendships deepen when friends call upon another for help. "A friend in need...
Friendships form by having things in common.
Closer friendships form by sharing experiences, especially intense ones.
Friendships deepen when friends call upon another for help. "A friend in need ...".
Honestly, I'm pretty happy just to have people who are interested in talking about the weird niches that I enjoy - the more of them the better. How often do you find anyone interested in...
Honestly, I'm pretty happy just to have people who are interested in talking about the weird niches that I enjoy - the more of them the better. How often do you find anyone interested in Japan-exclusive retro computers, old synthesizer hardware, animation, and video game soundtracks? Because I can tell you that I haven't found one person who likes all four of those things. For me it's a win if I hear from someone who has a Sharp X68000 with an MT-32, or someone who thinks that Nobuo Uematsu is both incredibly talented and somehow overrated at the same time. My husband is just barely interested in only one of those things, and I only have one friend who is interested in two of them.
Sure, I can be super friendly and even close with people just talking about common human things and feelings, but I don't have enough outlets for the things I'm passionate about.
This is the emptiest friendship niche in my life as well. It's very rare that I find someone who shares my interests (or at least something enough like my interests that we easily develop a taste...
This is the emptiest friendship niche in my life as well. It's very rare that I find someone who shares my interests (or at least something enough like my interests that we easily develop a taste for each other's interests as well). When it does happen, there are often practical impediments to us developing a real friendship.
For example, one of the rare people whose interests align with mine is a local farmer. We worked together for a few months (it was just a temporary job for him), and we seriously spent all day, every day talking our heads off. He's one of the few people who is nerdy in the same way that I am.
But he's a farmer; he works sun up to sun down, and often well into the night. He is my neighbor, so I often see him, but only rarely can he stop for a chat at the same time that I can. However, just knowing that he's sitting there in his tractor, thinking about the same sorts of things that I do — and that he's likely introducing these same interests to his children and raising a new generation of our particular flavor of nerd — makes the world feel brighter to me. Maybe when we're old and retired, we can be proper friends.
You know, all four of those things seem like they'd be more popular in Japan! Do you speak japanese? (And Nobuo Uematsu isn't overrated, what are you talking about???)
You know, all four of those things seem like they'd be more popular in Japan! Do you speak japanese?
(And Nobuo Uematsu isn't overrated, what are you talking about???)
日本語を話しません。Not enough to be useful, in any case. I was studying for a while but I haven’t really had the time for it and have fallen off the bandwagon. I have been to a Final Fantasy Distant Worlds...
日本語を話しません。Not enough to be useful, in any case. I was studying for a while but I haven’t really had the time for it and have fallen off the bandwagon.
I have been to a Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert and it was so good it brought tears to my eyes. Uematsu has some truly fantastic music. But the ones that he is best known for are soooooooo overrated and far from his best, and I find some of them really annoying. I’m also miffed that so many people misattribute the Chrono Trigger soundtrack to him to this day (he did write a few short tracks, but the vast majority of the music on that soundtrack was entirely the work of Yasunori Mitsuda).
I am a huge introvert, so I don't have the mental capacity to actively maintain many friendships. This means I can afford to be picky. However, I don't think my standards are out of line. There...
I am a huge introvert, so I don't have the mental capacity to actively maintain many friendships. This means I can afford to be picky.
However, I don't think my standards are out of line. There are just two things I look for:
They are an essentially good person. They don't talk about their friends behind their back (unless to say nice things), they regularly make an effort to make strangers' lives a little easier (e.g., they always put their cart back in the corral), they don't express dislike for any demographic, etc.
I truly enjoy spending time with them and look forward to it. Maybe we have similar interests, maybe we have good conversational chemistry, maybe we've bonded over a shared experience, maybe we deeply sympathize with one another and feel safe venting to each other, or maybe we're just so different that we find each other fascinating; there are many, many different paths I can come to love someone's company, and my friends often have very little in common with each other. However, there are also many paths I can come to dislike a person's company. The most common one is demanding more of my mental energy than I can spare; my favorite friends are those who are lowkey and introverted themselves (or, if they are extraverts, they have a wide social net to keep them occupied while I'm recharging), where our interactions tend to be more spontaneous and casual than deliberate. The idea of having to "maintain" a friendship or "put work" into a friendship is basically poison to me.
I'm not sure that I go around deciding who to be friends with. I wouldn't say that friendship is a thing I really pursue; rather, it's a thing that develops naturally over time, often with people I did not initially expect to be friends with.
Firstly I think it's important to note that you can be friendly with someone without being friends, and that's okay. For me it has a lot to do with vulnerability. I expect a safe place where I can...
Firstly I think it's important to note that you can be friendly with someone without being friends, and that's okay.
For me it has a lot to do with vulnerability. I expect a safe place where I can let my guard down, and I do expect them to open up to me as well.
It's okay if people don't want to do that; we can still be friendly, but for me the depth (and in turn commitment) is defined by how vulnerable the two of us can be.
I try to be the one to take that first step, it helps others feel safe when you open up.
There's a guy at work I enjoy talking to, we've even hung out outside of work. But despite knowing each other over a year he's never really opened up beyond surface stuff. So, I would say we are friendly, but not friends.
This is a very interesting question these days. The third place has effectively been quashed in many environments, so that leaves two options for where you could be finding friends: home, or...
This is a very interesting question these days.
The third place has effectively been quashed in many environments, so that leaves two options for where you could be finding friends: home, or workplace?
So do you have a third place you could let us know you have, or otherwise, what does your workplace offer?
I tend to frame friend making, or any relationship for that matter, by asking what I don't want in a friendship. I realized about midway through my 20's that I had made a habit of making friends that didn't really put much effort into the relationship for one reason or another. But I was always pouring in, giving of my time/energy/heart, until I was just kind of empty. They never cared as much about the state of my life, they didn't offer to inconvenience themselves to help me out, they didn't invest attention into understanding why I am the way that I am. So now, I tend to assess relationships every once in awhile and see what state their in. Sometimes relationships are just one sided, I don't begrudge any friends who are in crisis or amidst change, even just changing into a new person over the decades we've known each other. There needs to be space in friendships for people to not show up. The question is, when some time has passed, when life slows down, when energy reserves are back up, will they do the same for you? But some friends just don't see themselves, they don't see the cycles they're in that take up all the air in the room, they aren't open to input, they are just in survival mode constantly and sucking up any resources near them instead of, or are incapable of, looking inside and making change.
To answer your question directly, if I conceptualized what's important to me:
Money shot, this is actually my first and most important rule: befriend only those who are present, engaged and loving friends also when it's not convenient to be such.
"Friendship means little when it's convenient", in the words of Koji in John Wick: Chapter 4.
I couldn't have worded this any better.
Same situation in my twenties as you mate. I've got a couple of decent friends now, conversation is two way. But I don't see them anywhere near as much as I'd like too.
I've a lot of mates, but very few genuine friends. I'm a lot more guarded and introverted since my brother from another mother passed, I get why... But I'm actually also really okay with it. I'm not the social butterfly I was in my 20s.
It's already hard to navigate friendships as we age and become different people, especially between men who may not be vocal about their emotions and introspective. Add in how fast time passes as you get older, because of how busy life is, and I can understand why this has become so hard. But I've also found that the friends who I've maintained relationships with are much easier to stay connected to, because they tend to approach life similarly (Even if our lives are structured totally different). My best friend, who I've known since 5th grade, has a couple kids and is starting a business, he has no time for me at all. But we've both been open with each other about how we don't like our lack of time to talk and we don't let any resentment build up between us, we just realize a few months have passed and we've both been on autopilot, and we hop on the phone for two hours. I just think it's so important to fill your life with people who value the same things in life, because it'll be easier to maintain some parallel growth and you wont experience as much drift. I don't know, maybe that was rambly, but I've spent so many years picking this issue apart for myself and I feel really happy with the direction I'm heading in my mid 30's.
It's a good way to look at things if I'm honest. The people I do have around as 'mates' are just that, they're mates. We agree on a lot, but there are other things we don't agree on. Or we're almost purely social and go for a pint here or there.
I've got a couple of really good friends who we agree on a lot. We've advised each other or we've got really similar (or same) hobbies that we go and attend regularly. One of my closest is 20 years my senior and rides bikes and does archery, love the guy to pieces.
I said this before about where I am with life. It's taken me a while to get back into 'friends' and 'mates' thing, I lost my BFAM four years back and it's wrecked havoc on my perception of those who are good and those who didn't make the cut.
Laughter, common interest, wit, and a cute sister.
Friendships form by having things in common.
Closer friendships form by sharing experiences, especially intense ones.
Friendships deepen when friends call upon another for help. "A friend in need ...".
Honestly, I'm pretty happy just to have people who are interested in talking about the weird niches that I enjoy - the more of them the better. How often do you find anyone interested in Japan-exclusive retro computers, old synthesizer hardware, animation, and video game soundtracks? Because I can tell you that I haven't found one person who likes all four of those things. For me it's a win if I hear from someone who has a Sharp X68000 with an MT-32, or someone who thinks that Nobuo Uematsu is both incredibly talented and somehow overrated at the same time. My husband is just barely interested in only one of those things, and I only have one friend who is interested in two of them.
Sure, I can be super friendly and even close with people just talking about common human things and feelings, but I don't have enough outlets for the things I'm passionate about.
This is the emptiest friendship niche in my life as well. It's very rare that I find someone who shares my interests (or at least something enough like my interests that we easily develop a taste for each other's interests as well). When it does happen, there are often practical impediments to us developing a real friendship.
For example, one of the rare people whose interests align with mine is a local farmer. We worked together for a few months (it was just a temporary job for him), and we seriously spent all day, every day talking our heads off. He's one of the few people who is nerdy in the same way that I am.
But he's a farmer; he works sun up to sun down, and often well into the night. He is my neighbor, so I often see him, but only rarely can he stop for a chat at the same time that I can. However, just knowing that he's sitting there in his tractor, thinking about the same sorts of things that I do — and that he's likely introducing these same interests to his children and raising a new generation of our particular flavor of nerd — makes the world feel brighter to me. Maybe when we're old and retired, we can be proper friends.
You know, all four of those things seem like they'd be more popular in Japan! Do you speak japanese?
(And Nobuo Uematsu isn't overrated, what are you talking about???)
日本語を話しません。Not enough to be useful, in any case. I was studying for a while but I haven’t really had the time for it and have fallen off the bandwagon.
I have been to a Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert and it was so good it brought tears to my eyes. Uematsu has some truly fantastic music. But the ones that he is best known for are soooooooo overrated and far from his best, and I find some of them really annoying. I’m also miffed that so many people misattribute the Chrono Trigger soundtrack to him to this day (he did write a few short tracks, but the vast majority of the music on that soundtrack was entirely the work of Yasunori Mitsuda).
I am a huge introvert, so I don't have the mental capacity to actively maintain many friendships. This means I can afford to be picky.
However, I don't think my standards are out of line. There are just two things I look for:
They are an essentially good person. They don't talk about their friends behind their back (unless to say nice things), they regularly make an effort to make strangers' lives a little easier (e.g., they always put their cart back in the corral), they don't express dislike for any demographic, etc.
I truly enjoy spending time with them and look forward to it. Maybe we have similar interests, maybe we have good conversational chemistry, maybe we've bonded over a shared experience, maybe we deeply sympathize with one another and feel safe venting to each other, or maybe we're just so different that we find each other fascinating; there are many, many different paths I can come to love someone's company, and my friends often have very little in common with each other. However, there are also many paths I can come to dislike a person's company. The most common one is demanding more of my mental energy than I can spare; my favorite friends are those who are lowkey and introverted themselves (or, if they are extraverts, they have a wide social net to keep them occupied while I'm recharging), where our interactions tend to be more spontaneous and casual than deliberate. The idea of having to "maintain" a friendship or "put work" into a friendship is basically poison to me.
I'm not sure that I go around deciding who to be friends with. I wouldn't say that friendship is a thing I really pursue; rather, it's a thing that develops naturally over time, often with people I did not initially expect to be friends with.
Firstly I think it's important to note that you can be friendly with someone without being friends, and that's okay.
For me it has a lot to do with vulnerability. I expect a safe place where I can let my guard down, and I do expect them to open up to me as well.
It's okay if people don't want to do that; we can still be friendly, but for me the depth (and in turn commitment) is defined by how vulnerable the two of us can be.
I try to be the one to take that first step, it helps others feel safe when you open up.
There's a guy at work I enjoy talking to, we've even hung out outside of work. But despite knowing each other over a year he's never really opened up beyond surface stuff. So, I would say we are friendly, but not friends.
With friends quality trumps quantity every time.
This is a very interesting question these days.
The third place has effectively been quashed in many environments, so that leaves two options for where you could be finding friends: home, or workplace?
So do you have a third place you could let us know you have, or otherwise, what does your workplace offer?