me_irl

Then after 20 years of friendship you learn their real name

I don't know how some people actually manage to maintain an actual friendship with more than 3 people, really. Like, where the fuck do you find the time to have 20 close friends?

I make 3 new friends at every stage of my life, career, and living situation. I also lose those same 3 friends and never speak to them again if any one of those variables changes.

I'm actively working on making a new friend and it's some work, but I only have 1 really close friend and I'd like more. 3 would be great.

I think for our next date I'll take him to the graveyard so we can memento mori among the stones.

Good friends are an emotional investment, many friends is networking.

I have a male friend (we dated in high school, it’s been 20 years since then) who went this way. I remember even as teens, he’d complain that his friends don’t get him. But they “were friends since kindergarten” and sunk cost fallacy prevented him from reaching out to new people.

Today he’s a father and it’s even harder to make friends. I feel for him. He doesn’t talk with the friends from high school anymore, and laments the paths in life they’d chosen since. It just sucks, because I’d been encouraging him to get to know new people since the days we dated, but he didn’t practice then and has no idea what to do now.

Had this. Stopped because being social with them was a hassle. Finding people you enjoy being with goes a long way.

Don't ever feel stuck.

i mean i'm well over 40 and haven't seen anything to demonstrate that life is better with more than 3 friends

I'm very grateful to have 7 buddies that I grew up with and still hang out occasionally. I've known 2 for about 50 years and the rest since HS nearly 40 years. I'm having brewskis with one of my BFFs (also my son's Godfather) after work tonight.

That's true, although I lost contact with those friends so now I'm stuck at 0 :c

Socializing is exhausting. I usually have a couple of people besides my girlfriend that I chat with, and it's more than enough for me.

I understand that socializing is an important aspect of life. I'm certain there's all sorts of papers detailing the benefits of it, but I do also think it's important to learn to be comfortable spending time by yourself.

I'm baffled by some of the responses in this thread. Yes, it's harder to make friends in one's 20's than in the teens, and harder to make friends in one's 30's than in one's 20's.

But to act like it's inevitable, or even desirable, to not make new friendships after the age of 20 seems like overstating things.

The people you grow up with and befriend at a young age share those similar roots. That will always be valuable in friendships.

And the people you befriend later in life, through your hobbies, your career, your neighborhood, your mutual relationships also share those commonalities, and that will bring something valuable to those relationships, too. One of the most things I love about meeting, dating, and marrying my wife is that it mingled our two worlds of friends, and a lot of the friends I met through her in my 30's are now some of my best friends today.

I rely on local friends for things that require geographical closeness. I rely on fellow parents for parenting support (including favors, advice, even jokes/rants). I am close with former and current colleagues, and we talk shop, careers, people we know, and sometimes refer each other to job opportunities or other work.

There is a certain richness that comes from multiple social relationships evolving and developing over time, including repeat acquaintances, superficial friendships, all the way to very close or very intimate friendships. We're all just walking through life in different stages, and each stage has different needs and opportunities to rely on and provide support to your social network.

Quality > quantity

3? Are you nuts? I have two and see them maybe twice a year in person. Most friends require way too much time and I'm glad my friends are low maintenance and don't get annoyed when I ghost them for weeks.

That’s because it is.

Unironically yes

Girls make 300 “friends” a year and they hate all of them.

I dont like these General statements on boys and girls. I dont think its good to strengthen the stereotype by stating things like that.

Of course i do know a bunch of men, where this is true and then i go "haha so true" and stereotype is reassured. But when i think of it, i know quite a lot of men that have larger circles of friends and also met them much later in der lifes. Also i do know women that only have 3 friends from highschool.

Its just another Version oft the stupid stereotype all women are extroverted and all men are introverted. Its not true. And the stereotype might influence how men and women behave in the end.

I guess whats influencing the number of friends more than Gender is:

1. are you more extrovert or introvert
2. did you move from your hometown (then the need to make New friends is a bit higher)
3. do you have hobbies done in groups, like some sports or choir, etc. Where you constantly meet people
4. are your friends extroverts and bring people to your life or are they introverrt and only meet you?

Of course it might be that some of these points are statistically more valid for women or men, but just generalizing doesnt help.

That's 100% me. I got into my friend group when I was 16 which consists out of 3 other people. I got like 2 other friends in University and that's it. I do have another friend group left over from my childhood in my hometown, but I Am nowhere near the level of closeness with them than with my other groups.

However in University I did in fact gain quite a lot of connections to people that I wouldn't call friends, but people you hang out with due to us engaging in the same circles. Not that bad to have these circles, but I'm also fine with it.

Wait, theres one more person that I would call my friend and this is someone who I met around last year over Lemmy. Theres also someone that I met through one of my school friends that I would call a friend. With these two I am totaling at 7 very close friends, and 3 semi close friends.

Its funny because when I had the time 3 was about the number of folks at any one time I hung out extensively with unless you include rpg groups because that met regularly.

As a teen I had >300 good friends phone numbers in my phones contacts. I was constantly turning people down who wanted to do activities / hang out, because I didn't have time to maintain that many friends. It felt really bad and stressful, especially when they tried to persuade me and it was just impossible to spend time with them. At some point I just had to power down my phone and never powered it up again. Improved my life a lot.

Decades later, I have a new phone number and phone now, but my contacts are few and I keep the number secret.