Is Friendship Dead?

[Davis Webb]

I will propose that our generation, the dreaded boomers, in addition to turning the world into a giant banking transaction and an information overload, have also completed our coup de' grace...ending all friendships.

Look around you. What you see are; a. families, b. singles with pets. and singles. You will look very hard and not find a friend.

It has been emerging, for me, that friendship, is dead. None of us have friends any more. We have companions, business partners, music partners, some superficial function.

Whats in it for me? Something..yeh, lets hang out. Nothing, go take a hike I am busy.

Don't think about this one folks. Observe it. If you think about it, you will be confused by the overlap between our parent's norms of friendship and loyalty and our generations pseudo friend. Facebook is the best metaphor. Facebook "friends" are what we have now. What is a facebook friend? A pixel with photos. Nothing more. Just random cortical stew.

Same here on AGF, you have no friends here, you never will. These are just pixels and representations of what "you" really are. You might like to get comfort in thinking anyone here cares whether you live or die, but its just a soother, more properly provided to a distressed infant. IN reality, we do not care if you live or die. We are just pixels and pictures.

I believe the new generation coming up will return to friendships. We killed it off, with our answering machines and our schedules and our nuclear families all hiding in hovels doing our own thing...but our children will not be as stupid.

Of this I am certain.

[hovishead]

I agree with a lot of what you've said there Davis.

I don't have a smart phone, I'm not on Facebook and still dislike text messages.

I'm only 36 (and into computers from a young age) yet to me the world is changing so fast in terms of the way people communicate (in the wrong direction IMO) that I don't care about trying to keep up any more.

I'll always choose to pick up the phone and arrange to meet a friend in person than sit in a room trying to think of funny things to type into "What's App".

I'm not as sure as you that things will go back to the old ways however. I think things will just keep on getting worse - the next generation will probably be hooked on virtual reality.

[D. Shelton]

Haha, the era of friending ushered out the era of having friends

'Like' it or not

[Silly Moustache]

As a famous philosopher used to say when asked to comment on any concept - "It depends what you mean by friendship."

If you are referring to people of similar age and gender who frequently and consistently link up to talk intimately about cabbages and kings, I think there are certain times in one's life when such relationships are formed.

Junior school, secondary school, in University, linked by a common passion/hobby/enthusiasm, in the forces, or to a lesser extent in business.

I have no friends from junior school - that was so many years ago and as I was dragged from one society to another the rift was final.

In Secondary school, one long friendship springs to mind which lasted into our twenties and we have met up once or twice since - his lifestyle is alien to me, he is a dyslexic stuttering chain smoking adventurer millionaire living in Danmark with the best friend of one of my past loves.

I did not go to university so I probably missed out on one of the most significant relationship forming situations.

One or two lasting friendships emerged from my passion with music. My closest frind and a chap who whist having a far wider circle of friends than I, seemed to be the sort of person who "cared" about everyone else. He died in 2004. I still miss him.

Two friends from my 41 years in business. one in Spain, the other I see two or three times a year but converse by e-mail.

Marriage changes long term relationships. Children also.

Similar subject being discussed RIGHT NOW on the radio. elderly man just said - Women are far more successful at building up social networks than men. I think that is true.

Friendship for me is about people who come to me when they have problems or issues. No-one is ever interested in mine. This can be a bore as I tend toward depression.

I suppose that most of us would consider their spouses their closest friend.

[buddyhu]

I have friends.

Yes, some friendships are driven by activities, and if I were to stop engaging in the activity, the friendship would likely end. So I have hiking buddies, guitar buddies, dog walking buddies, companions on the spiritual path, etc. I don't view these as "lesser friendships". There is caring woven into the fabric of the contact (at least, there is on my end). They are just less intimate relationships. But that is fine....I don't have the time or emotional bandwidth to have 15 highly intimate friendships. 2-6 intimate friendships are all I can handle, and I very much value the time spent with these less intimate friends.

Some friendships have arisen because of proximity, and if I were to move 100 miles away, the friendship would drop away. I think physical proximity has always been a factor that has shaped and often determined relationships. But it is possible to bridge distance when both parties have that commitment.

Still, I have several intimate friendships that are all about spending time together, sharing conversation, being interested in what is "really" going on with each other. Some of these friendship have lasted for decades, have weathered changes in locations, changes in jobs, changes in marital partners/girlfriends, changes in the types of activities we do. Other intimate friendships have emerged in the past 5 years (though I usually hear people say that our deep relationships are formed earlier in life). I spend lots of time having dinners with these friends: cooking for them, being invited over for meals they prepare, going out for coffee or a meal. I also go for long rambling walks with these friends. Some of them involve going on trips together from time to time. The frequency with which I see these friends is variable: in some instances, two or three times a year, in other instances, a dozen times a year or more. These friendships are dear to me.

My wife is in a category all her own. But we share all the elements of friendship, and more. There is an uncommon intimacy that has developed in our relationship; I am very fortunate in this way. We also enjoy what remains of our families, though we have each lost both parents in the last 7 years. There are a couple of cousins that are close, and our siblings.

i have infrequent but deeply satisfying contact with an ex-wife and some ex-girlfriends. They represent an interesting and unique category of friendship.

One of my mentors opened a door into friendship for me some decades ago. He said something to the effect of, "We think the big tragedy of our lives is not having been loved enough; but the much bigger tragedy is not loving enough." As I focus on being a loving friend and concerned companion, everything else falls into place of its own accord, in its own way, and has its own time/duration. But the quality of sufficiency is often present in my life as I focus on the love I feel for my various types of friends. Questions or concerns about whether they "really" love me or "really" care about me are (now) very much in the background. For me, this feels much better than tracking how much love I feel coming to me (though I do feel substantial love and concern coming to me).

I guess I am unusual, and am also unusually blessed.

[RedJoker]

I must use Facebook differently than the rest of the world. I find that it strengthens friendships. Of course, I don't have a million facebook "friends" either.

Like buddyhu, I think there are different levels of friendship. I have friends that I see multiple times a week and others that I often communicate with but only see every year or so. I also have acquaintances that I'll have dinner with but won't ask any favors from.

Whatever works for you.

[tbeltrans]

There is another perspective to the OP's statements, though I am sure that technology is having as much impact on cultural interaction as have technologies in the past - TV, the telephone, the automobile, the introduction of recorded music replacing making music in the home, etc.

Those of us who are approaching, in, or past middle age often seem to think we are experiencing something new and unique to our generation, when in fact, what we are often experiencing is not much different than those who came before us experienced. We just were not listening to those people yet. When we get married and have families of our own, we tend to become more involved with our families and look less to people outside for friendship. When the kids have left home and we become "empty nesters", we wonder where everybody outside the family unit has gone.

It is entirely possible for the technology we decry as isolating people, to bring people together. Through the internet, we can find local "meetups", consisting of people in our respective age groups or even transcending that kind of limitation to cross age groups, who share common interests. Where I live, there are meetups for just about anything you can imagine. If we use the internet as a tool for connecting with local people, that can be much more fulfilling than hanging out in forums such as this where the anonymity behind the keyboard can loosen one's inhibitions just as much as a few drinks at a local bar.

Rather than complaining about the negative impact any given technology has on our culture, we can make use of it by taking initiative and finding ways to use it for our benefit. To find a friend, be a friend, rather than expecting somebody else to do that for us. By finding local groups of people with shared interests, we can make ourselves available to do just that, and technology can help facilitate that.

Tony

[RedJoker]

Oh, I should also add that my wife found me on Facebook. We knew each other as kids and she had a dream 20 yrs after we last saw each other. She decided to look me up on Facebook and just that morning, I had posted that my ex-wife and I were getting a divorce. Four years later, we got married.

[difalkner]

I'm in Technology Sales and love the cutting edge stuff but I don't do FB or any of the social media. I have a FB page but don't use it. My 'selling style', if I were to place it in a box, is relationship selling. I don't think I've 'sold' anything in the last 20 years but I've done a lot of business with friends where they had a need for my products and services. My LinkedIn page shows over 500 connections and I probably know 300 of them well but the others would fall into the 'acquaintance' category.

But I have tons of friends, not just acquaintances or people I met once - real friends. Friends who will drop what they're doing and come help me if I called, just as I would for them. And my wife and I have dozens of very close friends in our Sunday School class where we enjoy their company weekly and sometimes during the week. We swap email, text, etc., but we see each other every week. Many of my good friends are what I would call lifelong - we met in grade school and are still friends and we visit often.

I realize, based on this thread, that this might be an anomaly but basically the old adage is true - if you want a friend you need to be a good friend.

[Tone Monster]

Is friendship dead no, it just over rated.

[Smitty70]

Originally Posted by Tone Monster

Is friendship dead no, it just over rated.

I don't have friends! They borrow your tools and don't bring them back, they're always asking favors, they criticize your decisions, talk about you behind your back, and make fun of your guitar playing and singing. Oh, and occasionally one breaks wind and blames it on you.

[jpd]

O.P.....Holy Moly Sounds like you live in an inner world of neglect and loneliness. Hope you find a way out of this inner turmoil. And by the way....the "dreaded boomers' are not the creators of all the malaise you list......."Don't believe everything you think"

[Bob Womack]

Hmmm...

I can think of a couple of factors that could have caused some of this:

1) We boomers might just be the most mobile generation yet. My best friend from high school was originally from Scotland. He moved to my home town, Knoxville, TN, USA, in seventh grade. By the middle of college he was "pining for the fjords," to quote Monty Python. Within a year he had moved back to Scotland. Then he married a German girl and immigrated to Germany. After a separation and health troubles he died in... Charleston, South Carolina?

My big brother has lived in Tennessee, Florida, and Michigan. He's back in Tennessee, but not in our home town. My younger brother went to college in Illinois and fell in love with a lovely Midwestern gal. They settled in Terre Haute, Indiana and he commutes to St. Louis, Missouri, by plane. I went to college in Georgia, fell in love with a New Jersey gal, and eventually moved to the coast of Virginia.

2) Right about the time we hit the career age the forty hour career began to die. All three of the brothers had those careers where you dived in head first to long, odd hours and didn't surface for a decade or so. That virtually nixed a social life. My wife and I became a social unit with the kids. There was little time for anything else.

3) The busiest time of your life is the band of years occupied by child rearing. As has been stated, there isn't much time for friendships during this period. Many of my peers waited to have kids until they were established in their jobs so that they would be financially well-off. As a result, many are at their busiest right now.

4) Most families are two-income families now. That means at the end of the day, in more cases, both spouses are used up and just want nest for the evening. When there was only one, the home-bound spouse had the ability to cultivate and pursue friendships and couple-on-couple friendships much more freely. The advent of two-income homes has added inertia to the whole active social thing.

But you know, when I was in college I observed that my father and mother didn't have any friends and told my dad I thought he needed to cultivate some. He looked at me and said, "You know, bud, your mom and I are best friends. I've never felt like I needed anything more than that." That put me back on my heels. But after a little bit of thought I decided that theirs was the kind of marriage I wanted. Thirty-five years later their marriage is still that way, and by the grace of God mine has developed that way as well.

Bob

[KevWind]

Is Friendship Dead? No but it is and always has been rare.
People do however often confuse an acquaintance with a true friend

[martingitdave]

I had a friend once.