Spot on. Facing adversity together is what breeds “real” friends.
I’m an old man of 58. The only people I count as real friends, I’ve known for 40+ years. Smart/nerdy, non-gang types growing up in a poor, crappy neighborhood predominantly full of not very bright people or aspiring hoodlums. Mutual interests combined with mutual fear of the “environment”. Then we grew up and assimilated into “successful” society while encountering assorted social roadblocks, which we shockingly did not whine to the world about.
Nobody actually faces adversity these days, because instead of facing it, they whine or wait for someone/something to bail them out. Maybe that’s why today’s social media society paradoxically have so many friends and also none at all.
I think to forge close friendships you need to tackle some kind of adversity, have a long period of close proximity and there needs to be an element of humiliation. I think that’s why schoolkids, soldiers and people living in poverty/extreme conditions (e.g. Soviet communal housing) have such tight knit friendships - you spend most of the day together, have many shared experiences and help each other out with daily problems. Over a long enough time period everyone will do a lot of embarrassing things and these stories will be remembered forever, making it impossible to put up a facade and pretend to be more impressive than you are - your close friends will always know the real you. You can be some hotshot professor and intimidate all your coworkers/students, but your old childhood friends will still remember and laugh at that time you ate a worm in year 3.
I think that’s why it’s hard to make friends as an adult unless you’re thrust into these kinds of ‘out of your comfort zone’ situations. Everyone wants to be perceived in the best possible light and will do anything possible to avoid embarrassing situations. From my experience, most of my adult “friendships” are just getting along with coworkers until they or I inevitably move onto the next job, after which you lose touch since you have nothing that really binds you together beyond the job. Even if you do stuff outside of work, it’ll usually be polite and sanitized experiences (bowling, BBQ’s, etc). You may enjoy their company and see them from time to time, but it won’t be the same deep level of friendship that comes from adversity/shared humiliation.
Prolonged isolation, for men and women leads to neurological abberations. Visible structural alterations develop (studies back this) detectable on neuroimaging following lack of social interaction for prolonged periods of time. These alterations can lead to psychiatric pathology and ultimately in extreme cases… A shorter lifespan
In Australia we still have this “isolationist” mentality, with slogans hung up like “staying apart keeps us together” in relation to covid… But this is so out of proportion relative to the actual threat acutely at hand in Australia. We haven’t had significant community based transmission in like… Half a year… I don’t think this is a healthy mentality to be instilling into youth and adults alike.
There’s a reason our mental health system is enduring unsustainable burden at the moment…
You can make friends when travelling. As a matter of fact acutely travelling/backpacking is a very decent way to meet new people/potentially long lasting friends. Constant drifting on the other hand… I wouldn’t know despite having moved houses/locations and schools like six + times growing up.
Joking.. anecdotally I can attest it’s a terrible way to make long lasting friends.
There are some people who have a peculiar makeup that can have them be just fine with no close friends, no connections or partner or spouse. They’re outliers. And as implied by my previous post, much of this world doesn’t even allow for that existence.
I’ve found I have either the capacity for an intimate relationship or friends, but not both; however one of them is a necessity for my mental health at all points.
Related to the extreme adversity comments, I’m 100% in agreeance, as I mentioned earlier, my gf and I. My ex came from a fairly wealthy family, and I wouldnt call her spoiled by any means, but ideologically we just saw a lot of things in a different light, and it was hard to understand eachother. My current comes from a background very similar to mine, typical latchkey, absent parents; and were both in a position where all of our families live like… 800+ miles away. So were truly on our own little island for better and worse, and all the adversities that come with that; in a state where the cost of living/typical income is fucking ludicrous. But it makes us closer as friends if that makes sense.
Just using the gf as the friend in this situation.
