That is, probably, the most important video I have ever seen. A 75 year scientific study that can be backed up with hard data. Successful relationships with family and friends is, by far, the most valuable things that we have.
The more I get older the more i think friends are underrated. As teens, with fleeting romances, the friend group was everything. Then more and more people would grow up and stop the friends to make more room for a partner. Now in my 30s I am spending quite some conscious effort to revive old friendships and forge new ones. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but a partner is not everything! It’s just one tile in the mosaic of life.
It’s definitely a challenge to navigate friendships throughout the different phases of life.
As a teen I was naive in placing so much importance on friendships. The experience was totally worth it, but almost impossible to reproduce after that naivety is gone. I think most people eventually learn that friends come and go and stop doing that, especially during the raising kids/making money phase of life.
In my early 30s, I realized my work buddies weren’t going to remain friends after we stopped working together, and I became nostalgic for the friendships of my youth. I tried to form some new friendships via interest groups, but it seemed as though friendships had become as ephemeral as Facebook friends. Probably a sign of the time.
Now, in my mid 40s, I am facing an empty nest soon and expect to be able to invest some time into a group and form some new friendships. But it doesn’t help that I live in a conservative area that doesn’t have many intellectual or techy people. I will probably end up driving to a big city for a once or twice a month meeting.
It can be discouraging, but I think it’s important to keep trying to find people to connect with. Not doing so would be really bad for your health and wellbeing.
But it doesn’t help that I live in a conservative area that doesn’t have many intellectual or techy people. I will probably end up driving to a big city for a once or twice a month meeting.
Soon I will have to be doing the same. It’s a little over an hour drive one way. Do you have any recommendations about how to find an interest group?
There is a LUG and an Emacs group in a city 1 hr away from where I live. I’ve been on the LUG’s mailing list for a while. I keep an eye out for blog posts from the Emacs meetup. I found out about these groups a long time ago… not sure how. I used to work in that city.
You could watch the public library event calendar, or even create your own event at the public library and maybe start a new group with regular meetings. I hosted a Linux Installfest in a small town close to where I live. There wasn’t a big enough turn out (only 2). Running the event in a bigger city would probably have been more successful.
How could I forget about the utility of our public library!?!?! Thanks for the reminder and take care.
So, luck. I’ve been successfully distancing my relationship with my sibling for about a decade, my stress and anxiety have been much lower ever since. I guess that’s what they mean.
Interesting video. I have a hard time squaring it with the transactional nature of seemingly all interaction these days. No one wants to build a relationship; they just want to already be in one. Which is fine as a flight of fancy like a crush, but it really feels objectifying otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong: Any reasonable person wants the foreplay out of the way so they can relax with a known quantity and fart with reckless abandon. The situations in which the entire courting ritual can be compressed down to days are rare but extant – but you need some sort of cue that this is the path you’re on, which means you can’t go in expecting it, instead getting whiplash when it happens.
Anecdotally, I have found that I feel I’m aging much faster than I used to since being single with minor excursions as of 2018. The lack of goals, of shared experiences … I very rarely start a new TV show, as it’s become abundantly clear that much of the enjoyment stems from being able to talk about it, sometimes even in real time.
I just wanted to work a satisfying stable job, afford housing and have a loving relationship that wasn’t an abusive clusterfuck. I’ve not had all three since 2007.
And I have zero hope I ever will again.
