Friends, Friendship (Platonic)

River

Active member
Several folks in the forum have recently shared that they are lacking friends, or are lacking friendships of a certain kind -- such as friends who they can comfortably talk with about relationship or personal challenges which involve open or poly relationships.

I think it may do us all some good to discuss platonic friendship. So many questions and topics suggest themselves in this context.

Is it more challenging to make new platonic friends these days than it once was?

Or is it just more challenging for those of us who are older? (Do young people experience this challenge as much as older folks?)

How to go about finding / making new friends?

Why are close, platonic friendships important?

Isn't that what a therapist is for? (Can or should a counsellor or or therapist be our only go-to person for intimate talk about our lives?)

Isn't that what our spouse or partner is for? (Heck, who needs friends when we're busy and have our spouse / partner to talk with?)

You get the picture. I could list these sort of questions all day!
 
Several folks in the forum have recently shared that they are lacking friends, or are lacking friendships of a certain kind -- such as friends who they can comfortably talk with about relationship or personal challenges which involve open or poly relationships.

I'd also noticed this. I commend you for bringing the topic up.


Is it more challenging to make new platonic friends these days than it once was?

Or is it just more challenging for those of us who are older? (Do young people experience this challenge as much as older folks?)

It isn't any more challenging for me to make platonic friends these days than it was when I was younger. I've always been more of a loner type; relying on two or three really close friends rather than a host of acquaintances. However, this was always "enough" for me, as long as they were genuine, like-minded friends.

These days my agoraphobia and social anxiety has worsened, therefore the "means" by which I make new friends has changed (almost exclusively online, though I've subsequently met a few of these people irl) - but this does not take away from how close I feel to these friends, or diminish the value they bring to my life.

How to go about finding / making new friends?

There are myriad ways one can go about finding new friends, yet I notice that many people over college age seem to rely mostly on their partner/s or old friends for company. They may become close to people in the workplace, but these friendships often don't transition well after leaving the job concerned.

I guess online groups (social media, fan-based groups, gaming) are a popular method of making new platonic connections. That's certainly been the case for me.

Then there are team sports and social groups that focus on a particular interest/hobby: environmental groups, political groups, book clubs, hiking/diving/sailing/swimming clubs - you name it, there is a group for everything. Volunteering is a great ways to meet people: homeless shelters, animal welfare organisations/fostering, coaching school sports teams etc.

Why are close, platonic friendships important?

Personally, I think having people *other* than one's spouse or intimate relationship partner/s to discuss things with is very important. If only because having a wide range of people to talk to and socialise with helps a person become a more well-rounded individual, via the different perspectives offered by others.

Not only this, but sometimes a person's SO is too close to the issue (or IS the issue), and one needs an outsider's POV in order to clearly see the problem for what it is, as well as possible solutions one might not have thought of.

There is also the fact that, just because a person may be in an intimate relationship or relationships, it doesn't necessarily follow that their SO/s also share their passions, interests, hobbies. Like-minded platonic friends are a boon when it comes to pursuing one's interests, whatever they may be... from sports, to gaming, to music/concert-going or the like.


Isn't that what a therapist is for? (Can or should a counsellor or or therapist be our only go-to person for intimate talk about our lives?

Isn't that what our spouse or partner is for? (Heck, who needs friends when we're busy and have our spouse / partner to talk with?)

There is a place for psychologists/counsellors, if a person has a genuine need or desire for on-going therapy to overcome some trauma or to help them with strategies to manage anxiety, anger/jealousy, improve communication style or the like.

But by no means is a therapist a substitute for close, intimate (non sexual) friendships! (Except in the case where a person has no other confidantes, or making friends itself is a genuine problem.)

A therapist is required to maintain a certain level of professionalism and decorum. They're likely to speak in rather "PC" terms and may use jargon that would seem unnatural within the scope of a close friendship. There is also a power differential: they may be the professional, but you are paying for their service and as such, may "fire" them or choose not to return if you don't like their style.

The dynamic between close friends tends to be much more egalitarian, casual, even irreverent. The latter can cause friction at times, but there are other times people need trusted confidantes who aren't afraid to pull punches and will tell it like it is.
 
What I honestly think is the true phenomenon is not that it’s harder for people to make friends now, but more the fact that the internet and social media has allowed for socially anxious and introverted people to become more visible. Introverts like myself have always had trouble making/keeping friends. (Currently in process to find out if I’m on the autism spectrum) I currently don’t have any close friends outside of my husband and mom. We have a roommate who lives here with us, but he has his own friends and lifestyle that I’m not apart of, and we don’t talk about things other than superficial. His ex-gf and I got close while she was here, but after they broke up she moved on with her life.

I’m a weird person (imo), and I’m hard to be friends with. I know lots of people, and I’ve attempted reaching out but am usually left out. No one reaches out to me. Or I’ll be doing a group activity with folks for one of the kids, get the “we should get together again!” But never happens. There also seems to be a clique culture too...no new friends allowed kinda thing. So at this point, I just have FB for keeping up with acquaintances. And figure an introvert like me isn’t cut out for the friends thing. I talk to the husband about stuff, and whatever he’s not interested in my mom will talk to me about. Looks pretty sad all written out, lol.

As for going out into the world, I’ve done that. I’m in school, and while my classmates are all friending up, I’m left out (could be age difference). I’ve gone to stuff with my roommate but very obviously don’t fit into that crowd. My kids have extracurriculars, so I meet other parents but again it’s kinda clique-y.

So as an introverted, weird, potentially autistic person..close platonic friendships aren’t really in the cards for me. But people like me are much more visible thanks to the Internet. :)
 
One really close platonic friend is about all I can handle. I actually make friends pretty easily because people think I make a good listener...lol. The truth is I prefer not talking.

I think it's easier to make friends the older you get. I don't know how young people even function at all.

Even though I occasionally recommend therapy, it's not something I would do. I was raised by a generation who said "just deal with it".

I do think it's important to have at least one person you can talk to that is not a spouse or lover. I can tell anything to my friend Blondie. I thought Mary was that kind of friend but she just flipped out on me because I started dating someone. I actually thought my current love interest was going to be a friend but it didn't work out that way, which is awesome.

I used to have a wide circle of friends but once I stepped outside of that circle for a bit they vanished.

I do like my alone time.
 
One really close platonic friend is about all I can handle.

Interesting. I have a bunch of acquaintances recently, but hardly any real, true, close friends. I think I'd ideally have somewhere between 2-4 very close platonic friends. Three, maybe. I've had one or two pretty consistently in recent years, but they keep moving away or dropping our friendship for one reason or another. It gets old after a while. Sigh.

I have some friends now -- and they do qualify, if only barely, as friends -- who never reach out to connect with me. They are good friends when we are together, but I'm the one to reach to them ... since, usually, they're so damned busy. But maybe they don't really qualify as friends ... if we only get together when I reach out to them?

One of my closest friends met a lover (later a husband) a bunch of months ago, then stopped hanging out with me -- then moved very far away. We don't even keep in touch by email or anything anymore. Ball is in her court and I don't expect to ever hear from her again.

People round here are either too busy for a real friendship or ... something. I find it difficult to make real, new friends nowadays, at least where I live.

Friendly acquaintance-ship is easy enough. But it is not very satisfactory.

My partner and I are good friends, though. Very close. Love him so!
 
I'm pretty lucky in the friend area in that the guy across the street has reached out to my two companions and me and made friends with us. All of my other friends are long-distance, and I don't go out looking for friends. For the most part my online relationships are enough for me.
 
Interesting. I have a bunch of acquaintances recently, but hardly any real, true, close friends. I think I'd ideally have somewhere between 2-4 very close platonic friends. Three, maybe. I've had one or two pretty consistently in recent years, but they keep moving away or dropping our friendship for one reason or another. It gets old after a while. Sigh.

I have some friends now -- and they do qualify, if only barely, as friends -- who never reach out to connect with me. They are good friends when we are together, but I'm the one to reach to them ... since, usually, they're so damned busy. But maybe they don't really qualify as friends ... if we only get together when I reach out to them?

One of my closest friends met a lover (later a husband) a bunch of months ago, then stopped hanging out with me -- then moved very far away. We don't even keep in touch by email or anything anymore. Ball is in her court and I don't expect to ever hear from her again.

People round here are either too busy for a real friendship or ... something. I find it difficult to make real, new friends nowadays, at least where I live.

Friendly acquaintance-ship is easy enough. But it is not very satisfactory.

My partner and I are good friends, though. Very close. Love him so!

It's hard to keep up a long distance friendship. Life gets in the way.

I had a bestie in high school. We were FWB. Basically if we were both single we'd screw. Eventually I got married, then she got married. We kept in touch but it grew more and more infrequent. Still, we could pick up the phone after a couple years and talk like we've been talking every day. The last time I talked to her she had met a new guy and was totally in love. I didn't hear from her forever. I figured she was busy with the new guy. Later I found out he murdered her and her daughter.

Don't be afraid to be the only one who reaches out.
 
Is it more challenging to make new platonic friends these days than it once was?

Or is it just more challenging for those of us who are older? (Do young people experience this challenge as much as older folks?)

From how I've heard a lot of people talk, making new platonic friends in school and even college is easier for a few reasons. Stuck in classes, seeing each other every day, being forced to work in groups and sit -somewhere- at lunch... Well, activity brings people together. Taking care of a home, working to provide for it, add in the responsibility of kids... It can get exhausting, and so a lot of adults neglect their friendships. There is one fellow I talk to, pretty much every Sunday. He lives hours away, is just about the most socially awkward person I know (which is actually an impressive feat), and so it means a lot that he does call and want to talk. But, from what he's told me, I'm the only friend he's had who picks up the phone. He's a very limited conversationalist, with no internet or transportation, and so other people just see a friendship with him as too much work I guess.

A lot of my friends have traveled across the world, and with the advent of the internet, social media, and using those platforms for the sharing of sometimes incredibly volatile topics, more and more people seem to seek out superficial acquaintances who share some common ideology. Before I purged most of my Facebook "friends," I realized that most of them had simply collected allies in their own fights. I don't fault or discredit them for doing that, but it seems that sort of thing has become more important than a few, truly close friends. I know a lot of my current struggle in meeting new people is my working schedule, but that's only been a concern for about ten months. The rest of the last few years, it's just seemed that older people who have already formed their own little groups simply aren't interested in expanding them. Learning someone else, befriending them, it's work, and people are really overloaded nowadays...

Don't be afraid to be the only one who reaches out.

I can't add anything more to what you shared and said.
 
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I've always found making friends to be difficult, because there are some aspects of social interactions that either I had to be taught while they seemed obvious to everyone else, or that didn't make enough sense to me to be able to implement them. As a kid, I was the "weird" one, the one who was on the receiving end of bullying even from other kids who were bullied. And I couldn't figure out what I was doing "wrong," and no one would tell me because apparently I was supposed to automatically know. I'm an only child, my dad's an only child, and my mother's brother and his family live in Canada, so I didn't even have family members around to help me figure out how to social.

But after college, it became even more difficult. In school, including college, I was consistently around other people. Even though I was "weird" and a lot of people either ignored me or disliked me, there were people around who liked me and interacted with me. So I had friends, just not very many. However, when I married my kids' father, almost immediately after college, he essentially destroyed any friendships I had, and didn't allow me to have any friends except for members of his family. One of the things that led to me ending that marriage after almost 14 years was that I became friends with someone and refused to let my kids' father interfere with it or bully me into not seeing or talking to my friend. That led to him escalating with his treatment of me, until I finally called it quits.

When I left him, I wanted to make friends, but I didn't really know how, because people I worked with didn't want to socialize with me, I didn't belong to any groups or clubs, and I had two kids to take care of with very little help. I did meet a group of people through an online dating site, and thought I became friends with some of them, but I found out fairly quickly that they didn't actually consider me a friend, they were just nice to me to my face.

All that was a decade or more ago. I've gone through most of that time either not having friends, or having people who were friendly to me on occasion but mostly didn't have any contact with me. That's changed somewhat since I started seeing my boyfriend a couple of years ago, because he's pretty much the nexus of the social universe, so I've met a lot of people through him and a few of them have become my friends independently of my relationship with my boyfriend.

I have a hard time maintaining connections with people, because if I think about reaching out to someone I can't always come up with anything to say beyond "Hi, how are you," and sometimes that doesn't lead to a conversation. I also really dislike being the only one reaching out, because I've had too many cases where the fact that I was the only one reaching out turned out to be because the other person didn't actually like me or want anything to do with me. So while I don't mind doing the *majority* of reaching out, I need some sign that the other person actually gives a shit about whether or not they have contact with me. So while I do have more friends now, and I've somewhat refined how I define friendship so there are more people I include in that category, I still spend a lot of time by myself because there's no one else to spend it with.

I think having platonic friends is VERY important. Dealing with depression, I find that feeling like I don't have anyone to reach out to can make a depressive episode worse, and being at home alone too much (because my husband is not often home when I'm awake) can cause a depressive episode. I've gotten better about making sure I get out of the house nearly every day, but I'm still usually alone when I go out. Having people to talk to and hang out with is important to me, and I wish I had more of them.
 
... I didn't hear from her forever. I figured she was busy with the new guy. Later I found out he murdered her and her daughter.

:eek: Just. Wow.
 
...

1 Is it more challenging to make new platonic friends these days than it once was?

2 Or is it just more challenging for those of us who are older? (Do young people experience this challenge as much as older folks?)

3 How to go about finding / making new friends?

4 Why are close, platonic friendships important?

5 Isn't that what a therapist is for? (Can or should a counsellor or or therapist be our only go-to person for intimate talk about our lives?)

6 Isn't that what our spouse or partner is for? (Heck, who needs friends when we're busy and have our spouse / partner to talk with?)

1. I don't know. I do think it's harder to make and keep friends in financially difficult times. So many people I know are working more than one job, work night shift, etc. The US economy may be doing well in terms of stats but none of the wealth is going to regular people. Only the rich are doing well.

2. I think circumstances can help younger people who are in college to make friends. That environment can support friendships. But I think deep, intimate friendships are not generally valued by US culture and while there are some environments that can foster friendships, they can also easily wither away if not tended.

3. To make friends, you have to interact with people. There are no shortcuts for this. It takes work and time to make friends. It's rarely an instant process. If you don't interact with people in some way, you do not make friends. (And not every interaction will result in a new friendship but I've found that I can't always predict tell who will become a friend and who won't.)

4. Cause humans are social creatures who need other humans to interact with. And friendships are one of the joys of life, one of the things that make life worth living.

5. A therapist or counselor is to help us figure out our shit and hopefully work on it. Friends at their best can listen and support us. But I have dear friends who need more support than I give them. They need actual professionals to help them sort out things. Venting to me became a way to avoid dealing with their shit. (I actually told them I could no longer be listen to them if they weren't doing anything to address the issues. Now they are talking with a therapist.)

6. I don't have a partner so, no. No one person can or should be all of a person's support system. That's unfair to everyone in that relationship.

I have around 20 people I consider deep, intimate friends - people I will be emotionally open with, talk about difficult things. I feel very blessed and lucky for my friends. But I put in the time and effort. I've worked hard for about a decade to find and maintain these friendships. I've visited in hospitals, I've helped move people, I've pet sat, I've looked after babies, I've gone to funerals, I've listened to heartbreak and triumphs. I've cheered the good things and mourned losses. I've gone to museums, amusement parks and dive bars. I made these people important in my life. And they have done the same for me.

Friendships are work. They require time and effort and focus. If you don't put in the work, then you don't have friends. Friendship is a relationship and relationships need effort to find, grow and maintain. I see so many people who want friends but they put in little to no effort to find friends. This is not rocket science. Making friends is more like gardening. It's often backbreaking, time intensive, things die despite our best efforts, there are seasons and time passing affects us so much, and it feeds us and is so rewarding.
 
But I think deep, intimate friendships are not generally valued by US culture...

That's an interesting observation. I wonder if there is any anthropological or sociological research which compares the US with other places in this way? I do know, from listening to Johann Hari talking about his book, Lost Connections, that nations have been evaluated for "loneliness". Britain, where Hari lives, ranks very high on this loneliness scale, apparently. It's regarded as a place where the one of the largest percentage of people lack intimate friendships and/or human connections.

... and while there are some environments that can foster friendships, they can also easily wither away if not tended.

There was a locally owned coffee shop in the little city where I live, years, ago, where assorted misfits and neo-bohemians would hang out. It closed a few years back, unfortunately, and is dearly missed by those who regularly hung out there (myself included). What was special about the place is that most everyone there knew one another, and if you were new there strangers would not hesitate to engage you in conversation -- even asking if they could join you if you were sitting alone. And one felt it was acceptable, even encouraged, to ask anyone there if you could join their table and share conversation together -- or just hang out. Some folks would sit and read a book (this was before laptops, computer 'tablets' and "smart phones" took over the world). They'd set the book (or crossword puzzle) aside for a moment if a particularly snappy bit of conversation grabbed their ear. It was a social atmosphere which encouraged socializing and human connections. But no such place exists in my town any longer.

In another little city I once lived in, there was a large park where people would form circles on the lawn which had the same flavor and style as the coffee shop I just mentioned. That is, you could feel comfortable approaching a group of people and sitting down with them and joining the conversation, or whatever was happening. You didn't have to know anyone in that circle / group, which was open and welcoming(!). I have only very rarely felt that way in recent years. Usually, folks arrive and leave together and would be quite put off if some stranger approached. (It's worth mentioning that I was much younger then and that age is certainly a factor in this atmosphere. But the groups on the lawn were often of an age range, not entirely age-homogeneous.)

What I'm most poignantly feeling in this context is a loss of a feeling or spirit of community. That coffee shop was actually a community, and so was that park. They were open, welcoming communities!


I have around 20 people I consider deep, intimate friends - people I will be emotionally open with, talk about difficult things.

Wow! That's an astonishing number to me right now. Partly because I'm really realizing how few real friends I have at this time. I have a lot of acquaintances ..., folks I'm friendly enough with who are friendly enough with me. But I'm really short on true friends at the moment. (Almost all of my friends have moved far away or dropped our friendship. And most folks just seem too busy to put in the time and energy to maintain a true friendship.)


Friendships are work. They require time and effort and focus. If you don't put in the work, then you don't have friends. Friendship is a relationship and relationships need effort to find, grow and maintain. I see so many people who want friends but they put in little to no effort to find friends. This is not rocket science. Making friends is more like gardening. It's often backbreaking, time intensive, things die despite our best efforts, there are seasons and time passing affects us so much, and it feeds us and is so rewarding.

Good words. Insightful. True.

I like the gardening analogy. Your words encourage me to take more time and put in the effort. Thanks!
 
Is it more challenging to make new platonic friends these days than it once was?

Or is it just more challenging for those of us who are older? (Do young people experience this challenge as much as older folks?)


In my experience, yes - it's harder to make friends these days. At least, IRL. It's pretty easy to make facebook friends. Nobody wants to leave their home though. Studies have shown that people have fewer friends now than at any other point in human history. Technology alienates us as we rely more on machines and less on each other.

Also, I find that friendships are made through shared projects and spending time together working on something. So we tend to make friends easily in school, for example - we're stuck in a room with these people day and day out, working on schoolwork together and playing together at recess, etc. And if you work with other people (increasingly rare), you might make friends with some of them too... although adults tend to have ideological barriers to friendship that children don't have, which makes us want to befriend people less.

We're more likely to feel comfortable with people who are like us. And the internet allows people to be very selective about who they associate with - a tendency that I think is bleeding over into real life. We can also learn more about our interests, so people are getting REALLY niche about their politics and worldviews, and increasingly intolerant of other views. This is a major factor contributing to the increased divisiveness / polarity we're seeing politically, ie. We don't HAVE to tolerate other people, so we don't. And as we spend more time online and less time having real interactions with other human beings in real time, we lose the ability to tolerate people with disagree with.




How to go about finding / making new friends?

Shared projects. Volunteer work. Dating sites, which have for me resulted not so much in romance or sex, but in more friendships.


Why are close, platonic friendships important?

Humans are social animals.



Isn't that what a therapist is for? (Can or should a counsellor or or therapist be our only go-to person for intimate talk about our lives?)

A therapist is a listening machine, not a friend. Friendship is different.


Isn't that what our spouse or partner is for?

Nope. Your partner shouldn't be your One Stop For Everything. First off, it'll kill the relationship. You'll both get bored and fed up with each other. Second, you should not assume that just because you're having sex and/or being romantic with a person, that this entitles you to their emotional labour as well.

I make a point of getting most of my emotional support from friends, outside of my romantic partnerships. All those relationships are stronger for it.
 
I think deep, intimate friendships are not generally valued by US culture

Wow, this has not been my experience living in the US for 56 of my 57 years. I can't say that I have met even one person in the US who does not deeply value intimate friendships. My own experience is that making genuine, close friends becomes much easier as I get older. Like Vinsanity said, I don't know how young people do it! I have so very much more social (genuine social, not bullshit chatter social) enjoyment now than I ever have.
 
Wow, this has not been my experience living in the US for 56 of my 57 years. I can't say that I have met even one person in the US who does not deeply value intimate friendships. My own experience is that making genuine, close friends becomes much easier as I get older. Like Vinsanity said, I don't know how young people do it! I have so very much more social (genuine social, not bullshit chatter social) enjoyment now than I ever have.

Isn't it amazing how different our experiences and interpretations are? Wow to that.
 
Second, you should not assume that just because you're having sex and/or being romantic with a person, that this entitles you to their emotional labour as well.

Labour? Sex and 'romance' are labour? And this 'labour' is quite distinct from "emotional" stuff?

Huh? What? Where are we?
 
Labour? Sex and 'romance' are labour? And this 'labour' is quite distinct from "emotional" stuff?

Huh? What? Where are we?

Hi River.

I never said sex and romance are labour. They shouldn't be, anyway. But emotional support is quite draining.

The term "emotional labour" has become popular lately as a way to highlight the fact that this is work, because it's another form of invisible labour that mostly falls to women. (In addition to the fact that women still, statistically, end up doing more than their half of the domestic labour, grocery trips, etc, AND get paid less to do the same amount of work in the workforce.)

So while it may seem unkind to frame Supporting A Friend as WORK, I think it's helpful.

But mostly I think it's important that people learn to a) ask if it's okay before dumping all their emotional stuff on a person who may or may not have had a super long day and may or may not have the capacity for it, and b) that people notice the gender of the people they are offloading onto, because it's not really fair for women to do all the supporting while men are free to relax or plot their next corporate take-over, etc.
 
Arius -

What you said was,

Second, you should not assume that just because you're having sex and/or being romantic with a person, that this entitles you to their emotional labour as well.

I just find this whole way of framing things strange, because -- to me -- it is simply implicit in a "romantic" (or partnership) relationship that there is an intention of mutual care in a context of mutuality. This spirit of mutual care, to me, is the essence or these kinds of relationship. So the word "entitles" (entitlement) feels out of place in this context. One would not want to talk about such things in terms of entitlement, obligation -- because these are expectational or demanding types of attitudes, and healthy partnership relationships don't fundamentally rest in some sort of exchange economy of demands, expectations, obligations.... Rather, they rest in giving and gift (I don't even want to say "gift economy" because that would assume an exchange context).

In healthy partnerships / romantic relationships... the parties involved are seeking to look out for the needs of both parties, with neither person's needs trumping the other. Negotiations happen, sure, but they are not like the negotiations of the marketplace, or capitalism. No one is trying to get the better end of the deal. And, yes, both parties ask for what they want and need while recognizing the human limitations which are present -- so no one becomes overly drained by "labour" of any kind. An analogy that pops in mind at the moment is a delicate and sensitive contact improv dance? In contact improv there is very often a lot of mutual weight sharing. Do you know the form? It's quite beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4wUEiHowSU

There's an interesting paradox involved in healthy "romantic" relationships, I think. When the situation is healthy each person behaves as a whole while also recognizing that the combination of parties form yet another whole. The intent is to enrich the whole by the act of mutuality -- which involves a great deal of giving and receiving (as contrasted with taking or exchange).
 
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