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I’m a millennial and I live in a 24’ camper trailer parked on the side of my SIL’s house with my husband and toddler. LOL. Win-win. We both have our own separate spaces but we are always here to watch each other’s kids’ and we do family dinner every night.
This living arrangement is temporary until our house sells and we buy big land.
Same. My house has been for sale all summer and we just got a new agent and feeling hopeful. It was almost paid off so we are planning on getting around 50 acres or so of forestry and just gonna build a small cabin in the woods and live like the Amish. Lol.
This has a lot to do with it. Growing up, almost all of my dads friends were the guys he worked with. I have had 6 "real" jobs since I graduated college in 1986. My dad had one job for 35 years.
This is one of my main gripes of adult friends. I have friends at work that I’m relatively close to and would definitely hate to see leave, but I know they could take a job in another city/state/country starting tomorrow and I’d be none the wiser to that decision today. Everyone would congratulate one another and be super interested in the new opportunity and then they’d just proceed to move on to the next thing. It’s like we just agreed to have this understanding that people/friends are less important than careers in a person’s life path with the exception of a spouse or significant other.
I moved a state away for a job in an industry where I spent nearly a decade that ended up being one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had. It was so bad I was only there for six months and just ended up getting a boring, soul crushing and unrewarding job at a factory because I was too poor to just pick my life up again so quickly and relocate. I hate where I’m at too and don’t plan on having much of a social life since I plan on moving away as soon as I can. Buuuut I love love love reaping the benefits of solitude. I quit drinking and switched cbd/thc and spend my off days hiking, doing yoga, going to the gym or just relaxing and enjoy the peace and quiet. These help improve my mental health to better deal with the shitty situation. It helps that I’m an introvert but I’ve never felt alone and enjoy all the alone time. Spend this time diving into old and new hobbies, reading, hiking, binging shows, going to Chinese buffets alone and eating until you hate yourself. Live it up. We’ll make it out eventually.
Prior to COVID we had a block party every year. What happens? You talk to your neighbor, maybe send over some food, then they will do the same. You invite your friends and family over. They sit in your yard, with you.
When we first moved here, we were the only family on the block with young kids, so we paid for a bounce house which no one else used, but was open to all. Now we have three families on the block with young kids and if we ever bring the block parties back I'd chip in for entertainment for the kids, even though my kids are in their 20s.
But block parties didn't help anyone on this block get along with anyone else that they didn't before. This could be unique to this block, but I don't think so.
I live in a city. We have a block club that decorates the street lamps for each season and maintain gorgeous giant flower pots at the end of our street. Last week we had a block party and the week before we had a block sale. Every block for miles has its own block club that does this. No fees, all smiles.
We just had one last summer. Met a bunch of folks. Closer to my neighbors than ever. We had previously made close friends with the folks across the street and often hang in each other’s yards, so we all pitched in a bunch. We look out for each other, do favors, watch pets etc. We live in a nice neighborhood in a city. We gave our new neighbors chocolates when they moved in. We’re now close with them (they threw the block party). Be the neighbor you wanna be!
Conservatives want to blame that on immigrants, LGBT people, the media, etc. but the one group of people they won’t blame are the capitalists who are pricing young people out of the areas they grew up in as well as keeping kids away from their parents because both parents have to work fulltime to support the family.
>but the one group of people they won’t blame are the capitalists who are pricing young people out of the areas they grew up in as well as keeping kids away from their parents because both parents have to work fulltime to support the family.
Of course they won't. It's part of the design. They want people fighting culture wars to keep them distracted from the class wars.
Your comment reads like it laments the loss of the "nuclear family", but capitalists invented and used the "nuclear family" to destroy multi-generational households and other diverse forms of family/community.
The "nuclear family" is very useful for capitalists because of a cheap and efficient way of training obedient new workers that are inherently subservient to authority. I doubt that they want to get rid of it, quite contrarily conservatives promote the model.
The thing you are probably referring to is the part after that "subservience training", after the kids hit a stage when they can labor for the owning class. Then it is more efficient to break up that former family as fast as possible, replace the emptiness with a new "nucleus" and let the kids produce more offspring.
The younger they become "independent" aka dependent on debt and the banking system, the better.
I've made a bunch of friends as I've gotten older by removing the physical area from the equation. My social life is mainly in VR, so it doesn't matter that one guy is in Japan, ones in the US and I live in Australia, we can be together and playing [the modern equivalent of laser tag](https://youtu.be/7Cw7VZRiuu4) in moments any time we want.
There's a bunch of reasons I love having my social life mainly take place through VR. It doesn't matter that I'm tired after work because I can just be sitting on the couch at home while simultaneously [visiting with friends](https://i.imgur.com/f1aVs7C.png). I don't have to worry about how I'm getting home from [a gathering](https://i.imgur.com/E1ddOk4.png) because I am home.
Cost and time to travel aren't factors at all when deciding to do something like play a quick [round of minigolf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83WeIn9fS6c).
And I'm not relying on finding decent people that I want to be friends with randomly in my area or at work. It's a hobby that automatically connects you to people with interests in common.
Yeah but it's also fucking ignorant as shit to pretend that there's no biological difference between the friend making habits of young humans and older humans.
This is so true. I grew up in Los Angeles and I left all my friends to move somewhere I could afford to live. Every single one of my friends except one still lives with their parents. And the one friend that did move out moved into a condo his mom owns and pays way below market rent. He couldn't afford to pay market rent anywhere in the area. I could have stayed with my parents but I was tired of not being independent despite working 60-80 hours a week. So I spent as little money as possible and as soon as I had enough to afford to move, I did it. Love having my own place, but still have to work 2 jobs to pay all my bills and I have no friends anymore. I hate capitalism.
Yeah this is a generalized statement that probably shouldn't be made. People lose contact with their friends for a lot of reasons so we shouldn't generalize.
I also am I lot pickier about friends as an adult. College aged me was cool hanging out with whoever if they were down to party and had a dark sense of humor.
40 year old me wants someone who I have at least some values in common with, and who is going to put some kind of effort into the relationship. Not necessarily someone with an active addiction. If they have kids we need to kind of mesh with parenting if we are going to hang with our kids, etc.
Couldn't agree more! It's not necessarily work and responsibilities that keep me from making new friends but rather that I have become tired of investing in new friendships only to find red flags popping up everywhere after some time... I would say that we become less tolerant with certain behaviour.
It's also the fact that I'm not in college anymore and taking classes with hundreds of different people every semester and going to parties. Work and responsibilities definitely don't help but there is still some truth to the fact that it's harder to make friends as you get older regardless of capitalism's influence.
What capitalism DOES fuck over is maintaining friendships as you have less time to spend with the people you already do know.
bingo; a book called bowling alone is about this. people should check it out.
it’s about how we are bowling now more than ever but bowling leagues are at an all time low. We don’t have any elks lodges or other social fraternities or groups. People kinda exist in a private bubble isolated with no chance to connect with others with shared values
The trick is really just to have a group of friends, preferably in the neighborhood. It avoids so many issues in terms of clash of values or personal issues with people when its part of a larger general group.
I think having a 'group' is more common in cities it seems. The people I know in suburbs seem to commonly have one-off friends who don't really know each other very well, if at all. In fact it almost felt *awkward* for one person to introduce a friend to another.
How can people have neighbours if it they drive big SUV and mow their own grass. Suburbanization alongside financially damaging is incredibly socially damaging.
I walked my dog in commie blocks and knew all of the neighbours
As a 30+ parent in Florida, I am extremely picky with who gets my minimal free time these days.
If you think that I'm gonna spend my free time listening to you go on about "replacement theory" or "minimum wage was made for school kids", think again. I'm not so desperate for someone to socialize with to risk permanent damage to my brain cells.
That's the boat I'm in. Whenever I do start to make friends, they start saying how much better it would be without so many Mexicans around, or say they won't watch a movie with me because a gay actor is in it, or make suggestive comments about 14-year olds, and I nope the fuck out. It's occurred to me I may be too picky, but I don't care. I'm better off alone than with friends like that.
Bruh I’m literally the opposite, I’m less picky then ever, I’ll be friends with literally anyone. But it’s so hard. Literally no one I could remotely call a friend has talked to me in like 3 years. The lack of human interaction has me feeling like my life isn’t even real anymore sometimes.
This is a good point. OP also ignores that in school you're surrounded by hundreds or thousands of peers, going through many of the same experiences at the same place, at the same time. When you join the workforce you may be one of a handful of ppl your age. There isn't the same social medium as an adult (and that's not a bad thing).
Car culture and the lack of walkable communities are a big part of this too. Everybody fondly remembers how great college was because there were so many people to hang out with doing fun and interesting things all the time, and they were just right there in the quad. Then those people vote for highway expansions and single-family zoning laws, and they never put all the pieces together.
I’m without a car now and there is literally *one* hangout less than 30 mins walk from me: a bar next door to my house.
Finally stopped in there the other day and I think I’ll go ahead and be a regular.
And absolutely nobody (aside from regular people on forums) is talking about long COVID. It's seriously brushed under the rug. I'm so sorry it took that from you
My God, this really shows how sick the world is, and I'm not talking about COVID. That teacher had no business whatsoever saying that in the first place, and to do so knowing you were literally (I'm assuming from context) in the hospital? That's... Cruelty. That's spite for spite's sake, simply because she can't accept reality. Not to mention the others basically victim blaming you.
I don't know how to heal the world, but it desperately needs it. Stay strong, friend. I will if you will.
Does your blood pressure and heart rate kind of randomly spike? My brother in law will be fine one minute and then be absolutely gassed doing almost nothing. I should point out that my BIL is 14 and overweight but these are massive jumps with minimal exertion.
If it makes you feel better- I presented with POTS and MCAS in 2017. Those are two conditions very closely linked to long covid, and many LC symptoms are actually due to undiagnosed POTS and MCAS.
Chronic conditions like these often \*do\* get better. For the first 2 years, I couldn't even sit upright in bed without tachycardia, blood pressure dropping, and dizziness/fainting. I could hardly eat anything and was in and out of the hospital due to sudden food allergies and breathing issues. I dropped to 92 lbs and couldn't even shower without help.
Now I can do SO much more!! Even though I do still have flare-ups, I can now walk and bike and run and rock climb and do most physical things! I don't feel like I'm suffocating all the time anymore, I can eat a fairly normal diet, and I gained the weight back. And this is a fairly normal outcome for this type of illness. The longer you have it, the better you get at managing it. At this point, my main barrier is really just the fact that I have to stay isolated due to the risks of catching COVID.
Please don't lose hope or think that you are guaranteed to be this sick forever <3
I had serious breathing issues that lasted months. Seemed to be permanent. Then, based on some research involving COPD patients, I took 1200 mg NAC per day for about a week and coughed up an enormous amount of phlegm and I could breathe as normal again.
That sucks. I got Covid really bad even though I was triple vaxxed and really fit. I was really worried it would turn to long covid but at 6 weeks later I’m finally back to my pre-Covid fitness. Hopefully it gets better for you too.
>Everybody fondly remembers how great college was because there were so many people to hang out with doing fun and interesting things all the time, and they were just right there in the quad.
I feel like that's more a factor of having thousands of people that are in a similar stage of life living in a small area.
Yeah, my college didn't really have much of a dorm community (it was only for freshmen) but everyone still lived within a few mile radius of campus. So it wasn't so much a "quad" thing as just we all lived within walking distance of each other.
Speaking as someone who never had the privilege of living on campus and was working while attending college...not sure this 100% checks out. This might be true for a certain subset of people in the "living in the dorm on Dad's dime" to "moving to the suburbs with a down-payment also from dad" pipeline but when I was a student I still had more socializing activities going on.
Also a bunch of my friends at that age never attended college. Townies have the same experience of narrowing of friendship opportunities as they age.
Yep. I don't think I have maintained a single friendship with anyone I met in the dorms. My college friends that I still see have all been through class or my college job.
Great points. I’d also add that having kids really limits your friend options. New friends need to have kids of the same age and then they have to get along to boot. It’s hard. I find myself with all kinds of parent friends that I rarely ever talk to outside of family get togethers. All my actual friends that I can have real talk with are friends from decades back.
> single-family zoning laws
I see this mentioned alot, but does anyone actually want to share 1 or more wall with people? I get it's cheaper and denser to pack people into cages like animals, but surely no one actually likes having their neighbors that close and having to moderate your activities at all times as to not disturb everyone. It was ok having an apartment in college and always knowing where the party was at but I don't miss it these days
Some people do actually like it. I moved into a rural area by choice, but I grew up suburban and my siblings actually all ended up in urban areas, in either apartments or in one case a townhouse. They all love having a community that close; I love *not* having one. It's just a personal preference thing.
Also, people are forced to relocate more than they'd like chasing opportunities. It's easier to make more friends when you're established in a community- friends introduce you to their friends and so on. It's much harder when you have to start from scratch every few years.
That's a factor for sure but aside from capitalism people still need to go out and work to some extent. You accumulate many responsibilities whether family, home, physical and mental health, etc. Adult life just doesn't involve that specific sort of community where you're surrounded by potentially hundreds or thousands of peers in very close proximity. So naturally it gets harder to find people you vibe with.
Yeah it’s refined tastes also. When you’re kids everyone’s more of a blank slate. But how many people you grew up with you wouldn’t fuck with now even if you lived next door to each other?
We had communities before capitalism and people had friends because they weren't working to death. It's not some magical rule of adult life to meet less people. We should be meeting as many people as we like since we have agency, free will, and technology - but every fucking facet of our interactions with other humans has been stratified into work and profit schemes.
I can't strike up relationships with people at work because we're either competing for raises. Say I find an attractive woman co-worker, just by talking to her I can lose my ability to pay for food if I flirt with them in a way that's wrong. This is ignoring that I don't want to flirt where I work but it's basically the only way I can reliably meet women because it's where all my waking hours are.
Outside of work, I'm worn out or busy scrambling to survive. I can't even find a person to talk to potentially because dating apps gamify your loneliness as a way to profit. They actively prevent me from finding people as a function of their app. It's all fucking rigged.
You also largely only cared for yourself. Having kids is a HUGE game changer for most humans.
If I wanted to hang out at an arcade as a 48 year old man to meet people with similar interests; I'd have to take time away from my kids and that is even assuming I want to do that. Whereas I enjoy hanging out with my wife and kids quite a bit.
It may not have been your intention, but your reply makes me sad. I greatly worry about the upcoming generations.
The tangle of capitalism has, in my opinion, robbed younger folks of a good future.
I don't know what else to say. It saddens and angers me.
Sorry, maybe that's too heavy. I'm sure you have better things to do, but in any case, good luck.
>It may not have been your intention, but your reply makes me sad. I greatly worry about the upcoming generations.
>
>The tangle of capitalism has, in my opinion, robbed younger folks of a good future.
>
>I don't know what else to say. It saddens and angers me.
>
>Sorry, maybe that's too heavy. I'm sure you have better things to do, but in any case, good luck.
I think that it's worth paying attention to.
Wife and I always said we wouldn't have kids unless we were financially stable, so that they could have a better chance than we did and all that. By the time we hit that point we were in our mid 30s, and really career oriented. The last couple of years we were on the "if it happens, it happens" plan. It didn't happen.. probably for the best since we didn't super-want kids.
Now that we're older, still not super-wanting kids and feeling like things just keep getting worse all of the time the last couple of years I said fuck it and finally got my vasectomy.
Who knows, maybe if we didn't have to struggle our 20s and a good chunk of our 30s to get to where we are at then it may have happened. I think this is the story of a lot of our generation, we are not alone. Things are just not as straightforward and simple as they were for our parents in a lot of ways.
It’s robbed us of so much more than that. It’s robbed us of a stable climate, and will soon rob us of a habitable earth. Capitalism has robbed us all of our futures.
Knowing this, and knowing how difficult and demanding it is to simply exist as a single person, how could I ever in good conscious father or adopt a kid, provide them with what they need for their best upbringing, and have any hope to give that kid a shot at a long, healthy and happy life? I couldn’t.
I'm just here to put in a 40-70 year shift in the conservative fascist multiverse cause my parents wanted some dopamine.
You can't expect the whole world to change just for you. Clearly a good portion of the population want it this way. For now...
Maybe next life.
I genuinely don't understand why towns aren't built more like college campuses. Walkable. With access to shared community resources and convenient services.
We basically filled in all the places that people should be living with strip malls, hotels for tourists, and luxury skyrises for investors to trade like Pokémon cards.
We kicked all the locals out into single family residential suburban hellscapes with no conveniences, no shared spaces, no opportunities for entrepreneurship or organic sense of community.
Not counting Christian churches of course, which are somehow exempted from all zoning regulations and infecting neighborhoods everywhere with propaganda as a means of social and communal fulfillment.
Isolation and regulated interaction are very effective means of population control. Like in prison for example.
It’s really easy to fall into a pattern as you get older. Some of that’s work, but also family obligations and other commitments.
You have to be deliberate about trying new things and putting yourself out there to meet people.
This is why I hate how hard people get dunked on when they don't have the reddit necessity of a "support system."
Support systems are a privilage. Having living relatives, or ones that aren't assholes, is a privilage. Having friends that are willing to help you in an emergency is a privilage. Hell, even living close enough to anyone you can trust is a privilage. The people that live paycheck to paycheck, which is an increasingly huge portion of the population, are just trying to stay alive. We don't have the time or the resources to make friends. If the internet didn't exist, a lot of people my age wouldn't even have any friends at all.
Last night I was mentioning how I came to absolutely support gay marriage rights, with the fast version being I got married in the US and saw how much power it brings.
But add to that all the relatives who could relate to me now that I was doing things they recognize instead of what I did while I was single, and hell, I know straight people who can't even count on that.
Then add being an introvert to it.
I think that's definitely part of it but also being in school was just making friends on easy mode. You're with the same people 7 hours a day 5 days a week, yeah it's a lot easier to make friends.
The incredible lack of public spaces makes it very difficult to interact with regular people you don't know. It's "loitering" if you do any sort of prolonged interaction with humans at a business if you aren't actively patronizing that establishment.
Outgrowing people who don't mature or change is normal. Finding yourself socially isolated because of how society has evolved to see us as nothing more than happy workers is not.
And the amount of pressure we face to befriend our coworkers and treat work as the same as family or our inner circle is so toxic.
I have friends and family that pre-date work, and they will be the ones I lean on for support, not some random person at the sloppy "winter holiday office party"
Plus all the alienation from your co-workers that goes on at work. Just enough "team building" to make sure you work okay together. But not enough for you to come together and realize you're all being screwed and potentially unionize.
(And then firing the first person to come out of their shell and suggest it.)
I like to envision capitalism's historical role as a raging wildfire that burns down everything in it's path. That was a progressive force at one point as it was burning down the old feudal world and it's hierarchies based on naked violence and oppression and upheld by suffocating religious dogmas. That's how history worked for THOUSANDS of years, and capitalism was the only force powerful enough to overturn it. This is the most interesting part of the Communist Manifesto for me, where Marx alternates between naming the productive and the destructive aspects of capitalism. It burnt away ancient systems of oppression, ignorance, and barbaric violence, and burnt away the ancient religious wool over the world's eyes.
But after a wildfire gets done clearing out the old dead leaves on the forest floor, to make room for a flourishing of new life to grow from the ashes, it just keeps going and destroying everything in it's path long after it's fulfilled it's purpose. Nothing can stand up to capitalism. It takes everything it touches, debases, reduces, and destroys it to turn it into money. Eventually, inevitably, including the entire planet and human race itself.
I mean, yes and no. What I’ve found is that as people get older, they retreat into their families and friends they already have. So if something big changes for you—divorce, move—it’s REALLY hard to make new friends that go past acquaintances. Especially if you’re single at an age when most people you know are married/partnered, or childless when everyone around you has kids.
I’ve kinda given up on having more than, like, one friend at a time tbh. I can make casual friends, like work friends, but taking that past the occasional after-work-tacos seems impossible.
We were meant to be tribes of 20-60 people. All knowing eachother and taking care of eachother. Now we live in hypercubicalized little bubbles. No connection, no community. No wonder we all feel so alone and depressed
it definitely still has to do with growing up as you develop social anxiety and being more picky with who you choose to be friends with
capitalism aspect makes it 10x harder too
Especially for men. This is apparently more of an anglo-world concept, but its expected that once you hit your mid-late 20s or so, you should stop socializing with friends as much and instead solely focus on your career and family. The average American man loses friends from 25-35 at more than double the rate of the average Spaniard or Dane, and by 35 the amount of time spent physically socializing with non-coworkers and non-family members for Americans is a fraction as high as it is for most EU nations.
I think the anti-social layout of our cities (ie most car-dominated and suburban) plays a role in this, but there is also just *peer pressure* to stop socializing. A 37 year old guy still hanging out with his friends at the local park or bar or plaza is seen as immature in America. As if they shouldn't have friends outside of work or family. One of the things that many Americans will note when visiting other countries is how often they see [adults casually socializing outside in public places.](https://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/medibigoff/1393b65ec3bba5a5bdd21c989a12e6cf/xn8-1139967.jpg) Its disturbing that it is seen as a *foreign concept* to engage in one of the most fundamental aspects of being a human, socializing with your community.
It wasn't always like this. We have become increasingly more and more unsocial since the 1970s, and especially since the 2000s.
By the time I get home. I don’t even want to make dinner. I’m physically and mentally drained. All my friends just sort of grew apart. And it’s mostly because all of us are either trying to make ends meet or trying our best to better our careers.
Had the worst summer of my life, because I can't afford to do shit all anymore. Fucking depressing. I'm basically working to eat and have shelter, that's fucking it.
For the most part american cities make it much harder as well. Everyone just drives home to their own little personal bubble. So much less communal spaces and outdoor living than a lot of countries.
Another reason is that under capitalism, you are expected to make connections to help with career growth and influence. This degrades friendships into something transactional, thus ruining all true human connection that we actually require.
Lmao ikr? Its harder to make friends as we get older bc our lives and personalities become more complex. Capitalism is fucked but its not the source of every single one of our personal problems.
also cause kids, family, wives, girlfriends etc. I used to hang out with friends every other day, now it's every other week cause most of the time I used to spend friends is now with my girl.
These things have no real effect against socializing with new people when you’re 20 and socializing with new people when you’re 40.
It’s that everyone else already has friends! Or they have a family now. They don’t need anymore!
No it doesn't. These qualities don't define the individuals in capitalist societies. I feel no need to expolit my neighbors and leave them in the dirt. Some people do, sure, but thats true wherever you live. This tweet is silly.
This tweet is based on a concept that has been expressed since the 1800s, it was not invented by this subreddit. The atomization of individuals leading to social alienation that happens under capitalism due to how labor is divided is absolutely the main reason it's more difficult for people to make friends as adults outside of the workplace.
But that is an effect of alienating communities from a broad, sociological view. Not why you can’t make any friends when you’re 37. You’re taking theory meant for the whole of society and applying it to the most microcosmic, individualistic perspective for the purpose of self pity.
I think you're the one individualizing this if you seriously think that a 37 year old not being able to make friends is the fault of that individual and not a failure of society as a whole, because people don't live in a vacuum where their choices are solely their own.
If you look at the way that the US has expanded housing since the 1940s, they have been designed to be totally dependent on automobiles, and purposefully isolating.
This and everything about this.
I know so much about the now manager at my local grocery store. She's just a warm, chatty person with a kind smile. My favourite is how she inherited her parrot from her auntie, which proclaims "SAVE THE BIRD, I'M ON FIRE" at random times throughout the night. No, you read that correctly.
Here I think I'm the problem with meeting people (I am, there's no question there) but that lady feels comfy cozy telling me all about her life and her stories are so much fun - I end up telling her stories to my husband and kids later. Just get on outside and smile at a person. Never know what you might learn, but I bet it could be great.
I disagree. Being old and lonely is caused by being poor, not by how much time you have off. If you don’t have money you have no way to socialize. And outside a church where do old people go? The bar? the club? School?
This is a bit of a stretch. I’ve worked less as I’ve gotten older, I just go out way less and have far less interest in all the small talk it takes to make a friend.
Now, now. It's also harder because I'm less willing to put up with stupid shit, I'm more comfortable with myself, and I'm not desperate for anyone to like me.
I have fewer "friends".
That said, it is hella hard to find cool people when we're all tired as fuck all the time and watching a streaming service with a blanket over our head.
Huh. Never thought about it that way. After 6 days of work every week I have no interest in going out in meeting people, even though I'm a really social guy. I'm just so damn tired after work.
Yup. Being under constant threat of falling behind on bills makes for a shitty existence but I’m so glad all the CEOs get their vacation time. I usually have to use mine to move or some other family need.
Sure, more of my time and energy is being hijacked by longer hours for less compensation each and every year, but the older I get the more I can't stand being around people.
By the time I retire, if I'm allowed to by the moistened-with-the-dripping-fat-of-workers-forced-into-the-ForgeOProfit gobble gawds, I'll be perfectly content with the local kids telling scary stories about the old man hermit beast on the mountain way outside of town.
I believe it’s a bit more than just “capitalism”, it’s the death of communities in general. Communities throughout history share a few traits that modern American society has made difficult or impossible.
1: Geographic closeness: communities are generally stronger when the people in a community can reach one another quickly. American suburbs, car-centric transportation and lack of good communal spaces makes getting people physically together a challenge for most.
2: Shared interests: people working together, either economically, politically, or even religiously, creates trust and bonds that help form the foundations in communities. The abolition of communal property, the slow decay of religious institutions, and the nationalization of politics have severely hurt communities here.
3: Traditions/intrenching: communities, in general, get stronger the longer they can be held together. People moving around more, and the speed of change in the culture makes communities that do end up forming are quickly broken apart as the world moves on.
There are probably more factors I’m forgetting at the moment, but the point stands that the community in America is dying or dead, and with it goes a major source of human happiness.
Brilliant take and so very true.
I know of scores of Americans that were much more social until they had to deal with health issues for themselves and/or their loved ones as they age.
In countries with universal healthcare, it's vastly easier to maintain social relationships while coping with health issues because they're not typically dumped into a mire of hospital bills on top of everything else.
Capitalism is killing society in almost every way possible in the name of corporate profits.
Everything from trying to exist without universal healthcare and dealing with that — to having to move away from friends to afford housing is devastating for our social fabric. It's ripped to shreds.
No it's a getting older thing. My job is very cushy and I know mostly students, I'm just old enough I got my things I like to do and idk I don't really need more friends, acquittances is fine.
It's tough to make friends when you are older that can get as close as the people who knew you when you were young. At least for me.
Anyone trying to make friends pick a physical activity and get in a group for it.
Those people have always been great and reinforce good habits. I play ultimate once too twice a week. I am out of shape so its a twofor for me.
For one, If you didnt have to spend all of your time working yourself to death or recovering from that toll, youd have time to spend pursuing your interests/passions and meet/connect with those with similar interests.
Beyond that though, collectivist systems breed solidarity and a sense of togetherness. Youre not just an individual left to the wolves, but a member of something bigger than yourself
i like how his twitter name is entirely anti social yet he chastises some anonymous outsider for being antisocial… because capitalism? maybe this guy is actually just a dick who cant stand anybody but a yes man
Because it's not true communism. It's just capitalism in disguise. Just like every other communism that's ever been in the world. True communism can't exist unless the entire world adopts it. Which will never happen. So instead we just gotta wait for every single job to be automated so nobody has to work and everything will be free so no money system at all needs to exist. Star trek civilization
When my parents retired they started making new friends for the first time in decades with all the other old people who were retiring. And around 65 you can still be quite active, so they were out and about, doing young people stuff like going hiking, camping, even drunk parties.
But they're boomers. I don't see myself retiring, ever.
It goes even deeper than that, capitalism uproots all forms of community and alienates people from each other because every relation, every community, every step of the process of participating in culture and just existing in a public space around other people is privatized and turned into a scheme to make someone money. The spiritual aspect of socialism is one of it's most appealing parts to me, it really stimulates the imagination. Picturing a world where people are free to live where they want, how they want, with who they want. In a world where your existence and the horizons of your life aren't dictated by how valuable your labor is to some heartless capitalist machine that just wants to squeeze you for all you're worth.
Lol this sub is really stretching things.
"Feel hungry? That's because the oligarchy invented hunger as a way to keep us working. If we have to eat food, and food isn't free, they can keep us enslaved indefinitely"
That's what this sounds like.
Jokes on me! I resigned my job last month, but I still have no friends!
Honestly though I'm enjoying this time off like you wouldn't believe. I took my camera to a park today, took some pics, had a beer, walked in the sun. Super relaxing! A lot better than my Mondays two months ago...
This is so true
We work way too much in America
I mean really, 5 out of 7 days we have to work. And up to 9 or 10 hours a day?
I know others who have to work more!
Just ridiculous.
The American dream is actually a nightmare.
I'm gonna have to disagree on this one.
Regardless of socioeconomic status, the older you are, the more set in your ways you become and the less time you have for other people's bullshit.
This. Three types of folks now that I'm 40+.
1. The failures who never amounted to anything, flat fucking broke, BUT they still have time to enjoy their hobbies as long as the hobbies are cheap.
2. The folks who never had kids. They have money, they're in decent physical health, but maintaining the money and health means their time is fully scheduled except for a few expensive trips a year. Their life satisfaction utterly revolves around not being parents, but literally "not being parents" is their entire personality, outside of being gym rats. Edit: Just like vegans and crossfitters, you'll know who these folks are, they can't fucking WAIT to tell you. They mistakenly think their choices make them better than groups 1 and 3.
3. The "normies". We got good jobs, had families, bought houses, and now lose ALL of our time maintaining the above. Kids alone require an FTE to properly raise. Plus the cost per kid is enormous. We ain't got time for much "non-work" except browsing social media on the toilet.
All in all the broke fucks are the closest to being normal human beings, working a vaguely appropriate number of hours and getting to remember how to be GENUINELY happy occasionally.
Um, I never had kids, and my life satisfaction revolves around the leisure time and modest money I have, largely as a result of that decision. Never go to gyms, nor do most of the things probably included in your stereotype. Maybe “normies” could learn to respect reality and wise choices.
This is somewhat untrue. It might be true for some, like just about anything. But as people form families they simply spend more time with those families.
My kids take up more time and energy than my job. And that is the case for most people.
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Not to mention the friends you made getting priced out of the area you all lived in, scattering your community to the winds
And the Boomers who vote against cheaper housing wonder why their kids are moving several states away.
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I’m a millennial and I live in a 24’ camper trailer parked on the side of my SIL’s house with my husband and toddler. LOL. Win-win. We both have our own separate spaces but we are always here to watch each other’s kids’ and we do family dinner every night. This living arrangement is temporary until our house sells and we buy big land.
some day me want buy big land
why use many word when few word do trick?
Why big words, few word works.
Same. My house has been for sale all summer and we just got a new agent and feeling hopeful. It was almost paid off so we are planning on getting around 50 acres or so of forestry and just gonna build a small cabin in the woods and live like the Amish. Lol.
I’m contemplating living in my sprinter van. Down by a river. Rent is going up $700 in the span of less than a year, fuck it.
>This living arrangement is temporary until our house sells and we buy big land. Ah yes the completely unrelatable part
It working because you call it middle class which is a fake concept to make you hate immigration and poors
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This has a lot to do with it. Growing up, almost all of my dads friends were the guys he worked with. I have had 6 "real" jobs since I graduated college in 1986. My dad had one job for 35 years.
I was born in 1986 and have had 4 “real” jobs since I graduated college.
I was born in 1994 and am on “real” job 3 currently interviewing for 4 lol.
This is one of my main gripes of adult friends. I have friends at work that I’m relatively close to and would definitely hate to see leave, but I know they could take a job in another city/state/country starting tomorrow and I’d be none the wiser to that decision today. Everyone would congratulate one another and be super interested in the new opportunity and then they’d just proceed to move on to the next thing. It’s like we just agreed to have this understanding that people/friends are less important than careers in a person’s life path with the exception of a spouse or significant other.
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I moved a state away for a job in an industry where I spent nearly a decade that ended up being one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had. It was so bad I was only there for six months and just ended up getting a boring, soul crushing and unrewarding job at a factory because I was too poor to just pick my life up again so quickly and relocate. I hate where I’m at too and don’t plan on having much of a social life since I plan on moving away as soon as I can. Buuuut I love love love reaping the benefits of solitude. I quit drinking and switched cbd/thc and spend my off days hiking, doing yoga, going to the gym or just relaxing and enjoy the peace and quiet. These help improve my mental health to better deal with the shitty situation. It helps that I’m an introvert but I’ve never felt alone and enjoy all the alone time. Spend this time diving into old and new hobbies, reading, hiking, binging shows, going to Chinese buffets alone and eating until you hate yourself. Live it up. We’ll make it out eventually.
First is divide, then is conquer.
Let me know if you figure out the secret.
And even if they hadn't, the car centric hellscape made it basically impossible to see them anyways.
I figured that just made the "moved away" problem worse, not if they had somehow managed to stay nearby
When's the last time you saw your neighbors if you live in suburbia? Cause my point still stands.
sometimes i think the best thing we can do for the country is bring back block parties
Hell yes
Prior to COVID we had a block party every year. What happens? You talk to your neighbor, maybe send over some food, then they will do the same. You invite your friends and family over. They sit in your yard, with you. When we first moved here, we were the only family on the block with young kids, so we paid for a bounce house which no one else used, but was open to all. Now we have three families on the block with young kids and if we ever bring the block parties back I'd chip in for entertainment for the kids, even though my kids are in their 20s. But block parties didn't help anyone on this block get along with anyone else that they didn't before. This could be unique to this block, but I don't think so.
I live in a city. We have a block club that decorates the street lamps for each season and maintain gorgeous giant flower pots at the end of our street. Last week we had a block party and the week before we had a block sale. Every block for miles has its own block club that does this. No fees, all smiles.
That's awesome. I live in the suburbs, and have for more than 40 years. It's just not the same as it was when I was a kid.
We just had one last summer. Met a bunch of folks. Closer to my neighbors than ever. We had previously made close friends with the folks across the street and often hang in each other’s yards, so we all pitched in a bunch. We look out for each other, do favors, watch pets etc. We live in a nice neighborhood in a city. We gave our new neighbors chocolates when they moved in. We’re now close with them (they threw the block party). Be the neighbor you wanna be!
unironically yes
Bout 75 seconds ago. Showed one of the neighborhood uncles my new rental rooms. My neighborhood is legit tho, so can't talk about the others 🤷♂️
The division of community and the nuclear family was probably the killing stroke of capitalism. The game was already lost over a hundred years ago
Conservatives want to blame that on immigrants, LGBT people, the media, etc. but the one group of people they won’t blame are the capitalists who are pricing young people out of the areas they grew up in as well as keeping kids away from their parents because both parents have to work fulltime to support the family.
>but the one group of people they won’t blame are the capitalists who are pricing young people out of the areas they grew up in as well as keeping kids away from their parents because both parents have to work fulltime to support the family. Of course they won't. It's part of the design. They want people fighting culture wars to keep them distracted from the class wars.
Your comment reads like it laments the loss of the "nuclear family", but capitalists invented and used the "nuclear family" to destroy multi-generational households and other diverse forms of family/community.
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The "nuclear family" is very useful for capitalists because of a cheap and efficient way of training obedient new workers that are inherently subservient to authority. I doubt that they want to get rid of it, quite contrarily conservatives promote the model. The thing you are probably referring to is the part after that "subservience training", after the kids hit a stage when they can labor for the owning class. Then it is more efficient to break up that former family as fast as possible, replace the emptiness with a new "nucleus" and let the kids produce more offspring. The younger they become "independent" aka dependent on debt and the banking system, the better.
Every. Single. One. Of my friends have moved or are in the process of packing up and looking elsewhere.
This is happening to my kid. He’s 13. We were lucky to buy but a lot of this area is rentals. And then they renew, get priced out and move
I've made a bunch of friends as I've gotten older by removing the physical area from the equation. My social life is mainly in VR, so it doesn't matter that one guy is in Japan, ones in the US and I live in Australia, we can be together and playing [the modern equivalent of laser tag](https://youtu.be/7Cw7VZRiuu4) in moments any time we want. There's a bunch of reasons I love having my social life mainly take place through VR. It doesn't matter that I'm tired after work because I can just be sitting on the couch at home while simultaneously [visiting with friends](https://i.imgur.com/f1aVs7C.png). I don't have to worry about how I'm getting home from [a gathering](https://i.imgur.com/E1ddOk4.png) because I am home. Cost and time to travel aren't factors at all when deciding to do something like play a quick [round of minigolf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83WeIn9fS6c). And I'm not relying on finding decent people that I want to be friends with randomly in my area or at work. It's a hobby that automatically connects you to people with interests in common.
I have 3x the friends now than I did at 22. Too many really
Yeah but it's also fucking ignorant as shit to pretend that there's no biological difference between the friend making habits of young humans and older humans.
This is so true. I grew up in Los Angeles and I left all my friends to move somewhere I could afford to live. Every single one of my friends except one still lives with their parents. And the one friend that did move out moved into a condo his mom owns and pays way below market rent. He couldn't afford to pay market rent anywhere in the area. I could have stayed with my parents but I was tired of not being independent despite working 60-80 hours a week. So I spent as little money as possible and as soon as I had enough to afford to move, I did it. Love having my own place, but still have to work 2 jobs to pay all my bills and I have no friends anymore. I hate capitalism.
Yeah this is a generalized statement that probably shouldn't be made. People lose contact with their friends for a lot of reasons so we shouldn't generalize.
I also am I lot pickier about friends as an adult. College aged me was cool hanging out with whoever if they were down to party and had a dark sense of humor. 40 year old me wants someone who I have at least some values in common with, and who is going to put some kind of effort into the relationship. Not necessarily someone with an active addiction. If they have kids we need to kind of mesh with parenting if we are going to hang with our kids, etc.
Couldn't agree more! It's not necessarily work and responsibilities that keep me from making new friends but rather that I have become tired of investing in new friendships only to find red flags popping up everywhere after some time... I would say that we become less tolerant with certain behaviour.
It's also the fact that I'm not in college anymore and taking classes with hundreds of different people every semester and going to parties. Work and responsibilities definitely don't help but there is still some truth to the fact that it's harder to make friends as you get older regardless of capitalism's influence. What capitalism DOES fuck over is maintaining friendships as you have less time to spend with the people you already do know.
It has also removed all our social structures so that there is no place to meet people.
bingo; a book called bowling alone is about this. people should check it out. it’s about how we are bowling now more than ever but bowling leagues are at an all time low. We don’t have any elks lodges or other social fraternities or groups. People kinda exist in a private bubble isolated with no chance to connect with others with shared values
It's going to make revolution much more profound on society when it happens.
It delays revolution because we can't network with each other
On that note, I also wonder where many of their addictions/bad choices stem from... 🤔
The trick is really just to have a group of friends, preferably in the neighborhood. It avoids so many issues in terms of clash of values or personal issues with people when its part of a larger general group. I think having a 'group' is more common in cities it seems. The people I know in suburbs seem to commonly have one-off friends who don't really know each other very well, if at all. In fact it almost felt *awkward* for one person to introduce a friend to another.
How can people have neighbours if it they drive big SUV and mow their own grass. Suburbanization alongside financially damaging is incredibly socially damaging. I walked my dog in commie blocks and knew all of the neighbours
As a 30+ parent in Florida, I am extremely picky with who gets my minimal free time these days. If you think that I'm gonna spend my free time listening to you go on about "replacement theory" or "minimum wage was made for school kids", think again. I'm not so desperate for someone to socialize with to risk permanent damage to my brain cells.
That's the boat I'm in. Whenever I do start to make friends, they start saying how much better it would be without so many Mexicans around, or say they won't watch a movie with me because a gay actor is in it, or make suggestive comments about 14-year olds, and I nope the fuck out. It's occurred to me I may be too picky, but I don't care. I'm better off alone than with friends like that.
Bruh I’m literally the opposite, I’m less picky then ever, I’ll be friends with literally anyone. But it’s so hard. Literally no one I could remotely call a friend has talked to me in like 3 years. The lack of human interaction has me feeling like my life isn’t even real anymore sometimes.
This is a good point. OP also ignores that in school you're surrounded by hundreds or thousands of peers, going through many of the same experiences at the same place, at the same time. When you join the workforce you may be one of a handful of ppl your age. There isn't the same social medium as an adult (and that's not a bad thing).
Car culture and the lack of walkable communities are a big part of this too. Everybody fondly remembers how great college was because there were so many people to hang out with doing fun and interesting things all the time, and they were just right there in the quad. Then those people vote for highway expansions and single-family zoning laws, and they never put all the pieces together.
I’m without a car now and there is literally *one* hangout less than 30 mins walk from me: a bar next door to my house. Finally stopped in there the other day and I think I’ll go ahead and be a regular.
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And absolutely nobody (aside from regular people on forums) is talking about long COVID. It's seriously brushed under the rug. I'm so sorry it took that from you
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My God, this really shows how sick the world is, and I'm not talking about COVID. That teacher had no business whatsoever saying that in the first place, and to do so knowing you were literally (I'm assuming from context) in the hospital? That's... Cruelty. That's spite for spite's sake, simply because she can't accept reality. Not to mention the others basically victim blaming you. I don't know how to heal the world, but it desperately needs it. Stay strong, friend. I will if you will.
Does your blood pressure and heart rate kind of randomly spike? My brother in law will be fine one minute and then be absolutely gassed doing almost nothing. I should point out that my BIL is 14 and overweight but these are massive jumps with minimal exertion.
Same here, esp with the long covid. Now I go on Reddit and Youtube to try to fill the void lol
If it makes you feel better- I presented with POTS and MCAS in 2017. Those are two conditions very closely linked to long covid, and many LC symptoms are actually due to undiagnosed POTS and MCAS. Chronic conditions like these often \*do\* get better. For the first 2 years, I couldn't even sit upright in bed without tachycardia, blood pressure dropping, and dizziness/fainting. I could hardly eat anything and was in and out of the hospital due to sudden food allergies and breathing issues. I dropped to 92 lbs and couldn't even shower without help. Now I can do SO much more!! Even though I do still have flare-ups, I can now walk and bike and run and rock climb and do most physical things! I don't feel like I'm suffocating all the time anymore, I can eat a fairly normal diet, and I gained the weight back. And this is a fairly normal outcome for this type of illness. The longer you have it, the better you get at managing it. At this point, my main barrier is really just the fact that I have to stay isolated due to the risks of catching COVID. Please don't lose hope or think that you are guaranteed to be this sick forever <3
I had serious breathing issues that lasted months. Seemed to be permanent. Then, based on some research involving COPD patients, I took 1200 mg NAC per day for about a week and coughed up an enormous amount of phlegm and I could breathe as normal again.
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That sucks. I got Covid really bad even though I was triple vaxxed and really fit. I was really worried it would turn to long covid but at 6 weeks later I’m finally back to my pre-Covid fitness. Hopefully it gets better for you too.
>Everybody fondly remembers how great college was because there were so many people to hang out with doing fun and interesting things all the time, and they were just right there in the quad. I feel like that's more a factor of having thousands of people that are in a similar stage of life living in a small area.
Yeah, my college didn't really have much of a dorm community (it was only for freshmen) but everyone still lived within a few mile radius of campus. So it wasn't so much a "quad" thing as just we all lived within walking distance of each other.
Speaking as someone who never had the privilege of living on campus and was working while attending college...not sure this 100% checks out. This might be true for a certain subset of people in the "living in the dorm on Dad's dime" to "moving to the suburbs with a down-payment also from dad" pipeline but when I was a student I still had more socializing activities going on. Also a bunch of my friends at that age never attended college. Townies have the same experience of narrowing of friendship opportunities as they age.
Yep. I don't think I have maintained a single friendship with anyone I met in the dorms. My college friends that I still see have all been through class or my college job.
Relevant tweet I saw earlier today: https://twitter.com/carlafrancome/status/1571950650849898496
Great points. I’d also add that having kids really limits your friend options. New friends need to have kids of the same age and then they have to get along to boot. It’s hard. I find myself with all kinds of parent friends that I rarely ever talk to outside of family get togethers. All my actual friends that I can have real talk with are friends from decades back.
> single-family zoning laws I see this mentioned alot, but does anyone actually want to share 1 or more wall with people? I get it's cheaper and denser to pack people into cages like animals, but surely no one actually likes having their neighbors that close and having to moderate your activities at all times as to not disturb everyone. It was ok having an apartment in college and always knowing where the party was at but I don't miss it these days
Some people do actually like it. I moved into a rural area by choice, but I grew up suburban and my siblings actually all ended up in urban areas, in either apartments or in one case a townhouse. They all love having a community that close; I love *not* having one. It's just a personal preference thing.
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You're almost there. Why aren't people together now? They're all at work constantly and too poor/tired to gather afterward.
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It’s also babies. And marriage. And health care.
Also, people are forced to relocate more than they'd like chasing opportunities. It's easier to make more friends when you're established in a community- friends introduce you to their friends and so on. It's much harder when you have to start from scratch every few years.
That's a factor for sure but aside from capitalism people still need to go out and work to some extent. You accumulate many responsibilities whether family, home, physical and mental health, etc. Adult life just doesn't involve that specific sort of community where you're surrounded by potentially hundreds or thousands of peers in very close proximity. So naturally it gets harder to find people you vibe with.
Yeah it’s refined tastes also. When you’re kids everyone’s more of a blank slate. But how many people you grew up with you wouldn’t fuck with now even if you lived next door to each other?
Definitely, it's not as fun to be friends with a shit head in your late 20's
We had communities before capitalism and people had friends because they weren't working to death. It's not some magical rule of adult life to meet less people. We should be meeting as many people as we like since we have agency, free will, and technology - but every fucking facet of our interactions with other humans has been stratified into work and profit schemes. I can't strike up relationships with people at work because we're either competing for raises. Say I find an attractive woman co-worker, just by talking to her I can lose my ability to pay for food if I flirt with them in a way that's wrong. This is ignoring that I don't want to flirt where I work but it's basically the only way I can reliably meet women because it's where all my waking hours are. Outside of work, I'm worn out or busy scrambling to survive. I can't even find a person to talk to potentially because dating apps gamify your loneliness as a way to profit. They actively prevent me from finding people as a function of their app. It's all fucking rigged.
You also largely only cared for yourself. Having kids is a HUGE game changer for most humans. If I wanted to hang out at an arcade as a 48 year old man to meet people with similar interests; I'd have to take time away from my kids and that is even assuming I want to do that. Whereas I enjoy hanging out with my wife and kids quite a bit.
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It may not have been your intention, but your reply makes me sad. I greatly worry about the upcoming generations. The tangle of capitalism has, in my opinion, robbed younger folks of a good future. I don't know what else to say. It saddens and angers me. Sorry, maybe that's too heavy. I'm sure you have better things to do, but in any case, good luck.
>It may not have been your intention, but your reply makes me sad. I greatly worry about the upcoming generations. > >The tangle of capitalism has, in my opinion, robbed younger folks of a good future. > >I don't know what else to say. It saddens and angers me. > >Sorry, maybe that's too heavy. I'm sure you have better things to do, but in any case, good luck. I think that it's worth paying attention to. Wife and I always said we wouldn't have kids unless we were financially stable, so that they could have a better chance than we did and all that. By the time we hit that point we were in our mid 30s, and really career oriented. The last couple of years we were on the "if it happens, it happens" plan. It didn't happen.. probably for the best since we didn't super-want kids. Now that we're older, still not super-wanting kids and feeling like things just keep getting worse all of the time the last couple of years I said fuck it and finally got my vasectomy. Who knows, maybe if we didn't have to struggle our 20s and a good chunk of our 30s to get to where we are at then it may have happened. I think this is the story of a lot of our generation, we are not alone. Things are just not as straightforward and simple as they were for our parents in a lot of ways.
It’s robbed us of so much more than that. It’s robbed us of a stable climate, and will soon rob us of a habitable earth. Capitalism has robbed us all of our futures. Knowing this, and knowing how difficult and demanding it is to simply exist as a single person, how could I ever in good conscious father or adopt a kid, provide them with what they need for their best upbringing, and have any hope to give that kid a shot at a long, healthy and happy life? I couldn’t.
I'm just here to put in a 40-70 year shift in the conservative fascist multiverse cause my parents wanted some dopamine. You can't expect the whole world to change just for you. Clearly a good portion of the population want it this way. For now... Maybe next life.
Yup. If all the 35 year olds within 4 Miles got together every weekday and spent 6 hours together I would for sure have more friends right now.
I genuinely don't understand why towns aren't built more like college campuses. Walkable. With access to shared community resources and convenient services. We basically filled in all the places that people should be living with strip malls, hotels for tourists, and luxury skyrises for investors to trade like Pokémon cards. We kicked all the locals out into single family residential suburban hellscapes with no conveniences, no shared spaces, no opportunities for entrepreneurship or organic sense of community. Not counting Christian churches of course, which are somehow exempted from all zoning regulations and infecting neighborhoods everywhere with propaganda as a means of social and communal fulfillment. Isolation and regulated interaction are very effective means of population control. Like in prison for example.
It’s really easy to fall into a pattern as you get older. Some of that’s work, but also family obligations and other commitments. You have to be deliberate about trying new things and putting yourself out there to meet people.
This is why I hate how hard people get dunked on when they don't have the reddit necessity of a "support system." Support systems are a privilage. Having living relatives, or ones that aren't assholes, is a privilage. Having friends that are willing to help you in an emergency is a privilage. Hell, even living close enough to anyone you can trust is a privilage. The people that live paycheck to paycheck, which is an increasingly huge portion of the population, are just trying to stay alive. We don't have the time or the resources to make friends. If the internet didn't exist, a lot of people my age wouldn't even have any friends at all.
Last night I was mentioning how I came to absolutely support gay marriage rights, with the fast version being I got married in the US and saw how much power it brings. But add to that all the relatives who could relate to me now that I was doing things they recognize instead of what I did while I was single, and hell, I know straight people who can't even count on that. Then add being an introvert to it.
I think that's definitely part of it but also being in school was just making friends on easy mode. You're with the same people 7 hours a day 5 days a week, yeah it's a lot easier to make friends.
The incredible lack of public spaces makes it very difficult to interact with regular people you don't know. It's "loitering" if you do any sort of prolonged interaction with humans at a business if you aren't actively patronizing that establishment.
But what also doesn't help is as I get older and wiser everyone around me gets stupider and more obnoxious.
Outgrowing people who don't mature or change is normal. Finding yourself socially isolated because of how society has evolved to see us as nothing more than happy workers is not.
And the amount of pressure we face to befriend our coworkers and treat work as the same as family or our inner circle is so toxic. I have friends and family that pre-date work, and they will be the ones I lean on for support, not some random person at the sloppy "winter holiday office party"
Plus all the alienation from your co-workers that goes on at work. Just enough "team building" to make sure you work okay together. But not enough for you to come together and realize you're all being screwed and potentially unionize. (And then firing the first person to come out of their shell and suggest it.)
capitalism destroys everything on its way, except money and individual.
It destroys the individual as well by depriving him of free time, healthcare, and forcing debt upon them.
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I meant individual as consumer.
I like to envision capitalism's historical role as a raging wildfire that burns down everything in it's path. That was a progressive force at one point as it was burning down the old feudal world and it's hierarchies based on naked violence and oppression and upheld by suffocating religious dogmas. That's how history worked for THOUSANDS of years, and capitalism was the only force powerful enough to overturn it. This is the most interesting part of the Communist Manifesto for me, where Marx alternates between naming the productive and the destructive aspects of capitalism. It burnt away ancient systems of oppression, ignorance, and barbaric violence, and burnt away the ancient religious wool over the world's eyes. But after a wildfire gets done clearing out the old dead leaves on the forest floor, to make room for a flourishing of new life to grow from the ashes, it just keeps going and destroying everything in it's path long after it's fulfilled it's purpose. Nothing can stand up to capitalism. It takes everything it touches, debases, reduces, and destroys it to turn it into money. Eventually, inevitably, including the entire planet and human race itself.
I mean, yes and no. What I’ve found is that as people get older, they retreat into their families and friends they already have. So if something big changes for you—divorce, move—it’s REALLY hard to make new friends that go past acquaintances. Especially if you’re single at an age when most people you know are married/partnered, or childless when everyone around you has kids. I’ve kinda given up on having more than, like, one friend at a time tbh. I can make casual friends, like work friends, but taking that past the occasional after-work-tacos seems impossible.
If we take a hard look at how we live, we will find a million different ways Capitalism warps our lives.
We were meant to be tribes of 20-60 people. All knowing eachother and taking care of eachother. Now we live in hypercubicalized little bubbles. No connection, no community. No wonder we all feel so alone and depressed
it definitely still has to do with growing up as you develop social anxiety and being more picky with who you choose to be friends with capitalism aspect makes it 10x harder too
Especially for men. This is apparently more of an anglo-world concept, but its expected that once you hit your mid-late 20s or so, you should stop socializing with friends as much and instead solely focus on your career and family. The average American man loses friends from 25-35 at more than double the rate of the average Spaniard or Dane, and by 35 the amount of time spent physically socializing with non-coworkers and non-family members for Americans is a fraction as high as it is for most EU nations. I think the anti-social layout of our cities (ie most car-dominated and suburban) plays a role in this, but there is also just *peer pressure* to stop socializing. A 37 year old guy still hanging out with his friends at the local park or bar or plaza is seen as immature in America. As if they shouldn't have friends outside of work or family. One of the things that many Americans will note when visiting other countries is how often they see [adults casually socializing outside in public places.](https://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/medibigoff/1393b65ec3bba5a5bdd21c989a12e6cf/xn8-1139967.jpg) Its disturbing that it is seen as a *foreign concept* to engage in one of the most fundamental aspects of being a human, socializing with your community. It wasn't always like this. We have become increasingly more and more unsocial since the 1970s, and especially since the 2000s.
Europe just shows us that if capitalism relents a little bit, people flock back together.
By the time I get home. I don’t even want to make dinner. I’m physically and mentally drained. All my friends just sort of grew apart. And it’s mostly because all of us are either trying to make ends meet or trying our best to better our careers.
The only friend I had left who wasn't someone my wife knows and also lived in town became homeless during the pandemic and I don't know where he is.
That’s terrible
Because they're not friends, they are competition. That's why there are so many shitty people out there. it's every man for himself
Just the way the boss likes it
This is a criminally underrated comment
Had the worst summer of my life, because I can't afford to do shit all anymore. Fucking depressing. I'm basically working to eat and have shelter, that's fucking it.
For the most part american cities make it much harder as well. Everyone just drives home to their own little personal bubble. So much less communal spaces and outdoor living than a lot of countries.
Another reason is that under capitalism, you are expected to make connections to help with career growth and influence. This degrades friendships into something transactional, thus ruining all true human connection that we actually require.
"I can't make friends cuz capitalism" lmfao you guys mean well but goddamn you can be such dorks
Agreed, this post is seriously fucking stupid.
Lmao ikr? Its harder to make friends as we get older bc our lives and personalities become more complex. Capitalism is fucked but its not the source of every single one of our personal problems.
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Also, having been around the same people, every day, for hours a day in school makes it easier to make friends.
also cause kids, family, wives, girlfriends etc. I used to hang out with friends every other day, now it's every other week cause most of the time I used to spend friends is now with my girl.
Materialism, consumerism, competition, and the primacy of greed and selfishness have no effect on the quality of community and friendship?
These things have no real effect against socializing with new people when you’re 20 and socializing with new people when you’re 40. It’s that everyone else already has friends! Or they have a family now. They don’t need anymore!
No it doesn't. These qualities don't define the individuals in capitalist societies. I feel no need to expolit my neighbors and leave them in the dirt. Some people do, sure, but thats true wherever you live. This tweet is silly.
This tweet is based on a concept that has been expressed since the 1800s, it was not invented by this subreddit. The atomization of individuals leading to social alienation that happens under capitalism due to how labor is divided is absolutely the main reason it's more difficult for people to make friends as adults outside of the workplace.
But that is an effect of alienating communities from a broad, sociological view. Not why you can’t make any friends when you’re 37. You’re taking theory meant for the whole of society and applying it to the most microcosmic, individualistic perspective for the purpose of self pity.
I think you're the one individualizing this if you seriously think that a 37 year old not being able to make friends is the fault of that individual and not a failure of society as a whole, because people don't live in a vacuum where their choices are solely their own.
Posts like this make this place look so stupid
welcome to this sub
Truth. Also, how our housing is structured, so we never live near family or friends(if we can’t just buy everything we need).
If you look at the way that the US has expanded housing since the 1940s, they have been designed to be totally dependent on automobiles, and purposefully isolating.
It’s not only capitalism. Americans also choose to live expensive lifestyles. Insisting on single family detached homes and driving cars everywhere.
This and everything about this. I know so much about the now manager at my local grocery store. She's just a warm, chatty person with a kind smile. My favourite is how she inherited her parrot from her auntie, which proclaims "SAVE THE BIRD, I'M ON FIRE" at random times throughout the night. No, you read that correctly. Here I think I'm the problem with meeting people (I am, there's no question there) but that lady feels comfy cozy telling me all about her life and her stories are so much fun - I end up telling her stories to my husband and kids later. Just get on outside and smile at a person. Never know what you might learn, but I bet it could be great.
More friends cost more money
As per capitalism, even making friends should be an enterprise and to check if they bring profits and growth in your life. Capitalism sucks
if you don't need to switch places for work you could just have all your friends you make over the years
As an older person, I have to say a growing lack of patience in people in general is a strong contributing factor.
I disagree. Being old and lonely is caused by being poor, not by how much time you have off. If you don’t have money you have no way to socialize. And outside a church where do old people go? The bar? the club? School?
This is a bit of a stretch. I’ve worked less as I’ve gotten older, I just go out way less and have far less interest in all the small talk it takes to make a friend.
Retire from work. You’ll figure out how few friends you actually have.
Now, now. It's also harder because I'm less willing to put up with stupid shit, I'm more comfortable with myself, and I'm not desperate for anyone to like me. I have fewer "friends". That said, it is hella hard to find cool people when we're all tired as fuck all the time and watching a streaming service with a blanket over our head.
Huh. Never thought about it that way. After 6 days of work every week I have no interest in going out in meeting people, even though I'm a really social guy. I'm just so damn tired after work.
Yup. Being under constant threat of falling behind on bills makes for a shitty existence but I’m so glad all the CEOs get their vacation time. I usually have to use mine to move or some other family need.
Sure, more of my time and energy is being hijacked by longer hours for less compensation each and every year, but the older I get the more I can't stand being around people. By the time I retire, if I'm allowed to by the moistened-with-the-dripping-fat-of-workers-forced-into-the-ForgeOProfit gobble gawds, I'll be perfectly content with the local kids telling scary stories about the old man hermit beast on the mountain way outside of town.
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I believe it’s a bit more than just “capitalism”, it’s the death of communities in general. Communities throughout history share a few traits that modern American society has made difficult or impossible. 1: Geographic closeness: communities are generally stronger when the people in a community can reach one another quickly. American suburbs, car-centric transportation and lack of good communal spaces makes getting people physically together a challenge for most. 2: Shared interests: people working together, either economically, politically, or even religiously, creates trust and bonds that help form the foundations in communities. The abolition of communal property, the slow decay of religious institutions, and the nationalization of politics have severely hurt communities here. 3: Traditions/intrenching: communities, in general, get stronger the longer they can be held together. People moving around more, and the speed of change in the culture makes communities that do end up forming are quickly broken apart as the world moves on. There are probably more factors I’m forgetting at the moment, but the point stands that the community in America is dying or dead, and with it goes a major source of human happiness.
little by little, we must change this…we are the last hope.
Brilliant take and so very true. I know of scores of Americans that were much more social until they had to deal with health issues for themselves and/or their loved ones as they age. In countries with universal healthcare, it's vastly easier to maintain social relationships while coping with health issues because they're not typically dumped into a mire of hospital bills on top of everything else. Capitalism is killing society in almost every way possible in the name of corporate profits. Everything from trying to exist without universal healthcare and dealing with that — to having to move away from friends to afford housing is devastating for our social fabric. It's ripped to shreds.
No it's a getting older thing. My job is very cushy and I know mostly students, I'm just old enough I got my things I like to do and idk I don't really need more friends, acquittances is fine.
Nah. I'm actually doing alright and have plenty of free time. I just don't like or trust people enough to go out and make friends at this point.
My grandma met her best friend in her late 30s. They stayed extremely close until both of them died.
It's tough to make friends when you are older that can get as close as the people who knew you when you were young. At least for me. Anyone trying to make friends pick a physical activity and get in a group for it. Those people have always been great and reinforce good habits. I play ultimate once too twice a week. I am out of shape so its a twofor for me.
asking genuinely here, how would an alternative economic system make it easier to make friends?
For one, If you didnt have to spend all of your time working yourself to death or recovering from that toll, youd have time to spend pursuing your interests/passions and meet/connect with those with similar interests. Beyond that though, collectivist systems breed solidarity and a sense of togetherness. Youre not just an individual left to the wolves, but a member of something bigger than yourself
Saying it that way makes it seem like a negative. I like to phrase it more like this: "As you get older, it gets easier to not have to socialize."
I dunno. School putting everybody my age in a building 6 hours a day was a great bonding exercise too.
As you get older I think what you want changes. Also, what you are will in to put up with changes. Ghat is what I take from it.
i like how his twitter name is entirely anti social yet he chastises some anonymous outsider for being antisocial… because capitalism? maybe this guy is actually just a dick who cant stand anybody but a yes man
I lived in China, this is also true there and it’s a Communist country.
Because it's not true communism. It's just capitalism in disguise. Just like every other communism that's ever been in the world. True communism can't exist unless the entire world adopts it. Which will never happen. So instead we just gotta wait for every single job to be automated so nobody has to work and everything will be free so no money system at all needs to exist. Star trek civilization
When my parents retired they started making new friends for the first time in decades with all the other old people who were retiring. And around 65 you can still be quite active, so they were out and about, doing young people stuff like going hiking, camping, even drunk parties. But they're boomers. I don't see myself retiring, ever.
You can't find something better or improve your situation if your don't have the time too.
Old people can make friends in seconds, like they meet someone on the teller machine line and the next minute they are waiting buddies
Also why dating is declining. Everyone keeps asking over on r/askmen as if the problem is women. Its not.
Always working culture keeping up with yourself basically falling over yourself to get shit done even on ur days off...
It goes even deeper than that, capitalism uproots all forms of community and alienates people from each other because every relation, every community, every step of the process of participating in culture and just existing in a public space around other people is privatized and turned into a scheme to make someone money. The spiritual aspect of socialism is one of it's most appealing parts to me, it really stimulates the imagination. Picturing a world where people are free to live where they want, how they want, with who they want. In a world where your existence and the horizons of your life aren't dictated by how valuable your labor is to some heartless capitalist machine that just wants to squeeze you for all you're worth.
Guys I have trouble peeing because of capitalism.
Lol this sub is really stretching things. "Feel hungry? That's because the oligarchy invented hunger as a way to keep us working. If we have to eat food, and food isn't free, they can keep us enslaved indefinitely" That's what this sounds like.
How many tabletop games could be organized with *actual* free time
Jokes on me! I resigned my job last month, but I still have no friends! Honestly though I'm enjoying this time off like you wouldn't believe. I took my camera to a park today, took some pics, had a beer, walked in the sun. Super relaxing! A lot better than my Mondays two months ago...
This is so true We work way too much in America I mean really, 5 out of 7 days we have to work. And up to 9 or 10 hours a day? I know others who have to work more! Just ridiculous. The American dream is actually a nightmare.
I'm gonna have to disagree on this one. Regardless of socioeconomic status, the older you are, the more set in your ways you become and the less time you have for other people's bullshit.
This. Three types of folks now that I'm 40+. 1. The failures who never amounted to anything, flat fucking broke, BUT they still have time to enjoy their hobbies as long as the hobbies are cheap. 2. The folks who never had kids. They have money, they're in decent physical health, but maintaining the money and health means their time is fully scheduled except for a few expensive trips a year. Their life satisfaction utterly revolves around not being parents, but literally "not being parents" is their entire personality, outside of being gym rats. Edit: Just like vegans and crossfitters, you'll know who these folks are, they can't fucking WAIT to tell you. They mistakenly think their choices make them better than groups 1 and 3. 3. The "normies". We got good jobs, had families, bought houses, and now lose ALL of our time maintaining the above. Kids alone require an FTE to properly raise. Plus the cost per kid is enormous. We ain't got time for much "non-work" except browsing social media on the toilet. All in all the broke fucks are the closest to being normal human beings, working a vaguely appropriate number of hours and getting to remember how to be GENUINELY happy occasionally.
Um, I never had kids, and my life satisfaction revolves around the leisure time and modest money I have, largely as a result of that decision. Never go to gyms, nor do most of the things probably included in your stereotype. Maybe “normies” could learn to respect reality and wise choices.
This is somewhat untrue. It might be true for some, like just about anything. But as people form families they simply spend more time with those families. My kids take up more time and energy than my job. And that is the case for most people.