> "Researchers also find that when we develop groups, our friendships are more sustainable than they are with individuals. Because there's multiple touch points now, right? Someone else in the group could reach out to all of us, and then we all keep in touch."
This is the most important tip in the article, in my experience.
When I lived in SF, most of my friend hangs were 1-on-1 catchups over coffee or lunch. Scheduling and comparing calendars would sometimes feel like an impersonal chore. Meeting so many people individually was time consuming, repetitive, hard to schedule, and yet somehow infrequent -- it felt like the main reason to hang was to catch up on what's new, so you needed to wait a month or two to let new things pile up.
Then I moved to Seattle. I decided to switch to only really attending (or inviting people to) hangouts that included multiple people. Basically, my new policy was to try to hang out with multiple simultaneously whenever possible. And it worked wonders! My friends met all my other friends, and things played out exactly as described by the article -- some of them hit it off, became friends with each other, and started initiating invites and events without me.
In addition, hangouts are just more fun with more people. There's more to talk about, more excitement, more fun. And it's easier to schedule, too, since you can see more people in a smaller number of hangs. The value of the hangs goes up, too. There's more reason for people to say "yes" because they're getting to catch up with multiple people, not just one person.
One thing I found strange about SF is that I never found a group that would do the weekly hang.
The weekly hang is a socially porous experience, it has a fixed location and fixed start time but everything else is improvised. Different people could dip in and out, people felt free to bring new friends, people they just started dating, friends from out of town etc. Some people came once and never again, others become regulars. The hallmark of a great weekly hang is that the entire initial cohort gets replaced but the weekly hang still persists.
It's a commitment in time that "busy professionals" ostensibly had no time for which is why I think it was so unpopular in SF but it really killed a big part of the vibe of the city for me.
I'm intrigued by this, I feel like I know a lot of people but I don't think I know anybody with anything like this. Closest is maybe a weekly book club but that's different.
What kind of location -- is this a bar or a park or a brunch spot or something like bowling? How big is the group usually, like 6 or 20? Is it weekend afternoon or weekday evening? And how does it get started, does it just start organically or is it a group decision among a bunch of existing friends?
I think I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it because if I go with friends for food it's always somewhere new, if it's an activity it's always different, and the idea of the exact same time and location every week seems like it would get dull quick. Maybe that's because I'm accustomed to the fact that in big cities the whole point is novelty, always something new to explore. The idea of a fixed time and a fixed location doesn't seem as compatible with that.
Where did you find it successful pre-SF? Was it a mid-sized city thing, or a more country thing, or a college thing? I'm just so curious to know more.
When I was college-aged, several of my friends would meet at the same pool hall every Saturday night. We'd play pool or sometimes darts and shoot the shit. Usually was only 4-6 people though, but sometimes it'd get up to 10. It never got boring as the pool always kept it interesting, you could always try to get better, and change it up between a few different types of pool (Cut Throat, 8-ball, and 9-ball, mostly).
There was another time when there was a weekly karaoke group I hung out with. Again pretty small, like 4-6 people usually. Always the same place. Seeing who would go up to sing (from other groups besides our own, too) and what songs they'd try kept it interesting.
There's also a Friday night board game group that I've now been a part of for about eight years now, that's had it almost every week. I haven't always been able to go, but I've probably been to probably at least two hundred of them at this point. It used to be more open and would have 6-12 people there regularly, but the guy who hosted it (out of his house) originally got tired of doing it, and when it migrated to another host it whittled down to only 5 core people. But even at the new host's home that's been going for like four years now (without me and another guy for most of 2020-2021 because of the pandemic).
So yeah, having some sort of game or activity it centers around tends to help, at least in my case. Especially something that doesn't require specific people and if people can drop in or out pretty easily (people can arrive late or leave early and no big deal, they can still jump into a game or sign up to sing a song, etc).
Dinners don't work quite as well, imo, because it requires people to arrive pretty much at the same time.
When I moved (back) to Seattle, one of my coworkers invited me along after work for Monday night pool. This had been going on for a couple years by the time I showed up, and I made it a regular part of my life for the next decade. I made some of my best and longest-lasting friendships there; those connections led to others, and on again, ultimately populating most of my social world in this city.
It was a simple thing which didn't need a lot of coordination. You just showed up after work if you felt like it and hung out as long as you wanted to. When each game ended, the winner took on a new challenger; new arrivals were automatically next up. Between games, you hung out, drank beer, chatted, enjoyed each other's company, maybe got some food (if you ordered a plate of fries, it would be shared with all; that was the rule). Some people were serious about pool and played hard, while others only went for a round or two; some people stayed until midnight, while others just dropped in for a pint.
I don't know exactly how many people were part of this thing; anyone could invite anyone, so there were maybe forty or fifty people involved overall, roughly a dozen of them regulars. On any given night there might only be five or six present, but sometimes on a nice summer evening you'd get fifteen or twenty, and we'd open up another table.
Not a country thing - this was right in the heart of the city. It's possible some of the people may have known each other from college but that certainly wasn't the defining character; we were all working professionals, ages from mid 20s to late 40s. I wasn't there when it started but I believe it was a group decision among existing friends.
I've done something like this at different points in the past. I once had a group where every Wednesday night we would meet at the same pub for some drinks and dinner with an open invitation for anybody that wanted to join. Some weeks there were 3 or 4 of us, some weeks there were 20.
Had another group where every Saturday morning we would go to a different cafe for brunch. It was a smaller and less dynamic group, and we would organise the venue in a group chat throughout the week, but it wasn't a question of, "who wants to come this week?", it was just assumed we would all be there and phrased as, "Any objections to trying this place?"
There's a pretty successful version of this in London called London Drinking Club, which is literally just a bunch of people meeting up at the same pub every week with name tags.
Pre-covid, I did this for about nine years. Trivia night at a local bar. The meeting even survived the closing of the original bar; we just moved to a different bar. However the size of the group did shrink over time, mainly coinciding with several members meeting other people and so not being single any longer. Since covid there's only been the occasional get-together, since not enough of the remaining members are willing to do something regular.
This is how I met most of my current friends, as well. I was at a local bar one night on what turned out to be trivia night. There were a few of us who didn't know anybody well but had seen each other at the bar before, so we decided to form a team to win some of our tab back.
Fast forward 8 or so years. We no longer do trivia, but get together just about every week along with the siblings, childhood friends, girlfriends, and wives that have joined us over the years.
It's a little strange to think of how different my life would be had I not been at that bar on that night, but that's how these things work: you put yourself in a situation where something social is going on, and all that's standing between you and making some new friends is saying "yes."
Imagine the friends you didn't make because you stayed in that one night when you were on the fence about going out. Good thing too -- it kept you out of prison!
I mean, imagining what 'wouldn't have been' is a lot easier than imagining what 'could have happened' because you literally have no idea. You can imagine life without your friend group, but try to imagine a life where you ended up grabbing a drink at Jeffery Dahmer's apartment or any of a million other things.
yeah, I am a bit confused by the statement. I have never planned this, it just happens after repeatedly meeting at the same pub in some frequency. I've also seen a shared, regular activity create this, for example the monthly pub quiz or sneak preview in the small independent cinema. I think it's important that it's somewhat accessible everyone so that it's not a chore.
Board game meetup. Show up, with or without games you would like to play, and either join a game table or invite others to play the game you are setting up.
Throughout my life this has mostly been my friend groups. It's really only sustainable with at most 6 people max or something like that.
I think this is more inline with the way humans have evolved as we evolved in small local tribes (Not of 6 people, but in modern times it's hard to keep anything more than 6 from breaking up).
This started out as several different friend groups when I grew up. Those evolved as time passed and then in college in the dorms we formed groups based off of proximity. Then after college I befriended a san francisco local and he introduced me to his childhood friend group he grew up with and I hung out with them for a number of years before leaving.
After that it's been hard to find another group. I have found that proximity when eating is the best most consistent way to form friendships. If you always eat lunch or dinner consistently and often with the same set of people you guys will end up forming a bond. Even with your co-workers. If you want it outside of work I have found communal living spaces where there's a shared table for eating helps promote this. Very hard to do this when you get married.
Also note that when the proximity ends, the connection tends to drift as well. You will find that this is not only consistent with friends but family as well.
I had in friends in SF that tried, I just couldn't get on board with their concept of fun
I wasn't into board game night, I also tried DnD which was ok but what an arduous turn based system and ritual, the weeknight bars were meh (to me), weeknight nightlife was pathetic compared to actual “world class” cities, some of my friends did well in the bouldering scene, there was a time when I was interested in free pizza and accumulating AWS credits at tech mixers, but that got old quick.
Turns out I don't like tech industry, I like money alongside the ability to build things myself. No big surprise there, just would have thought that the money in SF would have attracted more interesting and varied people.
I don’t think cities that gather the “I like money” folk have really ever attracted interesting people, or another way: money doesn’t make people interesting.
Yes, it’s too nerdy, but some longer time residents will rant and rave about all the attractive women now in the city, as “tech” became more approachable as well as allure of money attracted more for other reasons
But I personally find the bar to be low, “San Francisco 49ers” is still loudly proclaimed, its a derogatory rating system for women “4’s that think they are 9’s”. or “LA 4’s are SF 9’s”. Derogatory, but not inaccurate. I’m sure we can find a synonymous progressive way of acknowledging the exact same phenomenon.
Then, even longer time residents speak of a mystical way more cooler version of San Francisco, with artists! except every currently nice neighborhood is described as a once dangerous ghetto, and nothing sounds appealing about that to me either.
There's a lot of systems that are simpler, easier, and in my personal opinion, more fun than d&d. For example, FATE. The star wars RPG is pretty good too. Tabletop games can also vary a lot in quality depending on the group and the GM.
LA, NY, Miami circuit. Dose of some select spots for European summers.
Professionally, I got in front of the people I needed to in Silicon Valley and flipped a couple startups with non-dilutive capital and got out. Probably stayed in SF one or two years longer than needed, but I was open to making that my identity at the time so I tried to make it work, I like some things about Norcal just that they were always excursions instead of right in my neighborhood. People that like SF were almost never talking about things they liked within the city limits, it was things they liked somewhere between the pacific ocean and the border of Nevada, spoiler alert, not whats attractive about other cities.
Now I never mention tech unless its useful to talk about my exposure to a specific opportunity.
IME, everything in SF that young people might want to go to is packed full of young people who made reservations a couple of weeks in advance. Not a lot of venues for drop-in occasions that accommodate 6-20 people dipping in and out.
Edit: I can sort of imagine this happening at a bar with an unusually big patio, like SF's Zeitgeist. Not that Zeitgeist has a huge patio, it's just huge for the area. And if this gathering was always at a bar, I wouldn't go much, because I have a ton of trouble hearing people in bars.
I have met most of my friends through church. I have a board game group that meets every Monday night (best night for all of us) and everyone there first got to know each other at church.
I have been tempted to look into this, I'll admit. I remember when I used to do Sunday youth group every week as a kid. If I could find a local one that just had a regular board game night or something I'd probably be down to give it a try.
If you find a traditional church to be a bit too heavy-handed on some current wedge issues for your liking, you might find a Unitarian Universalist church to be more like what you describe.
Your local Facebook or meetup.com page probably has a running group that meets regularly. Look for the "Meet at 6:30am Friday morning in the parking lot by Starbucks" group. If you show up to that enough I guarantee you'll have 20-50 friends by the end of this year and attend a fun Christmas party where you know or can chat to multiple people.
It is no exaggeration that to say that social fitness fundamentally changed my life as an adult. I had, one day at the gym, decided to try a group fitness class. I had seen the class many times. Normally at the gym I lifted weights, wearing my headphones doing my Chinese language lessons. I saw they were getting an awesome workout, so one day I went and joined them, they were super friendly and welcoming and I became a repeat customer and started doing a different class at the gym. That instructor invited me to try her class at another gym where she taught. I took her up on it and met there another even larger group very friendly, and very social people. My gym moved locations so I switched to going to the gym that I had visited. I hardly ever used the weight machines. I did the fitness classes but some do use weights.
A couple months in at the new gym I met a woman who soon became my best friend. An odd pair we made me being a 55 year old introverted redhead and her being a 36 year old gregarious French-African. But we are both engineers and love fitness. Our friendship really bonded over training for the Rachel Carson Challenge, a 36 mile hike.
And running - well that opened up and even more important social network. I started running with a small group in the neighborhood that was organized by my soon-to-be best friend, then added a larger city-wide group that another soon to be very close friend had introduced me to, and then joined the local Fleetfeet group with her after she mentioned that they were also very nice - even though they met on Sundays, which I had always treated as my Fitness day off.
The first several times I went on Fleetfeet runs without my friend was a bit awkward, as I didn't really know anyone. I am by nature on the introvert side of that scale. But running, like the Rachel Carson Challenge hike, gives you a lot of one-on-one time with people – often complete strangers. After running and talking to someone for hours, you are no longer strangers. The Fleetfeet runs usually starts at a Starbucks and then at the end of the run we would stay for coffee and a snack. You do that every week with a group of people and, like my fitness classes - if you have a social bone in your body - you're going to end up with a group of good friends.
The other thing going on in my life which was quite challenging in terms of my loneliness is that my wife has left me and I was living alone. Without my new social network, my life would've been a much bigger challenge. The amount of emotional support that I got was beyond measure. A few months into doing group runs, I talked with a new stranger who six months later became a romantic partner. Thus, I can trace my current happy relationship state to that one moment in the gym where I decided to take off my headphones and do a group fitness class.
Apologies for the long post, but your “running group” suggestion motivated me to share my story. Take off your headphones and join a fitness group! It’s a twofer as you’ll also get in great shape.
I can go one step further. I was a part time fitness instructor. I taught at one particular gym 3 days a week. It was very much our social circle. We would meet there for class, train for runs, run charity races at different places at least once per month, we went to each others weddings, etc. It was my most fun group as an adult.
Then life happened in 2012. I got married and moved to the other side of the metro area and couldn’t find time to teach anymore and soon after “something” happened and my asthma flared up and it took over a year to recover and then other long standing physical issues started becoming more prominent.
But most fitness classes were mostly female. Mine was different since my choreography was simple and athletic. We were also all single or both the husband and wife would come. It would be seen as creepy as a male to try to make “friends” with women I met at the gym especially now at 50 and myself being married.
Ironically enough, my wife is involved in the fitness industry now and I meet a lot of couples via her friends.
Anyway, I started back training for runs earlier this year and will be joining running clubs.
Glad to hear you started training. Same here after some health issues.
> It would be seen as creepy as a male to try to make “friends” with women
Not sure why you or anyone would think that. In my case also it was nearly all women. But they approached me - because they are a social and welcoming group. I was married at the time. It wasn't a flirty thing at all. But it did result is a different friendship situation in that most of my friends were female. But trust me they make most excellent friends. Not afraid to share their feelings and listen to yours, and to say "I love you".
Women naturally have their “creep factor” on at the gym. It was easy when I was the instructor and it was a group of us doing things just to invite one more person.
OP here. I'll write a post longer than yours, haha. Same story. Lonely at home - married to a loving but non-friend-compatible wife. Showed up to my local running group, kept showing up.
"After running and talking to someone for hours, you are no longer strangers."
Long, phone free, distraction free, interruption free, no-pressure, no "ask", no "work-relationship" to preserve, you're both sweaty, spitting, farting, drinking, exhausted, but proud of yourself and the others who are kicking butt that moring as well... I imagine it's why soldiers bond so well - shared adversity.
If you're a lonely geek reading this, a running group is an easy formula for friends. I've lived in the same town for 17 years - joining the running group and meeting others made it feel like home instead of just the place that I lived. Random streets and neighbourhoods aren't just "over there" they're now "Bob lives there". Going out for a run and getting honked at, or driving around for errands and honking at friends is just good fun.
---
I don't usually journal, but this day was an adventure with friends, something I hadn't had since Grade 7 until 40+... Just an embellished story about a drive out to someone's house, a run down a country road and the animals that we saw on the way. Being included and having fun had been missing from my life for too long.
Dec 28, 2022 I met J at my friend K's house and went on a road-trip to meet other friends; to climb mountains, descend valleys, fight off wild dogs, scare cows, dodging killer (wheeled) beasts, and run with horses, ending with Irish cream whiskey around a bartop table.
All the wording on that meetup page says to me "come run with us". 3.5 miles and then back to Starbucks to chat for 25 minutes sounds just about right. Most people will have driven, so if you turn around earlier you can be back at starbucks for chatting.
It will take a few times of showing up to make friends. It kind of feels like walking into a workplace cafeteria where people eat together everyday, what they're talking about or laughing about is something they've talked or laughed about previously, so all the details are missing and they're just asking about X or Y updates.
I encourage you to go, at least a few times. Read "how to win friends and influence people" and "The Charisma Myth" before your first one if you need a "how the heck do I deal with new people" boost.
Send me a picture of your running group photo at Christmas and it'll make my year!
I have spoken to people in that group and attended some of their events. I hope you will allow the possibility that I know more about the group than their Meetup page says.
For example, the 3.5 miles on Wednesdays is on a track at a local high school. I was literally getting lapped over and over, just like in high school.
Reach out to the group and see if you could lead a more casual run distance as part of their Wednesday run. The run groups I've been a part of were receptive to things like that. The more important aspect of the run was the general finish time and not the distance.
Most of the ones that pop up on Meetup for me (and I'm referring to hiking groups, not running groups, I can't run for very long at all) seem to pick trail routes that will be at least 5-8 miles long, and you risk getting lost if you have to stop early, or they insist on a specific fast pace in the description, or it's an hour drive away just to get there, or they're in the middle of the day on a weekday, which I pretty much can't ever do.
Pretty rare I find one of these that are both around 3 miles (about my limit most days unless I'm at a park all day with breaks, my feet and sometimes lower back start getting pretty sore) and a more casual pace. I do attend those that I find, though. But that tends to be like 3 per year. Kind of defeats the purpose of making friends in these groups.
I don't think I've found any that are just 'go as far as you want and we'll meet you back at the local Starbucks' though, at least not near me.
Here's the next few upcoming, as an example:
"6 mile Hike Not a Beginner's hike" - (Tuesday midday)
"About 4.5- or 5-miles total" - (Tuesday midday)
"Walk about 2 miles" (but Tuesday midday and 45 minutes away, can't drive there, hike 2 miles, and drive back during a workday)
"We will be hiking 4.5 miles at a faster pace (3.75 mph) dependent on trail conditions." - (Evening, but fast pace and a bit too long)
"6.5 miles with shorter options" - (from the map it looks like the shorter option is "turn back around", it's one big loop. it's on a Sunday but it's also over an hour drive away from me)
No mention of meeting anywhere afterwards in any of those.
Is there a hash hounds harriers group in mountain view (https://www.hashhouseharriers.com/what-is-hashing/)? I would be somewhat surprised if not given they are everywhere. Excellent both socially and physically for all abilities. I recommend checking them out. Essentially you run as a group, but someone has marked out a forking trail in advance. Fast runners risk taking the wrong route and so have to backtrack when someone shouts they found the marker indicating the right route. Slower runners usually know which is the right route by the time they reach the fork so have a chance to catchup. On the social side, it is excellent for meeting new people. I had family members involved in HHH groups where every week a different person would volunteer to host drinks or a meal after. This is not universal but usually there is some social meetup after each run.
I'm in the far suburbs of Chicago, but I wasn't aware of this, and it does look like there's one of these in downtown Chicago: https://www.chicagohash.com/
Downtown Chicago is a bit far for me to drive for a run, but I'll keep an eye on it in case one of them ends up a bit closer to me. And maybe this will help someone else that does live downtown. Thanks for the suggestion!
The sadness. Most groups end up chatting along the way or in the parking lot afterwards.
The other option would be to start your own.
My most local group was started as a Facebook group by a lady who wanted to run with other people. She lives on a country road and wanted to run with others in town, so she took over an existing but dead Facebook group. The time and schedule would be up to you.
This is pretty much her strategy, being intentional that you want, and welcome, people to join you.
I'm familiar with the chat during (harder for the faster pace ones, though, another reason I prefer casual pace) and parking lot afterwards. If I have to turn back at or before the halfway point for most of these I imagine I'd be waiting a while in the parking lot for them to get there, though. Also from social pressure (and feeling embarrassed of having to turn back) I'd want to try to do the full trail and I'd regret it afterwards, most of the time.
I'm aware I could start my own. I once was the admin of a different type of Meetup group that had over 1000 members. It's just more way work than I have the time and energy for anymore, and also pretty expensive if done on Meetup.com nowadays ($200/year). For as infrequently as I'd host meetups it wouldn't be worth it.
I could also try to become a co-organizer of another group, but that would probably require me being able to go to enough of these for them to trust me to be a co-organizer.
It's certainly not impossible, but it's more hassle than I want to go through, for something that I can do on my own whenever I feel like it (and with my dogs).
This. Most groups are casual, but they all have their own styles. One is a trail run where we stop every mile or so for a few minute break (if needed). Another is a 'meet at starbucks at 8am and we'll see you at 9am for coffee' where everyone runs their own pace/distance, sometimes shared, sometimes not. Another is hill repeats where walking is also 'acceptable' and we chat at the bottom and top and wait for walkers so they don't feel alone (and we get more time to rest :)
Just show up and try to improve yourself. Be friendly.
So this speaks more about you it seems. I don't know if you know this, but you won't get in trouble. Your grades aren't going down if you do something against the group. You can leave at any time because you have autonomy. At the very most 20 out of the 7 billion people might ostracize you.
I apologize, but your response is a muddle of contradictory cliches. I am literally there to make friends, of course I care what at least some of them think. I'm not there to actually run.
I went. I sucked, to the point of it being awkward. I trained daily for three months before going a second time. I still sucked. I don't know how to create the conditions that would make it productive to attend again.
This resonates with me. I found a group of folks I loosely knew in my neighborhood, and started doing an informal "Tuesday Night Dinner". There's about a dozen of us, and on any given week about 6-7 will get together, usually at someone's house, and do a potluck-style dinner. If people are busy, we do a "no pressure" takeout night, but the point is we do _something_ every Tuesday night. We've missed maybe a half dozen weeks in the past 2 years, and lots of folks have become friends outside of the group as well. It's been probably the single most enjoyable thing about the last few years living in Seattle
I’ve never heard of this sort of thing. It almost seems more like an informal club than a group of friends. (Not to knock the idea, it seems interesting).
Weekly hangs are real. I have started and participated in several. I think a key to a good group hang is to have an activity that serves as a base narrative for why everyone is together. The activity should be easy enough for newcomers to join in, and compelling enough to keep people coming back.
This is exactly what my neighbor does. He makes some fantastic home made pizzas and invites over the neighbors every Friday. You're welcome to bring whoever, but the dude can only make so much pizza, so people try to be courteous.
yup. weekly trivia nights at the pub did it for us. most of us are drinkers, but for those that aren't there's still dinner, a fun activity and good company
Really? I feel like every time I'm in another part of the country for more than a few days, one of my friends will invite me to their weekly hang and I get to meet a bunch of other cool folk.
I don’t live in the US but I’ve also never heard of this or really come across it. Is it about going to someone’s home? Or meeting at a bar? I can’t quite visualise what you’re talking about.
I think a weekly hang is really nice. My best friend and I would walk on Sunday morning. Did it for 8+ years until he fell ill and passed away. I really miss those Sundays.
I'm glad that worked for you. My experience has become that as my friends groups have gotten older, getting larger groups together has become very difficult. You have to plan it far enough in advance that everyone has sufficient notice, you need a venue large enough to host everyone, people have kids that need to be accommodated somehow, and everyone also lives further apart. All of these mean that we've gone from getting together once or twice a month to maybe once every 3 months or so. So while everyone still keeps in touch online, in-person meetups have reduced a lot in frequency.
You shouldn't obsess on having everybody or even the majority of your groups together. Besides your friends also have friends and vice-versa that aren't part of your circle so you shouldn't even think of having any kind of exclusivity.
People come and go in your life.
What I am struggle with aren't local acquaintances but friends that aren't local to me anymore.
Yeah this is my experience too. Especially, once you have kids, it is so hard to align everybody's nap times, classes, etc.
And if you somehow are able to get whole group together, then too many preschoolers around is just chaotic. Heard it will be easier once kids are older.
But for now, we usually hang out with one or maybe two families at a time.
I hate hanging out in groups and almost exclusively do 1:1. I have no problem talking to my friends for hours on end, it never feels like a chore and I always makes time. Your experience reads quite strangely to me. Even if there is nothing new to talk about, spending time with friends is rewarding in itself.
Just the wording in that particular post made it seem like a lot of work. I have had 'friends' like that in the past, and if you need things to 'pile up' so you can hold a conversation, and you find it hard to motivate yourself to do the logistics and make time, maybe they're not the most compatible people for you.
However I can't judge, because I personally dislike group hangouts, so I can understand if conversely someone finds arranging 1:1 meetings difficult.
1:1's don't renew. You have to keep feeding the relationship. The relationship can be extremely rewarding for chit chat & conversation, but it could drop at any point, and become a memory. It has no self-maintaining spirit, no ability to repair itself if one person loses some availability or time.
A group can fend for itself in a far different way. Assemblages can have members come and go, but maintain a core purpose and identity. There's rhizomatic affiliations that can find each other & get new currents & excitements going, whereas in 1:1's the potentials for connection are bounded.
Closed systems can only keep processing the same pieces of energy again and again for so long. They can steal some vitality from the surrounding, but the lifetime of the relationship is limited. You need more open dynamical systems if you want to keep interesting things going. Long term survival requires systems that can perpetuate & share themselves. 1:1's by definition cannot.
True friends do not need feeding, you can go a year without seeing each other and catch up and be right back to where you were before. And most of my 1:1 friends, I talk to regularly anyway because I want to. I've known these people for decades. So your comment about closed systems doesn't ring true to me at all.
This really doesn’t sound like a healthy ideal to me, and if I remember correctly there was this paper that would detect elevated risk of suicides by analyzing social graphs and finding nodes that weren’t part of any cliques. So that should imply that this is not good for anyone.
What percentage of those people want more friends or friendship time than they have access to? What percentage have a mental illness like depression or anxiety, or alcoholism that would cause them to spend more time alone?
I'm open to the idea that my suicide risk is higher by not having a large group support network, but I enjoy being alone and I enjoy 1:1 time enormously more than being in groups, and overall I think my quality of life is higher with this choice. Everyone is different of course.
I don't think we disagree, my point would be that you need both. But if you rely on 1:1 only you're either quickly going to lose friends or spend all your time in 1:1 (or not make new friends at all, as you can't make new friends in 1:1)
Agreed. But there is a cost to having lots of friends in the sense that those friendships tend to be superficial.... Very superficial. But that's the point. Having Superficial relationships with a larger group is just as important as having strong relationships with a few people. Most people don't realize this.
I have found that making friends around a hobby or activity is quite easy even as an adult .. Throwing yourself into a hobby (photography, pickle ball, boardgames, running, etc.) and you will meet people who love that hobby and throw them selves into it completely .. They will talk to you for hours about it .. If you are a nice person and just ask for help, people will be available to help you in your journey .. In those groups, you will likely find a few people to start developing a friendship with .. I think it takes the risky and scary part of making friends away as it just feels like hanging out until you find those persons you click with
For a while, that was my strategy to cultivate a social life: organizing brunches with 6-10 former teammates and acquaintances.
As social occasions, the brunches didn't lead to anything in my life. The guests made extremely generic smalltalk. I don't know if anyone had fun. I didn't get invited to anything else in those people's lives.
I was kind of glad that COVID killed the brunches because of how fruitless they were.
I get the idea that spending time one on one can turn into giving each other life updates instead of a more intimate exchange. But group events can also be really shallow and demotivating.
Is "couples" the reason? I (implicitly, no idea why now that you bring it up) read the other descriptions of weeklies as not-with-partner events. Perhaps not strictly not-with-partner, but default without.
"Couples" puts everybody in involuntary performance mode. It starts super harmless, the "and" element (the side in a couple that came along) having a natural desire to be good with the friends of their partner (the "and" side is prone to greatly overestimate the depth of the relationship that lead to the invite!), the other side (the one that had the "link") trying to make their partner feel good with that group. So far so good, everybody does the reasonable thing, sounds super nice. But that very same thing happens within every couple, nobody in the room who isn't in "prove myself to my partner" mode. Before you know it escalates into a take-no-prisoners battle of showing off which couple functions best. It's certainly possible with couples despite all this, but there is infinitely more that could go wrong along the way.
Yeah, maybe. I never discovered the secret of sending invitations that radiated "please don't bring your partner." Brunch is, after all, an activity for mostly women and couples.
Yeah, girl's night/guy's night does come with a certain expectation, or a stigma even. And is not a brunch. In Germany we actually have an established brunch time event class that literally translates to "morning pint" and, well, your imaginations are probably spot on. The safe path to not couple-centric is usually some form of hobby which tend to lean of gender or the other. And those who defy the gender stereotype will most likely be sufficiently deep into whatever it is to not fall into couple validation mode. But hobby-type pastimes that are also inviting to the noninitiated are indeed rare.
I know that the friend I'm hanging out with will get my jokes - inside jokes, weird humor etc. Now I have to worry about an entire group, some of whom may not like my humor, and now I have to put on the 'you're in public, be brusque and minimal' anxiety filled mask, and can't open up as I would in 1-1 or 1-2 with a friend or just a couple of friends.
Now add that to other people invited who may feel the same way. Maybe they're only comfortable with that one or two friends they hang out with, and not the rest of us they don't know.
Groups aren't my thing sadly. Nor, I assume, are a thing for many young people.
This is a weird persective for me, who mostly hangs out in groups. I've never thought about having to impress each individual member of the group at once or that I should be brusque; I dont even know what that means. And we have plenty of inside jokes and weird humor.
I am firmly in GP's camp, but I think this difference has more to do with introverted vs extroverted personality types than weird vs. not weird perspectives. Some people find it hard to express themselves in group environment because group environments tend to be highly competitive for 'air time', at which introverts are at a great disadvantage.
I don't agree. I'm pretty introverted and that's one reason group environments are better. You can talk less and take a break from even paying attention more easily than 1-on-1.
>And we have plenty of inside jokes and weird humor.
You've never had a person or two in the group that was sensitive?
>I've never thought about having to impress each individual member
It's not about 'impressing everyone.' It's more about being conscious that everyone may be listening to your comments and/or judging you. This gets worse the more anxious person you are, and/or if you were an introvert.
I don't think it's a great idea to tell those people to 'get over it' either as we used to in the 80s.
When you are meeting up a large group, you aren't usually talking to everyone at all time, small clusters or 1:1 usually form and disappear naturally and organically during the time of a meetup.
Would encourage still prioritizing 1:1 time with close friends. Even if that means traveling. It's a different experience, though I agree introducing friends to other friends is usually a pleasure.
Thats an interesting take. I prefer 1:1 type of events, or maybe a small group. I just find it easier to hold a conversation that way. I don’t have too many friends, so the time factor is not an issue for me.
I think 1:1 is best for close friends who you have a strong connection with, and groups are better for more casual friends. You can have a group hangout with people who in 1:1 format you'd struggle to converse with. Personally I don't have any of those friends anymore so I don't do group hangouts.
I can relate. For a lot of people, "friends" is someone you might find yourself sitting with at the same table at a group dinner or playing the same board game with a bunch of other people. But meet up with them one on one and you will quickly run out of things to talk about.
An introverts nightmare is to meet random folks along with other and without a purpose.Call a spade a spade, its a group event and that itself is even harder than 1-1 hang.
What you describe is social anxiety, not introversion.
Introverted people without social anxiety exist. I'm one of them. I have no fear of meeting new people and the like, but social situations exhaust me more quickly than others and I need alone-time to recharge.
In addition, hangouts are just more fun with more people
Love everything you said.
Additionally: when you're hanging out in a group, you avoid those awkward situations where some people (or their partners!) might be wondering if it was a potential "date" kind of situation.
Groups is an important point I think, preferably based on a common interest. I'm fortunate in that I'm a tabletop gamer, and as it's an inherently social activity I've always been able to find a roleplaying games group or club wherever I've moved.
I'd be interested if there are any other hobbies or interests that have a similar built in social component?
Poker! I had an awesome group of poker friends in SF, maybe 10-12 of us who'd play regularly, although on any given weekend it'd only be 4-8 who'd show up. We'd sit around a table playing poker for hours and hours, and after half a year, we were pretty close!
An an introvert I have a different experience. When I am with a larger group, people start talking to each other about subjects that don't really interest me, and I tend to switch to listening mode, not interacting much with anyone. I can converse for hours with one person, however.
There's an easy lifehack to get around it: host parties and introduce your friends to one another. I've done it multiple times in the past, and there's at least two married couples that I've introduced to each other.
"...things played out exactly as described by the article -- some of them hit it off, became friends with each other, and started initiating invites and events without me"
This is ultimately what I discovered. Friends with groups are superficial, you really only have one or two real friends but the superficial friendships formed with large groups is actually more important for your mental health simply because humans are designed to live and interact this way.
Historically, humans lived in tribal groups where they're in constant contact with a large but cohesive group of people. So in terms of anthropology this is the more natural way.
There's nothing wrong with having meaningful 1-on-1 connections. But how many of those can you really have in your life, simultaneously?
Read the other comments on this article, and there are so many men in their 30s, 40s, 50s+ saying that they have a partner, a sibling or two, and 0-2 friends, and that's enough, they feel saturated and don't want anymore friends. In my opinion, this is because they're treating every relationship as if it has to be the highest level of meaningful 1-on-1 connection.
I'm super duper close to my brother, my girlfriend, my mom, and to one high school buddy of mine, to the point where we talk for hours a week, every week. Beyond that, I have lots of friends, literally several dozen friends, many of whom I absolutely love, and who I've gotten super vulnerable with, who feel comfortable dropping by unannounced. But I don't make a big deal out of needing to hang out with them 1-on-1 all the time.
It is. OP probably isn't thinking(or cares about, if I were to be cynical) about the people in the group who are peer-pressured into joining (by some of their other 'friends' probably) and are just anxious/awkward throughout but can't/don't want to say anything.
I haven't experienced anyone in my friend group being pressured by others to join into group activities, and I'm pretty perceptive about interpersonal issues.
More commonly what I've seen happen is occasionally two people I'm friends with don't get along with each other, and have negative feelings coming to events/hangs where the other person will be there.
This is the most important tip in the article, in my experience.
When I lived in SF, most of my friend hangs were 1-on-1 catchups over coffee or lunch. Scheduling and comparing calendars would sometimes feel like an impersonal chore. Meeting so many people individually was time consuming, repetitive, hard to schedule, and yet somehow infrequent -- it felt like the main reason to hang was to catch up on what's new, so you needed to wait a month or two to let new things pile up.
Then I moved to Seattle. I decided to switch to only really attending (or inviting people to) hangouts that included multiple people. Basically, my new policy was to try to hang out with multiple simultaneously whenever possible. And it worked wonders! My friends met all my other friends, and things played out exactly as described by the article -- some of them hit it off, became friends with each other, and started initiating invites and events without me.
In addition, hangouts are just more fun with more people. There's more to talk about, more excitement, more fun. And it's easier to schedule, too, since you can see more people in a smaller number of hangs. The value of the hangs goes up, too. There's more reason for people to say "yes" because they're getting to catch up with multiple people, not just one person.