Today, a third of men say they have no close friends and have seen what is known as a "peak of loneliness" in their 30s. Can we simply let our society live in a constant adrift in the tide of work and family responsibilities? Or is this actually prompting people to discover important information lurking in this phenomenon? The author went through all the contact lists to try to find a friend to rely on.
A few years after graduating from college, an old friend of mine, Li Dan (not his real name), sent a message in a WeChat group I formed with a few male friends. "Silly x, silly x, stupid x!" The beginning of the message did not actually attract our attention, but the next content made us sigh, there was a hint of foolishness in our hearts, and a sense of summoning suddenly emerged.
In the past student days, the six of us lived together in a dormitory for 4 years when we were in college. Learning tasks, binge-taking, skirmishes, misfortunes, gossip, risk-taking: it all happens naturally among us. It's hard to imagine that we've never done this after college.
But there's a common trend in everyone's life after graduation: our time is no longer spent on thrilling things, but is dedicated to nine-to-five jobs and girlfriends. Most of us live in Beijing, but in different corners of the city. We still hold parties, but usually dinner parties, and must be in the middle of everyone.
So, Li Dan suggested that it was time for us to start resuming our college life. The group chat he formed was called "Boys' Dormitory," a name he wanted to express: "This is not for girls." "He proposed a date for everyone to live CS together." Some of you might think, "I'm going to work overtime," or "I've been too tired lately to move," or worse, li dan wrote: "Well, all I can say is that you're completely under control of your life, so cheer up!" "We're in our thirties and scattered all over the country: Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, etc., and if we're going to reunite — if we don't actually implement it, it doesn't matter, but if we really want to implement it — then we need to spend at least a month planning it." As for new friends, it's harder for them to get involved without shared experiences in their youth. As my friend Liu Shan (not his real name) put it: "If a person has never even seen you look bad, then what is the point of him coming to the party?"
Time is a matter
When it comes to male friendships, complacency and lack of skill seem to be widespread. Late last year, a YouGov poll found that 18 percent of men don't have a best friend, while 32 percent don't even have someone who can be called a close friend. In contrast, the data for women were 12 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Women are also better at making new friends: 22 percent say they've forged new friendships in the last six months, compared to 18 percent for men.
A lonely life comes at a heavy price, and it's clear that men are lonelier than women. Of the 1,200 men, 11 percent claim they are lonely every day, and 35 percent say loneliness makes them feel depressed. Loneliness in men peaks at age 35 — an age group where professional and family responsibilities tend to become more demanding.
"Time." "It's a matter of time." "I don't have time anymore." When I asked men in this age group why they don't see friends very often, I got the above answers. Even if you can find time — taking time out of a leisure time during a career, a child, a busy day, or spending a good night with your partner — it's hard to get your friends to take time out of the same way. "I'm terrible at actively maintaining friendships," one friend admitted, "and I'm often blamed for making things worse." These blames often come from women. Another friend, Zhang Nan (not his real name), believes he relies too much on the "magic" of old friendships. "In the past, it was very simple that I could reconnect with friends I hadn't seen for years, but now it's hard to re-establish quality connections with old friends because of these immutable factual resistance," he said. ”
In your thirties, you will rebuild your friendships with a nostalgic desire. If you have a friend with whom you have always had a deep connection, the soul of your relationship will always exist. There may be more thorns along the way, but it is exactly there. But at the same time, there are real difficulties: fewer opportunities to connect with old friends, and less and less common sense of mission in friendships in teenagers and twenties. We are left with only this unsatisfactory greeting and parting. This feeling is likely to grow.
But there are also new factors that affect us. We are more dispersed than previous generations, in part because we flock to the big cities to work and then find that the cost of raising a family in those cities is staggeringly high. The survey found that men are more likely than women to seek social connections through work. But the trends toward freelancing, outsourcing, the occupational economy, and working from home put more of us at risk of isolation. What's more, with the sheer workload, many of us are being compensated by extending our working hours. Time, time, time again.
Stay-at-home men
Family is another contemporary factor. Men are more focused on taking care of children than we used to – we want to, but we also need to, and sometimes our partners work longer hours. While this may be positive, it can also take up a little of the time we spend drinking a few glasses of wine after work. The second is health, and more precisely, alcohol. Bars are still the default meeting place, but my thirst for alcohol (my ability to drink) is much worse than before. Obviously, it's not just the kind of problem. So now, we don't hang out with our friends much anymore.
Romantic relationships often sneak in some dynamics. Couples are better at each other. One of you is good at cooking and the other is good at managing money. You may be fine with both skills until you get to know your significant other, but over time, the "financial partner" no longer helps out in the kitchen, and the "cooking partner" no longer manages bills and bank accounts.
"In my social life, I'm completely like a baby." My friend Lin Yu (not his real name) said he was the father of two and he admitted his wife was his social secretary. Lin Yu believes that his wife has "great taste" for her friends. However, while his wife maintained independent friendships with other female friends, he almost never saw a man's friendship relationship being one-on-one. He does have a long-known "good friend," but even then his wife urges him to contact this friend.
However, he did not seem to feel too much distress and indignation about this. It's just that he is a little confused: "Maybe this is about male psychology, right?" When it comes to 'friendship things', I feel a little uncomfortable. "On several occasions, he joined the dad group at his child's school and would regularly get together at a bar near the school." It's convenient, and I love going, but I can't help but think, "Since I can sit at home and watch a TV series, why should I join them?" ”
But once everything has calmed down, the kids are out of the house, and our retirement days are about to begin, what else can be done?
Lost in the web
Women often use motherhood as a way to forge new friendships, but men don't always use their fatherhood. A Survey by the Yougod Survey Network found that 71% of women make friends through children, while only 49% of men make friends. When my son started kindergarten, my wife spent months gathering a group of like-minded moms. These mothers see each other about once every three weeks and often encourage each other regularly through WeChat.
Dads may appreciate each other, but it seems like we never had the motivation to be a group. Some of the men I talk to are very resistant to making friends through children. My friend Wang Fei (not his real name) said: "When I take care of my children on the playground, I just don't want to talk to any other dad. (I've only seen him once since he became a father five years ago, and that's a good example of that.) ）
"We do have something in common, which is that we all have children, but that doesn't seem to be the basis of conversation. If I say this kind of ridicule at the school gate, it may make me friends in another situation, and this feeling can only be understood. They don't have to be the friends I want to make. They just... Others. ”
Technology has changed everything, too. Of course, it allows you to stay in touch with your friends in different places, and at the same time, the cost is lower. But it also means a certain level of estrangement, like on his birthday, you send him a cake emoji instead of making a birthday wish call. This begs the question: Does social media make certain characteristics of friendship irreplaceable? It's funny that we used to rely on real friends to make us laugh. But now, we've built virtual social relationships with people we follow on apps like Weibo and Douyin, who seem to be more compatible and interesting than our friends in the real world.
The logic of market competition also seems to be replacing friendship in other, more creepy ways. Some people suggest that WeChat also add an automatic reply setting like QQ to set "template information". If you're too busy to really help your friends who are in crisis, then you can take advantage of this feature. The message begins with, "Glad you can contact me, but I'm really, really busy right now." "Corporate jargon seems to be invading our private lives and workplaces. It's as if we've forgotten how to make friends. Or forget about having friends. Maybe it's because friendship is hard to monetize? At least true friendship is hard.
"I don't look at my circle of friends as many times as I used to." My friend Wang Fei (not a real name), who doesn't communicate with other dads, said: "But if I look at the circle of friends and see the dynamics of my friends, I think, 'Oh, this is an old friend of mine—but what's his name?'" "Actually, I didn't have time to really talk to them. Just recently, a friend of mine got married. I had planned to meet him for a year. I finally got the news from a friend of a friend. I am very accustomed to following him in the circle of friends, and over time, I don't think of him as a real person in life. All this made me understand that we should pick up the phone and communicate with our old friends. ”
Find a partner
Like many men approaching middle age, Marley (not his real name) believes that many young friendships cannot withstand the transition from being a lad to a father at home. He recently moved from a ten-year neighborhood to near his son's school, saving his children more time on the road. "So, all of a sudden, I came to a strange place where I didn't know anyone." He said, "How can I make friends?" This is a real problem. ”
But he also thinks it's not appropriate to cling to the type of friendship you've had in the past. "At my age, I've found that what's really important for me is to build friendships with men I feel very trusted." He said, old social events —, flirting with women, getting drunk — just don't have the same attraction anymore. In modern society, as we get older, we have lost the significance of a certain stage before. Connections made just for the sake of socializing aren't really a substitute for friendship. ”
Connecting through a common goal is what most men really want from friendship: working together to reach a goal. Men tend to open up after close collaboration rather than through face-to-face chat. The close friendship between soldiers is an example, but you don't have to work too hard to have it. Women feel lonely, but men also feel lonely – in the UK there are men's Sheds campaigns that have been successful, helping retired men who have lost their sense of purpose and improve their social isolation. There are now more than 500 "work sheds" across the UK, where men often exchange skills, pool resources or make things together. It's a space for friendship, and at the same time there's less stress on people. Men don't come for deep conversation. They come to learn how to use lathes for machining or other skills. People feel that they rebuild friendships through such a transfer of knowledge.
However, for men in their thirties, it always seems to come back to the topic of time. Their fear is that when they retire, friendship will be so far away that there is no room for repair. Perhaps what each of us needs to do is think about how to keep these relationships alive.
A deeper bond
Not all male friends think friendship has changed. "I think the depth and strength of my friendship still exists," Wang Fei (pseudonym) said, "as I get older, I feel more and more vulnerable, and at the same time, I cherish my initial friendship more." "I agree with him, now, that time with friends is particularly precious.
Liu Wei (pseudonym) said: "Over the years, the size of my friendship group has shrunk, but the feelings have deepened. The few friendships I maintain, if not many, can bring me the same benefits as maintaining a large number of acquaintances in the past. There is a famous saying: "Feelings either deepen or die", and I think this is also my experience. In your teens and early twenties, usually for some unreliable reason: status, pleasure, convenience, you will accumulate a lot of friendships. Maybe men in their thirties just made some wise choices in their friendships. ”
Thinking positively about friendship seems like a good place to start. I'm sure most of us put a lot of thought into what we eat, how to exercise, how to be more productive, and so on. Most dads I know value how to raise their kids. Maybe we should also start to see friendship as an important thing to maintain, rather than as some boring addition. Maintaining friendships doesn't waste your precious work/TV/break time at all, and friendship isn't something you need to worry about doing right. It may free you from the tedious work of trying to be perfect.
Keep in mind that your priorities change as you get older, and it's valuable to find something different from a pub activity. For example: sign up for a marathon, volunteer in the community, learn a musical instrument, camp in the countryside, and more.
"A Brief History of Your Next Friendship"
Our timeline does a good job of explaining how long it takes for acquaintances to become true friends.
After 1-2 hours | introduce
Unless you meet under unusual circumstances (say, in group therapy), in general, you'll most likely start with casual small talk. Just like in a romantic date, chemistry plays a role. Research shows that first impressions are crucial to the future of your friendship.
After 3-10 hours | Real chat
This stage has built a lot, do we have the same idea? This is when you discover common interests between you, whether it's martial arts or musicals. One study found that the enthusiasm for sharing was more likely to promote friendship development than personality traits.
One study found that people can be "good friends/best friends" after 200 hours of interaction. There are many ways to help maintain new friendships. One more thing to note: Trust your instincts.
After 24 hours | The first turning point
As your relationship deepens, you should feel comfortable if you are together just to chat. This is also when you find problems of principle, such as the contradictory three-view position. The litmus test is, you need to ask yourself, "When I'm with this person, do I like myself?" ”
After 30-33 hours | Brother dating
Female friendships tend to develop in face-to-face situations – usually just sitting and chatting – while male friendships thrive in co-ops that can resonate: fix something, go for a run or ride a horse, or just watch a race and a movie.
After 48 hours | confess
When is it wise to share personal information? You need to "see the occasion," and you may have to take the first step. Research from Columbia University has found that confession is worth it, and sharing secrets can increase our happiness and make our feelings more authentic.
After 60 hours | Ask for help
Not every action will test the strength of your relationship, depending on where that behavior is on the pain scale. Asking for help painting a living room is not the same as borrowing money. If you're the one who asks, research shows that asking for help face-to-face produces better results.
After 94 hours| intersection
If your friendship lasts until this time, research shows that you have a reasonable friendship. But if it's just one of you who makes all the effort, then like any relationship, like a romantic or professional relationship, or another relationship, now is the time to fix that, or the time to end the friendship.
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