Ask Lemmy

I have nobody :(

Not really, but it's okay because I have my wife who is my best friend period.

Yes, I don't hang out with toxic people.

I believe that in my previous life I must've done something good that brought me luck in this one.

I have a group of a dozen male friends whom I would trust with my life and the lives of my family. I think the same holds for each and every one of them.

We all come from the same small town. The group grew since kindergarten a few of us went to, adding friends through school, highschool, university. We have different careers and each one brings a unique perspective on things.

We try to get together as often as possible, but with work and kids and families it's difficult to always make it. So we implemented the "minimum viable product" approach where any two of us will arrange to meet up, then notify everyone else about what/when/where we are planning, and have anyone else join if they can, too. So even if just the original two meet up, they get to see a good friend. And if more show up, so much the better.

I feel truly blessed in this regard. I think there's a huge number of benefits we all reap from such a group: social safety net, psychological support, sanity checks on ideas and life decisions, reliable people you can vent to, always having someone to have a beer with, interventions when needed.

I know few people have this, and if I could magically wish things into being, it would be that everyone in the world gets a friend group like this to rely on. I feel it would make things... significantly better.

Take care of each other out there.

You guys have friends?

It's unfortunate, but friendships seem to be worn down by time. I've always been the person who will reach out if I feel like the other person also does but as soon as it feels one sided I lose motivation. When I was younger and lived closer to several people I considered friends, it felt nice. But as the years roll on, I find myself growing apart from friends in several ways. One of those ways is that despite seeming like not "kid people" several friends now have multiple kids and that's their life now. Which isn't really my thing. Other friends, I just feel I have less in common with than before, or they've gone off one deep end or another. Politics is a non zero factor. Conspiracy theories are another thing, unfortunately.

Yes.

I think the 'lonliness epidemic' is really born of delusional expecations. Most of the sad lonely people expect things from others they'd never give of themselves...

my most socially unhappy time in my life was the one when I had the most friends.

Not totally satisfied, to be honest.

Don't get me wrong, they are good friends and nice people in general, and we get along well when we get together, but we just don't hang out often enough for the relationship to feel very strong or satisfying. I see my friends a couple times a year at most.

I can't say I don't miss the old days of hanging out together, playing games and music almost every weekend! And yeah, I feel that we all live very separate lives these days, so I don't exactly know them as well as I used to, and vice versa.

No

But I'm doing fine work and giving it my best.

Let me pat myself on the back instead of getting depressed about it for a change.

My closest, only and true friend is a friend of 25 years.

We live in different countries today, don't speak everyday, but any opportunity we have to talk it seems like nothing has changed and we're still the same two goof balls we were back then.

Just added with a strong dad vibe. And jokes.

Yeah. I don't expect anyone to help me with anything. I try my best to be available to people and I have a pretty active social life.

I have dozens of cousins who I've known and been friends with since I was born. I have family friends that I have some vague memories of us taking baths together. I have a group of friends I've known since middle school (~25 years ago) that probably includes 7 people. I have some friends who I've known since college which could be 2 to 15 people depending on how I'm feeling that day. I am still in touch with 5 friends from med school and maybe 4 friends from residency and I've got a bunch of friends I've developed in the last few years.

Dang, typing that all out made me feel incredibly blessed.

It's funny, if you ask me most days, I'll tell you dudes are lame and women are more interesting to talk to, but tbh most of my closest and longest running friendships are with dudes. Dudes just need an activity. They don't need to talk to each other. The vast majority of my male friendships at least originally centered on some activities like basketball, playing Warhammer 40k, playing video games, being in med school/residency.

As far as being emotionally vulnerable with another man, I think maybe like 3-4 guys in total. I am pretty emotionally closed off. I'm more of a "bust your balls" type of friend.

I have great friends, but they live far away so I only see them a couple times a year. I'd love to make more friends who live nearby, but it feels more difficult the older I get.

I had a large group of friends (50+ people), then I was laid off due to AI and other stuff, and I changed from one specific hobby to another. I lost them all in a few months.

I'm old enough to understand that it is my karma to go from group to another. I made new "friends" with sports and music, but I now accept that I must now rely on myself only, and friends are fleeting.

My father is an asshole, friends are temporary, I am now trying to be my best friend because everything else is unreliable.

Had a friend all through high school and my early 20s. Kinda lost touch. His mum gave me a number that I messaged a couple of times but other than that not really had ‘friends’ for the last 20 odd years.

Just work colleagues from time to time.

Over the various years growing up, I'm friendly with a lot of people, but I keep in touch with a select few from each time period, and they tend to keep me in the loop of the goings on in that circle.

And many of these good friends I am currently physically far away from, I try to make the effort to go and visit them, and invite them over if they ever consider coming to where I live.

I am. I pal around with five guys. Our link is we all live on an “island” in the Chesapeake Bay. I put island in quotes because it isn't an island, but it is called one.

We run around on the bay in our jetskis, get together for football games and other social events.

I have a really good friend actually, we open up to each other about what we've got in mind, our emotions, anxieties, etc. We got each other's back, we started a band and we even work out together. He's married so sometimes he's a bit busy though.
I met him this year in a DnD group and I'm in my mid twenties, so although finding friends becomes a bit harder with age, it is not impossible. Cheer up mate, I hope that you'll find a friend like that soon :D

As I've gotten older, I've got more responsibilities which compete for my care and attention. With that said, I make time. What that looks like for me is I visit with one of my old friends quarterly-ish and then go fishing or hunting (depending on season) once every other week with a closer friend.

Then for sharing things on the emotional front, in my experience that may come as a natural consequence of sharing other things going on in your life and asking about another's own experiences.

My best friend (friends for about 40 years now) and I still talk a few times a month. His schedule has always been busy since he's a workaholic, but we always find time for each other.

We've talked most of our lives about emotional stuff, but he came out about 15 years, so I don't know how much that plays into him being more emotionally available. I'm straight but feel fine talking about personal stuff with people. I just know that stuff is important to talk about.

My other closest guy friend is more a typical dude. We've had some personal chats. He's kinda had like a prolonged 5 year split with his wife, so there's been a lot he's needed to get off his chest.

He doesn't like to get too open, but now that he's kinda living on his own (partial custody of kids) I've been trying to be really supportive of him because I know he's going through a lot and doesn't really have anyone else to talk to as most of his lifelong friends are 3 hours away. He kinda thanked me the other day for always being so positive and upbeat around him, so it seems to be working even if he can't always acknowledge it.

My brother is probably my next closest guy friend. We're very opposite in lifestyle, but humor-wise we are the same and we grew up the same crappy ways, so we get along well. He's much more social than I am, so he's busy a lot, but we still BS a few times a month and have dinner sometimes.

It's important to have bro friends. I have a good amount of female friends as well, but some things are just more bro-ish. The girls can give equally valid, if not better advice sometimes, but it's nice to have a guy to get another guy's opinion on things too.

I wouldn't just get all sobby on someone out of nowhere, but if you want to get more personal, just lean into it a bit and feel out how receptive people are. Sometimes, guy or girl, people are cautious about getting into someone's personal life, either they're insecure talking about personal things, or they don't wanna get blamed if they give advice that doesn't work out, etc, but you just gotta go for it in a reasonable manner if you want to be more open.

I have like one actual male friend I still talk to every week left, I'm okay with that. One or two female friends too depending on the week. My male friend I've known for like 10 years now since my first week in college, so we usually have no issue talking about whatever, theres no emabrassment or anything like that. I don't really talk about emotional sht with my female friends, it's always been more about entertaining each other and making the other laugh.

I never got the whole woman are more emotional and want to talk about sht like emotions or whatever, they can handle it better and are more used to it, sure, but do they actually want to talk about that stuff, probably not.

I'm not as hungup on needing friends or wanting to be social all the time as I used to be. I feel like I still don't have enough alone time to do and learn all the things I want to.

Having friends that share the same hobbies I do seems like a dream (I've had that in the past, but I hobby hop, maybe these friends are also into yugioh but I lose interest and swap to blender and they don't care about that at all, so eventually we stop communicating and maybe a year or two later im back into yugioh but now its been too long.

I swap hobbies way too often and I never know when, I at least return to most of them eventually but the friends related to it are gone. The friends that remain are the ones I've spent years drinking with (and ocasionally hanging out sober, but im a social drinker, I go mute otherwise)

I am lucky to have some of the best dudefriends I could imagine. Some are very open with talking emotions, some are more shy. Regardless, experience taught us the importance of supporting one another and that's what we do. Btw, I just sent them a text over Signal this morning, recalling the dream I had just made : I was cooking a stew for the whole group and at some point I was feeling inspired and took a piss in it- insisting that it added to the flavor(???). They took me by the shoulders and said look we love you, but you have to start the stew over. I said ok fair. One of them responded with "way to make a "piss-too soup" (=pistou=pesto). Anyway

No, they are all retarded