How to make friends as an adult.

[Claireliontamer]

----

[Asmodean]

I'm not exactly what you'd call the right person to voice an opinion on this subject, as I am exceedingly difficult to become friends with myself, and it has happened that people who considered me a friend were in turn considered little more than acquaintances.

This I will say, however; friendships are imperfect, and a lot of adults have an unfortunate tendency to look for the perfect friend who simply doesn't exist. When you are a kid, the world is much, much simpler, even if it doesn't feel like that at the time. Considering the complexity of adult lives and relationships, I'm not sure it's even possible for most of us to have the kind of friendships we had when we were little kids or teenagers. The difference in the number of variables involved is simply too great for that.

Is my advise to settle for less? I don't know... Perhaps it is. I like to put a slightly more positive wording on it. Take the people in your life and your relationships with them for what they are, and try developing those relationships into what you want them to be, but keep in mind that it can backfire and good intentions cal lead to unfortunate consequences.

[Biggus Dickus]

I'm not exactly what you'd call the right person to voice an opinion on this subject, as I am exceedingly difficult to become friends with myself, and it has happened that people who considered me a friend were in turn considered little more than acquaintances.

This I will say, however; friendships are imperfect, and a lot of adults have an unfortunate tendency to look for the perfect friend who simply doesn't exist. When you are a kid, the world is much, much simpler, even if it doesn't feel like that at the time. Considering the complexity of adult lives and relationships, I'm not sure it's even possible for most of us to have the kind of friendships we had when we were little kids or teenagers. The difference in the number of variables involved is simply too great for that.

Is my advise to settle for less? I don't know... Perhaps it is. I like to put a slightly more positive wording on it. Take the people in your life and your relationships with them for what they are, and try developing those relationships into what you want them to be, but keep in mind that it can backfire and good intentions cal lead to unfortunate consequences.

So true Asmo, friendship's as adults aren't the same as when we were young is it? Reminds me of the closing scene from the movie "Stand By Me", where the writer/narrator of the story (Richard Dreyfus) is putting the finishing remarks to his book and he types the following on his computer:
I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?

[Claireliontamer]

I'm not exactly what you'd call the right person to voice an opinion on this subject, as I am exceedingly difficult to become friends with myself, and it has happened that people who considered me a friend were in turn considered little more than acquaintances.

This I will say, however; friendships are imperfect, and a lot of adults have an unfortunate tendency to look for the perfect friend who simply doesn't exist. When you are a kid, the world is much, much simpler, even if it doesn't feel like that at the time. Considering the complexity of adult lives and relationships, I'm not sure it's even possible for most of us to have the kind of friendships we had when we were little kids or teenagers. The difference in the number of variables involved is simply too great for that.

Is my advise to settle for less? I don't know... Perhaps it is. I like to put a slightly more positive wording on it. Take the people in your life and your relationships with them for what they are, and try developing those relationships into what you want them to be, but keep in mind that it can backfire and good intentions cal lead to unfortunate consequences.

True, very true.

[Firebird]

So true Asmo, friendship's as adults aren't the same as when we were young is it? Reminds me of the closing scene from the movie "Stand By Me", where the writer/narrator of the story (Richard Dreyfus) is putting the finishing remarks to his book and he types the following on his computer:
I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?

Man, that's depressing. I often wonder if I haven't tried hard enough to be a good friend, or second-guess decisions I made to pull away from people I didn't feel comfortable with anymore. Hell, even on this forum filled with like-minded people whose company I enjoy,  I'm hardly a steady presence and vanish for weeks at a time. 

[Asmodean]

I think this sort of sentiment is quite common. When push comes to shove, most of us would probably not want to return to childhood. The ebb and flow of adult life does grow on you, at least in that there are aspects of it that are not easily traded away, yet there are some aspects of being young, which it is common to want to have kept... And I just constructed a grammatic gargoyle, did I not?

Have you heard "Being Boring" by Pet Shop Boys? They have the right of it, I think...

Now I sit with different faces
in rented rooms and foreign places
All the people I was kissing
some are here and some are missing
in the nineteen-nineties
I never dreamt that I would get to be
the creature that I always meant to be
but I thought in spite of dreams
you'd be sitting somewhere here with me