Posted on 06/02/2009 7:13:17 PM PDT by Redcitizen
You may have more Facebook friends as the years go by, but when it comes to your close friends, you lose about half and replace them with new ones after about seven years, new social research suggests.
As a result, the size of your social network stays about the same.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
1) Either your friends are amoebas or
2) You're an old coot who keeps outliving your friends or
3) You sell Amway or
4) you keep getting zotted.
BTW- which half of your friends are they talking about? The left or right side?
wow, it's a good thing they're expendable.
This only applies to Urbs, it’s not that way in Mayberry!
No surprise. Most of our friends are friends because of happenstance. We live close to them, work with them, etc., Most people either change jobs or houses (or spouses) around every seven years, so they get new coworkers, neighbors, etc. Most of us don’t like people enough to drive two hours to maintain a relationship.
How do they know? Facebook was established just 5 years ago.....
I still hang out with my friend from high school. He lives 2.5 hrs away. Course we both come from the same tribe so that may serve for a closer bond too.
I tend to agree. In rural areas. people know who’s who. I come from said rural area and now live in a city. i still prefer rural life and friends.
I’ve only had a couple of people I’ve considered to be “friends”. One for around 17 years and the other for around 21 years. Met both of them in elementary school.
I’m so untrusting of people in general, I don’t know most folks I meet and stay associated with them long enough for them to be considered friends by me(It literally takes years). I do have many acquaintances.
“Most people either change jobs or houses (or spouses) around every seven years, so they get new coworkers, neighbors, etc.”
I’ve never known anyone like that!
I think it’s partially the result of a mobile society.
Half of none is none.
All the cells in your body are replaced every seven years too.
Enlistments end.
Army Depots close.
Education advances you.
**it happens.
:-)
Cool
I only got 2 friends....have had them for way more than 7 years. Guess i better flip a coin to see which one gets the boot. Wait, do we count relatives as friends? If so this 7 year rule sucks cuz i don’t have enough relatives left to last very long if I gotta drop half of them every 7 years.
Brain cells? GOOD NEWS MAN! now I don’t have to quit killing them.
This is kindof sad to read, but people do move away, drift away or disappoint you. My best friend in highschool is still the best friend I ever had.
But it proves one thing, you should really value a good friend and a good friend has to be trustworthy.
LOL, I have friends at 25+ years and some that have drifted out of radar range. People will write about anything.
Is this about urban cannibals?
You must be a good finder.
I can agree that education advances you into a different circle of friends.
This sounds about right to me, overall.
I have a handful of friends that I’ve been close to for better than 20 years, and probably always will be. But I’ve also had some close friends who I just have lost touch with over the year. People change and grow, and not all friendships survive those changes.
Awesome.
Me either. I've had the same set of close friends for over 25 years. I don't do MySpace, Facebook, nor do I Twitter or any of that other crap. I'm happy being an old stick in the mud and set in my ways.
I’ve been around here 8 years, still run with the same posse for the most part
I've got you beat. I'll be 62 this year.
I will if my fingers still work :-)
LOL Same here...
I agree. I have one coworker. At work, we are very close. When the time comes for either of us to move on, I doubt we will keep in touch long-term.
I also have made friends as an adult that come from various age groups. I have gone out with friends aged 23-60 over the past few months.
People also get married and have kids. It is much harder to maintain a friendship without these things in common. One of my girlfriends had her first baby (first in another close friend cohort) and she is having problems with a couple of childless friends. It sounds like it is because she is less available. My expectation now is coffee/brunch quarterly rather than monthly dinners (which is less than the hanging out we did before she got married). It isn’t that I wouldn’t love to see her more, but her family is her priority and I understand that.
I have been on this here Free Republic for over 6 1/2 years so I am due to forget y’alls and get some new actually worth while FRiends....
sarcasm off...
ping me with with your new screen name then...
=) ( just pulling your chain )
1/2 × 0 = 0
BUT...once someone DOES “win my trust” and get close to me, to where I KNOW I can trust and depend on them...THEN I value them as someone like family. This does NOT happen often, and like you...it takes a lot of work and time on behalf of the other person.
But it has happened recently. I now have a friend who is closer to me, than ANYONE else has EVER been in my life. A beautiful lady who has more patience with me than ANYONE ever has, aside from my mother. She is married....but her husband does NOT mind our friendship, which is TOTALLY Christian in nature...and VERY close. In fact...I may soon be friends with her hubby too--as we HAVE met before--and he DOES seem to like me. This friendship with Laurie is one like I have NEVER had before, in my 41 years on this Earth!! In fact...Laurie is VERY close to ALL of my family now, closer to us than ANY of our relatives. I do NOT consider her a friend at all. She is FAMILY....my “big sister”. She knows virtually EVERYTHING that goes on in my life. The same for my mother...whom she now seems to see as a “second mother”, since her mom died about this time last year.(My mother's B-day is coming up soon...and Laurie has some VERY special plans for a VERY special, meaningful present for mom...which she will LOVE and CHERISH!!)And like any true friend, Laurie shows me MUCH love, compassion and understanding, but ALSO can, and HAS BEEN, firm with me, when she felt it necessary, “for my own good”, in particular to try and get me to be more positive, and not to get discouraged in life, or to prevent me from doing something that may be dangerous for me. .
I do NOT really expect this to be a “short term” friendship either. I value my friends, since I do not have many, and few I really trust, and NO other friend like Laurie. ...and would do nearly ANYTHING to maintain this friendship with her. No matter if she needed money, repair help, a place to stay for her AND her husband if something happened to her house, a car to drive for a day or two...I WOULD help her out. I think Laurie feels much the same about me...and she HAS told me, on multiple occasions--that she WOULD do ANYTHING, she could to protect me, if someone was trying to hurt me, including emotionally--as in the past...and she WILL confront ANYONE that mistreats me from now on. She has a 9MM..and HAS told me she WOULD use it to protect me, if need be!! She is VERY protective of me, and only about 3 years older than me, but sometimes, she seems to think of me like "her son".
Right now...I am going through some serious financial problems, in particular with my job. My pay in nearly a month behind. Laurie knows ALL about this... and she is trying to keep me from getting too discouraged or down... and she has tried to intervene, to help me, and get our shop to get more business. And--she HAS told me, that if this job DOES fail, she WILL help me to find something I can do, in my field, that will give me some money--and NOT just a "junk job" as she knows I do NOT want that. BUT...she HAS told me that I will NOT just "lay around this summer, and sleep all day", if I DO lose my job, as she WILL MAKE me do SOMETHING, even if she has to be forceful with me, and come and MAKE me get out of bed, and KICK MY BUTT, to keep me motivated!!
Hopefully, the lord will send someone into your life, to be a true friend to you like he did with me. If you are a guy, and have been hurt more by women than men, as happened to me, he may send a wonderful lady into your life, to show you that NOT ALL women you meet will hurt and/or betray you. She may NOT be "single or available", as is the case with my "big sister", but if she is sent from God--she WILL be able to get close to you, and help to heal a LOT of the pain from the past...as has been the case in my life. And maybe...your whole FAMILY may even gain a wonderful friend, who then becomes "one of the family", as has happened in my case.
I dumped a friend of 15 years because he got married and our wives did not get along. It’s a long story, but we no longer had anything in common.
I'll take 2 for $500 Alex
I met my best friend when I was 4 and she was 3. We’ve been friends for 42 years now!! She’s the best.
My other close friend I’ve known 17 years. I now work with her.
I’m good keeping close friends! Who needs more then 2 anyway??? :^)
America being a highly mobile society, it is no surprise that people come into and out of our lives. Thankfully FB and Linkedin allow me to remain in touch with many of said folks, but I would be hard pressed to call many of them close friends.
Some would say Americans are rather casual in their friendships (especially compared to say, the French and the Arabs), but my GF is Brazilian and they basically consider anyone who they can talk to on the street as a "friend."
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