Assorted friends

A remark in another thread leads me to ask: Do you find that a preponderance of your friends are:

roughly your own age
much older
much younger
assorted ages

of your own gender (however you define that)
of another gender
of assorted genders

of roughly your own educational level
more educated
less educated
assorted educational levels

I am not asking here for a revelation of anyone's personal information. I think that "assorted" across the board is probably the healthiest situation.

Are there other choices of characteristics that belong on the list?

Comments

  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited October 2024
    My largest assorted mixture comes via playing D&D, otherwise they tend to be people I once trained or worked with. As I work in healthcare with the second group are mostly women, whilst the first are majority male or of non-traditional gender/sexuality. Also, due to gaming a lot of my friends are autistic - as in a way, way, higher percentage than the general population (actually same for trans folk.)
  • It depends on whether you mean close friends or acquaintances.

    Since moving here, where there's an ageing population, I've found that many people I know and knock around with are older than me - and I'm no spring chicken.

    This causes me some concern as the Grim Reaper will come for them and potentially leave me isolated.

    That said, there are younger folk I meet up with now and again but they are more acquaintances rather than big buddies.
  • People I consider friends have a whole range of ages. More men than women, but that reflects the demographics of the particular interests through which I know them.

    Educational level is interesting to define. My friends are my friends because they are interesting, interested people, with a passion and a curiosity for some domain or other. Some of these people have lots of degrees. A couple don't have any degrees. It's not their educational background per se that means that I find them interesting: it's their ability to have interesting discussions about a wide range of topics. They're basically all geeky, in one way or another.
  • My lifelong friends are my own age (we met at school or university), mostly female, and all graduates. I'm the only one of us with a PhD.

    Church friends are different ages, although most of the congregation are older than me, mostly female, and I don't know most of their educational backgrounds. I assume many don't know my educational background either, although everyone knows I'm the person who deals with all queries of the "is my great-granny buried in your kirkyard?" variety.

    Friends who are neighbours, or whom I met through our kids being at school together, mostly within ten years of my age, up or down, mostly female. I don't always know about their educational background, though most have the sort of jobs that probably mean they are graduates.

    Academic friends are different ages, almost all female (as you'd expect from Women's History) and many / most are more educated than me, in that they've researched more, had more publications etc.

    I've got a sub-set of friends who are relatives with a shared interest in our family history. They are different ages (mostly older and retired) and mostly male. It hadn't occurred to me that they are mostly male until now! I don't always know their educational background, but assume anyone with a research-based interest is well educated.

    Ship friends - I've got a friend I met through the Ship holidaying with me now - different ages, mostly female, similar educational background.

    My Facebook friends are 80% female, 20% male.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    Lifelong friends, six of us, holiday together twice a year.

    Everyday 'going for coffee' friends - about ten.

    Close friends - three. Two up North, we meet up when we can and chat a lot on the phone - and a lovely new friend of two years who lives just up the street. We are surprisingly close in a short time. She's my age.
  • almost all female (as you'd expect from Women's History).

    As an aside, when I left the navy and went back to university to do postgrad history (mid 2000s) I got talked out of the subject I had intended to research and into a different one, which put me squarely in ‘women’s history’. I was viewed as at best an oddity at conferences and seminars, and I’ve got no friends from then, a time which I don’t look back on fondly at all. I felt a bit like one of those boys who joins the Guides when all the girls are joining the Scouts - swimming the other way was painful and I still have the scars.



  • I am still in touch with friends from High School, a couple of women and one male. Contact is intermittent, but we do still share important life things - death of parents, illnesses and other news of children. I still feel close to them, I think it's more than nostalgia because we always reach out to one another in hard times.

    Two particular women friends from church, that I see a few times a year and chat with on the phone. They are really good people and I value them highly, the sort of people who make me want to be better.

    A couple that mentored us before we married and are still our very good friends. I had lunch with the wife this week, we also phone one another roughly fortnightly, which is lovely. We both have complicated family relationships, and are able to have a moan to one another, which is helpful.

    There are also others who are now on the periphery of our friendship group that I still care about, but have moved away geographically and us spiritually, but I still hold with great affection in my heart and do pray for them on occasions when they come to mind.

    Not sure why but there is a group of 4 of us former work colleagues who see one another about four times a year to catch up. It is great to sit in the sun together with a coffee and chew the fat with them and also to sympathise with the two remaining in our old workplace. We all experienced the drama of workplace downsizing, loss of corporate knowledge, striving to maintain high standards and draw together quite bruised and demoralised people. We still lean on one another and I think that's a good thing, I'd miss them dreadfully if we weren't in touch

  • Looking through our wedding photos last night, it struck me how few of the many friends who attended I was still in regular contact with. 😞
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    I don't have any men friends of my own - they are all the husbands of my girlfriends and/or are also my husband's friends.

    My girlfriends are mostly older than I am and are either the same educational level as I am or less educated.

    I'd never really thought about the age and education thing before and find myself wondering why these things are so.
  • My longest-standing friends are two I was at school with. The third and closest died last year. The others are not very close but we enjoy catching up over lunch twice a year.

    A group of five of us were in the same Halls of Residence. We have a huge amount in common, including being active in our churches, with four singers, though that was never a bond at uni. We keep in touch regularly but not in depth, though when we meet, we carry on from where we left off. We last all met just days before Lockdown.

    Former colleagues are still in touch at Christmas and occasionally, but we have not met since I moved out of area.

    I belong to a correspondence group. We write a snail mail letter each month, so we know each other very well over 40+ years. We have all met twice, and sometimes in twos or threes. Intimate knowledge and understanding, though in Real Life we would not all stay friends as are all very different.

    Locally, none in depth, but many acquaintances through three choirs and church. My church choir friends are probably my closest, though not necessarily the deepest of friendships, if that makes sense. My newish neighbours are ones I can depend on in a heartbeat. I don’t yet know them well but the wife is a recently retired minister.
    I treasure my Ship friendships especially since Mr Puzzler died.
  • ...I've found that many people I know and knock around with are older than me - and I'm no spring chicken.

    This causes me some concern as the Grim Reaper will come for them and potentially leave me isolated.

    I fear this too. I didn't always get on well with my Dad, and (due to volunteering interests) have a lot of male friends in their 70s and 80s. I expect this is all a bit psychologically-cliched and embarrassing - but anyway, I enjoy it, and I have to watch myself and not get pointlessly sad about the prospect of losing people, to the detriment of enjoying their company now.

    I had a great conversation today with a visitor to our industrial museum who had come with his daughter; he was (I thought) struggling with dementia while telling me about his career and sharing a funny story, with his daughter (it seemed to me) looking with a lot of love at him and willing him to make a go of it. It was lovely.
  • NenyaNenya All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
    @mark_in_manchester 's post on another thread has got me thinking about the personalities and interests of my different friends as well. My main hobby is reading and I have several friends I can talk with about books although our tastes in them vary quite widely. I'm part of a real life book group too and that's a mixed blessing :flushed: . I have a number of friends with whom I go back years, mainly to do with us having children of the same age so the friendships were forged in the playground. A couple of my friends are polar opposites to me when it comes to interest in clothes and makeup and there are times when they drive me nuts about it. But those same friends are also some of the ones I can talk to the most frankly about personal stuff.

    Church friends can be a tricky one these days as I think differently on a number of things to some of the people at church whom I would call friends.
  • Nenya wrote: »
    I'm part of a real life book group too and that's a mixed blessing :flushed:

    You remind me of when my wife had only recently moved in here with me, and had joined a women's book group to meet some friends. She was asked to suggest a book, and, wanting to look a bit learned and interesting, looked in Waterstones (I think this pre-dated our use of the internet at home) and suggested this.

    It didn't have that cover on it, but it remained reasonably full of sadism, interminable and sometimes very odd sex, satanic practices etc etc. To her surprise, though she is still not sure if the rest of the group bought that line :smile:

    (When I read the book later, and thought of her having to go to the subsequent book club meeting and front it out, I couldn't stop laughing. Indeed, it has cheered me up this morning as I head off to work, so thanks for the opportunity to remember!)
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited October 2024
    My own age.
    Female (I'm a single male).
    Same education level, or higher.

    I think this is as I made my close friends at uni and work (professional). Females as I'm not the most masculine male and seem to get on with them better.

    The church I spent the longest time at had a mix of professional and tradies (as tradesmen are called in these parts) and other professions, and I mixed with all. My political views were more to the "left" than most (not a lot) but that never caused any friction -- at least none I was aware of! We all got on.
  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited October 2024
    .....and there in lies the problem, at least for me. Friendships like you're describing, possibly better known as acquaintanceships, have rules which are pretty well established, and can be observed in both senses. To form a close friendship, those rules have to be broken, the low fences they rely on broken down, and I'm not sure there are rules or processes for that. This scares me literally rigid.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited October 2024
    I can sympathise.

    My closest friend (who was always more "right" politically than me) moved to the US and supports Trump. I understand this may be a deal breaker for some, but to me it is but one more thing we disagree on (there are a few, but we have much in common...) and I think he is more anti-Democrat than pro-Trump (not that I'm lessening it, just observing). That said, there are challenges and one of our mutual friends is far more appalled than me. Again, I realise some here, particularly those in the US, may be appalled at me, but I don't see it as something to break a friendship over. I may be wrong.
  • Like many others, I used to have a lot of friends, now very few. I read an obituary of Ted Hughes in which an old friend of his said, we learned to leave each other alone. I find this accurate, but I'm not sure why it happens, partly the need for solitude. The young are like puppies, tumbling over each other, this dwindles.
  • My two closest friends go back nearly 60 years and we met through singing.

    Other than them, my friends are a mixed bunch because I have kept some from virtually every job I ever had and my CV is "interesting". The youngest is in their early 20s and the oldest over 90. Both of my "best" friends are women.
  • Today I was invited to friend’s flat for a farewell cup of tea before she goes abroad for the winter. We have only known each other for a few months, have both lost our partners fairly recently, live within ten minutes’ walk and go to the same church. We have a good basis for a friendship and she said as much today. We will resume when she comes back. This was the closest to a declaration of intent to be friends that I have ever heard. I welcomed it.
    ( And yet another lady who meets all the above points in common is not one whose declaration I would welcome in the same way. We get on well enough, but she drains me, whereas the new friend energises me. We bounce ideas off each other.)
  • .....and there in lies the problem, at least for me. Friendships like you're describing, possibly better known as acquaintanceships, have rules which are pretty well established, and can be observed in both senses. To form a close friendship, those rules have to be broken, the low fences they rely on broken down, and I'm not sure there are rules or processes for that. This scares me literally rigid.

    I think I know what you mean. It's different to say 'will you be volunteering next Tue' (at something we both like to do, independently - but it is 'nice' to mention that I hope you will be there) compared to 'would you like to go into town on Saturday'. Time pressures impact a bit on the latter - I have a couple of retired friends who have 'reached out' (as the young people say, m'lud) recently but I am more pushed for time than they are as I am still working, and will be for quite a few years. I need to get better at saying that straight, rather than leaving them to perhaps think I am a bit 'hot and cold'. My kids are older now, but I also found that when they were young - another time pressure that those without kids would sometimes put down to a lack of friendship enthusiasm on my part.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    <snip>I have a couple of retired friends who have 'reached out' (as the young people say, m'lud) <snip>

    Hmm! 🤔
  • BroJames wrote: »
    <snip>I have a couple of retired friends who have 'reached out' (as the young people say, m'lud) <snip>

    Hmm! 🤔

    https://flic.kr/p/2qr8dru1

    🤣
  • There have been a few threads discussing various aspects of friendship over the past few months. I don't live near any of the people I consider to be friends. I'm a 54 year-old male, and my friends are similarly-aged men. Acquaintances abound, but most of those are work related. Friendships that are important to me remain on tethers until I can move back "home" to where they are. Of course, I've generally assumed things would pick back up, and return to how they had been before, and that these 15 or so years won't have stretched us too thinly. I *think* that will be the case. At least I very much hope so. Our children were young back then. Now, we're all empty nesters, and at least one has divorced. One of those guys was supposed to be here for a business conference this past Monday, but alas, he had to cancel. I should see a few of them when Mrs. The_Riv and I travel for Thanksgiving. Here's hoping.

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    That link takes me to a page full of a bunch of different photos. In any case, "reaching out" is a perfectly acceptable phrase where I live, connoting that you've contacted someone you haven't talked to before or haven't talked to in a while.

    I have two very good friends who live nearby and whom I see frequently, both women, one my age, one 9 years younger. One I've known since college and is my best friend -- I have no memory of which of us said this first, but it's something one or the other of us occasionally reaffirms. I have another friend from college, a man, who I talk with regularly but haven't seen in a long time.

    I had a third good friend, another woman my age who lives nearby, and she has pretty much ghosted me. I suspect that the difference in our financial situations is the reason -- I have retired, she is still struggling at a barely adequate job -- but that's speculation. I last saw her about a year ago, when her car got towed and she called me because she knew I'm free during working hours and could help, and I'm glad she did. I text every now and then to keep the door open, and she responds. Other friendships have come and gone, and sometimes have come back again. My partner and I were friends long before we got together.

    I think one of the things that has helped me sustain friendships is willingness to be flexible and to not keep score. Maybe this one person doesn't want to be my friend right now, but that could change. When my best friend adopted her daughter, all of a sudden her life was very different from mine, having previously been very similar, and she didn't have much time or flexibility. I figured I did have time and flexibility, so I worked around her, and now her kid is grown and she's still my closest friend.

    What I don't have right now is a lot of casual acquaintances and secondary friends. I had a bunch of these, but they were mostly centered around places, and the pandemic and changes in my life disrupted things: the coffeehouse closed, the winebar changed ownership, I moved to a different neighborhood, I retired from my job. My favorite of these friends, a man my age, died. I can and have reached out to people I knew through those venues, but it's not the same as just showing up at a place and knowing that other people will just show up as well.
  • Bother, this seems to be a new "feature" in Flickr, it's a PITA.

    You need to go to the post I was replying to.
  • Bother, this seems to be a new "feature" in Flickr, it's a PITA.

    You need to go to the post I was replying to.

    And to clarify, since I'm sitting opposite him and had to ask WTF he meant. The Flickr link in his post added itself and shouldn't be there. He was just posting a laugh about @BroJames post.
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