{"id":2262,"date":"2016-04-22T14:41:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T09:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/friendship-adulting-social-media\/"},"modified":"2016-04-22T14:41:35","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T09:11:35","slug":"friendship-adulting-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2262","title":{"rendered":"Is 25 the Deadline to Make New Friends?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

R<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ecently, a neighbour who I know since I was five put in me in a pickle by asking me to give her a lift on the way to work. I\u2019m not averse to doing the odd favour, but she decided to season my inconvenience with outright annoyance by proceeding to make small talk along the way. That long, long ride ended with her asking for my mobile number, and my brain desperately tried to randomise a ten-digit sequence. I failed to come up with a fake number on the spot, so I ended up surrendering my actual contact details with a heavy heart. <\/span>\n\nI struggled to understand why I felt so reluctant toward becoming close to a neighbour who I have known since we were both children. And then I realised, like everything else in this age, my emotions could be summed up in a catchy hashtag: #NoNewFriends<\/span>\n\nYou don\u2019t need to be an Instagram addict to be familiar with the hashtag and the sentiment it espouses. #NoNewFriends has become an evergreen caption, a hashtag you can team with everything from your <\/span>Sunday brunch<\/span><\/a> to your childhood throwback. IRL, you\u2019ll see this at any large gathering \u2013 a <\/span>wedding reception<\/span><\/a> or a <\/span>house party<\/span><\/a>. Rather than mingling with strangers, most people are comfortable forming small groups that are so rigidly segregated that Nelson Mandela would roll over in his grave anytime more than five people get together. At a certain point in your social life, strangers become persona non grata, to be treated the way <\/span>Bollywood<\/span><\/a> treats Kamaal R Khan.<\/span>\n\nIt wasn\u2019t always this way. <\/span>School<\/span><\/a> was like a big, happy circle of friends. Unless you were that annoying teacher\u2019s pet who\u2019d leak out all the class secrets or suffered from bad BO. The backslapping lasts into college, where you acquire more friends for reasons as inane as smoking the same brand of <\/span>cigarettes<\/span><\/a>, good taste in <\/span>memes<\/span><\/a>, or the fact their house is always parent-free. In 2007, my first year of college, I brought in the New Year at a friend\u2019s house. The number of revellers was over 20, because nothing gains you social currency in FYJC like throwing a bitching party for people you barely know. The apartment was overflowing with teenagers using alcohol as social lubricant and toilets as spare bedrooms.<\/span>\n\n

As people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nFast forward a decade on to December 2017. I was bringing in the <\/span>New Year<\/span><\/a> at the same house. The only difference this time was the gathering was a close-knit group of eight old friends, and everybody went home by 4 am instead of passing out in the loo. It\u2019s as if the intervening decade had been spent watching frivolous friendships wither away with nothing being done to arrest their decline. It might start with one or two people missing a big get-together, then one-on-one plans are dropped in favour of more pressing engagements like a date or a meeting, and finally, you realise that for some people, there just isn\u2019t any room in your life anymore.<\/span>\n\nScience backs these claims up, proving that we make our longest-lasting friendships in our adolescent years. CNN <\/span>published<\/span><\/a> findings of a joint study by England\u2019s University of Oxford and Finland\u2019s Aalto University that pegged 25 as the age when both men and women stop being \u201csocially promiscuous\u201d. A New York Times essay <\/span>\u201cWhy It is Hard to Make Friends Over 30?\u201d<\/span><\/a> corroborated this: \u201cAs people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading. Schedules compress, priorities change and people often become pickier in what they want in their friends.\u201d <\/span>\n\nAs maturity sets in and the phase of youthful experimentation finally comes to an end, you start focusing on what you like rather than trying to further broaden your horizons by trying new activities. It becomes this way with restaurants, it becomes this way with work, and it certainly becomes this way with <\/span>friendships<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\n\nPeople also become closer to the friends they already have, Laura L Carstensen, a psychology professor, points out in the NYT piece. \u201cThis is because people have an internal alarm clock that goes off at big life events\u2026 It reminds them that time horizons are shrinking, so it is a point to pull back on exploration and concentrate on the here and now.\u201d<\/span>\n\nThis is where #NoNewFriends comes in. I\u2019m at a point where I have mentally and socially gotten past the need to grow my circle of friends. Sadly, not everyone is at that point yet. Like my ride-hitching neighbour, or that work colleague who thinks sharing a desk has made you BFFs, some people are still trying to ingratiate themselves with virtual strangers. These are likely the folks for whom self-help articles like \u201cHow to Make Friends as an Adult\u201d are published. <\/span>\n\nTo them, I often say in my head, \u201cThanks for applying, but we\u2019re just not hiring.\u201d I know I sound like a total douche, but I can say it with all the youthful confidence, comfort, and cheek of someone who lucked out in the friendship department \u2013 and who has not yet experienced the pain and hollowness of watching close friendships dissolve with age. <\/span>\n\nRight about now, it\u2019s perfect. <\/span>\n\nBut it\u2019s got me wondering what drives people to try and befriend people long after their \u201cbest before\u201d date. Did they not talk to enough people growing up? Have all their old friends moved away? Do they not have the <\/span>internet<\/span><\/a> to stay in touch? Clearly, the topic drives me into an unproductive loop from which the only rescue is a stiff drink. <\/span>\n\nOf course, I\u2019ll only be sharing it with my college buddies. #NoNewFriends for lyf.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have become reluctant to forge new friendships. Like everything else in this age, my emotions can be summed up in one catchy hashtag: #NoNewFriends. Is this all part of growing up, being on the other side of 25?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[4559,4560,1712,4495,4561,1127,224,228,408],"class_list":["post-2262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-4559","tag-emotions","tag-friends","tag-friendships","tag-hashtags","tag-instagram","tag-love","tag-relationship","tag-sex"],"yoast_head":"\nIs 25 the Deadline to Make New Friends?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have become reluctant to forge new friendships. Like everything else in this age, my emotions can be summed up in one catchy hashtag: #NoNewFriends. 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