I think political polarization is particularly hard on people like yourself with 'right-wing' interests and left-wing politics. (I'm 75% the reverse--I'm into science, current affairs, and history but more of a moderate, disgruntled with the left but unwilling to vote for a party that tries to launch coups and ignores global warming.) Hang in there!
I feel so grateful for my closest friends- they are definitely all the kind of friends who would help me move the body (I like that quote that Zakariah mentioned), but none of them live close to me anymore. We stay in touch, and travel to see each other when it's possible, but I miss having them right here. Lately I've been feeling like I'm kind of drifting, like I don't have strong connections around me besides my husband and sons. I thought I would meet new friends at a couple places where I volunteer, but it's hard. At one place we're all busy being writing coaches for middle schoolers, so not much time to actually talk to each other. At the other, every time I volunteer there are different people. So then I decided to volunteer to train the new writing coaches. When I took the training myself it was in-person and three people trained us over two days. I imagined myself collaborating with the other people who would do the training with me, and then bonding with a roomful of new coaches. Instead they sent me a zoom link and I did the training alone over zoom. So disappointing! I left teaching in the public schools after 27 years to go on my own as a private reading tutor. I knew I would miss having colleagues, but I thought the extra time in the morning to volunteer would make up for it. That hasn't exactly happened. I try to avoid getting too discouraged by thinking about how I met my very closest friends. One of them I met in a flamenco dance class which I came very close to not taking. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of a conversation with her and the thought will float across my mind, "what if I didn't end up taking that class?!" I can't imagine my life without her. So I will keep putting myself out there and trying to meet people. I'm hoping eventually I'll make some new connections. (and thanks for writing this- nice to know I'm not alone)
I don’t know if I have much advice about this, I’m mainly just grateful. I’ve definitely been through periods in my life when I couldn’t make a friend to save my life -- when I lived in Austin, for instance, even though Austin is great & other people adore it. I’m sure it had much more to do with the things I was going through than anything else. (And I did make some friends just not ... oh, you know what I’m talking about. The friends that you immediately think about when you have a particular kind of joke to tell, that kind.)
And now, I feel immensely lucky -- I’ve ended up with friends through multiple streams, including, bizarrely enough, maybe a couple from social media?
I used to kind-of date (but really we were more friends) someone from a very traditional Catholic Louisiana family, and he really impressed upon me that for his family, friends were fine, but family was *family*. Blood runs thicker than water, and all that. It used to really bother me, and I still think about it oddly often -- probably because, though I do think family is incredibly important, I find that personally, I get a lot of my support in life from friends. And I feel like he discounted those early friendships, and it makes me worry about him.
When I moved to Maine at the end of 2004, I knew very few people, and all of them through my one friend who was also my landlady. I had done theater in college and community theater right out of college, so when the local community theater group put out a call for ushers, I volunteered. And then I went to auditions. And then I mentioned that I'd done some set-building. By the time I left Maine at the end of 2013, I'd been the head of the group for a couple of years, I'd directed three shows, I'd acted in a bunch, and I'd made at least six friends I'll keep for the rest of my life.
Brendan DuBois had a line in one of his novels, "Friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies." I find after 40 it's hard to find the first & impossible to find the latter. The last new friend I made who might've helped move a body would have done it more out of interest than friendship--just the kind of guy he was--but after moving from Oregon to NH in 2009, there's nobody within a 200 mile radius who'd show up at a moment's notice without asking why you asked.
I think a lot of it has to do with social media. I don't knock it because nearly all the people I've made connections with the last decade started via social media, but I do think social media has killed public spontaneity. I was telling my kids about meeting people at bars, coffee shops, or even striking up conversations with strangers in airports, none of which happens when everyone around you is nose-deep in a laptop or cell phone (or the ubiquitous tv is blaring). I had a similar experience at the gun club that you did at MMA rolls--everything got political & the skeet range turned into an outdoor clubhouse for the sort who think "Let's Go Brandon" is a clever retort. There was a presumption that if you were there to shoot clays then surely you must support unfettered access to full auto rifles & believe anyone asking for a modicum of gun control is a godless socialist (I mean, okay, I am a godless socialist, but that's beside the point). Been doing volunteer work with a local land trust, but even there, people seem to have their crowd. Rambling here, I guess, so I'll just end by saying I agree with you.
I have piles of friendly acquaintances that are a result of the writing and writing adjacent work I do but they are all almost exclusively text-and-email relationships that I keep at arm's length for a multitude of reasons. I've tried to connect more meaningfully with the folks in the Freeflow circle but have largely failed except for the last minute swirlings around an event or something. I have two people I spend regular in-person time with (one of whom I'm married to and we live hardly more a life than you might have with a good roommate given the different directions of our lives and interests) and then my bandmates, who are friends only in the context of our rehearsals and rare live shows. If not for that, I don't know how much I'd ever see them ... and one of those guys is someone I've had as a friend longer than anyone else in my life. So it's pretty bleak, frankly, and I don't know that I'll ever climb out of the hole. I'm not much of a joiner, and so much of my social energy is burned up making a living that whatever time is left I need to engage with in solitude, it seems, and struggle mightily to even make that happen.
I think political polarization is particularly hard on people like yourself with 'right-wing' interests and left-wing politics. (I'm 75% the reverse--I'm into science, current affairs, and history but more of a moderate, disgruntled with the left but unwilling to vote for a party that tries to launch coups and ignores global warming.) Hang in there!
I feel so grateful for my closest friends- they are definitely all the kind of friends who would help me move the body (I like that quote that Zakariah mentioned), but none of them live close to me anymore. We stay in touch, and travel to see each other when it's possible, but I miss having them right here. Lately I've been feeling like I'm kind of drifting, like I don't have strong connections around me besides my husband and sons. I thought I would meet new friends at a couple places where I volunteer, but it's hard. At one place we're all busy being writing coaches for middle schoolers, so not much time to actually talk to each other. At the other, every time I volunteer there are different people. So then I decided to volunteer to train the new writing coaches. When I took the training myself it was in-person and three people trained us over two days. I imagined myself collaborating with the other people who would do the training with me, and then bonding with a roomful of new coaches. Instead they sent me a zoom link and I did the training alone over zoom. So disappointing! I left teaching in the public schools after 27 years to go on my own as a private reading tutor. I knew I would miss having colleagues, but I thought the extra time in the morning to volunteer would make up for it. That hasn't exactly happened. I try to avoid getting too discouraged by thinking about how I met my very closest friends. One of them I met in a flamenco dance class which I came very close to not taking. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of a conversation with her and the thought will float across my mind, "what if I didn't end up taking that class?!" I can't imagine my life without her. So I will keep putting myself out there and trying to meet people. I'm hoping eventually I'll make some new connections. (and thanks for writing this- nice to know I'm not alone)
I don’t know if I have much advice about this, I’m mainly just grateful. I’ve definitely been through periods in my life when I couldn’t make a friend to save my life -- when I lived in Austin, for instance, even though Austin is great & other people adore it. I’m sure it had much more to do with the things I was going through than anything else. (And I did make some friends just not ... oh, you know what I’m talking about. The friends that you immediately think about when you have a particular kind of joke to tell, that kind.)
And now, I feel immensely lucky -- I’ve ended up with friends through multiple streams, including, bizarrely enough, maybe a couple from social media?
I used to kind-of date (but really we were more friends) someone from a very traditional Catholic Louisiana family, and he really impressed upon me that for his family, friends were fine, but family was *family*. Blood runs thicker than water, and all that. It used to really bother me, and I still think about it oddly often -- probably because, though I do think family is incredibly important, I find that personally, I get a lot of my support in life from friends. And I feel like he discounted those early friendships, and it makes me worry about him.
When I moved to Maine at the end of 2004, I knew very few people, and all of them through my one friend who was also my landlady. I had done theater in college and community theater right out of college, so when the local community theater group put out a call for ushers, I volunteered. And then I went to auditions. And then I mentioned that I'd done some set-building. By the time I left Maine at the end of 2013, I'd been the head of the group for a couple of years, I'd directed three shows, I'd acted in a bunch, and I'd made at least six friends I'll keep for the rest of my life.
Having met you and Sarah IRL on March 8th, 2020, this especially resonates. Not saying it made the ensuing apocalypse worthwhile, but still....
Got my own bivalent jab on Monday, so we definitely should try something again during October!
Brendan DuBois had a line in one of his novels, "Friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies." I find after 40 it's hard to find the first & impossible to find the latter. The last new friend I made who might've helped move a body would have done it more out of interest than friendship--just the kind of guy he was--but after moving from Oregon to NH in 2009, there's nobody within a 200 mile radius who'd show up at a moment's notice without asking why you asked.
I think a lot of it has to do with social media. I don't knock it because nearly all the people I've made connections with the last decade started via social media, but I do think social media has killed public spontaneity. I was telling my kids about meeting people at bars, coffee shops, or even striking up conversations with strangers in airports, none of which happens when everyone around you is nose-deep in a laptop or cell phone (or the ubiquitous tv is blaring). I had a similar experience at the gun club that you did at MMA rolls--everything got political & the skeet range turned into an outdoor clubhouse for the sort who think "Let's Go Brandon" is a clever retort. There was a presumption that if you were there to shoot clays then surely you must support unfettered access to full auto rifles & believe anyone asking for a modicum of gun control is a godless socialist (I mean, okay, I am a godless socialist, but that's beside the point). Been doing volunteer work with a local land trust, but even there, people seem to have their crowd. Rambling here, I guess, so I'll just end by saying I agree with you.
I have piles of friendly acquaintances that are a result of the writing and writing adjacent work I do but they are all almost exclusively text-and-email relationships that I keep at arm's length for a multitude of reasons. I've tried to connect more meaningfully with the folks in the Freeflow circle but have largely failed except for the last minute swirlings around an event or something. I have two people I spend regular in-person time with (one of whom I'm married to and we live hardly more a life than you might have with a good roommate given the different directions of our lives and interests) and then my bandmates, who are friends only in the context of our rehearsals and rare live shows. If not for that, I don't know how much I'd ever see them ... and one of those guys is someone I've had as a friend longer than anyone else in my life. So it's pretty bleak, frankly, and I don't know that I'll ever climb out of the hole. I'm not much of a joiner, and so much of my social energy is burned up making a living that whatever time is left I need to engage with in solitude, it seems, and struggle mightily to even make that happen.