Friendless in a Text Messaging Culture

This was an epiphany for me. It's discouragingly true and more evidence of the current post-human society (people are more comfortable with technology than humans).

No wonder it's virtually impossible to develop close friendships & interactions with other people when email & text messaging are virtually the only acceptable forms of communication.

How do you establish new friendships when nobody wants to communicate via voice or in person? I would venture to say that these less intimate forms of communication would drastically slow any development of acquaintance to close friendship.

This article describes exactly what I've become - more comfortable with technology than human interaction. But at the same time, I don't want to continue living virtually friendless and very little meaningful human contact.

Given this trend towards preferring technology over humans, is it becoming impossible to find new and meaningful friendships?

in reference to:

"In the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up the telephone — land line, mobile, voice mail and all. According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years."
- Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You - Discovery Zone (view on Google Sidewiki)

Prospects of Making Friends in Less Friendly Areas

I must say that reading the article on The Geography of Friendship was very discouraging. Because I've known for a long time that I indeed live in a less friendly town.

I'm a native southerner and grew up with southern hospitality and friendliness. After joining the military and moving around various areas of the country and even out of the country, I would generally be surprised or even shocked by notable differences in culture.

After 21 years in the military, my husband retired in Louisiana, but then we moved to Idaho. I was "shell shocked" and felt like a fish out of water for a long time for a couple of reasons: 1) Life outside the military community had virtually no camaraderie; and 2) the distance and coldness of people in the new town was quite the opposite from the friendly southern hospitality I had left behind.

Those who didn't recognize this coldness and indifference in Boise, Idaho were those who have lived here all their lives or at least for a very long time or had gotten very lucky. Repeatedly, I ran into other newcomers to the state and asked them what they thought of the area and people in this town. And repeatedly I got the same responses: It was almost impossible to find new friends, people here were unfriendly, cold or distant.

Ironically, the newcomers to the area soon integrated into the culture and became just like everyone around them, hardening themselves to the need for new or close friendships. I eventually stopped asking newcomers what they thought of the area and became more and more detached myself.

But I was always troubled by my cultural adaption. I may have been taken out of the south, but the southern hospitality tendencies were always still there. It has never settled right with me to be forced to blend into and become more like the cold, indifferent and distant people in my town.

Not that everyone is like that here, but to newcomers who move here without established friendships already in the area are very likely to bump into the primary culture and notice the striking difference, especially if they relocated here from a friendlier geographical area.

The result for other relocated people such as myself is loneliness, social isolation and friendlessness.

I am certain there are other people just like me in this town, experiencing the same things.  But will we find each other when we've had to adapt by becoming cold, distant and invisible?

Hope is indeed bleak.

in reference to:
"At dinner on Saturday night, I got to talking to one guest about the difficulty of friending. "I think a lot of it is regional," she told me. "I've lived in some cities where people were friendly and happy to make new friends, and others where people wanted nothing to do with anyone they didn't already know."

- Rachel Bertsche: The Geography of Friendship (view on Google Sidewiki)

Friendships Don't Just Happen

In my experience, friendships (at least where I live now) just aren't happening at all. And now I've been socially isolated for over 7 years.

Somewhere along the way I gave up, then got too tired and even too cynical at times to put forth the effort into trying to find new friendships.

It's a never ending cycle of trying, getting disappointed, then giving up. Over and over. I'm more likely now to not even start trying. I'm too tired and my chances seem bleak.

Will the cycle ever end?
in reference to:

"It's why nearly half of us report being only one confidant away from feeling socially isolated. Many of us do not even have that one. It's a significant factor in increasing depression in women. It's why we seem more networked than ever, and yet, ironically, lonelier. It's why we know more people, and yet seem to be known by none. We hope and we wait. To walk around with the belief that real friendships happen automatically is detrimental."
- Shasta Nelson, M.Div.: Friendships Don't Just Happen (view on Google Sidewiki)