A Best Friend? You Must Be Kidding

Started by Kadri, June 20, 2010, 11:20:52 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

latego

"Acquaintances help you move, friends help you move bodies".

I think that 99.9% of the people delude themselves into thinking they have friends while they actually have, at best, acquaintances and at worst people looking for a favour or, even more dangerous, money.

Bye, from someone who never had a friend and few acquaintances.

pfrancke

"move bodies" -- that is about the best definition of friends that I have ever read or thought about!! 

I agree with your points, I'm pressed hard to identify any true friends I might ever have had.  "Allies" perhaps comes closer.  But even so, the idea of friendship is a wonderful thing, and I found the article disturbing, (but not surprising).  Shallow seems to be much preferred to complex. 

rcallicotte

We can easily get focused on not being a friend...you know - "What's in it for me?"
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Seth

hehehe I always love to read expert, specially when they talk about children ! usually those so called expert don't even have child ;D
And I am happy to have a best friend ! He's like a brother to me.
Sad to hear that some of you don't have friends. that is very strange.

FrankB

I would like to add that this might also be a cultural phenomenon. The article from the NY Times, and the case story started with a Philadephia family. From what I know from my own visits to the US, and friends that live in the US, and also from friends who moved away from the US to live in Europe, that indeed there seems to be a tendency to have shallow relationships and friendships. Mums in the US from what I hear tend to literally drive their children from one organized "free" time activity to the next, having a schedule for their kids like they would be a CEO.
In many places in Europe though, kids still come back from school, do their homework and after that just call a few friends and go meet with them. Yes, our kids also have their appointments, yes some of them also are in a football club or learn to play piano in the afternoon and whatnot, but the majority is still free to just go and play.
"To protect them from bullying".... what a bullshit. One, I don't think not having a best friend protects from being bullied or bullying other, and second what a poor poor poor life would kids (and adults) have with not at least one good, reliable friend.
Sometimes in life there may be a period where you don't have a friend, because not all friendships last forever. That's life... But at one point life will present you with a new friend. I don't really know how it works in the US, but over here friendship are real.
One of my friends who used to live in LA and who has completely moved to Europe once told me, that one of the main reason he left was that he was sick of the shallowness of friendships there. He told me he had a "friend" he was playing golf with since 20 years, and he new nothing really about him, because they would not really talk about things of a personal nature that truly matter. He realized that this was completely sick in a way and felt the urge to start over somewhere else.

Regards,
Frank

Seth

totally agree with Frank's statement. :)
cultural difference.
I don't recognize my life and my children's life through this article...

Friends are great. not having even one sounds to me like missing one of the best thing in life...

Zylot

To the NWDA crew and other interested parties:

You guys are taking one crazy article and blanketing it across the US.  This article is nonsense, plain and simple.  As someone who grew up with real friends, and currently has a tight circle of very close friends ) this article speaks for a vocal minority that it trying to impose it's beliefs upon others by making it sound like it's a common place occurrence.  I've personally never seen or experienced this mentality outside of the linked page.  I specifically love this part:

Quote
Neither Margaret nor Matthew has ever had a best friend. "I just really don't have one person I like more than others," Margaret said. "Most people have lots of friends."

This is so absurd if you think about it because it flies in the face of human nature.  As people, we've evolved to grow attached to things, be them toys, gadgets, scenery, colors, places, or other people.  It's why we get married and settle down with one spouse, buy a home and live in it all our lives, grow attached to our cars, even as simple as have a favorite color.  No child in their right mind would say the above sentence without being prepped/coached into it.  It's true in all across the world and in the US as well.

Oh and FYI: I live in the suburban area outside of Philly ;)

Zairyn Arsyn

kind of a depressing article..  :(

ditto to most of Zylot's reply :)

I dont think of myself having best friends, instead close friends, unfortunately some of them live far away from me now, though i don't let distances get in the way of my friendships.

WARNING! WIZARDS! DO NOT PREDICT THE BEHAVIOR OF OTTERS UNLESS YOU OBEY BIG HAPPY TOES.

i7 2600k 3.4GHZ|G.skill 16GB 1600MHZ|Asus P8P67 EVO|Evga 770GTX 4GB|SB X-FI|Antec 750W
http://zlain81.deviantart.com/

FrankB

Quote from: Zylot on June 25, 2010, 03:19:02 PM
To the NWDA crew and other interested parties:

You guys are taking one crazy article and blanketing it across the US.  

No I did not intend to generalize. I'm just saying that it happens to be the case that I'm hearing this from friends in the US, and had one or two surprising encounters of "shallowness" in the US myself. Of course it would be super stupid and unfair to generalize. It could be though that cultures make a difference here in how often it occurs. I know even "just" in the US there are many ways of living.
Sorry if I sounded arrogant previously - not intended.

Regards,
Frank

Zylot

No worries Frank, sorry if I sounded a bit snappy in my reply.  I just thought I'd add a US perspective.  Indeed culture will always play a roll in how we interact socially with one another.  In the US there are many different ideals and sub-cultures vying for control over how we act and behave.  Some locations will be heavily influenced by one over another.  LA (California) is a good example of that, though not to make a blanket statement myself, but just from the laws that are passed there and what is shown in the news that it's almost an entirely different world from the rural mountains of North East PA and even the urbanized South East PA.  

One state or county's idea of how things should be run, how schools should teach children, etc is entirely different than the next. A good example, my best friend (that's on topic!) was showing me recently this "new thing" called Chicago Math that they are teaching kids in the local schools.

Gone are the days of 12+6 = 18. (you add 6 to 12, you get 18)

Now it's: 12+6 = 08+10 = 18 (you add 6 to 2 and get 8, you add 10 to 0 and get 10, then add them together to get the answer)

I don't get it myself, seems like making a mountain out of a mole hill.  I'll bet that a lot of US posters won't recognize this and it'll be the first time they've heard of it.  Just like the idea of having shallow friendships or no best friend, teaching kids to not pick favorites is something I've not really heard of or experienced until now.

piggy

Quote from: Seth on June 25, 2010, 11:23:27 AMhehehe I always love to read expert, specially when they talk about children ! usually those so called expert don't even have child ;D
Maybe, just maybe, those "experts" become "experts" because they know children so well that they are actually afraid of children.

So they don't have any.

piggy

#12
Quote from: FrankB on June 25, 2010, 01:52:19 PMI would like to add that this might also be a cultural phenomenon. The article from the NY Times, and the case story started with a Philadephia family. From what I know from my own visits to the US, and friends that live in the US, and also from friends who moved away from the US to live in Europe, that indeed there seems to be a tendency to have shallow relationships and friendships. Mums in the US from what I hear tend to literally drive their children from one organized "free" time activity to the next, having a schedule for their kids like they would be a CEO.
In many places in Europe though, kids still come back from school, do their homework and after that just call a few friends and go meet with them. Yes, our kids also have their appointments, yes some of them also are in a football club or learn to play piano in the afternoon and whatnot, but the majority is still free to just go and play.
"To protect them from bullying".... what a bullshit. One, I don't think not having a best friend protects from being bullied or bullying other, and second what a poor poor poor life would kids (and adults) have with not at least one good, reliable friend.
Sometimes in life there may be a period where you don't have a friend, because not all friendships last forever. That's life... But at one point life will present you with a new friend. I don't really know how it works in the US, but over here friendship are real.
One of my friends who used to live in LA and who has completely moved to Europe once told me, that one of the main reason he left was that he was sick of the shallowness of friendships there. He told me he had a "friend" he was playing golf with since 20 years, and he new nothing really about him, because they would not really talk about things of a personal nature that truly matter. He realized that this was completely sick in a way and felt the urge to start over somewhere else.

Regards,
Frank
Do you know that there's a catch phrase "Let's do lunch sometime" that can be used instead of "oh, f**k off"?

And the most important thing is, it works!

I learned that when I was in the United States of America. It's certainly a very interesting place to learn very interesting things. :D

FrankB

yeah, I knew that. It's awful for most Europeans. When someone says something nice to you, like "let's have lunch sometime", or similar phrases, we actually expect they mean it. In Europe you don't offer nice words to someone who's company you dislike, or similar phrases like that. You either don't say anything or goodbye, or when asked, you say you're not interested. That's definitely a cultural difference. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but you look silly when you don't understand the local rules of communication :)

Hmm, so how will you know when someone truly is looking forward to have lunch together, if the normal positive phrase disqualifies for that? ;)

Rhalph

Quote from: FrankB on July 02, 2010, 02:00:41 AMHmm, so how will you know when someone truly is looking forward to have lunch together, if the normal positive phrase disqualifies for that? ;)
Maybe they say "oh, f**k off" with a huge smile instead ? ;)