is it harder for men and women to be friends as they get older?

Since i left university, and the town i called home, i have found it really hard to make friends- i am getting there step by step but i've been here a year and sometimes it's lonely.

how so?

Going to have to do this soon, myself, since I've been reviewing my social circles and realized there are no likely, eligible dating prospects in ANY of them. Alone with cats, I'm going to die alone with cats.

Also, I am allergic to cats. Which makes my future all the more tragic....

Sooooo, I was dumped a week ago and the dumper felt very bad, so he decided to tell me something he considered reprehensible about himself so that I wouldn’t like him so much any more. He cultivates friendships with hot women just because they’re hot. But then he makes no attempt to sleep with them as he’s not into casual sex.

He didn't mention any other criteria or anything, like liking her personality. I was too out of it on self-pity at the time to question him further. Maybe during one of the awkward pauses in conversation next time we talk.

Do men really do this, just for the visuals, no sex involved? Actual friendships?

No. That is weird. And his break-up maneuver is weird. He sounds like a sociopath.

haha

i don't see how that's THAT reprehensible, so much as just kinda odd

anyway the first response in this thread is otm

i'm hoping for a future where the overwhelming proportion of my female friends aren't ex-girlfriends

xp re 'weird manoeuvre': after dissecting everything, and once you've got the vitriol out of the way and the ok-what-actually-happened part as well, sometimes during a break-up conversation, you're both kind of exhausted and can end up congratulating each other lamely on how well you're both managing the situation. It was after one of those moments. I think he suddenly felt he didn't deserve it.

I don't think it's reprehensible either, just... very unrewarding?

It sounds more like a self-punishment thing by the way you describe it, like he's into the denial of pleasure. And I only say that because of the way HE frames it as a reprehensible thing. Befriending attactive people and not sleeping with them is really not a big deal unless you place a huge value on sex. Unless he's trying to get these hot women attracted to him to the point where they DO want to sleep with him because of the friendship. But that doesn't sound like what he's doing. Sounds like a bit of an odd fellow...

Hmmm, yeah, maybe there's something in the denial of pleasure thing.

But the other possibility is that there's just a lot of pleasure for him in hanging out with hot women. Just seeing them. Being around them. Any men who feel this way and wouldn't die of frustration?

and yes, very lovely fellow, fell for him completely, but definitely a few oddities.

Maybe he's like an up-close voyeur....

uggghhhh

Sorry. Too real.

hello ljub! the dude might have some weird psychosexual issues but hey - at least he's honest. if i was in his situation...well a lot of the time i AM, just unwittingly! the older i get, the more female friends accrue, and the weirder this grand morass of love/lust/propriety becomes. it's not the worst arrangement; often i'll find a friend extremely attractive, but i won't be disheartened when nothing sexual happens between us. it doesn't have to; i have their friendship and their beauty, if not full carnal knowledge. that will come from others, people with whom i share a wavelength and a sexual impulse, rather than the former and a reduced blueprint of the latter. oh god i don't know it's 5 am and i've been drinking ffs

xpost heh, V-grrrl, it's fine, I should have added an emoticon. I should be rights be upset by this potential voyeurism but I think I just find the whole thing too strange for it to bother me.

LJ, totally see where you're coming from, drinking or no drinking. But that's very different from *selecting* friends for their hotttttness, isn't it?

I mean, what does 'friends' even mean, then?

yeah no i totally don't do that although tbh you should take it as a physical compliment even while disapproving of his shallowness...it's no friendship if he doesn't desire your mind

this issue has been quite lol with me of late because i was drinking at my BFF's the other night and sure nothing was gonna happen but we did sleep in her bed together and spoon which was kinda nice...thing is i thought she was out of the romantic loop completely but she arranged an impromptu date the next day with some lawyer, so basically what do i know about anything, also another lol ha goes out to my new coursemate friend who simply can't *help* herself, yeah we enjoyed the party without you and your new buddy XD

i.e. friends flirting w/ u then dating/shagging someone else is kinda mixed feelings but mostly lol

Depressing thread is depressing.

Aw, LJ is not being depressing. He's full of the joys of the ladies and the friendships.

Dude who goes out of his way to befriend pretty women is kind of funny, though. I wouldn't be too worried about it, it's probably a kind of ego trip for him to believe that beautiful women associate with him, and vice-versa. If you reverse the sexes and knew a girl who liked to hang with handsome men we'd probably just think of her as being an insecure person trying to compensate, and that's what that prob is.

x-post

And by "like to hang" I'm referring to the intentional seeking out, but no relationship oddness etc.

Good point Cunga. More likely 'ego trip' than 'insecure', but he's post-divorce, so maybe some of that too. Not worrying about it - not my business any more! But was intrigued to see if others would say 'I do this too'.

Well, there are multitudes of men who would love to be friends with beautiful women for whatever, or no, reason.

Ooh. Post-divorce, you say? Could it be his own passive form of 'revenge' or self-protection? Like hahaah you won't hurt me?
Sorry, my 5c psychologist is really kicking in with this guy :)

i find it hard to take his line seriously. if he's recently divorced it seems far more likely that he just isn't ready to couple up again yet.

sorry ljub

as i get older i have more and more male friends and fewer female friends but i feel like the female friends i make/retain are a lot better than those of yore.

at the very least, you get to be counted as a hot lady. but this guy sounds like a total douche/sociopath/asshole and you should tell him to fuck off. but who knows, maybe a hot chick telling him to fuck off would get him off so...

This guy sounds... weird. Now I don't know if that's just coz he's in an odd place post-divorce or if he is just congentially weird (I can't help it, I'm so negative that if I meet a guy who's divorced, I can't help but think... well, if he's such a catch, why did his marriage fail? I'd want to know the answer to that before getting involved.)

But that whole "let's tell her bad things about me so she won't be in love with me any more..." kind of maneuver is just ... that's a real STAY AWAY STAY AWAY signal to me. (Or at least it's been a sign of such in the past.)

I think the actual friendships between men and women comes back again *after* that flush of OMG SEX RELATIONSHIPS MARRIAGE - or maybe this is just part of growing old. Now I've kind of taken myself consciously off the market, both emotionally and physically, I have started having proper friendships with men again. Maybe more with young men who see me as a kind of mommy/agony aunt figure.

But maybe that's *me* being a bad and shallow person because *I* enjoy the company of hott young boys. ha ha.

Unless he's trying to get these the point where they DO want to sleep with him because of the friendship

Wait what? Since when have people started wanting to sleep with people due to friendship?

But that whole "let's tell her bad things about me so she won't be in love with me that's a real STAY AWAY STAY AWAY signal to me.

I'd say it's definitely a stay away signal. What with the. Message being I am bad, stay away and that..

I'm friends with lots of attractive ladies who I don't want to have sex with. But I'm not friends with them because of how they look.

Not saying there isn't a fringe benefit of hanging around with attractive ladies though.

I cultivate relationships with smart women just because they're smart. Am I going to hell?

i find it hard to take his line seriously. if he's recently divorced it seems far more likely that he just isn't ready to couple up again yet.

that whole "let's tell her bad things about me so she won't be in love with me any more..." kind of maneuver is just ... that's a real STAY AWAY STAY AWAY signal to me.

Yeah, his line wasn't the given reason for the break-up - that was pretty straightforward - he enjoyed hanging out, but just-can't-see-it-working-long-term, with some post-divorce baggage thrown in there too. We'd exhausted the 'why?' conversation and were kind of wrapping up. This line about hot women was more of a 'see, anyway I'm just not a good person' thing in response to that part of the break-up conversation where you both tell each other you're great people, deserve the best blah blah.

And yeah, if I'd known about it earlier it probably would have told me STAY AWAY...

Ooh. Post-divorce, you say? Could it be his own passive form of 'revenge' or self-protection? Like hahaah you won't hurt me?

You know, that might be very otm. I can totally see him doing this, in a low-level benign way. Hmmm.

I think kenan's got a point, in that everyone likes to have attractive friends, it's just that for most people (I guess/hope) 'attractive' doesn't just mean 'good-looking' - that's the weird thing here (that, and mentioning it)

yes, it goes without saying that most people like to have friends with the qualities that are attractive to them. That's the whole thing about being attractive - it attracts. However, that's the slightly annoying thing to me - that "attractive" is synonymous with "physically attractive" or conforming to certain standards of beauty. As if looks are the only things that could possibly be attractive - especially in women.

I try to cultivate friendships with clever and creative and thinking people. Those are the qualities that are *attractive* to me.

I suppose rather than the physical attributes I think of as physically attractive, such as floppy hair and pointy noses.

Hrmmm, I've been puzzling all morning over the difference between finding someone attractive and objectifying a person. There's a border here that I've been feeling my way around all morning but I still can't really see.

Isn't the difference more like between being attracted to them, and finding them attractive? The latter seems reflective, like you're thinking about them as attractive instead of just being attracted to them. Whereas when you just want to be with them, that's as far from objectifying as is possible.

"There's a border here that I've been feeling my way around all morning"

i'm no expert, but you are probably objectifying someone if this is the result...

and i'm totally lying about not being an expert...

the more i think about this line, the more it just has these tinges of 'i'm going to say this so that she'll want to try even harder to be the exception and want me more while i continue to treat her like shit' that make me really angry.

as i get older i have more and more male friends and fewer female friends but i feel like the female friends i make/retain are a lot better than those of yore.

Yeah, that's pretty much the case in my experience, though I'd say of my close friends it's about half and half. Not being single, it's probably a somewhat different dynamic, in that the physical attraction stuff is all hypothetical in terms of "taking things to the logical conclusion." Some of my male friends are guys I find attractive, some I don't. But the separating sexual attraction/friendship problem seems more traditionally a guy thing.

I frequently have trouble separating sexual attraction from friendship. But I recognise that I'm a weirdo who is not at all typical of my gender. :-/

Scott, I'm not sure if you're joking or not.

My own musing was kind of a follow-on from what I've been thinking about lately, not a comment on anything else said on this thread. I've been trying to figure out what the line is between being (physically) attracted to someone, and objectifying them. It's one of those things like Art and Pornography, that you know that there is a difference between them, but you're not sure where it is. It's like being attracted to some, physically or otherwise, is kind of an extension of how you feel about *them*- that it's about them as a person, and how you feel towards them. While objectifying them, it's not about who they are at all, and entirely about you and your desires and they are merely an empty vessel (or sperm receptacle, depending on your gender ha ha)

Sorry, this really is for another thread, and totally a derail.

It's like this double whammy that I get - not only does sexual attraction blur the boundaries of friendship - but also in a negative way. Like, I think it's almost like certain kinds of men are afraid of being friendly towards me for fear that I'd take it in a sexual light (and of course, I'm so repulsive that they would hate to be mistaken for a suitor.)

It's like being attracted to some, physically or otherwise, is kind of an extension of how you feel about *them*- that it's about them as a person, and how you feel towards them. While objectifying them, it's not about who they are at all, and entirely about you and your desires

I'd say that if it's someone you know, there's generally a bit of both going on.

maybe I'm just weird or maybe I'm constantly overthinking things, but with people I find myself attracted to, there's always an element of person as sign, that they signify or symbolize something or some group of traits that I'm attracted to, which I think is similar to objectification.

It's one of those things like Art and Pornography

For someone with an obscene mind, Pornography is Art.

"Scott, I'm not sure if you're joking or not."

it's been so long i almost forget. yes, i was joking. i'd had way too much coffee this morning.

hey tza, thanks for looking out for me. I don't he meant for me to strive to be the exception (and anyway, too late for that ;-) ) but I have no objection to you being angry with him as there are plenty of other grounds. Please carry on!

why did his wife divorce him?

rawr! all for u!
xpost

I find it really clear in most cases that my attractive female friends would be really awful matches for me in a dating relationship (for any number of reasons--a good match is hard to find). So it's pretty simple to not sleep with them. (Or lose sleep over it)

And if the line is blurred that badly, you either date them, or stop being friends with them. Or date them and then hope you can remain friends with them after it blows up in your face.

See? This stuff is really simple!

sarahel - re the divorce: sex dwindled to zero, wife decided she was gay, left, then decided she was bi and said that she actually left because she just didn't want to be married any more.

bingo.

bi 'n' go?

LOL

.....there's just a lot of pleasure for him in hanging out with hot women. Just seeing them. Being around them. Any men who feel this way and wouldn't die of frustration?

yeah, i guess so? people can look good to you without it being the only thing on your mind, and i don't find hanging out with attractive women in any way frustrating.

i really thought that was gonna be a tuomas post

I feel lame: the internet worked out what's probably behind this better than I did. At least, VG's theory seems pretty plausible to me.

Darraghmac, I can see what you're saying. But if you'd *actively* sought these women out as friends because they're attractive, you wouldn't be frustrated if you for some reason decided sleeping with any of them was a bad idea?

It's his description of it being 'reprehensible' that is the most telling part of it. On its own, it's no big deal.

Because he obviously thinks that he should sleep with these hot women, and the fact that he's not seems to him to be punishing THEM somehow. kind of like a very training-wheels kind of misogyny in action.

xxp it's hard to say. i wouldn't criticise actively looking to seek out people you find attractive, but actively writing people off as friends because they aren't, that's somehow different.

tehresa, at 4am i'm probably as close to tuomasmind as i ever get.

he obviously thinks that he should sleep with these hot women, and the fact that he's not seems to him to be punishing THEM somehow.

VG i've not been following the thread much, so i've missed what you're basing those pretty major jumps on. apologies if it's been covered.

he's a cunt tease because he thinks he's hot shit. fuck him.

^^ this

wait, didnt you notice all these hot girls around when you were together?

No - one of the signs of impending doom was not meeting his friends. I'm not sure how far this selecting of hot girls is supposed to go back.

maybe none of the hot girls ever meet each other

Heh heh, yeah. 'I have this Oct 1 deadline, I can't see you...'

like maybe he keeps a calendar and they each get separate days

I got Saturday evenings once every 3 weeks approx.

Huh. I posted his CDs and stuff back to him with a nice friendly card that told him it wasn't a grand gesture, I just didn't want it in the apartment. He emailed me to say thanks and told me he was mailing me something too. I'm pretty sure I didn't leave anything at his place the ***one time*** I was there. Odds of this thing, whatever it is, being appropriate: 3:1.

(irrelevant to my question)

returning an ex's stuff is pretty therapeutic, actually.

returning it broke is even better

hey saturday is very valuable real estate, good for you!

think of the poor girl that got saddled with tuesday.

He would ring around 8.30pm and arrive about 10pm. CAREFUL, I could derail this interesting discussion of men and their hot woman friends and just write a 1-page essay post on What Went Wrong and Why I Still Care, so I am stopping right NOW to get back on-topic and ask: I wonder if the hot women even notice what kind of friendship this is?

he's a cunt tease because he thinks he's hot shit. fuck him.

Before comma: possibly correct in a mild way, not sure. After comma: well if I hadn't, maybe I could have dragged this out a bit longer since he said what he really wanted was '100 first dates'. Oh here I go!

yeah, it just sounds like he wasn't up for a serious relationship. not being a guy, i have no idea whether having one's wife decide she's a lesbian is a major blow to the ego that requires a long time to get over.

depends on the guy, i would guess

It sounds like something of a bummer, really

it just seems like his "hot chicks friendships" are some way of healing his ego or getting back at his ex

Let's ask Charlie Kaufman./

sarahel, the major blow to the ego was apparently finding out that the reason for her leaving was not that she was a lesbian, but that in fact it was more complicated than that. Which makes sense to me.

yeah, more ego healing than getting back at her I'm guessing.

I will ask him at some point and report back.

I think I did chip one of his cd cases, darragh. Pretty mild.

what was the cd?

hahahaha abbott

Weakerthans

Derive fascinating psychological insights form this band! GO!

from

psychological insight: u can do better

Thank you. May be ready to agree with you in 1 to 2 months' time but not yet unfortunately.

Derive fascinating psychological insights form this band! GO!

do not move to winnipeg

Heh, ok yes that'll do.

Is there actually such a thing as a cunt tease? Maybe that doesn't work for the same broad reason that there's no such thing as reverse racism. But I'm not saying this as a fact, it's just a thought I had.

Nah, forget it. That's backwards on top of backwards. I should stop trying to think aloud and imagining it will be interesting.

i'm thinking to be a cunt tease a guy's got to be other level hot, a cock tease can be just about breathing and qualify.

i have no idea what you guys are talking baout. you don't think it can be annoying for a guy to lead a girl on in the same manner as a girl who leads a guy on is considered a cock tease?

xp I'm thinking (now, anyway) that a cock tease is something totally invented by dudes who think the fact that they have an erection automatically entitles them to sex.

"She left me with a hard on! This is the worst sex crime that could ever happen!" Women don't tend to frame it quite that way.

no but they can be just as equally frustrated as that!

kenan stfu

When did you start hating me? You don't bring me flowers, etc.

it's pretty insensitive to think women can't fall victim to the same forms of manipulation just because their anatomy differs.

No, of course, but I wasn't even thinking of it as legitimate manipulation, just as something bitched about after the fact. "I didn't get what I wanted. What a tease!" Isn't that the was it's usually used?

the WAY

Certainly "tease" is language reflecting power lost (or gained), not actual sexual frustration.

however you define it, the idea that it couldn't apply to women is ridiculous.

that wasn't what i was saying, ftr.

something bitched about after the fact. "I didn't get what I wanted. What a tease!"

Yeah sorry, guys have done that to me too, and not just sexually - emotionally more often, in actual fact!

hell, the waitress in my lunch place leaves me feelin like that just about every day

xpost to theresa: I think I agree with you completely; it's just that I was coming at it from a different angle. You're saying that it's entirely possible for a man to sexually excite a woman and not follow through, for the express purpose of manipulation. And, yeah, sure. I'm saying that "cock tease" is a term generally employed by fratty, ignorant, douchebags who are justifying to their friends how they failed to nail it shut. (So to speak.) That's the definition that made me say, "Ok, nevermind."

Really, no disagreement here.

exactly Trayce, both directions of tease can involve emotion behind the sex. Often (attach huge caveats here), when women are sexually frustrated by men, they have some kind of emotional attachment to those men. But not *always*, ymmv, women are sexual beings, etc. etc. I'm obviously biased here since that's what happened to me.

emotionally more often, in actual fact!

Hoo boy. Yeah.

xp

I imagine almost any woman who has dated a man has been emotionally manipulated by him in one way or another. And I cannot honestly say that the women who have dated me are in any different boat. Particularly, say, ten years ago.

Which maybe kinda gets back to the thread question. It's harder to make friends as you get older, period. But it's less gender-specific at the same time. Women's bullshit detectors get better, men (optimally) get more sensitive to the consequences of their actions, and sex itself becomes a different calculation for both genders as you put more failed relationships behind you.

Dude, stfu

uncalled for.

Applaud Kenan's regrouping in direction of the thread question! (my whole deal here is a bit of a side-riff on the thread question, tbh).

men (optimally) get more sensitive to the consequences of their actions,

Nah, it gets harder because the older the man, the more confident the playa.

The older the woman, the less likely to get played. One of the reasons that an older man dating a much younger woman is a little bit creepy. (All depending on the woman, the man, and the circumstances, but we've had this argument before.)

Well hang on, shouldnt we be separating out friends and conquests here? Never the twain, for me, ugh. Especially not these days - all my friends are all fat and old.

shouldnt we be separating out friends and conquests here?

That's kind of the whole thread question.

Yo Kenan you are aware you have a penis right

I don't know if I'd go here, frankly, after your ardent defense of Roman Polanski. How about you stfu.

i'll temp you both if you continue bickering

I'll agree to those terms.

There totally is such a thing as a cunt tease. Or a fanny dangle. Let me refer you to one former boyfriend (oh wait, not boyfriend, he wouldn't want me to get the wrong idea) of mine who shall not be named as he sometimes posts on this board (or at least is still friends with many people who do.)

He had this whole idea that if you didn't actually have *sex* with someone, then that would mean that you were not "involved" - so despite the whole thing of like, going on what looked for all the world like Dates - hanging out, doing things, drinking, snogging, etc. - you couldn't *actually* ever have expectations of him.

Even if your only expectations were, you know, hang around, have a good time, get laid, have a fling and stuff.

not that I'm bitter or anything - HA!

This guy is still up to his old tricks. He's especially fond, it seems, of doing this to women who are coming out of long-term relationships because then there's *really* no way that he ever has to worry about a proper relationship, rebound or otherwise - and can MAXIMISE the psychological damage inflicted on the woman when he's the first man that expresses an interest after coming out of a long-term thing.

The older the woman, the less likely to get played. One of the reasons that an older man dating a much younger woman is a little bit creepy. (All depending on the woman, the man, and the circumstances, but we've had this argument before.

omg totally read 'circumferences'

a 45mm man dating a 16mm girl is just perverted

even the metaphor makes me uncomfortable. Maybe especially.

metaphwoar

I don't think this is possible if both parties are straight.

harry met sally was like 25 years ago, when will people stop saying this????

you can be great friends for years but the moment you push just a little and he/she demurs, it is over

No way to repair that shit either

^ false btw

some of my best friends are straight women who demurred my ass a long time ago, water under the bridge, man

yeah I'm still good-to-great friends with women who have declined my advances, and with women whose advances I have declined, and with women with whom I've had fleeting reciprocal romances

that makes my life sound like way more of a romantic whirlwind than it actually is btw

ppl are generally less dichotomous than assumed imo

urgh I was recalling one really bad experience where I was too insecure to handle the rejection and things went bad -- but you guys are right, it doesn't have to be that way

It's nonsense to say that men and women specifically can't maintain platonic friendships. Most of my closest friends are women (belonging to all of the categories crut mentions above), and my life would certainly be poorer without them. I'd say, if anything, that it's become easier to maintain platonic relationships with my female friends at the same time that it's become more difficult to maintain friendships in general (as I think tends to happen as one starts to build an adult life that isn't as centered around "hanging in the quad" or what have you).

some of my best friends are straight women who demurred my ass a long time ago, water under the bridge, man

yup. this question is bullshit

there are no bullshit questions

I beg to differ

"why isn't there a Men's History Month?"

actually as I get older I find myself deepening my friendships w/ the women in my life, way moreso than the men. (tbf I am not married/kid'd)

It gets considerably easier ime

my bff and I successfully transitioned from fwb to platonic, which was a first for me

That's really neat! a couple of my closest female friends started out as pretty serious crushes (years and years ago)

This was harder when I was younger, mostly because I didn’t understand the other perspective very well. Ime (as in, don’t “not all men” me), problems arise because sometimes people are only used to that kind of intimacy/closeness in a romantic relationship and it trips them the wrong way. Ofc you do get some people whose motives are rather less complex (i definitely had a couple of people drop out of my life when I got together with the husband).

But yeah it can be difficult and several friendships of mine have been ruined by this. I’ve always had male friends since childhood so it’s not something novel or interesting to me, but if the person mistakes closeness for intimacy and then for sexual interest then it can get messy and not in a good way.

in part this revive was prompted by a quote from my manager (who is a nice guy about my age, married in the burbs w/ two young kids) in response to the news that I was moving in w/ a female friend : "I've never really had a female friend that wasn't a partner or partner of a friend. Certainly no one I would consider moving in with"

I guess I would broaden (update?) the uh cis-centric original premise of this thread to say I think it's cool and nice when people who could feasibly date or have an affair or whatever are super close pals instead

I've always had women friends but I've spent a lot of adulthood being bad at drawing a line between friendship and physical intimacy, I regret taking so long to learn to be less of a scumbag but I'm glad I feel like I've learned from stuff I've done badly. I dunno, trying to be a decent human being is a lifelong fluid process imo. I really like people and in an ideal world I kind of like a level of non-sexual touchy cuddliness but also well I'm glad for all the good people out in the world and Internetland who've been teaching valuable truths thru the years

"as they get older"? how much older are we talking about? i imagine my friendships with men when I'm 70 are going to be different than they are now at 45 ... definitely different now than they were when I posted on this thread 11 years ago when I was not single.

On the one hand, it's easier with age, because I am more comfortable with myself and less insecure, thus better at being a friend and expressing positive feelings towards someone, male or female. On the other hand, I am more comfortable with myself and less insecure and I realize how entitled, annoying, and stupid a lot of cis-men often act (i'm white btw, as are these men) compared to women, so they are actually less appealing to be friends with, on the whole. I do still have and value men as friends, just fewer of them.

sp

I feel a lot of that NV. a lot of being an adult for me has been spending a LOT of time alone to ultimately come to the conclusion that I'm better off less alone, and that I can actually be a positive force in other people's lives. I suspect but can't prove this is a struggle for a lot of men in particular

I finally did it, I typo'd "xp"

that's interesting simon because i would say it's been the reverse for me. i've been much happier the last few years having no friends (apart from 2 people who i exchange text messages a couple of times a year with around our respective birthdays)than i was when i was in my twenties and actually hung out with people.

i think i probably knew quite early on that i was most content when by myself but was always worried that this was the wrong way of being a person so tried to resist it, once friends started getting married and having kids it was easy to kinda gradually slide away and not bother getting any new ones and i've been glad of it.

interesting, and good on ya OB