michael_nielsen

I've always found long-term friendship more mysterious than romantic attraction. So many inexplicable aspects to why friends choose and keep one another.

what fascinates me are the reasons why some people have no close, long term friends especially women. how does this happen? I’d pick 5 close close friends over 50 pseudo-friends every day

My guess at an answer: forming close long-term friendships involves a lot of skills. If you don't learn those skills growing up - for many people, I suspect through seeing it modelled by family - then they're pretty hard to invent de novo.

Particularly true of people who move to new cities or countries.

yes probably true, though it sometimes appears to be a choice people make: to have many many acquaintances vs. a few close friends ... nature/nurture both I suppose

I wonder how many people lack the skills to form & maintain close friendships, & so aren't so much making a choice as accepting a default. In my home country (Australia), there's historically been a lot of emphasis on men (especially) not disclosing any type of vulnerability.

Needless to say that makes forming close friendships much harder!