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Poll: How friendships change when we grow older


Ace_Of_Cakes

Friendship poll (target audience: single (aro-)aces ages 23 and up)  

73 members have voted

  1. 1. Around the time your friends are/were getting kids/married/moving in together, did you feel like you were left behind?

    • Yes, a lot
      18
    • Yes, a little bit
      16
    • Neutral
      3
    • Not really
      3
    • Not at all
      6
    • My friends are not yet at that stage in their life
      27
  2. 2. Do you think your friends who live with their significant other prefer to hang out with other couples instead of single friends?

    • Yes, a lot
      10
    • Yes, a little bit
      21
    • Neutral
      11
    • Not really
      10
    • Not at all
      4
    • My friends are not yet at that stage in their lives
      17
  3. 3. Do you still see your friends as often as you used to before they moved in together/got married?

    • Yes, is still see them a lot
      0
    • No more and no less than before
      10
    • I see them less often now
      23
    • I don't see them at all anymore
      17
    • My friends are not yet at that stage in their lives
      23
  4. 4. How important would you rate friendships in your life?

    • Very important, I'm a social creature
      10
    • Definitely important, but I also need my alone-time
      42
    • Somewhat inportant, but I prefer being alone
      18
    • No, I am a total hermit and don't need anyone else :)
      3
  5. 5. Do you find it easy to make new friendships in this stage of your life?

    • Yes, very easy
      5
    • Yes, but it takes more effort
      14
    • About as easy/hard as I did when I was a kid/teenager.
      11
    • No, not very easy
      16
    • Not easy at all, but with some effort
      17
    • Totally impossible
      10
  6. 6. What is your method for finding new friendships?

    • Going to a bar/cafe
      1
    • Finding friends through online forums/social media
      34
    • Finding friends through online gaming
      13
    • Making friends of colleagues
      24
    • I'm still in school/college/uni and I meet people there
      31
    • Other
      26
  7. 7. Do you wish you had more (close) friends?

    • Yes, I would really like more friends in my life to be happy
      29
    • Yes, why not? I'm good but the more the merrier!
      15
    • I am content with my inner circle
      23
    • No, I've got enough friends, and don't have room for any more
      6
  8. 8. Are you afraid of losing friends as you grow older and not finding new ones? A fear of ending up alone?

    • Yes, I'm very afraid of this
      29
    • Yes, I'm somewhat afraid of this
      24
    • I'm indifferent towards it
      11
    • No, I'm not that afraid of it
      8
    • No, I'm not afraid of it at all.
      1

This poll is closed to new votes


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This poll is mostly targeted at single (aro-)aces at the age of 23 and over, because it deals with the way friendships change when people grow up and move away to start their own families and such. I am wondering what kind of impact this has on asexuals and how they deal with forming new friendships, and how they would rate their needs on that front. 

You are of course welcome to participate if you are at an earlier life stage, but the questions might not be very relevant. 

 

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I only have one friend who has a kid and lives with her significant other, they aren't married (they were engaged for a while though). We don't live on the same continent anyways, so we don't really get a lot of opportunities to hang out with each other, and pretty much never see each other, so...

Anyways, I don't feel left behind, she's always been extremely different than me, so I don't really compare our life directions

 

None of my other friends are married, live with their SO or have kids

 

All my friends are either friends I made while I was still at school, or people I met at Uni, who I had classes with (I'm still in university)

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5. Do you find it easy to make new friendships in this stage of your life

 

I have never really found it easy to make friends.

 

I have a few and happy with the inner circle I have.

 

I don't think I am seeing them any more or any less than before

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I don't find it easy to make friends, and basically went from 12 to 40 without any. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dear Ace_of_Cakes,

 

I think you will find it is much the same for asesxal people - people woh are going to have a family will drop most of their friends made before the age of 25 - see at:

https ://www. independent.co.uk/news/science/people-lose-friends-at-age-25-study-says-a7043796. html

"The age at which you start losing friends (it's younger than you think)" by Elsa Vulliamy - she refers to this scientific research paper: "Sex differences in social focus across the life cycle in humans - 10 March 2016 - in the Royal Society's 'Open Series ' - except we are more likely to be the ones to be dropped, than the ones doing the dropping.

 

Female frriendships are dropped very often when a heterosexual female friend' finds a man' - and that's very common, in my own experience over 4 adult decades (and a few years extra).  The book 'Between Women' by Luise Eichenbaum & Susie Orbach throws some light on the difficult and second-class nature of "women as women's friends".  Michael Argyle (in 'The Psychology of Interpersonl Behaviour' remarks on some unhealthy aspects of women's friendships, too, as well as identifying those behaviours most likely to end any friendship.

 

I can vouch also for the terminating effect of bereavement on friendship, having experienced friends of decades' standing distance themslves from me when I was widowed (from my same-sex marriage, a partnership of almost 21 years).   A search on the web will turn up for you many threeads complaining of the same, even where the loss has been a child not a spouse.  I decided that I was better off alone, than on my own in a crowd of tele-hypocrites to whom I was providing a sort of soap-opera-by-telehphone-call.  I dismissed each one, tellng them that (i) company and (ii) innocent human contact cannot be delivered by e-mail nor by telephone, and that both of those things are known to be what a bereaved person needs most if left on her own by her loss.  An upset chimpanzee would have had more love from the group than a bereaved person will get from frriends, I gathered.

 

Fortunately, I am quite happy to live alone, or being widowed whilst childless would have been even more of a taste of Hell. 

 

I hope that this helps with background. 

 

Why are you interested in the topic, I wondered, please?

 

Paula

 

 

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PS what seems to trump the love for friends is the love for close kin, for heterosexuals - and many gay/lesbian people could tell you that 'with feeling' - they, too, have found often that 'blood is thicker than water' for those whom they dismiss as "breeders".  They, like us, have to make their own non-kin family, very often.  Paula

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Won’t answer as a non-ace but I don’t have enough friends to compare myself to as a whole! 😂 I have three friends. Two got married VERY young (early 20s) and the other, at 25, is nowhere near ready for marriage and is adamant she won’t be for at least the foreseeable future. I’m getting married in June at 26 and I feel quite young to get married. I have one friend with a baby. The rest aren’t there yet. They’re all important to me but because of physical distance, we don’t often see each other in person.

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Sure rants alot

I'm 66 and it is very hard to deal with the loss of so many old dear friends, relatives and mentors -all gone now.  The rest of my friends are or have been retiring and moving to other areas. Sometimes the most difficult thing is going to a new  church activity or senior citizen centers where there are already established friendships and cliques which aren't always very welcoming...it kind of reminds me of high school all over again.  I'm not really extroverted at all.  I guess I'm sort of a senior citizen orphan *sigh*

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I'm still a teenager but my friendships have slightly changed from when I was like 9 till now (I am nearly 16.)

 

When I was 9 a lot of kids my age were a bit nicer if that made sense, but as some of the kids who used to be nice got older they turned into bitchy people. But others stayed nice. It depends 😕 But yeah I'm a bit of a hermit - I don't need friends to thrive. My social skills are trash and I'm an introvert, so I could easily be stranded on an island alone, and happily thrive.

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1. Around the time your friends are/were getting kids/married/moving in together, did you feel like you were left behind?

Just turned 23. Not really. While they have moved onto a new stage of their life and have less time for hanging out due to commitments for their children or family, much of it is also them settling into new careers. I also have less time due to my class load. I think the loss of time is more due to us maturing out of ages when we had excess free time to do things like hang out.

2. Do you think your friends who live with their significant other prefer to hang out with other couples instead of single friends?

Can't really say besides married couples, most of my friends are somewhat religious and will not live together until after marriage. However, most of the ones who got married have done so over the past year or so, and I haven't noticed much of a change that cannot be confounded by their graduation from university and getting careers or entering grad school. 

3. Do you still see your friends as often as you used to before they moved in together/got married?

I do not, but I am pretty sure it is more due to me moving to another country than them getting married. 

4. How important would you rate friendships in your life?

Rating would be a bit off for me here. While I prefer to spend most of my time in solitude. I value knowing that I have at least one very close friend, and that I can be one to them in return. 
 
5. Do you find it easy to make new friendships in this stage of your life?
 I have never found it easy.

6. What is your method for finding new friendships?
 I am still in university so most potential new friends are classmates, and sometimes through my synagogue.


7. Do you wish you had more (close) friends?
 Inner circle all good.

8. Are you afraid of losing friends as you grow older and not finding new ones? A fear of ending up alone?
 I used to be, but I was also alone then. The fear doesn't change anything. 

 

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Squirrel Combat

I've generally cycled through different friends, and girlfriends, over the years. I like having a small dedicated group of about 4-6 friends and then a lady. Because I'm socially independent, as I'm coming to embrace, my small group is very important, and I know I should make more effort to include them in my life.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I did feel left behind when all the people I knew from school started getting married and having real relationships... when I was younger it is what fueled me into thinking something was wrong with me for not having anyone, yet almost all my peers did :< Once my friends got married/relationships, they put their SO > me, so I hardly saw them anymore, and now its to the point I never see them (and I also moved to a new city so meh, that did it too!). I also feel like couples want to hang out with other couples vs their single friend, but that is just my experience and I can see why it would be more fun to go on a double date vs having a third wheeler. 

 

I do love my alone time, but I think having 1-3 friends is important so you can have someone to talk to/rely on. I'm not that social and a lot of my hobbies are independent hobbies, but it never hurts to have a friend to talk to. I find it very easy to make acquaintances, but making close friends takes a bit longer and is harder for me. For my niche hobbies/interests I use the internet to make friends since that is pretty much the only way to go about it, but I do prefer face-to-face interaction and to make my friends in person > internet. I usually stay in contact with my IRL friends longer than my online friends since we see each other every now and then, and have that closeness of living in the same city + doing things together.

 

I don't really fear ending up alone... there are thousands and thousands of people out there, and it would be hard to run out of people to talk to... As far as not having a close friend anymore, I do sometimes think about that. Having someone you jive with and they like you too to that same degree + having several hobbies/interests in common + similar world views can be hard to find. I feel like too I think of friendships a little bit differently than most people... most people want to have a SO to be close to, but I want to be close to a friend in that way (minus the intimacy/romance, if I'm making any sense). 

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I'm extremely well blessed, most of the friends I have I've been friends with for over 30 years, some nearer 40 years, obviously as we get older, I've lost a few close friends along the way, but I guess that's a part of life, im still very, very close to all the friends I have been close to, in fact I think if anything, we've grown closer as the years have gone by even though all of my friends are either married or in relationships, I am the only single person within my social circle but they all accept me for who I am, everyone knows I'm single for life 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Although I'm at that stage in life already (I'm 28), I'm lucky that none of my closest friends got married yet. But it is one of my greatest fears, to be left alone in the world, so it's great to see so many others here having the same fear. Let me hug you all ❤️

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  • 10 months later...

@Ace_Of_Cakes

 

This poll is being locked and moved to the read only Census archive for it's respective year. As part of ongoing Census organisation, and in an attempt to keep the demographics of the polls current with the active user base at the time, the polls will last for one year from now on. However, members are allowed and even encouraged to restart new polls similar to the archived ones if they like them.

  

iff, Census Forum Moderator

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