The older you get, the harder it is to find friends

There is a saying that in a person's life, interpersonal relationships are like the annual rings of a tree. The older you are, the more annual rings you have. However, Alex Williams, a senior reporter at the New York Times, recently said in an article: When you are in your thirties or forties, many new faces will enter your life, but close good friends? In students There are fewer and fewer old friends we have made over the years, the friends we can think of first in times of crisis.

The older you get, the harder it is to find friends. This is a feeling shared by many people. Research by Zhao Lihua, a professor at the Department of Psychology at Peking University, has confirmed that the closer a person is to middle age, the fewer people he makes friends with. Looking back, many people made most of their friends when they were students or when they first entered the workplace. But as we grow older, we seem to only be able to make friends with people who are casual acquaintances or just acquaintances. So, on their birthday, some people looked through hundreds of QQ and WeChat friends and looked through the phone book, only to find that they still couldn't gather a table of guests and could only blow out the candles alone; some people encountered major changes in life, such as divorce or When you lose a loved one, you can’t find anyone to talk to; there are also many elderly people who originally need more friends to accompany them, but they can’t find them for various reasons. As a result, the old couple can only watch TV at home for a whole day. sky.

Investigating the reason, Zhao Lihua pointed out from a personal psychological perspective that everyone has an alarm clock deep in his heart. Every time he reaches a certain moment in his life, such as entering his thirties, the alarm clock will ring loudly. It will remind us that life is fleeting. Please stop making friends everywhere and devote yourself to more important things, such as family and career. We also begin to feel that life is limited and cannot be spent too much on communicating with strangers.

From a social psychological perspective, some Western scholars have proposed three external conditions for making close friends: close contact, frequent unannounced visits, and the ability to reveal each other's feelings. It is the lack of these three conditions that makes it difficult for people who are getting older to make good friends. First, modern society is highly mobile and it is difficult to maintain close interpersonal contact. For example, if someone meets someone they like at work, such as a client or collaborator, they will get close to them over a period of time. But if this working relationship ends, the communication between the two may gradually decrease. Secondly, as my career develops, time becomes increasingly tight. Sometimes, even if I am just across the street from my old classmates, I don’t have time to get together. Third, as life experiences become more and more abundant, people's criteria for choosing friends are more picky than when they were young. Writer Ma Boyong said: "When we were young, we made friends just because a cup of Qingdao Junsheng could be served on the table. But as adults, our tables have been raised a lot." ?If you have encountered changes in friendship, you will be afraid of being hurt again, so you will close yourself in and be unwilling to open your heart.

Actually, it’s not impossible to make close friends as you get older, but you have to be careful. First of all, we must abandon the concept of time cost that is rooted in our hearts, let go of utilitarianism, value friendship over interests, and do not only make friends with useful people. Secondly, friends require time and energy to care for, even as much as a marathon relationship. In your free time, you can go to a teahouse with your friends to chat about your current situation, or you can post hand-written WeChat messages during festivals, etc., which will keep the relationship fresh. Once again, making friends is like making soup. If the fire is too high, it will overflow. When facing unfamiliar people, people tend to give themselves a perfect package. Therefore, don't think that it's too late to meet each other when you first talk, but to get to know each other better, and even have a period of "shared joys and sorrows" experience, and slowly run into each other. Finally, don’t make friends indiscriminately. Writer Feng Tang has a "friend rating scale" where 100 points represents the best friend. But when a new friend shows signs of not returning calls, being rude, dishonest, etc., he will deduct points in his mind; points can be added if he speaks and behaves appropriately. This is also a way to filter friends. ;