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It’s fine and normal. Volunteering is a great way to make new friends as are intramural sports.

The real cheat mode is having kids. We’ve made a ton of friends through school stuff, or even just chatting folks up at the playground. But it sounds like you’re not quite there yet.

I’m pretty certain thats normal. My closest friends are those which I met at school and any new friends are just colleagues i get on with at that point in time but if either one of us moves on to somewhere else we absolutely will not stay in contact or if we do it won’t be that often.

My theory is that new people already have their own established friend groups so can’t make much time for anyone else and its hard to ever be as important as an established long term friend group. The only person I met after school that I’m close to is my boyfriend.

To still have friends later in life in any form is honestly a blessing a lot of people aren’t so fortunate. But it genuinely is hard to form long term close friends it requires a lot of interaction but also a lot of events to bond over which for most newer people you meet just won’t happen because school and uni are the best times for silly antics to look back on. I’ve met NT people that have large “friend” groups from later in life but it always seems very hollow, those friends being the kind of people who wouldn’t even piss on you if you were on fire. The definition of friend between ND and NT people seem to be quite different.

If you’ve managed to hold onto those friendships, I’d say that’s a very good thing. It gets harder to make friends as you get older — ‘hanging out’ stops being a thing as the pressure of getting by in this hellscape mounts. Nurture those relationships, because they are precious!

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It means you have friends. I have a pretty hard time relating to just about anyone

The closest people I have right now I met in infancy.

Hah, I don’t know anyone from those days anymore; all i’ve got is my partners, the people in my org’s regional section, and maybe three or four folks that cropped up in the margins like a decade ago and somehow survived the slashing and burning of reactionary purges. A number that gets smaller every year lmao

It’s been over a decade since I last talked to any of the friends I had in my teens. I wish things hadn’t ended the way they did. Don’t worry too much about it

Regarding old friends, be happy you still have them. It’s terrible to have managed to alienate all the people you used to talk to severely enough that they will never be your friend again.

I’d say it’s totally fine. I used to have like four different friend circles and now I’m down to half of my highschool friends and some other folks.

I would give a lot to just have one ML friend

nah that’s like, super common. most people don’t make friends when they’re an adult so i know a lot of people where their main friendgroup is their friendgroup from highschool

im the opposite, i havent been able to keep childhood friends. shit goes both ways. do what works for you.

I’ve made some close friends in my 20s and 30s, though it becomes harder. I suspect there are a variety of factors for this (atomization under capitalism doesn’t help, needless to say). In any case, people become more guarded and have less time. I think to develop a really deep friendship takes disclosure of things we normally keep hidden. Just having shared interests or goals isn’t enough.

Disclosure is also part of romantic relationships, which would be my guess your uncertainty regarding the “line”