I am 30 years old and I don't have any friends. I used to, and I can feel the absence, I can feel that something is wrong. Solitude can be good, very good, in fact, but, man, never talking to anyone, never getting any feedback, never getting any novel stimulus from a living human, never hearing something new, it's a kind of torture. IMO male friendship in particular is dangerous to the regime and is stamped out specifically--no freedom of association allowed for men as we "progress": sex-segregated schooling on the continuous decline, Boy Scouts gone, the military a lesbian baby shower. Men could encourage each other's virtue, inculcate loyalties beyond the state, we can't have that! It's not very inclusive, and it might even be racist! And denial of male freedom of association is further enforced by cultural mores (encouraged by regime media, of course, and repeated by women and men (mostly spiritually women these days)): "you don't want women involved? what are you, gay??" Any positive depiction of male friendship in media is immediately interpreted as being gay. There's a lot of online discourse about dating, relationships, less about friendship even though it's similarly destroyed in modernity IMO.
Nice response, AC. Part of being on this planet is so that we can be challenged in our beliefs and grow from them, which can be painful. Feedback from others, especially from friends, is an important aspect of that. If you don’t have friends and feel it’s absence, perhaps try to form “friendships of pleasure” - i.e. friendships built around shared hobbies, whatever yours happen to be.
Would that there were more men willing to break the laws against being a human! One time I asked ChatGPT how to make friends and the first thing it said was "be a good friend." One time I made a Bumble "friend" account (this exists, it's supposedly for friendship and not dating) and I got solicited too much for gay sex so I stopped trying it. I looked into joining a local baseball or softball team and the price to play a season was over $500 and it was not gender segregated. These anecdotes are funny to me at this point (relentless tragedy becomes funny IMO) and make me think of the old adage (applicable to so much these days): for every digital problem there is an analog solution. I should just be able to joke around with like-minded men! Nah, here's a streamer or podcast to simulate socialization, here's a new friendship app, here's a therapist (hope it's covered by insurance) to talk about the problem with. Modernity is relentless with the top-down engineered solutions (man himself is the final widget, of course) to make ersatz versions of nature's bounties. The internet actually has shades and reflections of freedom of association: the group chat, Discord, X, Substack--yet the platforms are themselves subject to modernity/regime overreach, gone with the flick of a switch as cultural mores "progress," every word recorded to potentially be used for *something* when *the time comes,* or access simply revoked. Sorry for the rant, friendship-posting just stirs something up inside.
Sad that the challenges to one’s thinking that independent-minded people receive are often total non-sequiturs to the Western tradition, the folkways of European people, and even basic 1990s standards of fact-finding. Like TG commented below, every independent thinker i know of vigilantly self-polices in public. The growth we hope to attian from belief challenge can only come when a given interlocutor comes from a place of reason, in a mindset of good faith, with an argument that can stand even a moment’s [analysis/cross-examination/highly dispositive video evidence/impassioned ranting]. Without wanting to seem too arrogant or certain in belief, it seems that more often than not, woke NPCs act as self-anointed clergy, smarmily scolding the un-anointed. I dislike depersonalizing the opposition to People of Good Will, but these people often appear totally disconnected from God’s light, not in the maliciously evil way of a Hillary Clinton, but in an unknowing-unconscious way that I don’t remember encountering in years past.
The thing is that the NPC mind is fundamentally different from the dissident mind. The NPC mind derives a feeling of safety and a feeling of belonging through conformity; therefore debating with them is useless, because you are basically asking them to feel insecure and alone. Thinking and analysis is secondary to this feeling. They are like a fish in a school of fish, as Zman astutely pointed out here: https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=17777 .
The thing is, if dissidents somehow seized power most of the NPCs would simply start parroting dissident talking points. Such is the nature of power...
Agreed. I've often observed that 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯, and just like a common handgun they can be used for legitimate justice or crime most grave. I guess what I've been surprised by is how many people "have NPC in them," or are NPCs outright. Perhaps it was always this way but they were oriented towards prosocial ends in the 90s.
Regardless, thanks for creating an outpost of sanity in the wilderness. Appreciate your efforts in compiling so much original thought & research.
You are absolutely right. Only, maybe, the social reaction to any male-only association would be: "Don't you believe in feminism and equal rights?", rather than "What are you, gay?"
Overall, in many situations, scenarios, friendship seems like a myth. Especially since the advent of social media where if someone agrees with something you said, or expressed ONCE, you can be “friended.” Not the same thing at all, I know, but my nearly 77 years have jaded me regarding many things. One of the big ones is friendship. Over the years, the pets - dogs and cats - I’ve had have been the only ones not to betray. The only true and loyal friends.
Thanks Lin. Your response reminds me of the famous expression: "Want a friend? Get a dog." I agree with you that the advent of social media, which has been branded as bringing people together, ultimately makes people further apart than ever. Real friendship requires in-person bonding which is in shorter supply these days...
Thanks Kenai. I agree with you, there's a mysterious element how friendships are formed and why they end; we aren't entirely in charge of what develops as much as we would like to be...
At certain moments my thoughts return again and again to the phenomenon of the soldier who throws himself on a hand grenade to protect his comrades or leaps up and runs into intense enemy gunfire to try and save a wounded friend lying helpless on the battlefield.
The cynical among us might quickly claim this can also be self-serving, less than selfless, if the soldier does it because desiring to be known as heroic, to gain admiration.
I have never accepted this contention. I've also never been in battle nor in anything remotely like it. But in the sheer chaos, intensity, and terror of combat, the man who in the space of a heartbeat acts -- not decides -- to value a friend's life as equal to his own, that is living proof that some humans really are capable of absolute unconditional love. Or even loving others more than themselves.
I once read the account of a veteran who admitted that the bond he experienced in combat with his comrades in arms surpassed that of all other relationships in his life, including with his wife and children. He hated to admit it.
“I once read the account of a veteran who admitted that the bond he experienced in combat with his comrades in arms surpassed that of all other relationships in his life, including with his wife and children. He hated to admit it”.
Thank you for writing this piece. I don't know if it's my stage in life or a combination of things, but I have "shed" almost everyone I would call a friend in the last four years. The few that have remained in my circle are true friends. None of them live very close to me and we speak every couple of months. We genuinely care for each other without an agenda. These are, in no way transactional friendships.
I am not at all sad that I have "lost" these friends. I am an introvert that enjoys loads of time alone with my dogs! My soulmate and best friend is my husband of 35 years who is also and introvert. We actually like each other! We spend a lot of time sharing our thoughts, dreams, love of nature, traveling, and new skill sets.
I don't have time to waste listening to whining and complaining which most people seem to thrive on! I also don't have space or time for people who don't possess an ability to listen. Friendship ISN'T having one person "fire hose" every last thought and complaint at you just because they have no self control. I think one might refer to this as narcissistic!
So, I am figuring out the friendship arena and how it fits into my little world.
P.S. I have met a lot of very lovely people here on Substack!
Thanks Kat. I'm glad that you have a couple of deep friendships even if you don't see each other much and that your husband is your best friend. That's more than a lot of people have.
This was great. One of my favorite passages in all of philosophy is still Aristotle's discussion of friendship in Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, which is almost exactly what you describe here in the friendships of virtue section. Funnily enough I read that passage with a philosophy book club that ended up being the basis for many great (and still growing friendships).
The contraction of your friend circle makes me sad and also nervous for my own future. I have plenty of friends now, but I'm still quite young, and don't have the conjones that you do about confronting those friends about their life choices. It will be interesting to see how these circles change over time, and how many of those friendships are real, rather than just of convenience. I also wish you all the best in fighting back against globohomo and trying to make friends again. The fear of intimacy and homoeroticism can only stop us if we let it.
Thanks Joshua. I know a few guys who have maintained a larger and still deep friend circle as they age, but it requires a lot of intentionality on their part -- they prioritize their friends, make sure to reach out to them in order to plan calls and meet-ups, and they are also trustworthy, respectful, non-judgmental and caring. Hopefully you will be able to maintain your friends as you get older; being aware of their fragility and how they need to be maintained/nurtured goes toward that, I think...
Not that it makes it worth less, but friendship from comraderie (or hardship and/or shared experiences) is easier to form given how at its foundation the exterior context locks participants into a shared lived experience.
Friends of or from virtue are few and far between. It requires a two way street, and both participants to be right for each other in that moment they meet, to be going places (or developing/growing) in compatible ways.
It's not just globohomo (of which I'm a part, as we all are, thanks to the internet; if you disagree, go out into the wild or a homestead and see how far that gets you); It's this whole pretense that reality boils down to capitalism and modernity. We don't have any choice in the matter.
Ever since the whole narradigm upheaval I've become more convinced that a return to first principles is needed, and Virtue has an important role to play. When I was younger I would have benefited if leaders and the powerful had talked about Virtue more often.
Thank you for this essay on friendship.
I'm in my mid 40s. Friends have left me and I them. Sometimes it's not up to us and there's nothing we can do. It can really hurt, but pain can also be good medicine. Solitude can be good for the spirit, but we're social animals and renouncing society because it won't bend the knee to us sounds like we've got issues.
Interesting piece, well written and thought out Neo. I guess anyone reading that is spurred to do a friend stock-take, an interesting exercise on it's own.
My covid experience went the other way, six people who had drifted out of my close circle for one reason or another contacted me for my thoughts on what was going on, perhaps because I am a deep thinker who tends to research things to the enth degree, including conspiracies. Tho I'm generally pretty stoic, if a subject comes up I have researched, I'm rarely shy about telling it as it is. Four of those people declined the jabs, two of those have dived head first into the rabbit hole and become even closer friends, another two I never heard from again.
It was much harder to convince family, my SIL is a cancer survivor she wore the jab like a flag of virtue, blazing down the phone at me because (with extreme difficulty and a twist of fate) I'd convinced my wife not to get it, another SIL was part of the schools vax program, so between the two of them it was an uphill battle with family, my BIL got it but I'd given him enough info to spur him into further research that convinced him not to jab his three kids. At a recent family gathering at our place he actually quietly thanked me, unsurprisingly nobody else raised the subject, it was as if the whole covid thing never happened (lol).
I find most people pretty fickle when it comes to real friendship, I had a pub for ten yrs where everyone wanted to be my best friend, nobody stayed in touch when we sold it. I left Facebook ~7yrs ago, I put a post up detailing the privacy violations of the company, and connections to nefarious agencies, explaining why I was leaving and asking over 300 "friends" to message me their email if they wanted to stay in touch, I got one message (lol).
I can relate to others who have mentioned military service, my closest friend and I served in the same branch, we speak on the phone at least once a week, and although he lives 150 miles away he is the friend I see most often, either of us would drop everything to help if the need was felt, we were never in 'combat' but being clearance divers every job was a life in their hands moment, I think our friendship is more to do with similar life experience rather than shared experience, similar family background, similar trials and tribulations, a kind of shared deep empathy.
Reflecting on the people who contacted me for my thoughts on Covid, it stuck me that 20yrs ago I was the wierdest guy round the campfire raising globo-homo related topics, now I think we're almost the majority, which is kind of heartening!
Thanks for the interesting feedback, ImpObs. You’re blessed that many of your relationships were able to deepen during COVID. In a sense COVID was a great sorting mechanism to reveal people’s underlying core beliefs, something that was obscured during better times. I’m glad you were able to positively impact your wife and your brother in law not to vaccinate his children, which were really important things. Perhaps this is a sorting period where more casual connections burn away and deeper relationships remain…
I often wonder, was Covid a sorting mechanism to reveal people's underlying core beliefs, or was it the CAUSE for core beliefs to dramatically diverge, or even arise in the first place?
I think most people don't know what their core beliefs are (even if they think they do) and those beliefs don't make themselves known unless events force them to rise to the surface of one's consciousness. Actually *changing* one's core beliefs is, I think, something that happens very rarely...
Family has been one of the saddest disappointments in my life. I'll never forget when I came back from a 1-month trip to Japan on January 2020 and my very own brother, arguably my best friend, pushed me away face-masked when I went to hug him. Not only that, I was sort of exiled by the rest of my family for remaining skeptical and refusing the jab. I'm ready to bet that, had that refusal become literally illegal, I would have been fingered to the police by some close relative.
I share the feeling about my inlaws and being bubbled to the authorites. My wife and I turned it into a joke, every time she got off the phone with her sister (who tried to convince her refusing the jab was wrong almost every day) I would do an impression of Donald Sutherland in the scene at the end of 'Invasion of the body statchers' pointing and screaming lol, it helped to difuse the tension.
We still do it (in private) when the subject comes up, we know quite a few otherwise healthy people who have had jab related health issues (heart problems, stroke, turbo cancer).
The woke revolution/great reset/whatever you call it has been pretty hard on friendships. Losing friends in the last 4-8 years seems to be a common theme. I'm no exception. People who I thought would be lifelong friends, had been such for decades, turned out to be globohomo indoctrinated jab taking rainbow worshippers. I've been true to myself and what I believe, I have no regrets. It's just hard to have anything to talk bout with them anymore. These days I can relate to Schopenhauer more and more.
This makes sense, Martin. Yet even as we lose friendships due to this kind of value-sorting taking place in society, as social beings we all still need friendships and social interactions and community to one extent or another. So it's a tricky thing...hopefully this value-sorting trend happening is ultimately a transition to finding new and stronger communities...
Unfortunately, a) there's a lot less of "us" globohomo-aware folks than of "them" globalism-compliant, and b) not even among "ours" are friends easy to be found, for being like-minded about the Covid hoax or the Great Reset is no guarantee whatsoever for getting along. Suffice to check the comments on any dissident blog's posts to realize the amount of disagreement and animosity.
Indeed, the weird social developments of the past 1-2 lustrums (specially the Covid hoax) have opened a deep and wide abyss, maybe unprecedented, between people everywhere.
Looking back over time, I remember when I was in my late teens, thinking that the friends I grew up with would be with me for life. But one friend joins the military, a few go away to college, some became cops and firemen or married early.
The next thing you know it’s ten years later and you’re barely in contact with the people who you considered, at one time, your brothers. You get married, start a family and as time marches on, are just grateful for the memories. That’s life.
I agree with you, Carlos, most friends drop by the wayside over time. It takes greater intentionality and active nurturing of the friendships to keep many of them up. If some have fallen by the wayside simply due to neglect, it doesn't hurt to reach out and try to reconnect with them, if you so desire...
I realized a long time ago that almost all the “friends” I had in my twenties were really just people I hung out with, as opposed to actual friends. Now in my forties, I have 5 friends. This whole article checks out
I have an essay deep in my drafts on love and marriage. Perhaps I will revisit it. I find many of the same types of friendships more or less exist within romantic relationships. The incongruence noted in certain friendships, particularly the ones built on utility or pleasure, can also be experienced in marriages. Hence why many of them fail, I believe.
It is only the love built on virtue (true love), that can stand the trials of life. But I am unsure at this point in my life if this is just an idyllic dream.
I was thinking the same thing all the while I was reading NLF’s essay. I’m happily married 26 years, 5 kids. Although we’re two very, very different people, my wife & I share a common morality/ virtue/ vision/ lifestyle/ purpose/ mission (raising the kids; growing old together). In retrospect, marriage was the only kind of romance I ever wanted. When I was young & I had the skills & the opportunity to Play The Field it did not interest me.
But I have not had a close personal friend in over ten years. I wonder if I ever will again.
One observation I’ll add here: Some people are more skillful at marriage, and some people are more skillful at same sex friendship. In retrospect, I’ve prioritized marriage. A wife is not a best friend. Women say that their husband is their best friend, but that’s just them being women 😂 No, a wife is not a best friend. A best friend or a good male friend is painfully missing from my life, but I do value marriage more than same sex friendship.
Thankyou so much. I am heartened reading the comments. I have been the odd one all my life. Now 82. But I will actively look for like minded people and perhaps find a friend! TPTB must be thwarted.
My heart hurts not just for loss of friends but the loss of me. I was an uncensored and charismatic talker who was loved and liked for my honesty and self effacing attitude. People dont like what I have to say now. I care enough about social cohesion to watch my mouth.
On a positive my doomsday homestead is getting my attention.
My friends are on Substack mostly because I can say what I want without social rejection.
Good Germans are scary to talk to. You always have to test the waters to see if it is your tribe.
This speaks to me, TG, as I am increasingly forming these digital relationships here for lack of a current ability to do so in real life. It’s not nearly the same to do it digitally, of course, but a pre-requisite to friendships of virtue is being able to speak one’s mind freely — and this is close to impossible to do today outside of the digital realm…
I think about this very often. As society becomes more atomized, and as one grows older, it obviously gets more and more difficult to make friends, thus many people (me at least) tend to resort to the internet for trying to find friends or like-minded people. But online friends or acquaintances, comforting as they may be oftentimes, are not the same as flesh and bone ones. It's just not the same. I need the warmth, the empathy, the closeness, perhaps simply a glance or a gaze...
Curiously enough, despite friendship being maybe an even more important human need than sex itself, there are no "dating" websites for FRIENDS. Any intent from a male to online date another male for friendship will be immediately interpreted as homosexuality (this is probably different in the case of women, but I know very little about that species).
I wonder if our former friends made new bonds over their affection for masks and forced injections the same way we were brought together. I suspect not. In any case I appreciate the thoughtful essay.
Thanks Grant. I get the sense that the atomization we are experiencing is something that our former friends are also experiencing. Although they are probably less conscious of it as many of them derive their sense of belonging as being an NPC cog within the liberal hive-mind...
That's very unlikely I would say, since the overwhelming majority of people fell for the jabs and masks, therefore their 'friends pool' has almost not changed at all.
I agree with you that friendships formed in the military are likely to be stronger. Yet America is so dispirited that patriots are being actively discouraged from joining (and who can blame them?), which is a sad thing...
Oh, I didn’t mean military service, which TBH is not really hardship in the US (farming is more dangerous), but any life difficulty in which people help one another. Friends aren’t necessarily the people who give enjoyable conversation, they’re the ones who help you move house or pull your car out of a ditch.
People who live blessed lives of ease might never make real friends.
I am 30 years old and I don't have any friends. I used to, and I can feel the absence, I can feel that something is wrong. Solitude can be good, very good, in fact, but, man, never talking to anyone, never getting any feedback, never getting any novel stimulus from a living human, never hearing something new, it's a kind of torture. IMO male friendship in particular is dangerous to the regime and is stamped out specifically--no freedom of association allowed for men as we "progress": sex-segregated schooling on the continuous decline, Boy Scouts gone, the military a lesbian baby shower. Men could encourage each other's virtue, inculcate loyalties beyond the state, we can't have that! It's not very inclusive, and it might even be racist! And denial of male freedom of association is further enforced by cultural mores (encouraged by regime media, of course, and repeated by women and men (mostly spiritually women these days)): "you don't want women involved? what are you, gay??" Any positive depiction of male friendship in media is immediately interpreted as being gay. There's a lot of online discourse about dating, relationships, less about friendship even though it's similarly destroyed in modernity IMO.
Nice response, AC. Part of being on this planet is so that we can be challenged in our beliefs and grow from them, which can be painful. Feedback from others, especially from friends, is an important aspect of that. If you don’t have friends and feel it’s absence, perhaps try to form “friendships of pleasure” - i.e. friendships built around shared hobbies, whatever yours happen to be.
Would that there were more men willing to break the laws against being a human! One time I asked ChatGPT how to make friends and the first thing it said was "be a good friend." One time I made a Bumble "friend" account (this exists, it's supposedly for friendship and not dating) and I got solicited too much for gay sex so I stopped trying it. I looked into joining a local baseball or softball team and the price to play a season was over $500 and it was not gender segregated. These anecdotes are funny to me at this point (relentless tragedy becomes funny IMO) and make me think of the old adage (applicable to so much these days): for every digital problem there is an analog solution. I should just be able to joke around with like-minded men! Nah, here's a streamer or podcast to simulate socialization, here's a new friendship app, here's a therapist (hope it's covered by insurance) to talk about the problem with. Modernity is relentless with the top-down engineered solutions (man himself is the final widget, of course) to make ersatz versions of nature's bounties. The internet actually has shades and reflections of freedom of association: the group chat, Discord, X, Substack--yet the platforms are themselves subject to modernity/regime overreach, gone with the flick of a switch as cultural mores "progress," every word recorded to potentially be used for *something* when *the time comes,* or access simply revoked. Sorry for the rant, friendship-posting just stirs something up inside.
Sad that the challenges to one’s thinking that independent-minded people receive are often total non-sequiturs to the Western tradition, the folkways of European people, and even basic 1990s standards of fact-finding. Like TG commented below, every independent thinker i know of vigilantly self-polices in public. The growth we hope to attian from belief challenge can only come when a given interlocutor comes from a place of reason, in a mindset of good faith, with an argument that can stand even a moment’s [analysis/cross-examination/highly dispositive video evidence/impassioned ranting]. Without wanting to seem too arrogant or certain in belief, it seems that more often than not, woke NPCs act as self-anointed clergy, smarmily scolding the un-anointed. I dislike depersonalizing the opposition to People of Good Will, but these people often appear totally disconnected from God’s light, not in the maliciously evil way of a Hillary Clinton, but in an unknowing-unconscious way that I don’t remember encountering in years past.
The thing is that the NPC mind is fundamentally different from the dissident mind. The NPC mind derives a feeling of safety and a feeling of belonging through conformity; therefore debating with them is useless, because you are basically asking them to feel insecure and alone. Thinking and analysis is secondary to this feeling. They are like a fish in a school of fish, as Zman astutely pointed out here: https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=17777 .
The thing is, if dissidents somehow seized power most of the NPCs would simply start parroting dissident talking points. Such is the nature of power...
Agreed. I've often observed that 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯, and just like a common handgun they can be used for legitimate justice or crime most grave. I guess what I've been surprised by is how many people "have NPC in them," or are NPCs outright. Perhaps it was always this way but they were oriented towards prosocial ends in the 90s.
Regardless, thanks for creating an outpost of sanity in the wilderness. Appreciate your efforts in compiling so much original thought & research.
LMAO: "...military a lesbian baby shower."
You are absolutely right. Only, maybe, the social reaction to any male-only association would be: "Don't you believe in feminism and equal rights?", rather than "What are you, gay?"
Overall, in many situations, scenarios, friendship seems like a myth. Especially since the advent of social media where if someone agrees with something you said, or expressed ONCE, you can be “friended.” Not the same thing at all, I know, but my nearly 77 years have jaded me regarding many things. One of the big ones is friendship. Over the years, the pets - dogs and cats - I’ve had have been the only ones not to betray. The only true and loyal friends.
Interesting, huh?
Thanks Lin. Your response reminds me of the famous expression: "Want a friend? Get a dog." I agree with you that the advent of social media, which has been branded as bringing people together, ultimately makes people further apart than ever. Real friendship requires in-person bonding which is in shorter supply these days...
Nice article, though.
People come into your life for
A Reason
A Season or
A Lifetime
Thank you for this Essay. I often wonder WHY friends just Go.
Thanks Kenai. I agree with you, there's a mysterious element how friendships are formed and why they end; we aren't entirely in charge of what develops as much as we would like to be...
Sometimes you loan them money and they never pay back. Lost two recently that way. Gonna find me some chickens soon🤣
Ah, yes! Loaning money and not being paid back is probably the quickest way to lose a friendship. Bummer that happened to you…
If you never have to see them again, it was a bargain
$19k between the two of them… not exactly pocket change but you’re right, still a bargain in the long run
A beautiful testimony to a painful truth.
At certain moments my thoughts return again and again to the phenomenon of the soldier who throws himself on a hand grenade to protect his comrades or leaps up and runs into intense enemy gunfire to try and save a wounded friend lying helpless on the battlefield.
The cynical among us might quickly claim this can also be self-serving, less than selfless, if the soldier does it because desiring to be known as heroic, to gain admiration.
I have never accepted this contention. I've also never been in battle nor in anything remotely like it. But in the sheer chaos, intensity, and terror of combat, the man who in the space of a heartbeat acts -- not decides -- to value a friend's life as equal to his own, that is living proof that some humans really are capable of absolute unconditional love. Or even loving others more than themselves.
I once read the account of a veteran who admitted that the bond he experienced in combat with his comrades in arms surpassed that of all other relationships in his life, including with his wife and children. He hated to admit it.
Thanks Prodigal, I agree with you.
“I once read the account of a veteran who admitted that the bond he experienced in combat with his comrades in arms surpassed that of all other relationships in his life, including with his wife and children. He hated to admit it”.
In my experience, that’s not uncommon.
Thank you for writing this piece. I don't know if it's my stage in life or a combination of things, but I have "shed" almost everyone I would call a friend in the last four years. The few that have remained in my circle are true friends. None of them live very close to me and we speak every couple of months. We genuinely care for each other without an agenda. These are, in no way transactional friendships.
I am not at all sad that I have "lost" these friends. I am an introvert that enjoys loads of time alone with my dogs! My soulmate and best friend is my husband of 35 years who is also and introvert. We actually like each other! We spend a lot of time sharing our thoughts, dreams, love of nature, traveling, and new skill sets.
I don't have time to waste listening to whining and complaining which most people seem to thrive on! I also don't have space or time for people who don't possess an ability to listen. Friendship ISN'T having one person "fire hose" every last thought and complaint at you just because they have no self control. I think one might refer to this as narcissistic!
So, I am figuring out the friendship arena and how it fits into my little world.
P.S. I have met a lot of very lovely people here on Substack!
Thanks Kat. I'm glad that you have a couple of deep friendships even if you don't see each other much and that your husband is your best friend. That's more than a lot of people have.
Yes, indeed, and I am grateful.
This was great. One of my favorite passages in all of philosophy is still Aristotle's discussion of friendship in Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, which is almost exactly what you describe here in the friendships of virtue section. Funnily enough I read that passage with a philosophy book club that ended up being the basis for many great (and still growing friendships).
The contraction of your friend circle makes me sad and also nervous for my own future. I have plenty of friends now, but I'm still quite young, and don't have the conjones that you do about confronting those friends about their life choices. It will be interesting to see how these circles change over time, and how many of those friendships are real, rather than just of convenience. I also wish you all the best in fighting back against globohomo and trying to make friends again. The fear of intimacy and homoeroticism can only stop us if we let it.
Thanks Joshua. I know a few guys who have maintained a larger and still deep friend circle as they age, but it requires a lot of intentionality on their part -- they prioritize their friends, make sure to reach out to them in order to plan calls and meet-ups, and they are also trustworthy, respectful, non-judgmental and caring. Hopefully you will be able to maintain your friends as you get older; being aware of their fragility and how they need to be maintained/nurtured goes toward that, I think...
Not that it makes it worth less, but friendship from comraderie (or hardship and/or shared experiences) is easier to form given how at its foundation the exterior context locks participants into a shared lived experience.
Friends of or from virtue are few and far between. It requires a two way street, and both participants to be right for each other in that moment they meet, to be going places (or developing/growing) in compatible ways.
It's not just globohomo (of which I'm a part, as we all are, thanks to the internet; if you disagree, go out into the wild or a homestead and see how far that gets you); It's this whole pretense that reality boils down to capitalism and modernity. We don't have any choice in the matter.
Ever since the whole narradigm upheaval I've become more convinced that a return to first principles is needed, and Virtue has an important role to play. When I was younger I would have benefited if leaders and the powerful had talked about Virtue more often.
Thank you for this essay on friendship.
I'm in my mid 40s. Friends have left me and I them. Sometimes it's not up to us and there's nothing we can do. It can really hurt, but pain can also be good medicine. Solitude can be good for the spirit, but we're social animals and renouncing society because it won't bend the knee to us sounds like we've got issues.
Interesting piece, well written and thought out Neo. I guess anyone reading that is spurred to do a friend stock-take, an interesting exercise on it's own.
My covid experience went the other way, six people who had drifted out of my close circle for one reason or another contacted me for my thoughts on what was going on, perhaps because I am a deep thinker who tends to research things to the enth degree, including conspiracies. Tho I'm generally pretty stoic, if a subject comes up I have researched, I'm rarely shy about telling it as it is. Four of those people declined the jabs, two of those have dived head first into the rabbit hole and become even closer friends, another two I never heard from again.
It was much harder to convince family, my SIL is a cancer survivor she wore the jab like a flag of virtue, blazing down the phone at me because (with extreme difficulty and a twist of fate) I'd convinced my wife not to get it, another SIL was part of the schools vax program, so between the two of them it was an uphill battle with family, my BIL got it but I'd given him enough info to spur him into further research that convinced him not to jab his three kids. At a recent family gathering at our place he actually quietly thanked me, unsurprisingly nobody else raised the subject, it was as if the whole covid thing never happened (lol).
I find most people pretty fickle when it comes to real friendship, I had a pub for ten yrs where everyone wanted to be my best friend, nobody stayed in touch when we sold it. I left Facebook ~7yrs ago, I put a post up detailing the privacy violations of the company, and connections to nefarious agencies, explaining why I was leaving and asking over 300 "friends" to message me their email if they wanted to stay in touch, I got one message (lol).
I can relate to others who have mentioned military service, my closest friend and I served in the same branch, we speak on the phone at least once a week, and although he lives 150 miles away he is the friend I see most often, either of us would drop everything to help if the need was felt, we were never in 'combat' but being clearance divers every job was a life in their hands moment, I think our friendship is more to do with similar life experience rather than shared experience, similar family background, similar trials and tribulations, a kind of shared deep empathy.
Reflecting on the people who contacted me for my thoughts on Covid, it stuck me that 20yrs ago I was the wierdest guy round the campfire raising globo-homo related topics, now I think we're almost the majority, which is kind of heartening!
Thanks for the interesting feedback, ImpObs. You’re blessed that many of your relationships were able to deepen during COVID. In a sense COVID was a great sorting mechanism to reveal people’s underlying core beliefs, something that was obscured during better times. I’m glad you were able to positively impact your wife and your brother in law not to vaccinate his children, which were really important things. Perhaps this is a sorting period where more casual connections burn away and deeper relationships remain…
I often wonder, was Covid a sorting mechanism to reveal people's underlying core beliefs, or was it the CAUSE for core beliefs to dramatically diverge, or even arise in the first place?
I think most people don't know what their core beliefs are (even if they think they do) and those beliefs don't make themselves known unless events force them to rise to the surface of one's consciousness. Actually *changing* one's core beliefs is, I think, something that happens very rarely...
Family has been one of the saddest disappointments in my life. I'll never forget when I came back from a 1-month trip to Japan on January 2020 and my very own brother, arguably my best friend, pushed me away face-masked when I went to hug him. Not only that, I was sort of exiled by the rest of my family for remaining skeptical and refusing the jab. I'm ready to bet that, had that refusal become literally illegal, I would have been fingered to the police by some close relative.
I share the feeling about my inlaws and being bubbled to the authorites. My wife and I turned it into a joke, every time she got off the phone with her sister (who tried to convince her refusing the jab was wrong almost every day) I would do an impression of Donald Sutherland in the scene at the end of 'Invasion of the body statchers' pointing and screaming lol, it helped to difuse the tension.
We still do it (in private) when the subject comes up, we know quite a few otherwise healthy people who have had jab related health issues (heart problems, stroke, turbo cancer).
The woke revolution/great reset/whatever you call it has been pretty hard on friendships. Losing friends in the last 4-8 years seems to be a common theme. I'm no exception. People who I thought would be lifelong friends, had been such for decades, turned out to be globohomo indoctrinated jab taking rainbow worshippers. I've been true to myself and what I believe, I have no regrets. It's just hard to have anything to talk bout with them anymore. These days I can relate to Schopenhauer more and more.
This makes sense, Martin. Yet even as we lose friendships due to this kind of value-sorting taking place in society, as social beings we all still need friendships and social interactions and community to one extent or another. So it's a tricky thing...hopefully this value-sorting trend happening is ultimately a transition to finding new and stronger communities...
Unfortunately, a) there's a lot less of "us" globohomo-aware folks than of "them" globalism-compliant, and b) not even among "ours" are friends easy to be found, for being like-minded about the Covid hoax or the Great Reset is no guarantee whatsoever for getting along. Suffice to check the comments on any dissident blog's posts to realize the amount of disagreement and animosity.
Indeed, the weird social developments of the past 1-2 lustrums (specially the Covid hoax) have opened a deep and wide abyss, maybe unprecedented, between people everywhere.
Looking back over time, I remember when I was in my late teens, thinking that the friends I grew up with would be with me for life. But one friend joins the military, a few go away to college, some became cops and firemen or married early.
The next thing you know it’s ten years later and you’re barely in contact with the people who you considered, at one time, your brothers. You get married, start a family and as time marches on, are just grateful for the memories. That’s life.
I agree with you, Carlos, most friends drop by the wayside over time. It takes greater intentionality and active nurturing of the friendships to keep many of them up. If some have fallen by the wayside simply due to neglect, it doesn't hurt to reach out and try to reconnect with them, if you so desire...
I realized a long time ago that almost all the “friends” I had in my twenties were really just people I hung out with, as opposed to actual friends. Now in my forties, I have 5 friends. This whole article checks out
This is a great piece.
I have an essay deep in my drafts on love and marriage. Perhaps I will revisit it. I find many of the same types of friendships more or less exist within romantic relationships. The incongruence noted in certain friendships, particularly the ones built on utility or pleasure, can also be experienced in marriages. Hence why many of them fail, I believe.
It is only the love built on virtue (true love), that can stand the trials of life. But I am unsure at this point in my life if this is just an idyllic dream.
Thanks Stefan, and that’s interesting - I would be interested in reading your piece if you decide to finish it.
I was thinking the same thing all the while I was reading NLF’s essay. I’m happily married 26 years, 5 kids. Although we’re two very, very different people, my wife & I share a common morality/ virtue/ vision/ lifestyle/ purpose/ mission (raising the kids; growing old together). In retrospect, marriage was the only kind of romance I ever wanted. When I was young & I had the skills & the opportunity to Play The Field it did not interest me.
But I have not had a close personal friend in over ten years. I wonder if I ever will again.
One observation I’ll add here: Some people are more skillful at marriage, and some people are more skillful at same sex friendship. In retrospect, I’ve prioritized marriage. A wife is not a best friend. Women say that their husband is their best friend, but that’s just them being women 😂 No, a wife is not a best friend. A best friend or a good male friend is painfully missing from my life, but I do value marriage more than same sex friendship.
Thankyou so much. I am heartened reading the comments. I have been the odd one all my life. Now 82. But I will actively look for like minded people and perhaps find a friend! TPTB must be thwarted.
My heart hurts not just for loss of friends but the loss of me. I was an uncensored and charismatic talker who was loved and liked for my honesty and self effacing attitude. People dont like what I have to say now. I care enough about social cohesion to watch my mouth.
On a positive my doomsday homestead is getting my attention.
My friends are on Substack mostly because I can say what I want without social rejection.
Good Germans are scary to talk to. You always have to test the waters to see if it is your tribe.
I’m accepting it’s going tribal now.
This speaks to me, TG, as I am increasingly forming these digital relationships here for lack of a current ability to do so in real life. It’s not nearly the same to do it digitally, of course, but a pre-requisite to friendships of virtue is being able to speak one’s mind freely — and this is close to impossible to do today outside of the digital realm…
I think anytime minds join there is healing. A reminder of connection. I get that from your writing and offer my gratitude.
Thanks TG, I appreciate you as well.
I think about this very often. As society becomes more atomized, and as one grows older, it obviously gets more and more difficult to make friends, thus many people (me at least) tend to resort to the internet for trying to find friends or like-minded people. But online friends or acquaintances, comforting as they may be oftentimes, are not the same as flesh and bone ones. It's just not the same. I need the warmth, the empathy, the closeness, perhaps simply a glance or a gaze...
Curiously enough, despite friendship being maybe an even more important human need than sex itself, there are no "dating" websites for FRIENDS. Any intent from a male to online date another male for friendship will be immediately interpreted as homosexuality (this is probably different in the case of women, but I know very little about that species).
I wonder if our former friends made new bonds over their affection for masks and forced injections the same way we were brought together. I suspect not. In any case I appreciate the thoughtful essay.
Thanks Grant. I get the sense that the atomization we are experiencing is something that our former friends are also experiencing. Although they are probably less conscious of it as many of them derive their sense of belonging as being an NPC cog within the liberal hive-mind...
That's very unlikely I would say, since the overwhelming majority of people fell for the jabs and masks, therefore their 'friends pool' has almost not changed at all.
No battle no nakama.
Fact.
I agree with you that friendships formed in the military are likely to be stronger. Yet America is so dispirited that patriots are being actively discouraged from joining (and who can blame them?), which is a sad thing...
Oh, I didn’t mean military service, which TBH is not really hardship in the US (farming is more dangerous), but any life difficulty in which people help one another. Friends aren’t necessarily the people who give enjoyable conversation, they’re the ones who help you move house or pull your car out of a ditch.
People who live blessed lives of ease might never make real friends.