🧵 Thursday Thread | The Friendship Experiment

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Mead

Who wants more friends? More community? A stronger, healthier hive? I do. Especially friends interested in writing and books, nature and activism, music and art, casual potluck parties, and, well, other stuff like that.

So, this thread is a big experiment, based on something I saw Anne Helen Petersen do a couple of weeks ago over at Culture Study: a friend-making thread.

But, before I jump in—and this is totally off topic!—I just have to share this tiny audio clip that Billie recorded of Z telling me a story last year as part of my Mother’s Day. They re-sent it to me last night, and when I listened, I could not believe how much he has changed in one year, even though I know kids change this much between ages three and four. I find children inherently fascinating, and language a miracle, so inevitably I am entranced by this kind of thing. If you aren’t, that’s totally understandable!

But, if you are … just listen to the difference this morning, as Z tells a new story.

To me, this is evolution is fascinating and magical.

Also, it broke my heart. Why does the passage of time have to announce the losses we’re accumulating along the way, like toddler talk and baby teeth and our grandmother’s butterscotch pie recipe and the versions of ourselves we’ve folded up and tucked in drawers along the way?

But also, it made me smile so wide because it’s so beautiful, because children are so beautiful—oh, their little voices and the way their mouths shape words, the way they wear their understanding, gradual and incomplete, on the outside. I hope this might bring you a smile as well.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming—the friend thread, inspired by Culture Study.

don’t want to be a total copycat, but I did think, as soon as I saw that Culture Study thread, WOW, that’s an incredible idea. I know especially after what we learned in the small groups during Writing in the Dark | The SCHOOL, that people are really hungry for connections right now, maybe more than ever. Even writers, introverted as many of us are.

Anne Helen Petersen explained:

There are a lot of you out there who are trying to do the hard work of friendship and community-building, and one difficulty is feeling like you’re the only person who’s actually committed or interested in it.

And to that, I say, amen. So I decided to adapt what Petersen did in her community thread for us here at Writing in the Dark. It might not work, because our community is not as large as Culture Study, which has almost 200,000 total subscribers and, even though these threads are limited to paid members, CS also has many many many many (many!) more paid members that Writing in the Dark.

So, I’m acknowledging in advance that we might not get a ton of traction with this, but I think it’s worth a try. We can always try again later and see if repetition breeds participation, too.

Because the truth is, making friends—and even building or expanding our network of acquaintances—is not easy. There’s a ton of good quality research showing that Americans (and those in many other countries as well) have fewer friends than ever before, and are spending less time with the friends they do have than in generations past. Here’s a brief summary of some of that research published in The Big Think:

The last decade has seen a startling further fall in the number and quality of friendships.

First, we have fewer close friends. According to the May 2021 American Perspectives Survey of over 2,000 adults, 12% of Americans report having no friends, up from under 3% in the 1990s. This data is mirrored in the United Kingdom, where the number of young adults who report having only one or no close friends jumped from 7% to nearly 20% between 2012 and 2021. These numbers are even worse for men, who tend to have more friends early in life but experience a steeper decline.

Second, we are spending substantially less time with the few friends we have. The American Time Use Survey, started in 2003, found that prior to 2013 people spent just under 7 hours per week with friends, and around 15 hours when including family, neighbors, and coworkers outside of work. But in 2014, people began reporting less social time. By 2021 the amount had nearly halved: We’re now spending less than 3 hours per week with close friends and 10 hours with all companions.

I know that Jon and I have been trying since the pandemic to actively expand our community of friends—both close friends and those who may or may not become close, but who are valuable and appreciated as part of an overall community of trusted people in our lives. We’ve made some progress, but even with consistent effort, it hasn’t been fast or easy. We both work from home, we have a huge family including five grandchildren—which means lots of time spent with them, and, to be honest, we’ve had to work to get back into the habit of even trying to socialize post-pandemic. Okay, that’s probably mostly on me, because I’m a homebody, but darn it, I still want a bigger more vibrant circle of friends in my life!

So, that’s the purpose of this thread—it’s to see if we can connect with people who are also trying to discover others with similar interests—writing, obviously, and all things writerly, like readings and book events, etc. But also other things, like community activism, gardening, book clubs, or even joining in with local people who might also be working through Writing in the Dark intensives, for example!

The way Anne Helen Petersen structured her thread was by inviting her community members to write a kind of “personal ad” describing what they were hoping to find in terms of the following criteria:

• Your location

• Whether you’re looking for friendship that is local in-person or distance/online, or either. And if you are looking for in-person local friends, you might want to define the radius that works for you if you have limits on how far you’re willing to travel; e.g., “within 10 miles of downtown Minneapolis”

• Your friendship interests (writing, starting a book club, nature walks, knitting, cooking, etc.), and be as specific as you can—e.g., “I’d love to form a walking group for Friday mornings” or “I want to meet up to write and am open most weekday afternoons,” etc.

• How to contact you (Substack messaging, email (which yes, would necessitate that you share your email address with our paid members, as this is a paywalled post, but you can use a junk mail account if you have one, for the initial contact), or … carrier pigeon? I don’t know, if you all have other ideas for connecting, please share them in the comments!

As far as formatting, I suggest structuring your add in the same order as my bullet points above, but, since Substack does not allow us to use boldface in the comments, instead you can use ALL CAPS to label your categories and separate the text with which you further expound about yourself in each category (LOCATION / IN-PERSON or ONLINE / INTERESTS / CONTACT).

To note: this thread is NOT for looking for dates and it is imperative that everyone be respectful and not icky. I have only ever, in 2.5 years, had to remove ONE person from the WITD community, but I will not hesitate to do so if anyone says or does anything off-base via this thread. And if you see something off base, please alert me immediately at jeannine@writinginthedark.org and I will handle it swiftly.

We have a really good thing going here in our WITD community so let’s protect it with all we’ve got—and see if we can, in the meanwhile, also take advantage of the ties we’ve built here to expand our base of friends “in real life.”

As that Big Think article went on to say:

If you are among the millions of adults suffering from a personal friendship recession, don’t fret. There are likely many others also in need of a good friend, and with some effort you can find each other. In the meantime, don’t forget to enjoy your weak ties too. Social interactions with mere acquaintances or even strangers — say, chatting with coworkers at a meeting or random passengers on the bus — can have a surprisingly large positive impact on our well-being.

So, since every good friend started with a looser tie, and even our looser ties are highly valuable, let’s see what comes of this experiment. Remember—you are the secret sauce here. You are the x factor that makes this world turn. You are Writing in the Dark. It would be cool if we can strengthen this already beautiful web.

In Love and Friendship,

Jeannine

PS In order to keep this community safe and vibrant, threads/comments are for paid members, and you can upgrade/manage your membership here any time to join these beautiful conversations. Thank you so much for being here at Writing in the Dark!