Love this article. As a new empty nester and retired homeschool mom of 14 years, I am redefining my life. I’ve also moved. This definitely hit home and gives insight into my days and what I want to aim for. Thanks for sharing.
I knew I was gonna come back to this and kept on not reading it for some time. But never skipped it.
Here are my two cents: growing up in Kuwait, we tended to actually escape social commitments, because there are too many of them. How wild huh?! In community-first societies, people tend to be at the other end of the spectrum. It's the fact that we have too many of these social interactions that we have to carve out some time for ourselves. From that perspective, we tend not to engage with strangers in friendly small talk like the people in the US/Europe generally do. If a conversation happens, we definitely take part, but not like how it's kind of a sought-after thing in the US where you're kind of obliged to engage in small-talk..
And it's definitely one of the things that I miss the most when it comes to living in NYC. That shrinking of the social circle means I can go days without seeing friends, and that's kind of difficult. Both on the social & mental health.
This is fascinating, thank you. About a year ago we moved from a neighborhood to slightly more rural living and we definitely miss those neighborly interactions
What a great read! Thank you. It makes me wonder about the statistic that people lose more friends in middle age than in any other period of life (namely do to the intersection of child rearing and career and parent care giving). I wonder if the key to pushing through the loss and loneliness during that period of life is to increase these more shallow relationships. Great stuff.
You mentioned in passing how we go to weak ties to talk about big issues because of the complexity and social promises/expectations of strong ties. There is a lot to unpack in that insight.
Love this article. As a new empty nester and retired homeschool mom of 14 years, I am redefining my life. I’ve also moved. This definitely hit home and gives insight into my days and what I want to aim for. Thanks for sharing.
I knew I was gonna come back to this and kept on not reading it for some time. But never skipped it.
Here are my two cents: growing up in Kuwait, we tended to actually escape social commitments, because there are too many of them. How wild huh?! In community-first societies, people tend to be at the other end of the spectrum. It's the fact that we have too many of these social interactions that we have to carve out some time for ourselves. From that perspective, we tend not to engage with strangers in friendly small talk like the people in the US/Europe generally do. If a conversation happens, we definitely take part, but not like how it's kind of a sought-after thing in the US where you're kind of obliged to engage in small-talk..
And it's definitely one of the things that I miss the most when it comes to living in NYC. That shrinking of the social circle means I can go days without seeing friends, and that's kind of difficult. Both on the social & mental health.
Just an outsider's perspective.
That's one of the pillars on my community/people management, different people brings exponential possibilities
This is fascinating, thank you. About a year ago we moved from a neighborhood to slightly more rural living and we definitely miss those neighborly interactions
What a great read! Thank you. It makes me wonder about the statistic that people lose more friends in middle age than in any other period of life (namely do to the intersection of child rearing and career and parent care giving). I wonder if the key to pushing through the loss and loneliness during that period of life is to increase these more shallow relationships. Great stuff.
You mentioned in passing how we go to weak ties to talk about big issues because of the complexity and social promises/expectations of strong ties. There is a lot to unpack in that insight.
Enjoyed reading your article
Love this article just discovered your page