<p>just wondering</p>
<p>and what do you usually do with each other?</p>
<p>or have you ever been a confidant?</p>
<p>and does it get annoying? :p</p>
<p>In most cultures, they’re called ‘close friends’</p>
<p>there’s a difference though :p</p>
<p>you don’t confide every single little thing to all of your close friends</p>
<p>you don’t send 1000 facebook wall posts or 1000 e-mail messages to all of your close friends :p</p>
<p>People rarely have more than 2 close friends.</p>
<p>cite evidence please :p</p>
<p>you can stay out of contact with a close friend for several months - and STILL be a close friend (but meanwhile be in contact with a lot of people in the interim)</p>
<p>plus close friend is ill-ly defined. there’s a continuum. and the reciprocality of “close friend” is also variable. the perceived stability of a “close friendship” is also very variable (and this could mean a lot => what if you have a secret that you NEVER want your close friend to know, but still confide virtually everything else in him/her?)</p>
<p>One CCer considers me to be his closest friend, but we haven’t really talked to each other in like 2 months. And we’ve had similar lapses of contact in the last 2.5 years</p>
<p>Lets over analyze everything to absolute death, because there is absolutely nothing even more remotely interesting or productive to do.</p>
<p>Much love.</p>
<p>[Article![/url</a>]</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2006/06/27/Metro/Study.Number.Of.Close.Friends.Dropping.In.U.s-2118664.shtml]Moar”>http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2006/06/27/Metro/Study.Number.Of.Close.Friends.Dropping.In.U.s-2118664.shtml]Moar</a> article!](<a href=“http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060623093533.htm]Article![/url”>Americans' Circle Of Friends Is Shrinking, New Study Shows | ScienceDaily)</p>
<p>"In 1985, people said they had a mean number of 2.94 “close confidants”; by 2004, that number had dropped to 2.08, a decrease of nearly 30 percent. Social change may be to blame for the drop in the number of close pals, Smith-Lovin said, noting the way people spend their time these days affects the relationships Americans have with one another.</p>
<p>“More families are working in the paid labor force, and more women are working,” she said.</p>
<p>Additionally, the number of people admitting to having no one in their lives to confide in more than doubled from 1985-2004, from 10 to 25 percent."</p>
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<p>Hm, if I told you, this post wouldn’t be safe for work ;)</p>
<p>also confidants are kind of different since confidants can be one-sided. there was someone who was my closest friend for a couple of years since i confided everything to her. but i wasn’t among her closest friends. and then (2005) someone confided everything to me, while i confided everything to someone else</p>
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<p>i think hours spent watching tv is finally starting to decline (due to the internet)</p>
<p>community involvement helps to meet new people (out of which a very small minority are potential confidants for anyone) but while one’s involved in ecs, one can’t confide.</p>
<p>certainly, the more free time one has, the more time one has to confide (and the more time one has to receive messages from the confidER).</p>
<p>so it’s kind of a double-edged sword - hard to say which one is more likely to tilt the number in either direction. </p>
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<p>why? ^_^</p>
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<p>Only on the Internet, and/or with remarkably good-natured people. (Or if you owe the person something – as with parent/child relationships.) Otherwise one-sided confidants get really annoying. They pay people $100/hour for that, you know.</p>
<p>(There’s a nice analogy for this that involves atoms and formal charges, but it’s only relevant because I’m procrastinating on chem homework right now. :-/)</p>
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<p>Most people substitute with things called “friends”. You get them when you remove your head from textbooks and forums, go outside, and socialize. Try it sometime.</p>
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<p>Perhaps.</p>
<p>to be honest, I did kind of get annoyed with the person who confided everything to me, although part of the reason was because he kept on calling me instead of e-mailing me for some period of time. Now though I’m happier that I got to know him well.</p>
<p>It probably kind of depends on how motivated you are in getting to know someone well.</p>
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<p>I tried before - but it’s only my internet friends who have stayed with me. Perhaps things could change. I’ll have to see.</p>
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<p>No, really.</p>
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<p>That’s because it’s much easier to tactfully avoid people in real life, or keep them at an (extended) distance.
Like I said – one-sided friendships only work on the Internet…
Keep in mind that Internet communication is binary.</p>
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<p>“Perhaps” is just my default response. since most social phenomena are not necessarily absolute, even if they may often be close to absolute. ^_^</p>
<p>but i feel like crap right now, so i guess i use such words more. </p>
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<p>hm, do you think our friendship was too one-sided? (or maybe it was initially reciprocal then it gradually became one-sided for some reason - although that reason may have been that i had more spare time to actually write). but then in your last email you told me that you could have had better friends at caltech so then it may not reflect on me as badly. (hmmm). it depends on relative values i guess too (like a few people really value my posted items)</p>
<p>but there are two ways a friendship/confidant-ship can be one-sided</p>
<p>(a) person says everything about his life, asks for nothing in return
(b) person says nothing about his life, but is a parasite off the other person</p>
<p>but it’s really a matter of the relative dispositions of the two people (and their relative needs). some people have plenty of people to socialize with and rant to (but who might be interested in getting to know someone “different”, with a “different perspective”). such relationships do have a risk of falling though (especially once the person has a sense of the other’s perspective and doesn’t really need it anymore).</p>
<p>When did you last get a breath of fresh air?</p>
<p>Just some advice: keep the emails t</p>