In one of Schopenhauer’s books, he muses about old age, and the years in which you do not yet belong to the afterworld but more and more lose your foothold in the real world. The people around you die off one by one, and for everyone who dies there will not be anybody replacing them. On top, you will find it more and more difficult to relate to the world around you. Granted, the very last part is probably less of an issue nowadays as you for all its negative aspects, online communication surely helps you keep up with current trends. Without the internet I probably would not know what it means to be “based” or who Chad is, and likely neither would anybody else as movies and TV shows would still shape trends and fads, and you would get leftist progressivism 24/7.
While Schopenhauer spoke of old age, you can also observe that you have fewer and fewer contacts as you get closer to middle age, but this is not necessarily because it would be difficult to stay in touch with people. Among guys, you do not need to constantly check in. You can call up an old friend you have not seen in a couple of years and he will be happy to hear from you. Among women, such behavior is unheard of. However, even those old friendships may get fewer and fewer as you get older.
Compared to most guys, I had a pretty unusual adolescence and probably built a more active social life than most people around. On top I made friends at university and, later on, work. What I did not expect was that some guys just turn on you on a whim. In case you do not know me privately, I should add that I am, perhaps surprisingly, quite easy to get along. People do not dread having lunch or dinner with me as I am a decent-enough conversationalist. Furthermore, I do not brag, nor do I denigrate people in real life (my blog is an entirely different matter, of course).
However, even if you are not outwardly competitive, it seems that many guys have a need to constantly compare themselves to others. One guy whom I had considered a good friend cut off all contact after he found himself a girlfriend after years of searching. The issue was not that he was some kind of beta cuck who settled for anything. In fact, this guy was pretty good at picking up women. However, he rarely made it past the one-night-stand category, and the woman he eventually settled down with was nearing the tail end of her fertility window, I think she was 37 or 38 and a few years older than him. I recall him enthusiastically talking about entering relationships with much younger women, something which I had done repeatedly. I noticed that something felt very off the last time I met him, and I suspect it was that he was frustrated about not having been able to get a younger women.
I lost a few friends I made during my teenage years, and those were also guys I had excellent rapport with. At one point or another, they even called me their best friend. There were also some pretty good friends from my teenage years who likewise dropped off. In most cases, this happened when I moved to Berlin, which is something some of them had been talking about themselves but for some reason could not bring themselves to do. In contrast, I have friends who moved around all over the world and whenever we happen to be somewhere in the same area, we meet up. Here, the issue is presumably that if you succeed in something they, for whatever reason, did not achieve, they feel inferior in your presence. This is similar to the previous example, of course, even though packing your things and moving to a different city is surely a lot easier than settling down with a woman in her prime fertile years.
More interesting is one case of a guy I had quite regular conversations with on the phone, and this went on for years. We had known each other since our late teens. Of course, we also met up in real life when I was around. This guy was simply entertaining to talk to. He also knew about my partying years and my lack of interest in pursuing a career. What I only realized later was that talking to me probably made him feel good about himself. Almost as soon as I had gotten a real job, he stopped talking to me. He did alright for himself, and it was not as if he did have problems making ends meet, but he seemed to have a sense of inferiority because he was stuck in a dead-end job. When I dropped, matter-of-factly, not to brag, that some companies had flown me in from abroad for a job interviews, all expenses paid, you could hear a pin drop. This was something he would never experience and it seemed to really bother him.
Normally, you hear that once guys have a wife and kids, they will no longer have time to hang out. This is something I cannot really confirm, though. With one of my best friends, incidentally a guy I met while being out picking up women, has remained a good friend for well over a decade. He has two kids, the oldest of whom is about to enter her teens. Granted, not many of my peers went down the wife-and-kids route, but this never seemed to have been an issue regarding staying in touch. However, I think that this situation is far different for your typical blue-pilled cuck who gets told by his wife or girlfriend what he can and cannot do, and which of his friends he is allowed to meet up with.
The older you get, the fewer friends you will make. One reason is perhaps because you realize that you overvalued their importance in your youth and adolescence. For many teenagers, for instance, being popular among their peers is their primary concern. Of course, they are in for a rude awakening once high school ends because all this effort of maintaining a close circle of friends will turn out to have been essentially a waste of time. This shedding of friends will happen over time in any case, thoug. Going back to Schopenhauer, I cannot help but wonder if male friendships are simply a remnant of an earlier time. To use his terminology, today’s men are neither here nor there, i.e. neither in the real world nor the afterlife. Arguably, modern technology has simply sped up the once slow process of losing friends gradually over your lifetime. Young men of today seem to be hit by this the hardest. The problem is so severe that some people speak of incel or loneliness epidemics. Losing friends when you are in old age, back in Schopenhauer’s days, was probably a gentle nudge by nature that your time is coming up soon, too. Yet, what is this like for today’s 20-year-old guys who have barely any social interactions in the real world? Surely, we were not made for living in isolation for sixty or more years. Well, compared to even just ten years ago, suicide rates are up. Perhaps there is a future in building close-knit communities where you know your neighbor. In contrast, spending decades in isolation in a large city seems like a pretty horrible experience.
Most of my friends cut ties with me when they became beta-bucks and simps. After divorce or end of relationship they came back like wet dogs.
I hope you didn’t take them back.
In most cases: No, I didn’t.
I am a very loyal friend and can manage to contain and transform my jealousy. I am usually empathetic to the unfortunates and am not afraid to directly show respect and even express admiration if my friends are more successful than I am.
I guess it is just me. I am sure few humans have these traits.
Good Looking Loser had good content on this topic. He asked basically, is good news for you good news for your friend? Conversely, is bad news for you bad news for your friend? If your feelings about the news don’t coincide they are shit friends and you need to thin the herd. As Aaron said, when you get older you tend to shed friends.
I read that the singer “Everlast” lost friends when he had a heart attack at only 28 years old. None of his “friends” saw him in the hospital or called him. When he recovered quickly he made a new album, and all of the sudden his “friends” returned. He dropped them as friends and even played the recorded messages from them on his new album.
To relate: I always found it freaky when “friends” get jealous, angry, silent or resentful when sharing wins.
I feel like friendship should be about sharing wins and helping each other progress. When they share wins, I’m like niiice and celebrate the victory together with them. However, if I share a victory it’s considered bragging.
I guess those aren’t real friends though. However it also means real friends are super difficult to find. Or perhaps it has to do with level in life.
The only real friend I have (where we celebrate each others’ progress and victories) is from a rich family and comes from a sense of abundance. He also has the intellect to achieve a lot if he wanted.
Perhaps the way to find real friends is to meet enough people with the same success potential as you.
I would be careful here. There is a good chance that your rich friend would act differently if you managed to amass more money than he inherited or showed the potential to eclipse him in an area that mattered to him. I had a good friend in my teens whose parents were small-time landlords. They owned three multi-family tenement buildings. This guy used to give off an easy-going vibe but this changed completely once he realized that he is neither smart nor ambitious enough to get anywhere in life by himself. He also found the transition from high school, where it was comparatively easy to impress girls with money, to university and beyond quite difficult. Suddenly he found himself competing with guys who were making a lot of money because they had marketable skills.
If you don’t mind me asking,Aaron. Have you ever observed this in yourself in your personal life? Getting insecure when in the presence of somebody who is surpasses you in an area that has meaning to you.
Having been mostly a loner (working on being more outgoing just because I want more opportunities in life. Getting laid is just among them) in my life,whenever I have made a genuine friend,I have always had nothing but good intentions for them. Recently,I’ve met a few neat folks in training who,at the current moment,I’m more skilled than. I would not at all mind it however if they were to ever surpass me. (one of them trains a lot longer than I do much to my surprise,so its actually not out of the question for it to happen. I wish him the best of luck)
But I feel like that’s because I don’t see them as ever becoming a legitimate enemy in any area of my life. they might surpass me but I feel like they’re much more likely to become my allies than competition/opposition.
The feeling however is a bit different if it happens to be someone I don’t like/get along with. (I was going to say “enemy”,but honestly,I don’t think I’ve had any legitimate enemies in such a long time. Hope it stays that way) That’s generally when I do feel a bit insecure at the idea of them prospering better than me.
This doesn’t mean I try to sabotage them in any way. I feel that’s energy better spent on working to better myself than them if I really cared that much. (I usually don’t,I just feel the insecurity,then just stop thinking about it)
I do think this is a perfectly natural feeling however. If you feel that somebody is a “potential enemy/competitor”,then I think its pretty normal to be at least partially threatened by the idea of them surpassing you in an area of life that has meaning to you.
I do think I’ve made quite a few folks in my personal life,even ones I don’t even talk to anymore,feel threatened at my self-development. I personally hate the attention and would have loved to keep this a complete secret if I could,but sadly word spreads around. I’m not even trying to be a threat to those aforementioned folks,but I suppose that’s just how it is.
I do not think I really have this problem as I do not perceive those people as direct competition, which they hardly ever are. Normally, I try to learn from them or see if they have some past experiences I could benefit from. However, doing that also taught me that success is sometimes just a matter of luck and that some people are in the position they are in not because they were better than anybody else around, but merely they were in the right spot at the right time. Granted, this is also something to learn from because you can actively seek out those opportunities instead of sitting around and waiting for one to fall into your lap.
I was going to ask a similar question. I find it weird that everyone I know gets jealous and resentful when you surpass them, yet I am 100% certain I don’t do that. Are those of us who believe that just different, or perhaps we’re not honest with ourselves and rationalizing when we do it.
I do believe its the first one, and I do honestly think I’m always happy for friends when they get ahead.
Upon reading Aaron’s reply, I think it’s just a matter of having a “learning mindset”. I noticed that losers tend to have a “win-lose” mindset, whereas I have a learning mindset.
For example, the niche I’m in; When I see that a competitor is really good at doing something, I think “what can I learn from them”. And mind you, these are competitors, not friends.
This is in contradistinction to the fossils in my niche (who achieved less in 40 years than I did in 20 years). When they notice they lose clients to a competitor, they start coming up with all sorts of resentful and paranoid conspiracy theories. Like “she’s doing something to trick them to go to her, it must be a con job!”. Whereas I’m sitting there and going “no, dude she just does xyz much better, and you’re not doing xyz”.
Come to think of it some more. I think a learning mindset is also selfish. I do want friends to succeed for a selfish reason, so I can learn how they did it and succeed too, learn from their successes as it were. So I guess it’s that frame of mind that makes the difference.
>Come to think of it some more. I think a learning mindset is also selfish. I do want friends to succeed for a selfish reason
Oh,absolutely! I feel it comes from a desire in general to have “Strong Allies”. There are people who ally with those they deem inferior to themselves in some form in order to feel good about themselves(or to have some power imbalance. they want lackeys and shit. Needless to say,such people are not real friends.),but should one hopefully get over this insecurity,you generally want to ally with those from whom you can benefit from,and that tends to come from allying with those who are either your betters (at least in the relevant niche) or at least,your equals.
This does not mean you should refuse friendship from those “weaker” than you by any means. I feel like they may even turn out to become your best/most loyal allies should you be a nurturing/supportive friend to them and they manage to become your equal/better. I say this because aside from Aaron,there are many other bloggers/writers I follow on certain topics,and maybe its not good for me to be admitting this,but I outright admire their work. They just “get it” in ways that so many others do not. Someone you meet IRL who gets you on that deep of a level is ripe for a great friendship.
> perhaps we’re not honest with ourselves and rationalizing when we do it.
I have considered this possibility which is part of what prompted that question from me to Aaron. But observing my own current behavior,when I spar in the gym,I am genuinely not there to “win”,I’m there to learn. When I ask for a light sparring session and the other guy obliges,I hit appropriately. I don’t try to sneak in a hard hit or try to escalate,even if I think I could beat the other guy easily if it truly came down to it. Because its not a competition and I don’t learn anything by doing that. (I do however turn up the heat if the other guy doesn’t “get it”,which has happened quite a few times. The most recent one was when a guy was treating our spar like a real fight and I decided to use it as an opportunity to test out my newfound speed on him. Worked like a charm. Actually ended up chasing him around the sparring area and him gassing out. lol.)
Part of the reason I want to compete one day is to have an avenue where I can truly go all out with my skills/abilities. Too many people bring that attitude to what is supposed to be casual sparring. I think this may well be a reflection of what you speak of Alek regarding the average person,having a “win-lose” mindset. they feel that EVERYTHING is a competition.
Alright,that got longer than I intended,but basically,I feel like my attitude above is a good sign that I genuinely do have a “learning mindset”,alongside the fact that I’m actually improving and making results in the goals I’m currently pursuing.
With “right place at right time”, spotting real estate trends comes to mind. I know someone who got into Texas (initially Houston) real estate early. It’s been a sellers’ market in Houston since I can fucking remember. Maybe things will flip eventually. Progressivism and diversity ultimately take their toll eventually. But yeah, it was a bit of a luck on his end, but he pounced.
One of my favourite posts on your blog.
Probably the best imo. Very good observations Sleazy.
I think as I get older I see that it’s common activities and value that draw friends and I have more friends these days but the friendships are looser and come and go with interests.
One close friend has dropped off as I don’t party and party anymore and that was the common interest and value to him. Wild nights out and adventures. He’s a dad now too but lives on the other side of a big city. But we still have a common interest in a hobby to remain loose friends in touch now and again.
I definitely see a loneliness epidemic in the younger gens . Computer use, the internet and smartphones I think are the culprits.
The amount of people doing real world “activities” together has declined maybe as a consequence. Social skills too.