I was thinking about this thread and it got me wondering about my own little group.
When I moved out of my mother’s house I rented a place for about three years with two other friends. My oldest friend at the time lived about three mintues walk away, two doors from one of my other friends. The only one of our little gang that didn’t live nearby was the oldest so he had a car. We had a lot of fun.
Then one of the group moved to London for work, another moved to his dad’s place in essex, one went back to Bolton, one went to university in Southhampton. Those of us that stayed started to pair off with our SOs and saw less of each other.
We’ve worked hard to stay in touch, we have our own forum, chat servers and internet games. We visit each other as often as life allows. We get most or all of us togther once per year for drunken camping. But there’s jobs, and wives, and kids to take into account now so it’s never easy and getting harder.
All in all, I think we’ve managed to preserve our group fairly well but I’m still concerned for the future. I’ve had this gang for support for nearly ten years and I think the real threat to it is being distracted into letting it slowly fade away.
Any one have advice or tactics to preserve our unique culture, or experiences that would offer some insight ?
In summary: How have your social cliques lasted over the years ?
Mine have held up pretty well, all things considered. My work clique has evolved over the last 20 years, but there are still the core people involved. The 3 guys I go camping with every Thanksgiving I have known since high school, which make it a good 35+ years. Most of my brewing friends I’ve known for 15+ years.
I think my circle has held up pretty well over the years. The majority of the people that I hang out with today date back to approximately my sophomore year in high school, so while it’s only 8 years for me, I can still see us being the kind of friends who will be hanging out thirty or forty years in the future.
I’ve not been as good in keeping in touch with my college friends, but since a number of them live in the area I think I should probably try harder.
I’ve had a few friends that I’ve managed to stick with since high school, and in a few cases, have become better friends since that time.
The trick is to have that one friend who goes the extra mile. If it weren’t for my friend Eric, I’d probably have no contact with two or three others who are pretty good friends from back when, because he’d made the extra effort to keep contact with them (and with me) through college.
But it is a little sad to go back and look at the names of the dozens who have fallen by the wayside in such a short time (I’m only 25).
Locally my social circle shrinks regularly as people move away. However, I do a pretty good job of staying in touch, and so good friends stay in my life. I just don’t get to see them as often as I used to.
Over the nine years I’ve been living in the US, everybody I ever knew in Canada has fallen by the wayside. Some on purpose, some by the passage of time, some by the process of either staying put or moving on. I really have no reason to go back there; I don’t know where to find anybody. I’ve made new friends and acquaintances locally, though, so it’s not as though I were antisocial.
My book club has been together 12 years - we’ve gotten new members. But some of us knew each other for a decade or longer before that - lets seem, I’m 40 and met several of my current friends at 16 - married a guy who was part of that crowd that I met when I was seventeen (didn’t marry him until I was almost 30 - didn’t date him until my late 20s) - he’s known some of those people since gradeschool. A long time. And from here - until we start dying off - it will only get longer.
Sounds like you’re doing pretty good at maintaining the connections. I’d never think of a forum – what a great idea.
I lost connections with my teenage circle when we moved from Iowa to Seattle. I’ve been back in Iowa for 17 years, and I’ve seen some of these people but it’s been sporadic, nothing regular, even though I live next door to one of them. They’ve had marriages, divorces, children, changes that I wasn’t part of. That makes it hard.
I still connect with a new circle of friends from my last job. Even though two of us no longer work there, there’s one who I see a couple of times a month and we e-mail regularly. She lives about 40 miles away. We try to get everyone together three or four times a year to catch up, drink beer, etc.
I think this circle will last though. I’d feel comfortable asking any of them for help and support, and I think they feel the same. Actually, the same goes for the old circle. They helped me a lot when my husband died.
I joined my core group of high school friends very late in my senior year of high school, but most of them already knew each other and hung out. Most of us graduated in 1996, but we’re all still close, even when we live in different places. A lot of the gang stayed in Miami when I moved away for college, but I’ve been back and forth a few times since. A lot of us have also been roommates over the years, in different combinations and permutations. We all use Myspace and visit each other whenever we can, which has helped a lot.
I’ve stayed in touch with a lot fewer people from college, but I consider myself just as close to those people too, even though I don’t live near any of them currently. It’s nice having different small circles of friends and acquaintances – I appreciate time to myself, but it’s always nice to have friends and allies in a number of cities, who are always a phone call, e-mail, or Myspace message away.
I had a job where I made really good mates because of our shared experiences,hardships and to be honest ,shared fear.
We all live in different parts of the country and had our numbers whittled down by unforseen circumstances but now we’re all unfit ,ageing and knackered we still all keep in touch ,but not on any routine and when we do actually meet up in the flesh its literally like you 've just seen the guy last week .
If you really are good mates it doesnt go away ,on the other tack I havent got a clue where my best mates from Grammar school are or what they are doing ,mostly because they are geo centred on the town they were born in .
Dont worry ,if you’re good friends you’ll always will be ,if you dont …then they aren’t really that close.