Disconnection From Friends

I came to Austin in 2019. My first friends there were my roommates. I met them through a website called roomiematch. It was a neat idea and very helpful since I didn't know anyone in Austin yet. It was a text based questionnaire of 50 questions on personal living standards and it exchanged emails with the people most matched to you. I was living in Dallas at the time and I still remember the weekend I came down to Austin to check out the final contenders of the people I had emailed with. One couple was far and away the best choice. I bonded with them immediately because of the books on their shelf. I'd never talked to anyone else who'd read The Sight before. It was a book starring two wolves. I don't remember much about the plot because I must have read it 15 years ago, but the two wolves are siblings, a brother and a sister. The sister is sickly and has the gift of prophecy.

After moving into the couples' spare bedroom, my next target was the local Less Wrong community. I had started a small meetup when I was in Dallas and three of the mainstays from the Austin group came up to meet me one time, so I felt like I had a warm introduction. There was also a special meetup where I went and met Scott Alexander for the first time. It was a lot of fun so I started going to the group regularly. About the time I came, another member who previously ran a Tuesday night dinner left and they needed someone to start organizing that. I figured it was a good way to become more valuable to the group by adopting some responsibility and having giving myself more chances to meet all the regulars in the community.

I might have looked outside for other communities but for the pandemic and stay-at-home orders in 2020. Suddenly there were no in person events to go to. Fortunately the Less Wrong group consisted of many online natives who were happy to move meetings online and I had a lot of early conversations with them that way.

The months went by, and then years. Over time people moved to Austin and moved away. Before I knew it I was one of the most senior and trusted regulars in the group. I've been here six years. I still organize Tuesday nights. I've seen people come and go.

I miss the people who don't show up anymore. I still talk to them occasionally but it's hard because many of them are in different parts of the country, or have gotten married and are too preoccupied with their families and jobs to come by anymore.

At the same time, the new people that have come have joined the group. I'm friends with them too, but the friendships lack the same sense of shared history and I worry one day they will be gone too. I've often heard that people get lonely in their own age. First they retreat into their own families and don't see friends as often. In school it's easy to hang out with friends every day. Then, as they get older, they have less energy to spend time socializing. Then, sadly, the people they know begin dying. I wonder if this is how the process starts. You just look around and realize the lack of shared history with most people in your current social group.

Because of this lack of shared history, I've begun to feel alienated from the conversations. I don't care about the current drama. I don't care about attending all the events. Part of this is also due to me personally focusing more on my job and dating seriously the last few years. I set myself reminders to talk to my friends, but it just feels hard to keep up with them now. I feel like we've said all there is to say and they are more interested in the newer people than me. Newer people have more mystery, so it's not that surprising.

I don't know what to do about this. Maybe I need to find new friends in other places, but every time it gets harder to start over with a new social group. This was my first big social success, and I'm sad that I feel it fading into the background.