nordlead said:
mirgro said:
nordlead said:
wow. you are a peice of work. I'm convinced your only view of socializing is if you walk by 1000 random strangers in a single day and then maybe yell at a couple for almost running you over, order a cup of coffee from another, and then hold 1 meaningful conversation with a random guy at the news stand. Oh, and that friend that you know at work and are good budies with, he doesn't count. Oh, I forgot to add that you need to get drunk at a club and chat with another stranger that you'll never meet again.
However, if you subscribe to the small town everyone knows everyone with a small number of really good and close meaningful relationships you are "anti-social". Who knew I was anti-social just because I don't live in NYC.
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Answer me this. Do you have to be active in said town? If all you did was just go to work and get food and meet with your buddies, how much would you have socialized with the other people there? You yourself said you were active, what if you weren't? Believe it or not the one or two random guys every few days really adds up to a lot at the end of the year, ad by the end of several years it's a big amount.
The closest thing to being actively social in the US, outside of NYC, are college campuses where I can jsut passively go about my day and meet a wide variety of people without being active in groups or any of those things and evenrtually I meet new friends.
In the US, 1 out of 4 people have zero people they can confide in. In fact the average number of close friends, and this is for the US but I am sure it's true for Europe as well since it has been getting more Americanized lately, has been steadly dropping over the last 20 years. I dare say, tha of those those random people you meet every day or two, at least one will end up being a friend given enough time.
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I would have socialized with the same number of people as if I walked to work in a major city. Again, saying "excuse me" while you walk by a random stranger or ordering a cup off coffee by the 3rd new cashier register that month does not count as socializing, and neither does it provide you with someone to confide in.
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There is a far greater chance of a conversation being struck up the more people you encounter in your day. Even by ust excusing yourself more often you increase the chance of some random conversation being struck up. Can you deny that a person meets and makes many more people in their college campuses in the US than they do when they start work? Because I can tell you that a European city is literally, one big US college campus when it comes to socializing. The same way you met more people in a college campus, is the same way you meet people in a European city.
But then let's hear it. Why do you think people in the US have less and less close friends and fewer people they can confide in?
Edit: And don't bother with blaming the Internet, Europe also has it and it is in fact much better in the US actually in several countries.
