I find myself in this boat as we speak, and I'm not even 30. I certainly have plenty of acquaintances at work and at the hobbies and activities I participate in, and we do some group things every few months. I also have several close friends who I chat with every day online who don't live near me anymore. However, I have 0 real friends who I interact with IRL. If you asked me who I would call if I was having an emergency and needed help, who I could share sensitive things with IRL, or who I could call up and ask randomly to grab a beer with me, I would have no names to give you. That includes the person I'm in "a relationship" with who also feels more like an acquaintance to me as we hang out once every few weeks for a few hours and otherwise barely talk. As a result, I spend most of my weekends just sitting alone working or trying to entertain myself with content.
I'm not really sure how to proceed, as every time I expend a bunch of effort and push myself out of the acquaintance stage, that person leaves town for work and I am stuck right back where I was. It's a large enough problem as to where I've considered moving to places less advantageous career wise just because they are less transient.
Have you thought about joining a gym? Are you actively seeking out friendships or befriending people in there 20's? Have you tried connecting with people in there 40's, 50's?
Personally I think that the world `friend` have been de-valued to the point used interchangeably with acquaintance. Also the modern social `self help` book's that mostly recommend venting people from ones life that are too needy or selfish and to surround yourself with only positive people who only want you to succeed have accumulated in a situation where people to people contact is very limtted and when it is its normally criticized and scrutinized for its merit.
The other end of the stick that I do like waggling is why do you think you need a friend? Are you soo focused on `friend` that you're not looking after yourself first? Maybe you're focused on friend because it takes the spotlight off yourself as the arbiter of your own life? Hell you may have not been successful because you didn't have a friend!
Focus on yourself, put boundaries around your life. Get a good night sleep, and focus on being better than you used to be yesterday. Expand your social/business circles and Friends will follow in a healthy productive way.
I too am in this position. I do not have one friend in this world I can count on, only family members. And the way things are going, this is how it may be forever.
And if I didn’t have family, and was just some orphan in the world, who knows what I might do. Probably turn to a life of white collar crime at some point.
Might be the new reality that everyone needs to be nomadic to survive. My parents had lots of friends, likely because they were financially able to put their roots down in a community. I’ve pretty much been unable to live in the same city for more than 3-4 years or so, at least not since better economic times. From jobs disappearing/moving to cost of living forcing a move, us younger folks don’t have the security of knowing where we will be in 5 years, which makes it harder to make friends and acquaintances.
Eh, you and I are probably in the same boat (semi-regular job hopping for raises) and I think at some point you just stop caring as much about maximizing salary. I know my parents could have made more if they lived elsewhere when I was growing up, but they chose to stay because they had family and (later) because they wanted me/siblings to have a stable childhood. Personally I'm hoping to find a "good enough" job in a city with a largish tech community once I have kids, even if I might be able to make 30% more elsewhere after a few years
I'm not really sure how to proceed, as every time I expend a bunch of effort and push myself out of the acquaintance stage, that person leaves town for work and I am stuck right back where I was. It's a large enough problem as to where I've considered moving to places less advantageous career wise just because they are less transient.