A community is different from mere friendship, just like common knowledge is different from mere knowledge; it’s transitive. Not only are X and Y close to you, but you know that they are also close to each other; this is why you can invite them both at the same time.
Assuming you already have a community, if they live in the same city, what you need is to establish a communication channel where people can post stuff like “I want to go to a movie / walk at time T, would anyone like to join me?”
If you don’t have a community, the first step is to join one or create one. You could join a larger community (e.g. the local rationalist meetup), and within it select a subgroup of people who “click” with you and with each other. Or you could grow it gradually, starting with a small group of your friends who also like each other, slowly progressing by “do you have a friend who seems like they could fit into our small group? try inviting them to our meeting tomorrow”. For a group up to 10 people, the easiest way to organize a meetup is at your home.
(Sorry, this probably deserves a longer text, but I feel tired at the moment. Just wanted to write this.)
Not only are X and Y close to you, but you know that they are also close to each other; this is why you can invite them both at the same time.
Noting that I consider this to be a very important quality. There’s a 6 person friend group from high-school that I’m still in regular contact with, and it has a lot to do with the fact that any subset of us can enjoy each other’s company.
I’ve recently started hosting dinner parties and inviting various friends, and I’m now thinking about how to make it easier for them to all connect together, so it’s more of a community feel and less “We all know Hazard.”
It sometimes works, and it sometimes doesn’t. The question is whether the only thing X and Y have in common is knowing you—in which case it likely won’t scale, -- or whether you have selected them both for the same reason (perhaps one you couldn’t even articulate explicitly, but it’s real and they feel it too) -- in which case it could work.
It is best to have both, but generally the community requires less effort per human contact. I mean, if you want to meet your friend, either you or the friend needs to take responsibility and organize the thing. (Even if “organizing” means simply telling them “come to my place today at 19:00, we can talk or watch a movie”.) With community, there is more work organizing, but then many people benefit from it, and also each participant meets multiple people at the same time, i.e. you could have dozen 1:1 interactions at the same place, which puts the cost of one interaction really low.
In the community, there is a risk that some people will always volunteer and some people will always free-ride, but in some sense this possibility is also a feature: people momentarily too low on energy to organize anything can still participate.
Are you familiar with Transactional Analysis, or more specifically the book Games People Play? Among other things, there is a scale of human relationships; if I remember correctly, it goes like this: “ignorance” (people pretend not to see each other), “rituals” (people do prescribed movements and say prescribed words), “work” (people act like professionals, they cooperate on a common goal but there is nothing personal about it), “games” (people interact to fulfill their emotional needs, but still hide behind their personas), and finally “intimacy” (people feel comfortable to remove their masks and interact openly).
The thing is, all of these levels serve a purpose. It is pathological if you can’t trust anyone. It is also pathological if you can’t keep your boundaries. The deeper relationships are more meaningful; the less deep relationships scale better. You want the entire pyramid: a few people you are intimate with, a larger group you have fun with, to be able to cooperate if necessary with any sane person, and to avoid conflict with those who rub you the wrong way.
By the way, people live in bubbles, so it’s hard to estimate how many have the “loneliness crisis”. Enough in absolute numbers for it to be a problem. But is it a majority or a minority? I have no idea.
A community is different from mere friendship, just like common knowledge is different from mere knowledge; it’s transitive. Not only are X and Y close to you, but you know that they are also close to each other; this is why you can invite them both at the same time.
Assuming you already have a community, if they live in the same city, what you need is to establish a communication channel where people can post stuff like “I want to go to a movie / walk at time T, would anyone like to join me?”
If you don’t have a community, the first step is to join one or create one. You could join a larger community (e.g. the local rationalist meetup), and within it select a subgroup of people who “click” with you and with each other. Or you could grow it gradually, starting with a small group of your friends who also like each other, slowly progressing by “do you have a friend who seems like they could fit into our small group? try inviting them to our meeting tomorrow”. For a group up to 10 people, the easiest way to organize a meetup is at your home.
(Sorry, this probably deserves a longer text, but I feel tired at the moment. Just wanted to write this.)
Noting that I consider this to be a very important quality. There’s a 6 person friend group from high-school that I’m still in regular contact with, and it has a lot to do with the fact that any subset of us can enjoy each other’s company.
I’ve recently started hosting dinner parties and inviting various friends, and I’m now thinking about how to make it easier for them to all connect together, so it’s more of a community feel and less “We all know Hazard.”
It sometimes works, and it sometimes doesn’t. The question is whether the only thing X and Y have in common is knowing you—in which case it likely won’t scale, -- or whether you have selected them both for the same reason (perhaps one you couldn’t even articulate explicitly, but it’s real and they feel it too) -- in which case it could work.
But assuming there’s something as “a loneliness crisis” (which I don’t think there is, at least not in the west).
Then what would be a solution to it: friendship or community?
Basing community on your definition which I agree.
It is best to have both, but generally the community requires less effort per human contact. I mean, if you want to meet your friend, either you or the friend needs to take responsibility and organize the thing. (Even if “organizing” means simply telling them “come to my place today at 19:00, we can talk or watch a movie”.) With community, there is more work organizing, but then many people benefit from it, and also each participant meets multiple people at the same time, i.e. you could have dozen 1:1 interactions at the same place, which puts the cost of one interaction really low.
In the community, there is a risk that some people will always volunteer and some people will always free-ride, but in some sense this possibility is also a feature: people momentarily too low on energy to organize anything can still participate.
Are you familiar with Transactional Analysis, or more specifically the book Games People Play? Among other things, there is a scale of human relationships; if I remember correctly, it goes like this: “ignorance” (people pretend not to see each other), “rituals” (people do prescribed movements and say prescribed words), “work” (people act like professionals, they cooperate on a common goal but there is nothing personal about it), “games” (people interact to fulfill their emotional needs, but still hide behind their personas), and finally “intimacy” (people feel comfortable to remove their masks and interact openly).
The thing is, all of these levels serve a purpose. It is pathological if you can’t trust anyone. It is also pathological if you can’t keep your boundaries. The deeper relationships are more meaningful; the less deep relationships scale better. You want the entire pyramid: a few people you are intimate with, a larger group you have fun with, to be able to cooperate if necessary with any sane person, and to avoid conflict with those who rub you the wrong way.
By the way, people live in bubbles, so it’s hard to estimate how many have the “loneliness crisis”. Enough in absolute numbers for it to be a problem. But is it a majority or a minority? I have no idea.
There’s also a selection effect: Lonely people have fewer friends, so you’re less likely to know them.
That would make average people underestimate the “loneliness crisis”, right?
Yes.