[lotsofpulp]

I wonder if a shared struggle/experience is needed to forge strong bonds. Not just going out, eating/drinking/dancing over and over, but a series of ups and downs.

Maybe individuals becoming less dependent on others due to a combination of earning power and internet facilitating ease of accessing information and communicating with literally anyone and not just those around you changed the parameters of life. Hence relationships are less likely to experience the conditions required to create the necessary bonds.

[Viliam1234]

Yeah. At some moment in my life I noticed that there are two types of "friends": First is a person you can have fun with... and that is all you can ever do with them. Second is a person you can have fun with, but you can also discuss serious things with, and help each other. As long as you only have fun, these two types seem similar. You typically learn the difference only when something bad happens to you... then the first type of friend disappears.

You can filter friends by putting yourself together in difficult situations on purpose. Like, take a long trip together, some problems will happen and you can see how the other person reacts. Or volunteer for an organization that helps others; the friends you find there are already filtered for their willingness to help others. (This isn't a 100% certain strategy; there are some abusers who know that others use this algorithm, so they go there fishing for easy victims to exploit. But most of lazy and selfish people would refuse to try anything like this.)

If your life is all about fun, then you are at risk of being surrounded by people who are your friends only as long as the fun lasts.

[svachalek]

I think "social" media helped to kill a lot of social interaction, by making it easy to go through the motions and keep up appearances more efficiently than actually living a rich social life.

I read somewhere that given a choice between what we know is good and what's convenient, people will choose convenience almost every time, leading to a modern world that feels how a pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich tastes. It's obviously a subjective statement but I've found it explains a lot about everything.