Going to the mall/park/hiking is free, sure I may spend $15-20 at the movies or food. Going out is very affordable as long as you aren’t chugging down drinks or clubbing
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But chugging down drinks is what it’s all about. Otherwise, why have friends at all? (Just kidding. That’s the former frat boy in me talking).
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never
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Trust your instincts they sound good! I enjoy participating in musical groups like bands or choirs. Choirs are better organized usually. This is social and fun AND REAL.
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This is something that’s definitely tougher as you get older and people’s priorities shift.
I think that’s why there’s a LOT of truth in that cheesy phrase that you should marry your best friend. Not in the sense that you literally marry your childhood best friend, but the person you go through the learning, dating, and marriage process with should become your best friend. That way you’re hanging out and ‘socializing’ with your best friend near enough every day. I can’t imagine how draining it would be to have that boomer “old ball and chain” mentality.
That’s pretty much my life now, plus my wife has a close knit family who I hang out with often and I get on well with all brother and sister in laws.
I also ‘benefit’ from not living in my home country anymore. I think this is a benefit as it allows me to go home once a year and have some big nights out with all my old high school friends that feel like I never left, as everyone obviously knows why I don’t see them as much anymore. Whereas if I still lived in my hometown, but it was just the mundane reality of adult life reducing our catch ups to once or twice a year, maybe the friendships wouldn’t feel as authentic anymore.
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Melbourne’s metro area is fairly compact, but suburbia is vast and sprawling. Houses are packed in about 90 minutes out from the city in any direction, so as my friends and I have aged, most of us are 45+ minutes from each other. If one person lives above the city and one person lives below the city, you’re probably talking over an hour each way
Because Melbourne is built around a bay, I also have friends on the other side of the bay. Going to see them would take me two hours each way… so four hours out of my day just travelling to them. I have higher chances of seeing those friends in another city for an event than catching up on the weekend casually
With that said, most people in Melbourne congregate around the city and its neighbouring suburbs when on a night-out
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you should have seen the shock on peoples face when I introduced myself in Charlotte for the Himeno signing a couple years back lol
also to keep continuity, i go by becca irl for anyone that knows me from online
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Not enough as Id like to, but enough to get my fix. I get my energy from staying indoors, so its not that important, but as we age socializing becomes that much more important.
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Same. Evening out in Oslo in the summer, let’s say a small pizza in the sunshine, maybe a drink and a beer with that. Then 6-7 rounds of drinks at different bars, maybe 2 beers, tipsy kebab before the last train home. $250-$300. Madness.
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About 3-5 times a week. Usually at least one social event each weekend day, and then dinner with a friend once or twice during the work week.
Late 20s, no kids, married, full time job, metropolitan area
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Ah to be a DINK house
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Exactly. I don’t have to match the consumption/spend of my party, but there’s a big drinking and hospo culture in Australia – regardless of your age
All comes back to priorities, but even spending $35 to see a movie and grab frozen yogurt adds up if you’re doing it often enough. There’s one person in my entire orbit who owns a mortgage, everyone else is renting or still lives at home. Avg rental price in Melbourne is ~$370 usd, and for those studying you have an avg weekly wage of ~$385 usd for someone in their 20s. Anyone studying is very limited, often has to work a second job, and must think twice if the $20 movie is as affordable as it looks
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Admittedly not often enough. I’m mid-30s, married with no kids, and I work from home. So there are plenty of days I don’t venture far from the house.
Fortunately I do travel a lot. Sometimes for work but mostly for personal. My job allows me to go “digital nomad” for 3-4 week stints just as long as I still attend all the meetings (which due to time differences can be at odd hours of the night). I used that to visit Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan this year.
That gets me out but still doesn’t solve the socializing issue. The reality is my family is pretty much all I have in person, and most of my friends are scattered around the world.
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I moved to another country some years ago, so most of the time I can only meet my childhood/teenhood friends online. And the funny thing is that I’ve actually been meeting them more often now than before! It’s just easier to meet online cause we don’t need to leave our home, and a lot of times you don’t even need to stop doing some chores. You can just say like “hey I need to put some laundry in the washing machine, can you guys hold on a sec?” and that’s it. We can normally meet every week or so to talk and play stuff like Tabletop Sim, Mario Kart 8, etc. I should also note that I don’t have children myself, but a few of my friends do.
It’s great to meet in person, no doubt about it. But I think you shouldn’t get too worried if you’re meeting your friends online more often. I think the most important thing is that you have good friends and/or a partner that you can trust and that you enjoy spending time with.
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All the time IRL. I’m trying a bit more online, but I’m still more of an IRL person. Online you get a lot of that keyboard-warrior energy that you hardly ever see face-to-face, so I usually stick to the real-life side of things. But I’m realizing more and more it’s kind of a necessary evil nowadays to socialize online.
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Yea, i dont really have many friends irl i hang out with. 2 young kids and work takes most of my time. Most of my friends moved away.
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hi y’all! I did not expect to have so many responses when I first posted this thread as it was a bit of a random topic, but I really appreciate everyone sharing their perspective. I think a lot of you made great points of people being further away, it costing more, and just other obligations you had to attend to. In some ways, I think my theoretical desire is to be like @kamon but I know that things are a work in progress and i can’t expect to get to that routine immediately. My work is also a bit flexible that can make it hard to always have consistency.
I have realized that I need to hang out with friends a decent amount less after both hearing everyone’s perspective here and asking a few friends in my own life this same question. I think it’ll make the busy-ness a lot easier to handle alongside the business.
Thank you everyone! Hope you all have a good rest of your weekend! 
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Your choice, fyi they may not be there tomorrow.
Can’t operate in life on what ifisms. Gotta make the best decision for yourself at the end of the day
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I think that is something I already have taken to account so not worried about that, but gotta be a good enough friend to myself to make sure i can be a good friend to my friends.
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