Meeting new people and friendships

Most friendships here still grow out of shared routines rather than deliberate effort: you sit next to someone in class for three years, or you share a cramped office and complain about the same boss, and at some point you realise you're friends. Adults who move to a new city tend to rely on clubs instead, such as a running group or a badminton court where the same faces turn up every Tuesday. As for online versus face to face, I'd say it's easier to start a friendship online but harder to deepen one. Typing removes the awkwardness, so people open up quickly, yet you only ever see the edited version of them. You don't find out whether someone is patient until you've watched them wait forty minutes for a delayed bus. That said, I wouldn't dismiss online friendships altogether, because for shy people or those with niche interests, a forum may be the only place where they feel understood. Looking ahead, I suspect close friendships will become rarer but not impossible. People change jobs and cities far more often than their parents did, so the slow, accidental kind of bonding has less time to happen. What will probably replace it is a more intentional approach, where people schedule time for friends the way they schedule the gym. It sounds unromantic, but I think it's better than drifting apart by default.