Janice McCabe

Yeah, I think, you know, sociology talks a lot about structure, too, you know, and finding patterns in what we do.

So we like to think that friendship is a chosen relationship, and it is in many ways.

Yet the people that we encounter, the people that we become friends with are also shaped by friendship.

proximity or a sociological term of propinquity, which is this idea of who we regularly encounter repeatedly, why we're more likely to be friends with someone whose apartment door faces ours or we share a stairwell with or who has the office next to us rather than someone down the hall or on another floor of the building.

No, but those identity shifts are really powerful times for us in changing our relationships, too, because I think we also like to think, you know, like, oh, I've made good friends, like I'm set.

But instead, friendship is something that's a process that we're continually changing.

you know, meeting new people, we're changing, they're changing.

And, you know, we may change together with our friends or, you know, or we might not.

So that openness and curiosity, both about friendships and about who we are is really crucial.

Yeah, I think it's not too late to make friends no matter your age, no matter what your experience has been like in the past.

So, you know, finding other places where people are open to making friends are, you know, again, these friendship markets are a really helpful way rather than, you know, I talked to people who went to their local coffee shop and thought, oh, you know, if I go in there regularly, that would be a good place.

But people are often working.

They've got their headphones on.

They're doing their own thing.

They're not in the market necessarily for making friends there.

But maybe a group of new knitters at the coffee shop, for example, may be a place where people would find other friends.

Me too.