The division between marrieds and singles ... on Facebook (boyfriend, talks, present)
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There's definitely been a huge shift in culture in society even over the last decade, whereby people have become more closely bound to their immediate families and circles of friends. I notice that parents now seem a lot more clingy and protective of their children than they were when I was a child back in the 80's and early 90's. There seems to be more suspicion these days and people are far more unwilling to trust. My parents didn't live solely for me and I remember them going out without us quite often, even for weekends away, where we'd be left with grandparents, or a babysitter if it was just a few hours. I remember my mum having several female friends who weren't mothers, some weren't even married. It seems like parents don't even let their kids go out to play, or not for long, whereas I used to disappear for hours on my bike. Is 2012 really that much more dangerous than 1989, or is there a degree of paranoia that has got out of hand?
Social networking has made it easier for people to keep in touch with the circles of friends they feel comfortable with, which in turn has caused people to be less inclined to seek out new friendships or to make the effort to maintain friendships with people who have differing lifestyles. In truth, people have become lazier, more self-centered and more cliquish.
It can be quite unfortunate and lonely these days if you don't fit the mold or follow the herd.
You may have been lucky in this regard. Generally speaking, they dole out hefty servings of condescension. That's what I've seen. Not only that, THEY really "cooled their jets," in terms of friendship, upon marrying.
Some certainly do. I was lucky in the regards my friends and I have been in each others lives for years and I always got along great with their partners. Though now I have a girl i could bring. All good!
Friendships are important. They should continue after marriage. Sure people may hang out less but a true friendship does not measure time. It spends it with those it loves be it 2 days a week, 2 days a month whatever.
As I presume most of us do, I have a Facebook account. Being single, I use it mostly to keep in touch with faraway friends from previous locations, schools, etc. and my postings are largely photos of my travels and wall posts of Memory Lane stuff - songs, articles, and snippets about our rites of passage in the area in which we grew up or lived.
What I've noticed is that most of the comments on my stuff comes from the other single people I have as friends. Married people's FBs are plastered with their kids and comments amongst each other cooing how cute they and/or their kids are. The "breeders" can't be bothered to make any comments on the singles' pages and posts, so this further amplifies why there is a canyon between marrieds and singles.
The bottom line: Singles - ditch your married friends because they don't seem to be worth the trouble, and they probably feel the same way about you. LOL. Seriously, sometimes I think that.
Any takers?
I just unsubscribe to those whose every post is about their kids. Every once in a while, I'll go over and "like" a photo of their kid just to be nice, but on the whole, I just don't find it that interesting if that's all they post about.
Fortunately, most of my friends who are married or have kids are not that one-dimensional, so it's only two or three that I don't pay much attention to.
I guess if I was sick of seeing posts about someone's kids, I'd delete them. I initially opened my Facebook account so I could keep up with what the kids of our extended family members were doing. Years ago people might send a letter with some pics via snail mail.
I've noticed a lot of posts lately on C-D lately about what jerks those with kids can be. While I think this is true, sometimes having kids brings changes to your life that might be hard to understand until they actually happen.
My sister has no kids, and it seems to be a huge source of friction in our relationship, and I'm not sure why really. Yet I know others where it isn't such a relationship.
Most of my peers were married with kids before I was...it never bothered me. Yes it did change our friendships a bit. But it never bothered me in the same way it seems to bother my sister or the way it seems to bother some of the people on this forum.
You seem a bit more mature than the OP. It bothered me initially - but I managed to keep my friendships.
I certainly didn't refer to my friends as breeders or make references to their 'inbred' children.
No, OP is a realist who sees people for what they are. (Locked profile, I see).
Likewise my friend. It's better to see the truth and live in reality than wear rose tinted specs and live in some candy coated fantasyland, in which people's s**t doesn't stink.
There's definitely been a huge shift in culture in society even over the last decade, whereby people have become more closely bound to their immediate families and circles of friends. I notice that parents now seem a lot more clingy and protective of their children than they were when I was a child back in the 80's and early 90's. There seems to be more suspicion these days and people are far more unwilling to trust. My parents didn't live solely for me and I remember them going out without us quite often, even for weekends away, where we'd be left with grandparents, or a babysitter if it was just a few hours. I remember my mum having several female friends who weren't mothers, some weren't even married. It seems like parents don't even let their kids go out to play, or not for long, whereas I used to disappear for hours on my bike. Is 2012 really that much more dangerous than 1989, or is there a degree of paranoia that has got out of hand?
Social networking has made it easier for people to keep in touch with the circles of friends they feel comfortable with, which in turn has caused people to be less inclined to seek out new friendships or to make the effort to maintain friendships with people who have differing lifestyles. In truth, people have become lazier, more self-centered and more cliquish.
It can be quite unfortunate and lonely these days if you don't fit the mold or follow the herd.
I don't really agree with your point that people are more closely bound to their immediate families...if anything we are becoming increasingly spread out. People still use babysitters.
I would say I have about a 250 to 100 ratio of married vs. single.
I expect my married friends to post what's important in their lives (ie: kids) and my single friends to post what's important to them (ie: new clubs, restaurants).
I have no kids, but can relate, and CARE about both.
I would say I have about a 250 to 100 ratio of married vs. single.
I expect my married friends to post what's important in their lives (ie: kids) and my single friends to post what's important to them (ie: new clubs, restaurants).
I have no kids, but can relate, and CARE about both.
This is how most mature and caring people would feel, I believe.
I have married friends, single friends, friends with young children, friends with no children, friends with grown children ~ they all have something to offer; that's why they are my friends.
Do I always watch the entire video of little Johnny's tball game? Nope ~ I just click 'like' and move on.
No, dammit, I have to jump in here. Although I don't agree with all of what robert posts, I agree with him that there are lots of parents out there who just don't have their kids as an important PART of their lives, but have their kids as their WHOLE lives. Since this thread is about Facebook specifically, yes, I agree that many of these child-centric parents post incessantly about their kids. Not once a day, but multiple times a day. My newsfeed is usually full of people's kid pictures and kid stories and I have to scroll forever to find an intelligent joke, article, or political discussion that someone posts.
And I kind of resent that someone would think that single adults are mainly interested in "new clubs and restaurants." I don't know if that was just a statement about the people the poster knows, or about single people in general. I'm a grown-up, and I don't go "clubbing." When I talk with other adults, I like to sometimes joke and share witty/funny stories and observations, and also talk about important things. Clubs and restaurants don't make the cut on the "important issues" list (neither does soccer practice or dance recital costumes). But people who forever focus on their children don't seem to care as much about important world-altering events that are affecting us all, and I guess they think that us childfree people only care about things like nightclubs.
My noticing that and being annoyed by all of that does not make me "holier than thou," "thinking my s**t doesn't stink," or "living in a fantasy land." It's merely an observation about the majority of the people I know in my age group who are married with kids. If they are not typical of the married-with-children population, then I thank God for that. Maybe I just "lucked out" to have these people in my circle of acquaintances. But evidently I'm not alone, as evidenced by other posts in this thread that agree.
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