A single female friend and I were just discussing this over the weekend. She doesn't work as she is disabled but she finds it very hard to expand her social circle because everyone else is busy with work or family. It's very hard espeically for singles who do not want to hang out at the bars. We live in a rural area which makes it even more difficult to connect.

I've been whining for two years now that 40 hours it just too much. I have almost 3 hours in commuting time during the work day so that has made a huge impact on my "work" hours. I've recently been able to cut back to four days which is a god send just for my personal time, not even touching on social time.

=^,,^=

Very interesting what you said about technology was supposed to give us more leisure time. This has definitely worked the opposite.

When I worked, I didn't go to another desk or office to talk to someone. I email them. I email my vendors and my clients. And in return, I get a zillion emails a day, many of it "action items". I was chained to my desk with emails. So impersonal.

Also, in business now, if someone sends you an email, they expect an answer back pretty darn fast. So, there you are sending acknowledgments of the email, and not spending quality time working on the reason the email was sent. In most business, it is considered rude not to respond in a very timely manner. And forget those chains were there are 10 copied people and they start a chain. Sometimes it's like looking at some of the Debate Forums at CZ. Sometimes it is a debate, but only a few parties are off on the side debating, while we all get ALL the emails. I've seen those emails submitted in legal trials, and actually saw a lawyer put one up on a overhead, with arrows, and people numbered. It was so confusing, the jury was laughing.

I know many many people in business with very little social life outside of work. And work consists of sitting at a desk, mostly, and emailing. And many of these people relocated away from family from all over the country. So they are even more isolated. So, many of these people use the internet as their social interactions.

That much time in front of a monitor, whether it is a computer or TV, is bound to cause some severe depression.

Very interesting post.

Yes it is increasing... I left a small town in 1965 for a job, then moved across country to LA for 35 years.... You make a lot of friends in that period, not the same as your "old" friends.... We did a lot over the years, rode the bike path from Torrance Beach to Marina Del Rey and drank tubs of margaritas along the way... Rollerskated on the bike path, had lunch at least once a week.... Had someone to run or jog with every week... I moved to Upstate NY in 99 and really do nothing on my off hours... My work friends are only that... So I get to visit my brother in Scranton, my sister and other brother moved to fla...

So if there is any deep dark secret that I want to talk about I am out of luck.... These days my best friend is my ex-husband and he is retired in Thailand, I'm sure not going to fly halfway around the world to yack....

Sand

Hmmm. Very interesting.

I live in a somewhat small town. I have a fair amount of family here, that is who I spend the bulk of my time with (or alone).
As far as friends go:
1 old friend who is single and didn't have a job until recently - we would hang out a good bit
1 old friend who is married, has a busy job plus was getting her MBA - rarely did anything with her
1 new person in town whom I kinda knew from college

There is NOBODY ELSE MY AGE that I know
Oh, and that new person, everybody thinks we should date, including him, and I don't want to.

And I don't even have a job, so it's not like I'm too busy. There's just nobody to know, and if there were, they would probably be too busy.
I had lived in Singapore for 4 years, I also didn't really make any friends there because they are busy workaholics there, probably worse than the USA. They already had their friends so in their few spare minutes they would do stuff with the friends they already had.

I have some close friends who live in different parts of the USA (far from me) so we keep in touch with e-mail and the phone and occasional visits but yeah, it isn't hanging out on a regular basis!

As a single young female, part of my problem is that the only people who want to do things with me are guys who want to date me (and thus far, I haven't wanted to date them).

I meet plenty of people I do NOT want to be friends with... I'd rather be alone than be friends with someone I can't relate to, or can't stand!