Friends After 35: '95% Is Trash,' Says Forum User

Friends After 35: The Trench or Nothing

The question seems innocent: can you make true friends after 35 or 40? The prevailing answer in the discussion is uncomfortable. Only a handful of cases defend that yes, and almost always with nuances: one or two, lasting, made late. The majority holds the opposite. That at that age you no longer forge bonds like those of youth, that what remains are colleagues to have a drink with and little more, and that true friendship, the kind that shows up when you need it, is a statistical exception.

The original post did not refer to grand friendships. It was enough to have someone to grab a beer with and talk about personal concerns, someone with whom you feel that complicity you had when you were young. Nothing more. And even so, the bar seemed high.

The true friend is no longer made at that age

The dominant thesis is that of the trench. From a certain age, unless you have shared an extreme experience—a war, a common tragedy, something that forces trust—the bonds created are superficial. You meet at a bar, you dine, you talk about football or work. But when serious problems arise, the interest disappears. True friends, those who show interest when something happens, are no longer made.

Some go further and turn it into a matter of time. Friendship would be a positive version of enmity, and the only difference between the two is when it breaks. The sooner someone turns their back on you, the less time you waste. Under this logic, there are only momentary allies and potential adversaries, and it is best to view both with the same distrust.

The argument is reinforced by the experience of those who reached this conclusion late. At 35 or 40, I realized my friends were actually acquaintances, summarizes someone who admits being late to the game. Survival, says another, corrupts everything: there are no friends, only interests. And those who seem like friends from the mouth or drunkenness prove nothing, because anyone can do that. The hard part is being there when you need to be.

The harshest calculation: 95% is trash

The most radical formulation of pessimism comes with a figure. 95% of people are trash, one message states, and the friend is no exception to this statistic. Friendship would be a useful fool used or who uses you according to circumstances. There is no affection, only mutual convenience disguised as affection.

It is not the only figure. Another intervention claims to have zero friends, period. And a third reduces the inventory to a handful: five friendships counted by name, as if it were a closed list that admits no additions. The conversation moves between zero and five, and almost everything fits in that margin.

Against that wall, the exception exists but is scarce. One or two lasting friends, made as an adult, is the most optimistic balance read. Another case: the best friend came at 34 or 35, when school and university were no longer relevant, nor the desire. And a more tempered defense: there are friends who would not give their life for you, nor you for them, but who would help in a difficult situation. That, whoever writes it says, is also friendship, even if it is not the friendship of the soul.

Family, work, and children as false friends

A part of the analysis points out that many friendships were not such, but disguised circumstances. Parents who became friends with other parents when the children were small stopped being so when the children grew up. Friendship lasts as long as the coincidence lasts, and when the reason disappears—the school, the park, the extracurricular—the bond disappears.

The same applies to work. Relationships forced by the office are not friendship, although they are confused with it for years. And some add a more intimate fact: the only best friend is one's own vvife, the only person who will not rejoice in others' misfortunes. This is a conclusion shared by several without drama, almost as a late discovery.

The result is a map where true friendship is reduced to first-degree family and a handful of exceptions. Even there, caution: some remember that brothers throw plates at each other's heads over an inheritance the day after the funeral. Blood guarantees nothing either.

Is it a matter of Spain or a matter of age?

A geographical hypothesis appears. Outside Spain, one message states, the asocial and emotionally independent man is not a rare beast. In Spain, however, going alone for a beer is seen as a quirk. Society would be more gregarious and more closed at the same time: friend groups function as immovable blocks, easy to frequent on the surface and almost impossible to peine in depth.

Those who come from the provinces to a big city notice it. The groups are closed, and making new friends costs what is not written. Spaniards tend to be immovable monoliths in social relationships, summarizes someone who, nevertheless, did make adult friends, although most were not Spanish. The paradox: the cliché says Mediterraneans are open, and experience says that to forge close friendship, zero.

The other explanation is age, not the country. From a certain stage, vital energy is oriented inward, not outward. Jung is cited and his two stages of life: first to build identity, partner, success, fit in; then look inward, face antiestéticars and frustrations. In that second phase, isolation would not be a defeat, but a necessity. What matters is to stay away from people, and he does not say it just anyone.

The Lone Wolf's Refuge

The repeated practical conclusion is that of the lone wolf. Gym, traveling, mountains. Everything can be done alone. Mental peace, at a certain age, is worth more than any group dinner. And if lifelong friends have disappeared—the jerks don't call or have interest in meeting—so be it. One learns to live without them.

There remains, however, a sustancia ilegal in that discourse. The initial premise pointed it out: loneliness without family, from a certain age, has a problem that is not solved with the gym. Health. Being old and sick must be hell on earth, and emotional independence does not reach there. The question of whether true friendship exists therefore remains without a closed answer. Some reduce it to 5%. Others find it once every ten years. And a few, the fewest, assure that yes, that it is still possible, although no one explains entirely how.