New Neighborhoods
Several studies in recent years have left us wondering if Americans have “stopped hanging out” together. It began with Robert Putnam’s original 1995 essay (called “bowling alone”) on the loss of American culture (Putnam, 2000) and has received recent attention in Derek Thompson’s (2024) essay on loneliness. We find even greater evidence of this growing estrangement in Japan, where many citizens (especially those that are young) remain at home and interact with other people only via digital modes. While there is good reason to be concerned about this reticence to hang out with other people, it is also important to note that new neighborhoods are being formed that closely relate to the matter of career building.
In recent years, our “neighborhoods” are often established not at the location of our home or physical community, but in the location of our work. Large corporations, for instance, often provide lunch service, lounges for coffee breaks and even recreational facilities (e.g. basketball courts). The workplace facilities are now identified as “campuses”—complete with carefully-groomed areas in which to walk and perhaps even a pond or gazebo for escape and contemplation. One can establish friendships in such a setting—especially given the shared set of values and career interests among those working on this “campus.” With long hours away from home, it is fully understandable that one would look for their “neighborhood” and the accompanying friendships at work.
There is also the matter of time spent at home. With the Internet readily available, one can stay connected with and engage in work related activities with our workplace friends. Our partner has gone to bed or are on their own computer connecting with their workplace friends. If we do have children, they are sent off to bed. While in the “old days” we would be watching TV with our partner, it is now often the case that we would prefer our workplace friends to an evening of ½ hour comedies, reality TV or late-night talk shows.
Aside from our workplace friends, there are those people in our life who accompany us at what Robert Bellah and his associates (1985) identify as “life style enclaves.” During the weekend we might attend a political rally or drive our antique car to a gathering of fellow car-lovers. We might meet other film-buffs at the local movie theater every Tuesday evening for the showing of some 1930s movie. How about a gathering of fellow weavers or quilters at a 21st Century equivalent to the old sowing or quilting bees. We find in the contemporary creation of these life style enclaves the formation of a new type of “neighborhood” and the establishment of new sources of friendship that resides alongside the workplace neighborhood.
Functional and Faux Friendships
While the workplace and lifestyle neighborhoods can be the source of many friendships, I would suggest that there is a third source of early adulthood friendships. I find in my own life (and in the life of many friends) that I began joint projects with other people that some evolved into strong and enduring friendships that remained in place following completion of the project. I co-author books with men and women who soon become friends. We share the collaborative effort or writing the book and share the joy of accomplishment when we finish and publish the book.
As in the case of many other “ambitious” and productive people in my life, I find that there is a “perfect storm” when shared intimacy and shared creation come together. One of my colleagues and I can give birth to our own “baby” without being in a sexually intimate relationship. WE become friends in the midst of our “labor.” As psychoanalysts such as Anna Freud (1992) have noted, we can “sublimate” our sexual and procreative desires by joining with a dear friend in creating something together. “Many years ago, Anna’s father, Sigmund Frued, suggested that life wraps around two primary motives: love and work. Erik Erikson (Smelser and Erikson, 1980) seemed to have agreed. These two motives can come together with a joint project.
