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If you have no or few friends, you are not broken. You are yourself. And that's not a bad thing.
33 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I used to think something was wrong with me because of it.
Lord knows, I've had some false ones over the years, but thankfully, they're long gone. I consider myself lucky to have the few good ones I have.
And I certainly can't talk about good people without including all the great ones here on DU! You have kept me sane more times than I can count. I've laughed; I've cried; I've commiserated; I've been informed; and I've been amazed by the incredible talent and kindness of so many members. You remind me that good, decent, kind, caring people still exist, even in this national nightmare we go through on a daily basis. I can't thank you enough for being here. DU forever!!! I love and appreciate you all.
The few friends I have are very close friends.
If you have ever read Jane Austen’s “Emma”, one of my favorite parts of the book was the one-sided conflict between John Knightley (my favourite character in the book) and Mr.Weston.
I used to chuckle over this part:
The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing-room when Mr. Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner, and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much expected by the best judges, for surprize—but there was great joy.
Mr. Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry to see him before.
John Knightley only was in mute astonishment. That a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile to another man’s house, for the sake of being in mixed company till bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility
and the noise of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply.
A man who had been in motion since eight o’clock in the morning, and might now have been still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone! Such a man, to quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world! Could he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather than break up the party.
John Knightley looked at him with amazement, then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I could not have believed it even of him.”
Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being
principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was making himself agreeable among the rest.”
Mr. Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry to see him before.
John Knightley only was in mute astonishment. That a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile to another man’s house, for the sake of being in mixed company till bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility
and the noise of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply.
A man who had been in motion since eight o’clock in the morning, and might now have been still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone! Such a man, to quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world! Could he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather than break up the party.
John Knightley looked at him with amazement, then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I could not have believed it even of him.”
Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being
principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was making himself agreeable among the rest.”
And I agreed with this:
Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr.
Weston depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher character. General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
Weston depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher character. General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
Earlier this year I was scanning Henry Murray’s “Explorations in Personality” while pondering the role of solitude if not precisely friendship on cognition (they are related notions though not quite the same thing), but I don’t recollect anything directly related to it:
https://archive.org/details/explorationsinpe031973mbp/page/n1/mode/1up
That’s the psychologist who conducted the infamous experiments that among other people involved The Unabomber. Because of Mangione, I was curious to see what the fuss was about. It was interestingly written as opposed to a lot of the pop psych stuff you see around nowadays that I find a bit grating (e.g.: the IBM Big 5 Ocean score; quizzes with scales where you rate for 1 to 10 how “socially anxious” or “insert random pathology” you are). I should take another look at it.
It was nowhere near as interesting as Joost Meerloo’s “Rape of the Mind”, a book very relevant to these times:
https://ia904508.us.archive.org/21/items/joost-meerloo-rape-of-the-mind/%20Joost%20Meerloo_Rape%20of%20the%20mind.pdf
There is definitely an intelligence community influence on psychiatry as a field imo. And as the journalist Yasha Levine keeps educating the public about, it was a big part of the making of the internet and explains a lot about our current reality.
Google, Palantir etc had In-Q-Tel financing:
https://fortune.com/2025/07/29/in-q-tel-cia-venture-capital-palantir-anduril/
Shoshana Zuboff covered the civilian marketplace aspect of it. But nowadays a lot of tech is more overtly defence contracting with Palantir, Musk etc hoovering up most contracts.
It’s all kinda lame and sleazy and something should seriously be done about it. Whatever annoying crap PRC or Russia do, it’s just lame for every democracy to get overrun by these creeps and their stupid and pointless experiments.