Forums > Social Chat > Do you like to keep distinct groups of friends separated?

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
Yeah, I have different groups of friends also. The mingling thing doesnt really happen too much though. Occasionally Ill have a friend or two from one group with me when I hang out with another group but so far, nothing has ever gone beyond that.

One thing Ive noticed over the years is that I go through phases where Ill hang out with one group almost exclusively for a while. Then all of a sudden I start hanging out with another group exclusively. I cycle through the different groups every year or so. Not intentionally, it just happens. I still keep in contact here and there with the ones Im not hanging out with though.

Let's turn those old bridges we crossed into ashes.
We'll blaze a new trail,
and torch the rough patches.

-Me

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
wow, thats totally diffrent from my feelings,

whenever i meet a new group of friends, i just wish that they could meet all my other friends, cos im shure they'd get on famously!

oh well, guess its cos i didnt have any friends in highschool, so i dont got that hanging over me

Tom

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
well, I think a lot of people have different sets of friends that they don't mix too much. I think I have roughly about 5 or 6 groups usually (though a few less here in south africa). they would be something like (back in the states at least) professional friends, college buddies, high school friends, 'social' friends (like poeple I know from the pub or so), fire performer friends, and burningman friends. I suppose I could find a few other categories if I tried

Some of the groups mix fairly naturaly for the most part, like the burningman friends and the fire performer friends (though this is certianly not 100% true); others are a bit of a forced fit (add the 'social' and school groups) with occasional smooth overlap of certain individuals and, but more often not so great a mix as well for other individuals; and then there is the dreaded oil and water mix of professional friends with something like my burningman friends (true stuff of nightmares!), though even then I can find a rare individual who can cross over either way.

By and large I don't mix the groups too much of my own accord. My reasoning is a bit different from regyt's though - mainly it's because I have distinctly different personalities around each group, and mixing them sort of confuses me about how I should behave.

I don't think I worry about being just a conduit for people to meet through. I think people should meet and communities shoud expand if the conditions are good for it.

I don't like people from work meeting my burningman friends because the latter tend to have a loose tounge about my escapades and I have one of those careers where you have to maintain a certain weird sort of image - I can be essentric, but not so much wild in the eyes of the people that I have to work with, while my burningman friends will tell some exagerated story about god knows what I might have done.

As for your local spin gatherings in new york, don't be too hard on NYC if he is organizing it (or on whoever else might be). I took this responsibility in Houston for a while, and it tends to be a thankless job which is definitely a perfect example of "you can make some of the people happy some of the time". Cut him a little slack, even if you feel like you are getting the short end of the stick. Given the amount of respect cassandra has for him, I'm sure he is doing the best he can for the largest number of people.

but I can't blame you for sulking either, I'd wanna be there too!

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
HA! You're funny. Not only are we missing each other in real life (Despite being in the same city, I think Regyt have only seen one another like three times due to crazy opposite schedules)...

But you're also missing me online.

I started a thread a few months ago on the EXACT SAME TOPIC.

I really liked PK's point. The only thing worse is the exact opposite. Where you're trapped in one world and DON'T have others to visit.

And please, stop trying to be me. It's getting a bit scary.

{Hope to SEE you soon knucklehead!}

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
I thought there was a sense of deja vu around this topic...

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
Tom - Yeah, I don't mind college folks meeting spinny folks or whatnot. And I do love introducing some people when I think they'll really hit it off. But high school friends hang over my head...

Vanize - That's one of my reasons, too; mixing groups does confuse me about how to behave. Egads, just the thought of taking my lawyer-type friends to meet my renn faire friends.

NYC - See, that's exactly the problem. I have all these wonderful varieties of worlds, and I love that. It's great to be able to wander between worlds. Like you (sorry), I wear my suit and tie during the week, and tend to go a bit wilder on weekends. But when my different groups start to meld, it becomes like unto a single world that I cannot escape. You see? I'm a 2L and I can't break free of the group of people I met high school. I like them, mind, I'd just rather they stay a bit more separate from other parts of my life. But the only place they don't follow me (so far) is into the prisons (I love my job). Stuyvesant owns my soul!

The only solution I can imagine would be to leave NYC (the place), but I missed it so dreadfully last time I did that long-term.

And I can't be you. I'm an awful teacher. Though we are both short...

Edit: Looks like NYC's similar topic took place shortly before I joined the board... I shoulda done a search. I've violated my personal vow to never make that mistake. I will now wear a hair shirt to atone for sins. Pie jesu domine, dona eis requiem... ::thwack::

[ 16. October 2003, 14:44: Message edited by: regyt ]

E pluribus unum, baby.

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
my best friend was always separate from my group, but then she started haning around with the group......at first i thought it was cool - she would get aloing with my group and we could all me buddies!
but then it kinda got bad. and people might know my post about losing my friends and its because of what happened next.
because of the mixing of the groups, i felt like i had been replaced and that i wasnt wanted by them anymore. basically, my best friend from the group, and my best friend from (previsouly)out of the group started to hang around tgether all the time and i started to feel very left out and unwanted........now one of them isnt talking to me.....which of course makes me feel left out even more!!! AARRGGHH!!!
so for me mixing groups isnt something im going to try again any time soon!

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
I have friends that I keep separate. In the past, when I have introduced one type of friend to another type, it ended up being an uncomfortable situation. I can't really explain why my friends are so different from each other. Maybe I'm just schizo.

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
Dio hears the music from "Psycho" begin to play in the background.... ree ree ree ree....

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 15th Oct 2003
i have differeny groups of friends aswell. I have my young friends, my year 12 friends, my youth group friends and then theres my older friends.
My young friends are like 16 and 17 year olds and i hang around them most of the time.
My youth group friends are like from all ages although counting out the leaders i am the oldest.
Then theres my year 12 friends which i hang around with at school, i don't seem to have much contact with them outside of school.
As for my older friends they are basically in there early 20's and well they take me places hehe.
See i'm 18 and finishing school in like a week. I keep my groups of friends together, everybody gets along with everybody although with the exception of my year 12 friends who rather not know my other friends because they are like " immature" and " guys are not cute". I think immature is kinda funny but not all the time. I'm too much of a serious person. But i can let loose.

---------------------------------------------I Will Be The Most Powerful Jedi Ever.---------------------------------------------

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
I have several circles of friends, mainly because they are separated geographically. I have a group that lives within 15 miles of me, and a group that centers on a city 50 miles away. Rarely the twain meet, but when they do, it is kinda awkward...

Then there are the groups that are separated by interests and social cliques that just happen. They aren't intentional. For my last birthday, My friend threw a shindig and invited some work friends, some gaming friends, some miscellaneous people and it was very odd to see them all congregated in the same room. I didn't know what to expect. It reminded me of John Carpenter's "The Thing." There's a scene in which a computer simulation shows an alien cell mingling with regular human cells, absorbing and assimilating as it goes...

Dance like it hurts; Love like you need money; Work like someone is watching.

Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, when you DO criticize them, you are a mile away, and you have their shoes.

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
My idividual groups of friend tend not to meet as most of them think the others' hobbies are so weird they can't imagine anyone wanting to do them: the snowboarders think the paragliders are nuts; the majority of the paras don't want to get oil-based solvents anywhere near their precious wings; the spinners can't imagine ever sitting still long enough to produce a comic book and so on. There is a little bit of a crossover as it was a para who got me into spinning but otherwise they're seperate.

There is a slight possibility that I am not actually right all of the time.

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
i have several groups of friends and although i thought they were all separate they are actually all intermingled!!people from every group knows someone from another group but it can be hard it these group bump into eachother cos not everyone likes eachother - which cam be uncomfortable sometimes

she who sees from up high smiles

Patrick badger king: *they better hope there's never a jihad on stupidity*

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
Some of my friends can move from one group to another with ease. They seem to be social enough to look after themselves in a conversation, and yet sensitive enough to know the boundaries of what I and other people are comfortable with. These people are great, cos I don't have to worry about them. I don't have to worry that no one will talk to them, or that they will steal all my friends away.

Other friends I am more reticent about sharing. It may be because I know I will have to make conversation for them, or because they instantly want to be best buddies with everyone in the room without recognising the subtle dynamics of the situation.

It was a day for screaming at inanimate objects.

What this calls for is a special mix of psychology and extreme violence...

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
Sounds like some people want to keep select friends to themselves...

Everyone's got different bunches of friends who don't particularly intermingle, whether it be from school, college, work, the road you grew up on, whatever.

You meet various types people at different stages in your life, and at that particular time you must have had something in common with each of them, otherwise you wouldn't have become friends in the first place.

I love the fact that each bunch of friends of mine are different, coz yeah, you can move around from one to the other to suit your mood, but I always introduce them to each whenever I get the chance, even if it means throwing a party from time to time.

Sure they're not always going to become bossom buddies, but don't you enjoy meeting new people? I certainly do.

I never just attempt to introduce a particular few, just on the notion that they may get on well. No siree, throw them all into a room and let them all mingle, mingle, mingle!!!! Variety is the spice of life!

Luckily everyone I hang with has the same attitude, i.e. respect for others (otherwise they wouldn't be my friend), so even if I introduced some people who were incompatible, it would never turn into anything too uncomfortable.

I feel like throwing a party again soon....

Lisa

My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely

Posted: 16th Oct 2003
yeah - what Rozi said!

One of my bestest friends ever is such a goof that it takes ages and ages for people to warm up to him. Before they do, other friends are usually asking me why I'm friends with him and cutting him down, which I really hate. People who do hang around long enough almost inevitably decide they quite like him, it just takes a lot of heartache on my part, that I would just as soon avoid (I espcially hate the part where he gets insecure about someone not liking him and it is sort of true), to get to that point.

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!