Do you consider those to be just as meaningful relationships with the people he would otherwise have to meet in going out with in person?

Keeping in touch with people is great, but I think there is value in children learning the lesson that the people you hang out with today might not be your forever friends. To lesson most people don’t learn to well after high school would’ve been beneficial to know earlier.

Just posing the question. I don’t know your kid. Nor our specific kids but I was talking about my post. Of course her benefits and features, at the cost of possibly losing the ability to deal with people in the real world. Maybe.

The male friends that I grew away from wasn’t because of distance, it was because our interest and lifestyle changed but I’ve actively kept in touch with a few even while we have lived in different parts of the country since 1997. We see each other maybe once a year since we are both from the same hometown and go back to visit relatives.

What benefit do you get from seeing people in person? When I see my friends in person we talk, play cards, and play video games. We may go out and eat/drink but everything else we can do online. I don’t need to physically see other men to keep a friendship with them.

I did specifically call out my male friends. I purposefully distanced myself from my (platanic) female friends after getting married except for the ones where I was friends with the couple because having friends of the opposite sex as a married man just brings in too many complications.

>What benefit do you get from seeing people in person?

Yea, IDK, social ques maybe? Are you really arguing that there is no difference talking to friends in person vs on the internet or phone?

The short version is, your digital friends, aren't real people. You can hang up on them, or not answer when you don't feel like. The second you put your controller or phone down, they disappear and wait to be pulled back into your existence. Real people you can't manage like that, so you have to use different methods of interaction.

Yes I’m arguing exactly that. One of my best friends I’ve had since 1992 I talk to all of the time to the point when we do see each other in person we really don’t have anything new to talk about.

I don’t have any friends that I don’t want to talk too to the point I would hang up on them. The friends I talk to in person - I can just as easily not hang out with them if I don’t feel like seeing them either.

I have a group of five friends that I use to work with and we’ve all gone our separate ways as far as jobs, we mostly talk on Slack but we do go out of our way to meet for lunch at least once s month. Honestly, at this point in my life, it takes an effort to keep friends because I know I should. I’d much rather spend my limited free time with my wife or working out in my home gym.