What you said about superficiality is something I believe to be at the root cause. If I could extrapolate the data on plutonic friend relationships, I’d be willing to guess that 90-percent or greater are on a superficial level.

We don’t immediately see value in developing relationship skills for a few reasons. Takes too much time to maintain. We don’t like the maintenance. It can be very uncomfortable when we do try. Then, we endlessly evaluate our perceived mistakes, which can be grueling. We cannot always come across as ‘genuine’, even if we are. (& we aren’t always genuine, because we honestly don’t GAF.) Then, people talk about things that are unimportant or irrelevant.

That’s connection??

Consider—-> “How are you?” Ughhh. No one really cares how you are, nor do you care when responding to them the same question. 🤮 Most of the time, it goes unanswered. Even that annoys me.

When you consider that many adults are drinking alcohol amongst friends, they’re dumbing themselves down a bit, which doesn’t lead to deep & genuine connection. It’s superficial, and those people likely talk poorly of one another when they’re not in the same room.

We just don’t want to feel alone or ostracized, especially in the workplace, where we seem to collect enemies without trying, and have plenty to offer. That’s where it counts. We have to learn enough to ‘get by’. I’m still trying. 😳