Do you mostly socialize only with your own kind?

[Anonymous]

I mean, of course all of us have a few diverse friends.

But in general is most of your socializing with people who are similar to you?

[Anonymous]

No I have friends from all walks of life. Various ages, religions, races, ethnicities, gender identification, blue collar, white collar. Poor/ MC/ rich.., various politics. I like to mix it up and find people interesting regardless of who they are and where they're coming from. (I am a boomer). How about you OP?

[Anonymous]

No, because my own kind is back in the home country. I hang out with anyone who is willing to go dancing and drinking.
I rarely hang out with the rich. They are too busy working and usually leave any party after two drinks.

[Anonymous]

No - I socialize with anyone I like. 20 years older, 15 years younger, different race or religion or orientation, different income brackets. THere are awesome people everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Despite the second post on here acting like this is easy. I find it to be sort of difficult to get a diverse bubble. I mean I work from home. My kids go to school in Arlington (already in a bubble) and do baseball and gymnastics (two whiter and wealthier sports). My kids go to summer camp and went to daycare (that was also expensive).

Realistically there are not many places I meet people or interact with folks enough that are of a different socioeconomic class in order to form true friendships.

My kids school is probably the only place and from working on the PTA, i have formed friendships with folks outside my normal bubble. But we generally only have a friendship based on school stuff and we speak two different languages so it hasn't been the easiest to cross the gap into real friendship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Despite the second post on here acting like this is easy. I find it to be sort of difficult to get a diverse bubble. I mean I work from home. My kids go to school in Arlington (already in a bubble) and do baseball and gymnastics (two whiter and wealthier sports). My kids go to summer camp and went to daycare (that was also expensive).

Realistically there are not many places I meet people or interact with folks enough that are of a different socioeconomic class in order to form true friendships.

My kids school is probably the only place and from working on the PTA, i have formed friendships with folks outside my normal bubble. But we generally only have a friendship based on school stuff and we speak two different languages so it hasn't been the easiest to cross the gap into real friendship.

I want to be clear, I am not excluding people or refusing to hang out with them. I just want to be honest and say I think its harder to break out of the bubble then people claim. It isn't like I am going up to random strangers and asking them to be my friend.

[Anonymous]

The ones that do, won't admit it. But their neighborhood, school, even work choices tell the tale. I marvel at the number of colleagues that want to Friend me on FB - only gives insight into how monolithic their lives appear to be.

[Anonymous]

No. All of my friends are different than me. Different ethnicities, different opinions and perspectives.

[Anonymous]

My "own kind"? I'm not even sure what that means coming from a stranger on a DMV internet forum.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no."

[Anonymous]

Yes. The common background and interests draw us together. I like it this way.

[Anonymous]

Most of our friends are married, with similar aged children, have a similar income and chose a suburban life similar to ours.

But religions and ethnicities vary widely.

[Anonymous]

I'd be hard pressed to find a multi-ethnic person of my exact international background, OP!

So I socialize with people who have a shared link with at least one part of my life: they come from or have lived in one of the countries I've lived in, they share one nationality with me, they share one language.

My best friend has none of those things, except the English language, but we met when our kids were toddlers and became fast friends.

[Anonymous]

Other than my dog, I mostly hang out with humans.

I also hang out a lot with other parents, so they are my kind in that sense too. They might be parents of 50 year olds, or of babies, and they might be male or female, gay or straight, rich or poor, and are of different races and religions, but most of my friends are parents.

So yes, but maybe not in the way you mean?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have commonalities with most of my friends; that’s why we like to spend time together! I have met most of my friends through shared interests and hobbies. To get all demographic though since I think that’s what you’re asking: Most of my friends are white or Asian (but not exclusively), most of them are queer (but not all of them), most of them don’t have kids (although some do), most aren’t married (although some are), most are atheist/agnostic (although some are Christian/Buddhist/Jewish/Muslim/Pagan), most are women (but some are male or nb) — which is to say that if I look at the majority identifiers across my friend group I match about half of them. We also span a pretty wide range of incomes with mine at the higher end but I’m DCUM poor (real world statistics UMC at least) so maybe we all count as poor around here. Does that count as “my own kind” OP? I can’t tell.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea what my kind is. I’m bicultural, don’t hang out with the other PhDs in my profession, am in an interethnic relationship and speak my second language more than my first.