We are white upper middle class and there are few people we know of the same status. We are kind of stuck in between. Families we know are either a lot richer or a little poorer.

We end up mostly socializing with lower class ones - the middle class folks. They are all white. But it’s hard to socialize, they can’t afford a lot of things that we can.

Yes

Anonymous wrote: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?

+1 except various politics

Boomer and wealthy top one percent , came from nothing. I put that in because when Maga cries after the election and Trump is installed with Project 2025 , and their lives are ruined I will have zero sympathy or empathy for their struggles. I won’t associate with a Republican ever ever again.

Anyone that supports are destruction of the US isn’t worth the gum on my shoes.

Sadly (?) yes I do. All of my friends are pretty much the same - wealthy, white and we all went to Prep school together and now we are in our 40s. Most work in finance or CRE. We all live within 15 min of each other and hang most weekends with our kids. Many of our kids go to the same schools. I love a small bubble and my life is quite full.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You aren’t doing anything the break the bubble. So of course you don’t socialize with people unlike yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Until MAGA happened yes all walks of life and diversity.

Not any more.

You are either an American or not. If you even consider any Republican viable get out of my life. I have zero tolerance for that utter stupidity. Yes, judging church goers who claim to be oh so morally superior while they scream kill Fauci and stand with the likes of MTG>

I am Jewish by the way. I lived in an ultra orthodox Jewish Cummunity til I was ten. Then in a only Catholic area so much so that on the way to elementary school and junior high on ash wednesday I went into the church with my friends so they could get their ashes. My mother after age 10 gave us Christmas presidents and Hanukah because she was afraid we would be ostrazied. The Priests & Nuns knew my family well.

I will never ever speak to those so called friends who have joined the cult again Jewish or Catholic. I always over looked they were still townies never went to college, their racist comments, and antisemitism I experienced from their parents as a child. I thought my generation would be a better generation.

But dam if I will over look their hate now. My bad.

I am very lucky I got to leave both places. Have an excellent life, love my diverse intelligent friends.

Feel sorry for you. Fauci screwed the gay community in the 80s and the rest of us with COVID.

The world is turning both anti-Semitic and anti-American. Those MAGA folks are the ones who will save humanity.

It’s hard to do the hard work of saving humanity when your hands are so badly bruised from dragging your knuckles for so long

Anonymous wrote:Until MAGA happened yes all walks of life and diversity.

Not any more.

You are either an American or not. If you even consider any Republican viable get out of my life. I have zero tolerance for that utter stupidity. Yes, judging church goers who claim to be oh so morally superior while they scream kill Fauci and stand with the likes of MTG>

I am Jewish by the way. I lived in an ultra orthodox Jewish Cummunity til I was ten. Then in a only Catholic area so much so that on the way to elementary school and junior high on ash wednesday I went into the church with my friends so they could get their ashes. My mother after age 10 gave us Christmas presidents and Hanukah because she was afraid we would be ostrazied. The Priests & Nuns knew my family well.

I will never ever speak to those so called friends who have joined the cult again Jewish or Catholic. I always over looked they were still townies never went to college, their racist comments, and antisemitism I experienced from their parents as a child. I thought my generation would be a better generation.

But dam if I will over look their hate now. My bad.

I am very lucky I got to leave both places. Have an excellent life, love my diverse intelligent friends.

The irony!!

Most of the people I socialize with are neurodivergent or close to someone who is,
so we’re alike in that way. I’m a 45 year old white woman, UMC, married to a man, with 2 lgbt kids.

My three closest friends are an Asian woman who grew up in Africa, a hearing impaired midwestern nurse in her late 60s, and an Asian American closeted trans woman who is planning to transition socially soon. I have a lot of different friend groups. There’s a movie club (we don’t have time for a book club) that’s racially diverse but all UMC professional women. I have a handful of gay male friends who I like to see concerts and plays with, and occasionally sporting events. I have a group of women who I share a hobby with, and this group is about 1/2 white, 1/2 AAPI, aged 35-70, and very mixed income levels. I’m the only non Hispanic woman at my job, and all the men are queer or Hispanic except 1 cis het white guy. I haven’t done a study but I bet over half our clients are LGBT. My kids went to a high school that was slightly more than 1/3 Hispanic, with the rest being a pretty even mix of black and white non Hispanic kids.

I think we surround ourselves with the people we want to be with. Most people want to feel comfortable and that means hanging out with people who look like them or have similar backgrounds (which usually means looks like them). My comfort zone is in the quirky and fun zone, so I seek out people who have similar interests rather than similar appearances. I have ADHD so I keep friends who are tolerant of my shortcomings, which usually means they aren’t neurotypical and can relate to my struggle with timing, organization, and anxiety. I have a lot of loved ones in the LGBT community, so my friends are all LGBT friendly. After typing all that I realized my friends are pretty much just like me: open minded, accepting, and fun to hang out with.

I grew up in a very homogeneous rural community full of white evangelicals. There were only 2 black kids in my elementary school, and Catholics were a religious minority who had to travel half an hour away to get to a town with a Catholic Church. DH and I wanted our kids to have more diversity in their lives. The best way (for us) to do that was to move to a diverse area and live a full life. It’s hard to avoid socializing with all kinds of people when you do that.

Anonymous wrote: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?

Yes. We aren't acquainted with any neo neanderthals. Of course, we are extremely fond of the canine and feline members of our family.

I guess if you mean interesting and open minded, then yes. I have friends of all ages, ethnicities, education, and “social class”. That’s my kind.

As with everyone, I'm a mix of life experience, so no, even though I look, I don't find people who are similar to me, to any great degree.

I generally hang with people like me because they are my friends from school or my husband’s friends from school.

At work, I had a slightly older female friend, and she was seriously like the best friend I ever had. I miss her so much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do! AA whose social life is 95% AA. We do some stuff with parents from our kids school who are not AA (barely any of them are) and keep in touch with a few people from our various walks of life who are not AA. Most of the people in my social circle grew up UMC so we’ve always been around people who aren’t AA but this is how things ended up.

Asian American or African American?

Lol. I thought PP was one of these folks in Alcoholics Anonymous who takes the fellowship aspect to the extreme.

Anonymous wrote:As a minority, I have friends from all the major US races. I make an effort to do this, and I love hosting events. We do tend to all be educated/went to college, middle class to upper middle class.

However, it is really kind of overwhelming how many people in the US only hang out with their ethnic group or race. I see it all the time in person and online.

What?

No. I mainly socialize with dogs.