The civ’s problems are manifold. Its effects differ depending on who you are, where you live, etc., but chances are, it’ll get you somehow. I finally diagnosed how civ keeps fucking me over.
My would-be roommate for next year decided that I was expendable and decided to sign the lease with another person. Not one, but BOTH of these people are whom I would consider friends, yet how does it come to be that their partnership brings fruition and I’m left in the dust without a place to stay? Why is it that, now come crunch time to sign the lease for an apartment, all my other friends and acquaintances have already paired up?
Think about a tribe, or even a nation of tribes. It’s a set family, a community, an almost completely closed system. The partnerships you make with these people are so tightly bonded and so strong that, even given the oppurtunity to leave you out, they would not do so. You have a lifelong history with these people.
The problem is in mass society, you have your family at it’s core, but friends are part of other networks. Tightly closed circle of friends occur, but it’s rare. One friend of mine will have 10 other friends, and the non-mutual ones will have 10 others, branching out until you’ve covered about 3 states on average. Because the society of the mass brings a large group of people together and makes them form their own bonds, some percentage of the group is going to be left out.
That’s me at the moment. In a numbers game, literally the odd man out. Dunbar’s number has naturally made people select a core number of close friends and a number of expendable acquaintances. If I only link as acquaintances or even worse, an acquaintance I assumed was a friend, I’m expendable.
I don’t know, shit’s fucked up at the moment. I just thought I’d put my two cents out on it.