Do people only associate with others like themselves

', am very similar @PlainJaneSuperbrainthe2nd . Everyone I know is middle class and most are graduates. My non graduate friends mostly hold or held commissions in the armed forces.

I know very few people socially who aren’t middle class graduates - there is diversity of race and country of origin, same sex and hetero couples, some diversity of politics although generally centre-ish and liberal. There is diversity in income which has become apparent now most of my circle are 40s (I have a close friend who is mid 60s otherwise but my circles are pretty much all xennials) and, as I said, few people who aren’t graduates and middle class.

To be clear, a Higher Education qualification is not a quality I seek in any potential new chums!

I realised during Brexit that I work and socialise with left wing, remainers, generally quite liberal/feminist however you want to describe it too. It was such an eye opener. I couldn’t understand why any politicians were backing Brexit because I knew nobody in favour of it at all. When the leave vote came in, and not long after when Corbyn didn’t become PM it really made me realise what an echo chamber I’d made for myself. I’m much more centrist than left-wing now and I make a point of really listening to other people’s views and not writing them off. Eg not everyone concerned with immigration is racist not everyone who votes Tory is an idiot.

I actually had a really interesting chat with someone who votes conservative during the whole Marcus Rashford free school meals thing and they were saying how concerned they were about it taking away the autonomy of parents providing for their children and how they deserved that autonomy as much as any other parent. It really shifted my views on how the argument had been presented vs what was actually being discussed. I definitely think over the past decade I’ve became more open to others views and widened my own social circle a bit. But I am very forgiving of people I know in their late teens/early 20s who think they know it all because I remember what it was like to have that idealism before you learn that whoever gets in to power will end up disappointing you in the long run anyway!

My close friend group is ethnically diverse but we are all the same age and from a similar religious background (we are school friends). We're pretty similar to be honest - all have degrees, long term partners/DHs, all have DC, and are mostly in professional roles.

I'm neurodiverse and very selective with friends. All my friends are pretty nerdy like me. I'd say we all have fairly different personalities, but we share common interests, and have similar senses of morality/outlooks on a lot of topics. My closest friend is a single mum who doesn't work currently and isn't likely to for sometime. All my other friends have professional roles e.g. teaching, healthcare, etc. I'm a MH nurse. It wouldn't bother me what job someone had, but I do need my friends to be on the same intellectual wavelength as me, as I'm someone who enjoys chatting about 'deep topics'. I have a baby but have struggled to make mum friends. I'm appallingly bad at small talk in a social setting (though can somehow feign it for patients at work 🙈).

Politically we all very much align. I couldn't be mates with a Reform voter, for example. I'm happy to speak to and get along with whoever, but we won't be besties if we're at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

I also have a lot of superficial hobby friends (a nerdy hobby), who I meet up with to do the hobby, but who I wouldn't consider friends outside the hobby. I've met a lot of people I wouldn't normally hang out with though, and that's fun!

My friends are all white (because people seem to be mentioning this on this thread), but that's because I live in an area that is probably like 90% white (I went to a school that only had one black kid!). I obviously don't care what race etc my friends are.

I ultimately think we just hang out with people in a similar socioeconomic group to us, as it's what is familiar and it is who we encounter the most. I never really thought about it until I went to uni, where it became glaringly obvious I was very working class lol. I think there are exceptions such as childhood friends, and people we meet through specific life circumstances (e.g. I have a friend from a mental health group I used to attend), but it generally holds true. I don't really care what background someone is from, but I just don't go anywhere where I'd be likely to socialise with someone upper class, and the area I live in is very working class.

They're all people with lives? Maybe interested in other people and their lives? I wouldn't expect anybody to have anything in common with anyone else, but it wouldn't surprise me to know that they were friends.

I don’t have a diverse circle and I wish it was more diverse! But I’ve met friends at school, Uni, work, hobbies and everyone just seems to be really similar. 🤷‍♀️

I have varied friends but they all will have at least one thing in common with me, as that's how we would have met. For example my friends that I talk to every day, all have children born within a few weeks of each other, but apart from that we have different ages and backgrounds, different classes. I'm friendly with people from work who have very different backgrounds, from university educated engineers to someone who dropped out of school at 15, all a friendly group that chat a lot about our lives.
I have friends with very different opinions to me on political issues and other controversial topics but we remain friends.

And my mum was a grandmother (one of my brothers got together with a woman with 3 children) before she was 50, while also being friends with solicitors and suchlike.

I've found that it's quite easy to find yourself in an echo chamber, whilst I do have many friends I share interests with, it's a varied social circle.
My closest friends consist of a university lecturer, a conspiracy theorist, a bricklayer, a business owner, an 80 year old, a trans man and a stay at home dad.
We never run out of things to talk about, I enjoy deep conversations and people who challenge my ideas respectfully. Nearly all of them have differing levels of opinions on political and social issues but we all do share some common interests.
I will admit, I would find it incredibly difficult to engage with people who's main interests are things like socialising and reality tv.

JESUS CHRIST. You know how offensive that is telling a POC they are not in-fact a POC. And yes, am I am going to dwell on it every god damn day about the inequalities and racism we face. You have so openly proved my point. Spew your racist hate elsewhere.

I think as humans we do gravitate towards those that we like and gravitate towards eachother and I also think close friends subtly influence eachother.

But I think that if your social circle is different, you are most likely connected by something inwards. For example something I can say about my friendship circle is that there is a mix of jobs, child and child free but something we share is that we connect on such a deep level when we have conversations - and I don’t have that connection with everyone. We are all ambitious, and I don’t mean “high flyers” but we are go getters, whether that is family or business or jobs; we are all so family oriented- even those that are childfree have such a commitment to their family members, parents, grandparents. And we are into similar things - they can hang out with my kids for example.

I must say that there are people that build friendship on outwards things. For instance my mums friendship circle are pretty much all from the same country and they connect because of language etc, those that had kids stuck together and those that maybe were abit more ambitious stuck together. I do think as you get older you realise who are real, non judgemental and usually, it’s those that can put themselves in your shoes. Or those that can hang out with you.

I have children and those that have stuck by me are those that can hang out with the kids and without. It’s so much easier to be with people with children as we often want to go out to child friendly places.

I think when you've only got so much time to socialise it's easier to socialise with those that go to the same places that you want to go and do the same things that you want to do. It can be very enriching to push yourself out of your usual habits to spend time with someone very different though.

🤣🤣 what? How? Their all completely different to each other and all in different stages of their lives 😅 all have different incomes too. What are you talking about 😅

I think it’s where you meet people - I would happily be friends with a 40 something grandmother but I’m not likely to meet them easily in my daily life - my groups of friends come from school (but we were the nerdy group so all went to uni) and from universities, and from work (you need a lot of extra education so everyone there studied for several years) and through friends of friends…. So while of course a 40 grandmother could be in one of those groups, it’s unlikely. Where I live? There’s no 40 something grandparents on my street so I’m not going to bump into them and strike up friendship there. They won’t be in baby groups that I’m in as that part of life is over for them so it’s not that I’m deliberately limiting who I’ll meet - it just is. I never bump into royalty either !

*Have not described.

Isn't that what the OP asked?

Take it you’re a POC then?

No offence taken 😁I come from a very diverse background and grew up in a mainly white area, so I understand the type of people you are referring too. I have worked many jobs with people from many races and cultures so it’s very much a normal way of life, living amongst so much diversity. A life in a big city, in a public sector job, so that is probably why. But even at secondary school and university, it was very multicultural.

You have described a very varied social circle though

Not every “POC” actually wants to spend time dwelling on race.

I found that post so bizarre, I can't believe so many people only know people similar to themselves 😅

All of my friends are different. Some are proffesional, some have average jobs, some are on benefits. Some have newborns, some have children, some have adult children. I'm 33! Some own their own homes, some rent...... some of my friends love holidays abroad some love uk holidays like haven ect

It baffles me how people don't end up knowing a variety of people.

Exactly. I didn't express myself well enough. She wanted a person to add to her collection in the hopes that it would reflect well on her and how she was perceived.