How Hobbies Help Us Form Friendships

Lost jobs. Companies going out of business. Foreclosures left and right. The stress today, for some of us, is overwhelming. The only thing keeping some of us going is our hobbies. For many of us it is watching television – sporting events, sitcoms, one of the many reality shows, etcetera. For others, its getting involved in more interactive activities such as going about writing a fiction book, taking photographs, playing sports, or even star gazing.

It probably goes without saying that it’s almost always more fun to share your hobby with a friend than to do it alone for instance, even a simple solitary activity like running, is a lot more fun when doing it with a friend. And some sports and hobbies, such as badminton or poker, pretty much require that more than one person be involved.

The problem is that since the early part of the 20th century, we have gradually moved away from each other. Childhood friends now live on different coasts. Family members often only get together on holidays because everyone lives so far from each other.

All of this makes finding people who love to do the things that you do harder to find.

But then the Internet came along. And, conversely from keeping people apart from each other, as many social observers once feared, the Internet has instead become a great resource to bring persons of similar interests together. Over the past eight or so years, literally thousands of discussion groups have sprung up all over the Internet, begun by people with an interest or hobby that they loved and showing their participants steps to writing a book. Somewhere in the course of starting their discussion group, most of them discovered that they were not alone in their love of their hobby.

And in many cases, for many people, the common online interest has continued into the real world and created genuine off-line friendships. Friendships that in the good old days never would have happened.

This probably just goes to prove how much of a communal animal that man really is and how much we all need each other to make life worth living.

Visit Chris Edward’ site to find his articles on writing children’s book.

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