Los friends The ones that are most sustained over time are not always chosen in complete freedom. Many times they appear in places where life orders, puts together and repeats routines such as school, university, the club, the first job, study groups.
There is a coexistence that seems natural, but in reality it is already quite pre-planned. Therefore, when someone looks at their immediate circle and discovers that almost all of them were born in similar years, the scene is not as surprising as it could be.
Generational closeness does not usually feel like a decision, but rather a obvious fact of the link.
This way of grouping does not only have to do with shared tastes or similar stages of life. It also comes into play the habit of thinking of age as a social boundary.
Since childhood, daily coexistence is organized with people of the same age group, and this repetition ends up shaping what is perceived as close, comfortable or expected.
One of the most specific reasons is how is organized socialization from early. In the educational system, for example, people live for years with others of very similar ages, without much possibility of choosing.
Not only are friendships born there, but the idea that Relating to peers is normal, correct, or at least the easiest.
That learning it doesn’t disappear. It remains as a way of reading the social world. If for years the spaces of belonging were created between equal ages, it is logical that later friendship would follow that same channel.
No one needs to say it explicitly; It is enough for that habit to be repeated enough to become automatic.
What psychology says
From the psychologyit is explained that identification with similar people gives security. Categories of age, gender, occupation or lifestyle function as quick references to feel part of a group.
This not only orders, it also reassures since being among peers makes the interaction more predictable and reduces the initial distrust towards someone who seems to come from another world.
Age works as a border, but not in the same way
Although that border is still present, it is not as rigid as before. Intergenerational studies insist that chronological age is only one of the possible ways of thinking about age.
There is also a subjective age, a social age, a normative age and other ways of locating oneself in time according to experiences, roles or trajectories. A person has not only one age, but several at the same time.
In that sense, a survey by Intergenerational England showed that the 84% of people are open to forming ties with people from another generation. At the same time, 74% acknowledge that they tend to make friends within a ten-year window of their own age. That combination says that there is openness, but custom still rules.
