"why do people have fewer friends as they grow older?"

this is a question from jianyang's msn..

it is true.. very true,we really do have lesser friends as we grow older..

i suppose as we grow older, it is harder for us to open up and make friends, to say hi to another person and start becoming friends.. i have no idea.. it used to be quite easy for me the last time.. i remembered it was this "hi" that started the friendship between waiyue and me.. but right now, if u ask me to say hi to this mysterious guy sitting next to me during lecture, it is difficult.. and sometimes even after saying "hi", the conversation will just end there.. no friends made..

or perhaps,we also have this ego problem, or i thought i may have.. it is just hard for us to open our mouth to talk to another person..

on the other hand, there is always the negative element in us - we want something out of another person.. most feels that by talking to another person, we are actually taking the initiative to talk to them because of certain elements they have and we would like to get that something we dont have..

for example, in this instance people will have doubts when a stranger suddenly approach them and say "hi" to them, the first thing they will think of is: what motive do they have? donation? survey?

and normally when one approach another,he/she will have a motive-- be it to befriend the person, get donations, distribute flyers or find out something from that person.. hence,friendship is no longer as pure as it used to be..

or maybe it is just that as people have sufficient friends (or they feel they have), they wont like to have any other friends since they are already in their comfort zone.. and wont want to meet any more people to be their friends..

and as people grow older,they have higher expectations of who can be their friends.. hence, people who doesnt fit into their criteria got kicked out in the group of friends.. haha.. only people who had "earned" their trust are considered their friends.. *mr lee,does this sound familiar? haha*

sometimes,it is also hard to meet up with expectations of your friends.. how to keep in touch when you cant possibly be at 2 places during one time since 2 different groups of friends are having different activities at different places? it is just so hard to satisfy everyone.. and being selfish,people will choose to only satisfy themselves.. hai~ and thus needing to fulfill fewer needs of people,friends get lesser..

and so the above are what i feel about the nick - "why do people have fewer friends as they grow older?" how about you? what do you think?

p/s: we have been losing our basketball matches recently, to TP (which has gotten quite strong and is one of the best poly team), NTU(the forever champion team for basketball) and NUS (a team which we beat in SUNIG!!!) =( i guess it is because we didnt trained as much now.. haiz~ and quite a number of accidents happened.. on the first match,chen de got his arm fractured.. and i had to send him to A & E.. waited damn long for our turn.. we had a quarrel with the referee in our second match as we felt that he was biased against our team.. and in our third match today,juntian hit his head and had a concussion.. he temporarily lost his short term memory while we are still watching the match.. which scared the hell out of us.. luckily, he is ok after we sent him to NUH.. and he starts to remember stuff le and can joke around le.. =) thank goodness he is alright now.. all of us were so scared that something bad would happen to him.. hopefully for our last match on next wednesday against RP,we could win,at least this once.. haha..

p/p/s: i think i had running nose le.. stay away from me!!! haha..