Episode: 3942
Title: HPR3942: RE: How to make friends.
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3942/hpr3942.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 17:42:19

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3942 for Tuesday the 12th of September 2023.
Today's show is entitled, ReHow to Make Friends.
It is hosted by some guy on the internet and is about 13 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Scotty replies to Clotty's show How to Make Friends.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
I'm your host, some guy on the internet.
And right now the landscapers are outside, so I don't know if I'll be able to even keep
this episode or not, because I don't know how much of the machinery you'll be able to
hear, but I'm going to be responding to Clotty's show How to Make Friends.
It is an excellent show, I enjoyed it very much, and I'm going to link to it in the description
or the show notes.
I think that the word friend, it holds a lot of meaning, right?
It's like a variable that can hold different meaning based on who is applying it.
And to easily discuss this, I think that we need to shave off a few of the different
values that can be stored in the variable.
We can keep the response here, somewhat limited, because I don't want this to turn into
a two hour show of me just rambling all over the place.
But first thing first, I'd like to limit the conversation to just online friends, right?
Because real world friends, there's way too many variables there, too many things to
consider.
So online will be a lot easier to limit it.
And then I'd say online without webcams.
So you can be using like a voice over IP situation where you're chatting in a chat room
like mumble, or you just be typing, you know, text.
So when you want to make friends, but all you've got at your disposal is the black and
white text and the ability to chat, how do you make friends then?
And do you do you also consider the idea that the person you would like to be your friend?
Do you consider the fact that they do have the option to reject, right?
You may want to be friends with them, but they, they, you know, as it was mentioned, they
may only wish to consider you a colleague in this project.
Maybe they've been burned before had bad experiences with making friends online and they're
currently in a cool down period where they're just not interested in making friends at this
time.
You see, lots of outside variables.
One of the things we have to factor in is no one can really tell us who we consider
to be a friend, right?
So I can consider a lot to be a friend.
I can consider Ken Fallon to be a friend Dave Morris, Archer 72, DNT, you know, I just
consider everyone to be a friend.
We've all collaborated in some form or fashion, you know, neither of us has done anything
to sort of warn suspicion and there's been plenty of time to allow this interaction to
cure.
So it would be safe to say that if they, if they haven't exposed themselves to be the
dark phantom waiting to, I don't know, crush our dreams of friendship, if they haven't
done it by now, then maybe they're not going to do it.
So we hang the title of friend around their necks and then we all collaborate merrily
from this point forward.
Now, that is from one perspective.
I have not considered rather not they feel the exact same way, which is kind of funny.
And possibly because it doesn't really require me to consider it, right?
I'm very much happy with my vision of it, right?
It's kind of like when you're playing a video game and one of the characters in the world
of the video game is kind and polite and offers you things, but you don't really consider
that that's just the way the developer created the character, right?
Like you don't, you don't consider all of that.
No, no, you just consider the nice gestures and you kind of, if, if a enemy were to attack
that guy, you would protect him.
You would draw your sword or whatever you have and do it, you must to ensure their safety
because they were kind to you, but because we're human beings, it is nice to know, isn't
it?
It's really nice to be able to think that the person you consider a friend is the same
about you, right?
Like that the feeling is mutual, but that also comes with the, the deep burn, you know,
the stinging agony of them saying, no, I don't think so.
So you'd have to either live in this land of unknowing where you're happy with considering
them friends or you can go out on a limb.
You could risk it all.
Actually, there's no real risk in it at all is if they say no, you can still continue
living with the idea that they're still friends, but having known the answer, right?
I once heard they saying that there are many things a wise man would wish to be ignorant
of or something like that.
I'm sure I'm butchering it, but this will be one of them if it turns out to be no, right?
Because now you, it'd be more difficult to return to that belief that we're all friends
after you've heard the words or read the text, no.
And then what do you do when you see no, right?
When, when you're being crushed to a singularity by an oh, what do you do then?
Do you query further?
Do you, do you request elaboration?
But why not?
We've, we've been so close all this time.
Or do you remain silent, allowing the awkward silence to further compress you into nothingness?
Well, these are all good questions.
I suppose we're going to have to figure it out one of these days, right?
Because we have a real debacle in our hands.
And I would approach this a lot like men's health.
We currently do not discuss it enough, you understand?
There are many things we live with, but we do so silently.
And for men, especially, you know, I, I would include women into this, but I have lived
most of my life as a man.
So I feel comfortable speaking for men, even though you'd have to subscribe willingly
to the rest of this statement, I, I cannot opt you in to it.
But I feel like men are a little bit easier going when it comes to friendship.
I like, we're not really considering too much if there's work to be done and someone's
willing to join you.
I mean, that's a very good path to friendship right there.
Men can even become friends even after fighting.
Their men I've thrown fists at and we've become friends afterward.
We may not talk on the phone every single day.
But when we do, it's always a grand time.
Truth be told, I think we should consider less of, of feelings and things whenever considering
friendship simply because friendship is companionship and that's the, it, it makes everything better
does it not?
When you're lifting a heavy weight and someone joins you, that is now a better experience.
Why be nervous about making things better?
I think that it is foolish.
I think that you should just be eager to ask someone to help you, right?
This is heavy and you look like you're willing to help.
Please join me, right?
This would, this would be much better for the both of us.
There's a good chance you need it out of the way just as badly as I do.
So if we both get it out of the way, we'll both be the better because of it.
So I think when considering friendship online at least, I think that it should be easy.
And I think you should be very up front forthcoming, just, I mean, right out there on the table,
just like you were like five years old, Ken mentioned it in the community show, right?
I think, well, was it Ken that mentioned it?
Maybe it was, one of them mentioned like when you were kids, it was simple.
You just asked, would you like to be my friend, right?
Like it was just simple, very, very, I was about to say stupid, simple, but that may have
came off wrong.
So it's, it's very simple and what if the person says, no, well, think about it today,
just like everything else we're doing.
When you're creating an open source project and you put the word out there that you're
looking for contributors, people to join in and help with carrying this project to completion.
Well, when people say, no, you don't just give up on your own project, do you?
No, you're still happy for the others that say, yes, and you still converse with them.
And you still keep that open invitation out there for everyone else that will say, yes,
you ignore the ones that say, no, because there's a good chance.
They may be nervous.
They may not accept this lifestyle as openly as the rest of us.
They may need a little time, right?
Maybe they're new to online again.
When all you have is text a lot of the time, you don't even know who you're dealing with.
This could be like a five-year-old on the other end, right?
You know, we really don't know who we're dealing with on the other end.
Well, maybe not five, but you get the point.
So I say, consider less, do more.
After all, what's the worst that can happen?
They say, no.
Now, that just about wraps up the show.
I am going to do some more on the topic.
I just wanted to give a response to it right now.
And I'm planning on creating a friendship application.
That's right.
I'm going to create a, first of all, I'm going to look for one online to see if there's
already a template or something of one that's currently out there.
Then I'm going to overthink this to the maximum.
And then I want to make a show on it, right?
So that it can be something fun and interesting that we can play around with in the future.
But it is going to be like the legit friendship application.
To hang that out there with, with a, I don't know, on your next cloud instance or something
like that, when you meet somebody new, you go, oh, you sound like an interesting fellow.
Here, let me say you something, right?
You shoot them a link.
They open it up and it's the friendship application.
We're back to being children again.
Would you like to be my friend?
They check a few boxes, maybe even put in a name in there.
You know, you can add in one of the things that we all discussed today.
They're like pronouns and other things that you probably want to include in there, all
of that jazz.
It just put it in there.
The only one that matters is yes and no.
But the rest is important, right?
Like if it's yes, then yeah, you'd want to consider some of the other stuff.
But if it's no, I know biggie.
I'll send it to him again in about another week, but I'm not done with this topic.
I am going to give more on it.
First thing first, I'm going to go talk with a few of my friends and bring them in on
it.
So I'm going to go, well, I actually want to hear more from women on it because I got,
I kind of feel like men feel the same way, right?
This thing's heavy.
I need to get it out of the way so I can get by.
Oh, look, this guy's coming to help me.
He's giving me a hand and he's helping just for no reason or maybe there is a reason.
Maybe he, too, needs it out of the way.
One way or another, he's getting his hands dirty, helping me.
And remember now, what was that show or not a show?
It was a movie where they did the thing, the claw.
I think that was toy story if I'm not mistaken, the little aliens that did that, the claw.
That's what we do whenever we meet someone that that's trained down.
We look at them all wall-eyed brand super weird, but that's what makes it great.
When you expose some of your, some of your awkwardness to someone else, they should feel,
they should feel more comfortable about their own sort of flaws, you know what I mean?
No one's perfect around here.
We're all just, well, at least here on Hacker Public Radio, we're all just weirdos around
here to be honest with you, but it's fun being weirdos.
So with that said, I'm going to go test her a bunch of my other friends and try to get
some responses.
I know we have some women here in the HPR community, so speak up.
Tell us how women approach this thing, you know?
I've given my explanation about what I believe men feel about the subject.
Again, they would have to subscribe on their own to this.
I cannot voluntarily involve them, but it is just my thoughts on it.
Maybe I'll grab Bumblebee and a few others that I know I'm going to run over there now
and try to drag them in on the subject.
Alright, be catching you guys in the next episode.
Take it easy.
Brand.
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