"I could never find a friend like you in my office" Why so?

I many times hear many of my college friends saying that they could never find people worth to be called as best friends after the college days. They felt none of their office mates are worth to be called as best friends and hence they have stopped making close friends.

As a matter of fact…even i was feeling the same thing for a long time. I many times wondered why is that i don't find those friend like qualities in the office mates, while it was so easy to get real and close friends till school and college days.

In contrast, i observed that my parents generations had very close office friends. My mom's friends even now visit us quite often, after 10 years of her retirement as well. And my dad's colleagues have settled down with us as our neighbors.

I heard many blaming our generation for this saying that present generation gets very selfish as they grow and hence do not believe in friendship and all:)

But then i realized that this is not at all true. In fact we are more sentimental about friendship and relations. And it's the same sentiments that hold us back from making friends.

When i compared the current generation’s professional life with my parents generations, i found one small difference that has made a huge impact.

That's 'Dynamism'! Dynamism in the way people change jobs, which leads to unpredictability about people around us. This in turn leads to disinterest in making friends, as no one knows where they will be the next day:)

My parents have served a single organization for around 30 years… and during their tenure have rarely thought of change of job or place... And as they were confident that they would be in the same place for long time, they could go forward and make stronger personal relations at the work place. Because they knew these relations can be long lasting.

Whereas today i do not know where i will be tomorrow. How many times in a year would i need to change jobs How many times in a year would i need to see new faces sitting next to me. So with so much of dynamism and unpredictability in life, no one wants to get close to people and then suddenly depart.

So the fact is, people are still worth to be our good friends, but we do not go forward to take them as our friends.
The fear of departure, stops us from getting closer to people.

So now i have started disagreeing that we cannot find friend like qualities in office mates. One needs to be receptive to identify them:)

And if someone says, the present generation is selfish, i totally disagree again. In fact we are more sentimental about relations and hence take care in making them.