Blowing Off Your Friends As Lethal As Obesity, Alcholism

A few months ago a friend and I were supposed to meet for coffee on a Thursday night. I wanted to exercise after work and shower and so I asked to meet at 7:30. She complained that I got off at 5:15 so there was no reason that I couldn't meet her at 6 so that she could meet someone else at 8:30. Annoyed at feeling like a business appointment, I canceled all together.

A few weeks prior to that another friend and I were supposed to meet for lunch at 1pm on a Saturday. When I got there I ordered a drink and texted her to tell her that I was there. She didn't respond and after a half hour I called another friend who lives in the neighborhood and bought him a drink. She texted at 2:30 to tell me that she forgot and that she's sorry (not bothering with an actual phone call). She did this same thing a few weeks later. When I received a mass text from her a few weeks after that, I deleted her number.

I used to visit a third friend about once a week at the cafe where he works and we chat. I told him that instead of us talking while he's on the clock and has to frequently leave to tend to customers, maybe we should grab a beer sometime. He said that he was too busy. Eventually I no longer make the time either.

I work full time, go to the gym an hour a day and am studying for medical school as well as writing when I can, and I make a point to set aside time for my personal relationships and yet it's a rare person indeed who also puts in that sort of effort. I can't say that I understand it. I'm a witty and fun person - ask anyone who's blown me off this week! If I didn't know so many people who also complained of last minute ditches (who 'falls asleep' at 8pm on a Friday night?) I'd be having an identity crisis. Since the war years, the number of close friends that a person reports has dropped from three to one. Why is this? Is it technology - do you 'poke' when you should call?

Those who don't return phone calls or remember birthdays, here's a fair warning: You're probably going to die a lot sooner than those of us who value our friendships. Researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah reviewed 148 medical articles analying 300,000 people and concluded that those with a good social network had a 50% chance of living longer than those with poor personal relationships. "In our study we compared [loneliness] to being twice the risk of being obese, about being twice the risk of not exercising physically when you should and about equivalent to being alcoholic," says lead researcher Timothy Smith. It's hard to pinpoint physiologically why that is, but we know for a fact that people losing a spouse have weaker immune systems, so it stands to reason that friendless people might be experiencing a similiar reaction.

This reminded me of Dan Buettner's recent TED talk where he outlined the three aspects of life in a culture where people consistently lived to see age 100. The first one was a plant based diet, not a vegan diet, per se, but one where most of the nutrients came from plant resources, allowing for occasional servings of meat and cheese. The second aspect was physical activity being buildt into daily life, not bouts of exercise followed by inactivity, but rather lots of walking to get around and only very seldom times of complete inactivity. The final discovery was something that most people probably don't think a lot about; extensive kinship networks. The people he studied had lots of friends, family members and interpersonal relationships. There was less stress because there was less social anxiety and more people around meant that you don't have to do as much work, that people listen to your problems and that people help you when they're needed. They also need you and as we can see from elderly people who live longer when they have pets or jobs , people need to be needed.

Stress literally runs down your organ systems and kills you. And I'm sure that anyone reading this has had the experience of a stress migraine or an incredible stomach ache after a bad day. This weekend, do yourself a favor: call that friend that you've meaning to call for two months, buy your mother lunch and then go out for few drinks with your friends, you just might add some years to your life.

Motherhood Of The Future! Frozen Eggs, Timed Menopause, Robots

There are a lot of ways in which our cultural standards haven't caught up to our scientific prowess. Arguably, the number one area where biology, culture and science are emeshed in a three way of psychological violence and tormenting expectations is motherhood. Our bodies round into baby making machines early in our teenage years and for some bizarre reason our brains aren't fully developed for another ten. Biology wants your not yet declining body to create life, but how respectfully do we look upon teenage mothers? Of course, there are a plethora of very good reasons why teenagers shouldn't be procreating (no.1: they're dumb), so when is a good time to make a baby?

Fertility rates start dropping as early as 25 for some women and by age 44, the chance of getting pregnant without the use of fertility drugs or IVF can be as low as 1%. Recently, a survey showed that many women entering a profession where training tends to take quite a few years (such as medicine) are considering freezing their eggs so that they may use them when they're ready. Still others are choosing to freeze their eggs because they haven't found themselves in the right relationship and want to take the pressure off. Currently in the works is a test that will be able to predict when one enters menopause. This in conjunction with frozen eggs may buy a few more years - but what about life expectancy? It might be cruel to point out, but if you have your children in your forties, what is the chance (especially if they wait as long) that you'll ever meet your grandchildren?

Let's take society's outline of a perfect scenario: you graduate college (all A's!) at age 22, go to grad school (or law school or medical school because life is easy) and get married around say, 28 (allowing for a few years to bang around Europe). The choice then becomes: give up the career that you worked hard for and probably got into debt for or spend your child bearing years working your way into a situation successful enough that no one will call you under ambitious for taking a few months off to give birth, get the stitches removed and then go right back to the grind.

But how possible is it to 'have it all'? Can you have a healthy romantic marriage with someone you adore, a few beautiful happy children and a robust blossoming career? Probably not. And it isn't your fault. American society sets things up so you'll always have an idea in your mind of how much better things could be if you were smarter, stronger or just worked a little harder. However, society and science are progressing. Here are a few ways I predict motherhood will follow suit in the next few decades:

Marriage and Children Will Become Separate Entities: Sixty years ago, you couldn't have sex without being married and today we understand that pitting culture against nature is a very poor idea. The time will come when motherhood and marriage no longer go hand in hand. I don't mean to say that people will stop getting married, although many already have. Rather, some will understand that sometimes they are ready for children before they have found a partnership that fits all of their needs, and some may simply acknowledge that they will never be interested in being with one person for their entire lives. Conversely, sometimes one partner will want a child and the other won't and rather then separating or compromising (and let's face it, compromising on this isn't going to make anyone happy) they will maintain the relationship while seeking out a separate party to have a child with. It'll be as uncommon as open marriages are now, but it won't be totally alien.

The nature of having a partnership for child rearing will also change. Because people will no longer need to be in romantic relationships to procreate, they're be an surging of people who choose to become parents with their best friends, siblings or others whom they're sought out through personal ads. Science indicates that two mothers are better than one but if we'll no longer need to pair up to have children, then your baby's 'other mother' needn't even be a lesbian.

Egg Donation, Surrogacy and Adoption: The number of young women donating their eggs will grow at such a steady pace that it'll one day be akin to a rite of passage. Additionally, allowing for the population of women who want their own biological children but are unwilling or unable to endure a pregnancy, the number of surrogates will also rise. Unwanted children will always be a byproduct of industrial society and this won't change, but as stigmas about adoption melt away, more and more people will choose instead to adopt a child then to go through the process of creating one.

Robots: Even when a woman has a Dr. at the front of her name, she still ends up doing more work then her male counterpart. Ideally, the government will begin to subsidize household workers, nannies and maids, to ensure that everyone has a living wage and maybe the men out there who haven't been helping will wake up and understand that the dishes haven't been doing themselves. Maybe the government will start offering a reasonable maternity leave (six months or more) and not the blessed two months that you'll be lucky to get now if you work for a top of the line company. But let's remember that I'm making predictions and not outlining a fantasy novel. Rather, I see robots, lots of lots of robots with soft plastic hands and sensors that detect when baby's crying is for food, to get changed or just because it wants to be held in the robots temperature controlled arms. Very expensive robots will provide cleaning and nannies services with built in camera eyes so that a mother or father may check in whenever they want. You won't have to pay them and over time (yes, they'll be some casualties), they will be foolproof. 

We'll Take A Que From The Commie Chinese: As more and more resources deplete (i.e. the massive health care crisis), the government will begin to tax people who have more than two children. With the effects of a bad economy and global warming, we will understand that there simply isn't enough for large families. People are already having less children then they once did, but there will one day be tax incentives for those who choose to remain completely child free. The stigma of being without children will gradually drop away until half of women in their childbearing years will not have children.

The Government Will Learn To Respect Mothers: It might seem like a lot's changed in the last paragraph, but hear me out. If the birth rate drops down far enough, this will be the only option left. Any government that see it's population decline will start to get a little scared. This is contingent on woman stopping reproduction now, or at least cutting back significantly. Parenthood will become less of something people do and more of a career choice, complete with lots of government help and financial encouragement.