Joining the professional class today basically requires that you continually make amazing close friends and then leave them forever (or they leave you). You have to do it again and again and it sucks every time.

Why don't we ever talk about this? It seems to be the #1 downside.

This is obviously a real "first world problem" type of complaint and I imagine most people who manage to get into the highly-educated professional group are happy with their choices (I am), but the inability to hold onto the amazing people that have changed your life is hard.

I've *only* lived in 6 places in my life, but can think of ten different really great friends I've made - friends that would be life-long super-close friends if we lived in the same place. But I left them for college or a job (or they left for one of these reasons).

And the crazy bit is that we don't talk about it - we just say "Gotta do what's best! Good luck - keep in touch. Let's visit" and keep a stiff upper lip. You aren't supposed to say "Wow, this is so shitty. Why are we doing this to ourselves?"

The only plus side is that you have friends to visit all over,. Sure, I always have former-best-friends to visit in Boston, SF, LA, New Haven, North Dakota, Hawaii, Milwaukee, DC, or Columbus. But that represents a huge emotional investment that we mostly just walk away from.

And I guess as a coda to all that, there's the whole thing about how it is borderline illegal for adults to make new close friends. I recall that @drvox had a whole tirade about that, but I'll have to settle for the toned-down article version: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/28/9622920/housing-adult-friendship