I was bookstore shopping with Stephanie and she pointed out a book to me that her friends had talked about, called Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment by Ethan Watters. It's a book that examines the cultural trend of young people getting married at a later age and of forming close tribe-like networks of friends that function as a family. I've only started the first chapter and it's like a revelation; I recognize a lot of my friendships, and my own feelings about relationships and families. My impulse was to say, "oh, you have to read this book!" to my friends. So I am.
UPDATE: The more I read, the more intrigued I am about this book, and the more I identify with it. In the book he references the TV shows "Seinfeld" and "Friends" as onscreen examples of urban tribes, but "Sex and the City" and even "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" fit into this trend as well. Its also something to note that while the baby boomer generation and conservatives are lamenting the death of the "traditional family" and the of decline of people engaging in civic groups like the League of Women Voters, people in our generation are not lost socially or completely selfishly motivated... they just organize and perform altruistic, communal and civic acts in a different fashion than the generations before us.
Read more about the social trend and about the book here at the UrbanTribes.net website.
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