I'm not sure why there would even be a gradual drift? My friends who aren't in tech are generally my most fun and interesting friends. We play D&D, we have dinner or drinks at each other's houses, we talk about anime and music and video games, we play with each other's dogs.
The only version of this I have experienced is the one where my non-tech friends are being forced out of my city via skyrocketing housing prices, which are largely due to - you guessed it - tech. It's upsetting, but there's little I can do about it except trying to keep in touch over distance.
Do you own a house in that city? If so, you would suddenly have a ton of house ownership problems your friends can't relate to. It is those sorts of things I am referring to
I can't help that one of my most active chats right now is speculative investing, and it simply is not a game for e.g. people with high rate debt
Then what about making someone feel shitty for describing your day? That you took a day off due to stress, and you remind them of their unchecked mental health crisis? I'm not saying you can't be a good friend through this, but that you need to be a good friend through this. This makes it much more doable with long-time friends rather than new people who you subconsciously pick as being like you
Sure, I guess those things just don't come up as much (and I will admit I intentionally avoid talking about certain subjects). But I wouldn't say that gradually erodes the friendship; we just relate over different things.
I don't actually have that much overlap with my friends in the first place.
We just have a select few common interests and enjoy each other's company.
I have a different circle of friends for most interests, there's not even any overlap between the ones I online game with or dirtbike with. Hell there's not even overlap between the dirtbike friends and street riding friends. I have interests that aren't shared with any of them.
Buying a house in the city is just adding another interest to the pile of interests that only apply randomly to a small fraction of my friends.
It doesn't have to be a problem, however sharing fewer interests is what I meant by 'gradual drift'. Someone I share 0 interests with that also doesn't just enjoy my company I will eventually interact less and less with. If you keep multiple diverse friend groups, you're definitely less prone to this issue
I'm not sure why there would even be a gradual drift? My friends who aren't in tech are generally my most fun and interesting friends. We play D&D, we have dinner or drinks at each other's houses, we talk about anime and music and video games, we play with each other's dogs.
The only version of this I have experienced is the one where my non-tech friends are being forced out of my city via skyrocketing housing prices, which are largely due to - you guessed it - tech. It's upsetting, but there's little I can do about it except trying to keep in touch over distance.