It seems a lot of people absolutely despise the idea of spending any of their free time with their coworkers, even something as measly as a lunch break that you're basically stuck at work for anyways. I could understand it if your coworkers were particularly nasty to you or something like that, but it seems that a lot of people have fine relationships with their coworkers and still would rather sit in a car alone to eat lunch rather than having a conversation at a table or go home after work and watch TV rather than get a beer or coffee.
I can understand people want to hide or whatever, but why is that such a widespread phenomenon now? It wasn't always like that as I understand. From a lot of what I've read and heard, fairly intimate relationships between coworkers were much more common. It seems like if we're talking about the general breakdown of society or the decay of the labor movement, this is an obvious symptom that doesn't seem to have anyone's attention. So what gives?
Worked with some petty motherfuckers who used some shit from outside of work to get me fired. I just don't mix work and friendships anymore.
The fact that office work often actively encourages internal competition, and also forces us into mandatory "fun" social activities really poisons a lot of potential office friendships. That and work environments are generally very unpleasant, while also offering little benefit for staying longterm, so people switch jobs frequently now. I usually make friends on my team, but I can understand not wanting to since it's a friendship that might soon end when one or both parties move on, and a long drive is added to ant meetup.