Question #1:
“How do I maintain old friendships as our lives change?”
Dear L.,
Adult friendships are hard! Our lives diverge as we choose our own paths in adulthood. We change and grow as age, and as we develop new kinds of relationships - parenthood, caregiving, romantic partnership, professional networks. Unlike childhood friendships, there’s no one who is going through exactly the same thing as you at the same time, so you don’t have those commonalities to keep you in close proximity with your friends day-to-day. Sometimes, this means that our old friendships will fade away as time goes on, but most of the time, it means that maintaining old friendships takes some work. Here are some ideas for keeping the friendship flame going:
Schedule things together. Be flexible about it, but generally schedule time with friends you want to spend time with: brunch dates, zoom catch-ups, phone calls. Whatever works best for your friendship, do that. It could be that you both schedule nail appointments or Target trips at the same time, so that you can see each other while running errands.
Show up in small ways for each other. Share a relatable meme/tiktok/reel. Send your friend a birthday card, or a coffee gift card, or flowers, either for a special occasion, or just because. Make/buy your friend dinner one day as they are studying or taking care of kids or working on a huge work project.
Vulnerability is key. Leaving things unsaid will not work with adult friendships, because we spend less spontaneous time together. If you’ve been friends for a while, you have to be able to say, I miss when we lived around the corner from each other, or, I feel like you’re a new person and I don’t know where I fit into your life now, or, I’m trying to make this romantic relationship work and I can’t show up for you like I used to. If we give them a chance to, people often surprise us with their responses.
Realize that adult friendships are not equal, but they are reciprocal. Your friend with small kids will not have as much capacity to show up for you as you might to show up for them. You might not be able to spend time with your friends as you figure out how to care for aging parents. Sometimes you have to say, hey, we haven’t seen or talked in three months, but I still love you. Can we call each other at 10pm and cry over the phone?
What friendship means will change as your life does, and everyone involved needs to allow that to happen. You’ll always have the memories of what your friendship was like at 17, or 23, or 30, but you’ll also have new memories too as life goes on.
