Why Adult Friendships Are So Difficult

Later in life friendships rarely happen by chance

“Our relationship has changed.” I managed to blurt out, after pausing for a few seconds.

I had, what you might call, a crucial conversation last week.

I have a very close friend. This is someone who I am in daily contact with and who I see at least once a week.

It’s a friendship where we constantly tease and torture each other. Taking the piss is an understatement! But we are also close enough to be vulnerable with each other.

The contact has declined drastically over the past few weeks and it really started to bother me. I felt like our relationship had changed, and I didn’t like it.

I started a new job a few months ago and this friend is now in a New Romantic relationship. So obviously things have changed. Nevertheless this doesn’t make it any easier.

We met up last weekend with some other friends. We didn’t really get to talk much because we were distracted by everyone else there.  I didn’t say anything at the time but later we called and I told him that I felt like our relationship had changed.

He assured me that nothing had changed. He still sees me as a very important person in his life, he’s just struggling to find the balance with this new relationship that he’s started. He pleaded with me to please prod and poke and let him know if I felt neglected again.

And that is kind of the crux of the matter.

Up until this point I really enjoyed this friendship because it was easy and effortless. We met up spontaneously and it always seemed to work out. We would call each other for no reason other than ridiculous banter.

But now it’s an effort. Now we both have less time. Now we have to plan ahead. Make an appointment. And because of this a lot of the magic has been lost.

I’m not sure of you can relate but I think what I’m describing is the typical experience of adult friendships. Everyone is so busy with their own lives that it’s difficult to maintain intense relationships with daily contact.

This passage from Flow (the book that I am still reading - yes it’s longer than I thought) sums it up well.

“People believe that friendships happen naturally, and if they fail, there is nothing to be done about it but feel sorry for oneself. In adolescence, when so many interests are shared with others and one has great stretches of free time to invest in a relationship, making friends might seem like a spontaneous process. But later in life friendships rarely happen by chance: one must cultivate them as assiduously as one must cultivate a job or a family.” Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.

I’m sure you knew this already but sometimes it’s really helpful to remind ourselves that relationships do take work. Just because things don’t flow effortlessly doesn’t mean that the relationship is breaking apart.

If people like Aristotle were writing about the importance of friendship 2000 years ago then it is, if nothing else reassuring to know that this is just a very human experience.

So have patience and understanding. Don’t give up too quickly and take the effort to keep things going. Maintaining close friends is as, if not more important, than having a romantic relationship.

Take care,

Benjamin