Let’s Talk: Adult Friendships

Adult friendships are different. Growing up in a school setting where friendships were always a focus of some kind, the roles shift when you enter adulthood — we often move apart, have less free time and just finding a couple hours where your schedule aligns with your friend’s can be difficult. Today’s “Let’s Talk” post opens a discussion on adult friendships, how they shift in adulthood and how to best maintain them.

To set the tone for this, I want you guys to know a little more about me and the kind of friend that I strive to be. I’m an introvert and not super social, so I keep my circle small. I don’t need to be around people all the time to be happy, so I’m usually content being alone and doing my own thing. I’ve honestly been that way since I was a toddler. I’m not someone that goes out to bars or parties on the weekends with friends (haven’t done that since college — not my thing), and I live a pretty chill lifestyle. I often spend my free time working on my blog, doing freelance projects, “hanging out” with my husband or just running errands (ew this sounds like a dating profile, but you get the gist).

Like all of you I’m sure, I see and experience some of the “struggles” of adult friendships, and I found that these struggles don’t truly start until after college. Some common ones include:

• Not having time
• Conflicting schedules
• Distance
• Lack of communication
• Growing apart

There’s a sense of independence, even from peers, that comes along with adulthood. Everyone is doing their own thing and focusing on their own lives, and I think we all totally get that. For some though, there can be a feeling of withdrawal. It’s almost as if friendships aren’t as “important” as they once were, not because you don’t want them, but because things are just different.

MAKING NEW FRIENDS + FEELING CONNECTED

Have you noticed there’s a lacking sense of community in adulthood? No longer being in school, you don’t always have somewhere to come together and make friends with like-minded people. Unless you go to church, hang out with your coworkers or have some other activity you participate in, you don’t really come across new people like yourself too often.

I find making friends as an adult to be more difficult, as well as easier in some ways than it was when we were younger. It’s difficult because you don’t often have places to go where you’d naturally be interacting with new people. Time is more limited and schedules can vary much more than your peers, unlike in your childhood and teenage years. However, it’s easier in some ways because you know who you are and the type of people you mesh with by adulthood just from trial and error & life experiences. Time helps fine tune your skill of knowing if you’re going to get along with certain people much quicker than ever before, sometime within minutes of meeting someone.

TYPES OF FRIENDS

As I’ve gotten older and been married, I’ve realized too it’s equally important to have my own individual friends as well as couple friends. Individually, I find a great friend for me has all or some of the same characteristics: similar humor, laidback, business minded, loyal and trustworthy. These are the types of people I tend to click with, and I love being around other females pursing their own businesses like I am so we can chat about goals and the ins and outs of the industry. Oh, and having a girl friend to go shopping with is always nice!

As for couple friends, I think it’s really beneficial for your relationship to spend time with other couples to form a support system — plus it’s convenient and fun to find a pair you both really click with! I picture us having couple friends like my parents have in the future with kids the same age, because that seems so fun to me. Of course things may not play out that way since we all have different timelines, but we’ll see. All of our couple friends live far away currently, so this isn’t something we get to do often at this point in our lives.

MAINTAINING FRIENDSHIPS

First and foremost when maintaining adult friendships, I think you need to determine who you want to make time for and what it takes to maintain each individual relationship. Each is truly unique. Some friends may feel like they need to talk to you every day to feel connected, while others can go silent for a few weeks and it doesn’t affect anything. Also, figure out where you lie on this spectrum, even if it’s different for each friend.

Above all, what I think makes adult friendships last is making time for each other. It doesn’t have to be face to face and this all depends on the person and what their needs are. I have friends I only see a few times a year that I’m always in some form of constant communication with, and it works for us. When we meet up, it’s like we were never apart. Whether we’re sending screenshots to each other of gossip we see online or are just texting about something funny that happened that day, those are the things that I find maintain the bond and keep us involved in each other’s lives, no matter the physical distance between us.

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What has been your experience with adult friendships? Do you struggle to maintain friendships or make new friends? Let’s chat in the comments! If you enjoyed this post, check out all the other posts on various topics in my Let’s Talk series. In other news, TODAY IS CLOSING DAY ON OUR HOUSE! I plan to film a “before” house tour to put up on my YouTube channel (and well as a sneak peek on my Instagram story) soon, so I’ll let you all know when that is up. Have a great weekend!