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Lessons in Friendship
I feel there’s a misconception about making friends when you’re older, about it being more difficult. I know it’s not the same for everyone, but for me, friendship is so much easier in my thirties! Maybe I’m more confident in my social skills, or I just give fewer fucks in general, but my social netting expanded and got stronger this decade. (It could also be due to having school-age kids, which gives me a lot of practice in forging relationships with their friends’ parents.)
I used to assume no one wanted to be my friend – and to a certain extent this is still true, but now I’m okay with it. Overcompensating for this lack of self-worth, I gave my all to those who were my friends. Liking what they liked, blindly agreeing with their thoughts and opinions, I was all in. They said, “jump,” I’d say “how high?”. This led to years of intense female friendships where I felt empty when they tapered off or ended. What I gave wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.
Turning the Tide
This pattern started to change in college. I befriended males and females alike, and they seemed to seek me out for friendship. Was I more likable here? I think the real magic is that I didn’t put a lot of expectation on these friendships. I had separate friends for different things – one friend helped me explore my musical taste, another talked books with me, another indulged my movie-watching side. My problem in elementary and high school wasn’t that I found the wrong friends, it was that I expected too much from them.
My twenties taught me about healthy friendships. I also learned the beauty of having friends in different age groups. Outside of an academic setting, I wasn’t restricted to people in my grade or year. Dating someone a few years older than me introduced me to swaths of older people who shared senses of humor and interests. Upon entering the workforce and joining local gyms, I befriended people a decade or two older than myself. (This honestly feels more natural than getting along with my peers, but that’s for another post.)
When You Love Someone, Set Them Free
Approaching friendships like this allows me to hold a little less tightly to the ones I make. Which perhaps not so oddly makes them stronger and more durable friendships. In the words of Mindy Kaling, “A best friend isn’t a person…it’s a tier.” And having a wider circle allows me to feel more secure in each individual relationship. Now if I don’t hear from one of my close friends for a few weeks, I don’t take it personally anymore. If we only talk on a seasonal (or even annual!) basis, I still feel confident in our friendship.
As I write this, I realize how territorial I was over my friends in my younger years. If they were my close friend, they couldn’t also be yours. Go find your own! It’s embarrassing to admit, but it’s true. After experiencing the joy of multiple close friendships in my thirties, I know it’s not only unrealistic to expect but suffocating to the friends I held close in my teens and twenties. To those, I’m sorry, truly. My insecurities pushed away what I needed most: friends.
Goodbye Are Never Easy
All relationships have their ebbs and flows, friendships included. Some do come to an end. In those cases, it can feel like an estrangement. I’ve gone through a few of these (both with friends and family members), and they’re gut-wrenching. In the darkest moments of rehashing where they went wrong, I felt less-than and unmoored. We were so close! Where did we go awry? There’s a lot of shared history, both good and bad. The good times make it hard to set the boundary when the bad times start negatively impacting the relationship. That person who meant so much to you is still alive and out in the world but no longer in your orbit, whether it’s your choice or theirs.
Women who felt like sisters to me no longer reach out, and vice versa. Women who helped me celebrate my wedding, the births of my kids. Now it’s like we never shared a friendship. I still think of them every now and then, wishing them well and hoping they’re content in life. I like to think I cross their minds in a similar, well-meaning fashion. Maybe they’ve moved on completely and bleached me from their brains. I’ll never know.
Onward and Upward
I do know that after grieving the end of so many friendships, I’ve been more cautious in the ones to follow. As a result, they feel more balanced and fulfilling. I’m not giving all of myself, expecting the same in return. Which means I’m no longer disappointed when they can’t reciprocate. My default setting still assumes no one wants to get to know me (although if I’m honest with my misanthropic self, the feeling is mutual). But when proven otherwise, I take it slow. I don’t give more than I think the other person is willing to invest in the friendship. This gradual immersion has led to deep and meaningful ties that I trust will last.
Now I speak up and share my true opinions earlier in the friendship, which leads to differences of opinions sooner. This gives us the opportunity to learn to resolve them – or not! Nothing like a difference of opinion to test a friendship’s staying power. I’m no longer the friend blindly agreeing just to be accepted and needed. I’m the friend who will share a solicited opinion and politely disagree at times and who can admit when she’s wrong and be open-minded about our disagreements.
Those may have been the hard lessons I needed to learn in my twenties in order to thrive in my thirties. I know there will be more friendships to mourn and lessons to learn; such is the price of aging as a social primate. But I’ll be ready and open to all that entails. For now, I have my close tiers of friends, and I’m proud of the friend I am in return.
4 comments on “Lessons in Friendship”
You are such a good friend!!
Right back at you, Katie! You’ve become such a valued friend to me.
I find it incredibly difficult to make new friends, but I’m starting to think it’s me, not them. I used to make friends like breathing, and now the idea of forming a new relationship with someone makes me feel exhausted. I’m constantly overextended and I’m the type of person who CARES about the people in my sphere, so adding new people to the mix feels like it might end up being a burden more than a blessing. Still, with kids in school and plenty of sports to coach, I do have a few people I’m trying to build some kind of relationship with. If only I had more hours in the day…
I know exactly how you feel, Lindsay, and that’s why joke I’m not in the market for new friends! But it seems the less I care about making new friends, kind people pop up in my life that I want to befriend. Like like you said, if only there were more hours in the day…