Maria (my bff) recently sent me this interesting article from the NY Times: Friends of a Certain Age: Why Is It Hard to Make Friends Over 30?
The article talks about the difficulties in making friends once you’ve passed thirty, and how you begin to lack “the conditions that sociologists since the 50′s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other”.
So essentially it’s saying two things: One, that that there is basically a friendship formula. And that makes sense. Two, that because the formula gets disrupted by life (read: marriage, kids, a job that you’ve been in for years with people that you may not necessarily like), it becomes harder over time to make and maintain friendships. When you don’t meet the criteria you don’t get the result.
Apparently a lot of people are walking around more or less okay with that.
But that is seriously not okay with me. I mean, I get it. I really do. In theory, I understand how things can get in the way. I see the barriers. I see how it can be hard.
I mean, I’m not quite thirty yet, but I have experienced in practice it being somewhat harder in my 20′s to make and maintain friends as I’ve gotten older (though I have to say, it’s not like it’s ever quite been easy either).
But does it really have to be that way?
I’m not married, and I don’t have kids. So maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. But what I do know what it’s like to be in a really long relationship. A really long relationship– that ended.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned going through it all, is that as much as you might want or even come to expect them to, some things just don’t last forever. And when you come out on the other side, you know who’s going to be there for you?
Your friends.
If you’re lucky, your family will be there too to an extent, but it’s different. Sometimes your family can’t or won’t or won’t need to know all of the details of your life.
So to think that it just becomes harder and harder to make friends as you get older– that worries me. Here I was thinking things were supposed to get better. I just can’t accept that.
Because what happens when you separate from your partner or get laid off or end up with joint custody of your kids and only see them on the weekends?
What would you do then?
You would make friends again, wouldn’t you? I mean you’d have to. Life would be really lonely otherwise. But if what the article is saying is true– and you wait until those things that could happen in your 30′s and beyond happen– it’s going to be really hard to find new friends.
It just sounds so similar to situations that I feel we hear so often about now– about how a person is a stay at home mom or dad until their children become adults and then they have trouble finding their way back into the workforce. Because they haven’t maintained or improved their skills.
The same thing happens with friendships!
It also makes me wonder: is making friends as you get older truly harder, or do people just stop trying as hard and get lazy? We all get busy– but isn’t it also about priorities?
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be stay at home parents. And I’m not saying that you’re going to get a divorce. But what if you do? What would you do then?
I ask these questions because I ignored them when I was in a relationship. Because I didn’t want to think about what could happen. In retrospect, that was really stupid– allowing the task of making new friends and keeping up with old friends fall to the wayside was stupid.
Personally, I don’t want to make that mistake again.
So, while it may be true that it gets harder to make and maintain friendships over the years– we know what the reasons are. So I think the more important thing to ask is– What are we going to do to overcome them?
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Do you find it harder to make friends as you get older? How do you make new friends as you get older?
