Making friends in elementary school is easy. It’s more a matter of proximity than affinity, and while having a six-year-old daughter has taught me that mean girls come younger and younger these days, friendship – for the most part – is simple for children.
Do I like her? Okay, then, we’re friends.
Did he hit me? Okay, we’re not friends anymore.
She’s my friend, so I’ll invite her to my party.
He’s nice to me, so I’ll sit by him at lunch.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, as that six-year-old likes to say.
But as we grow older, friendship grows more complicated. And though I don’t long for the bruised emotions of middle school – or even high school – social maneuvering, I have to say that adult friendship is even harder than that. Messy and tricky and disappointing and frustrating and, well, HARD!
It’s hard to find friends.
Then it’s hard to keep friends.
Hard to keep in touch as you change jobs or churches, change parties or teams,
move across town, move to the country (or the city), move cross-country.
Friends go through great things and hard things – together and separate.
Pairings off and marriage. Split-ups and divorce.
Lost jobs, new jobs, crappy jobs, dream jobs.
Moving. Babies – expected or not. Milestone birthdays. Moving {again}.
First houses. Tiny houses. Big houses that make us jealous.
Misunderstandings. Missed connections. Facebook. Another Pampered Chef sale.
Bible studies. Happy hours. Barbecues. Funerals.
But even more than the reality of grown-up life being harder than childhood is the fact that with every relationship we forge and foster and – sometimes – fail to keep, we make lists.
Lists of expectations, lists of what we will accept and what we won’t, lists of what a friend looks like and what kind of friend we’re willing to be in return.
We want to be picked first, invited every time, included always.
We want them to live nearby – but not too close.
We definitely don’t want them to be transferred or deployed or sent out.
We want her to like us best, to feel that “click” the same way we do.
We don’t want her to hurt or to be hurt.
And when she is, we want simple answers to be solutions.
We want them to be available when we are. And not so needy when we aren’t.
We want our friends from different stages and situations to get along.
But not too well. Because they’re our friends first.
We want it to be easy.
And it really, rarely is.
I’m blessed to have some amazing friends in my life. And I’m cursed because many of them live far enough away (or busy enough lives) that Facebook, Skype and text messages have to suffice for the day-to-day (or post-to-post) friendship. I’m fortunate to be friends with amazing folks who are like me, but not – and who challenge me to redefine friendship as an adult on a regular basis. I love them and I miss them and I’m glad for every single time I get to spend time with them.
And every day I have even one friend, I’m pushed into giving up on my friendship fairy tales and wishes. How about you? How have you had to redefine friendship?
What fairy tales have you had to kick to the curb to make room for real, adult friendship?
By the way, that photo up above is Smitty and me in the eighth grade. We were extremely lucky to connect super early in life (kindergarten, actually!) and even more blessed to stay connected all these years later. It’s not always easy, but we work to make it work – and I’m so thankful for that.
Here are a few other posts about both the challenges and the beauty of real friendship:
- How to Help a Friend Who’s Lost a Loved One
- To My Friends Who Have Lost Their Smiles
- Help Me Help You
- The Magic of “Me, Too”
- Best Friends Forever: Fact or Fiction?
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One thing I’ve realized the past few months is that I’m the only one that can prioritize my friendships. If I want to hang out with people, I need to reach out, instead of hoping they’ll reach out to me. If I want to get to know more folks, I need to join a class or put myself out there. When you’re new and building community, it’s easy to think “people should reach out to me!” And while that may be true, we can’t wait for it to happen. It’s not that people don’t want to befriend new people, they just don’t have “make new friends” as high of a priority.
That’s a big one, Leigh. It’s hard for me to keep doing that, though, when I’ve tried and tried and get shot down one too many times. I know I need thicker skin, but so far, it hasn’t happened!
You’re right – it’s a big old struggle as an adult! Recently I thought I might lose my best friend from college over something completely ludicrous in my opinion between her and my husband. Living so far apart and not talking as often as we should has been difficult for our relationship. We managed to talk it out, this time, but I admit more than once I’ve been tempted to just give up and let us drift apart.
I hated moving to Chattanooga and starting over when it felt like I had finally made a group of friends in Nashville after 5 years there. I’ve been in Chattanooga almost 4 years now. I have a wonderful sister of my heart here, but we’ve just become friends in the last year. And no real couple friends, which is different and hard for us. With each phase comes new challenges, and being the parents of little-bitties makes it hard to just get out and connect with others! (Especially in a town where everyone and their uncle’s grandma’s hairdresser have known each other since birth.)
Long-standing friendships are definitely hard to maintain at times. And when you add distance to it…well, it’s just hard. And not having couple friends is hard, too! And…well, it’s like you said. Every phase has its challenges!!
Ohhhh….I admit that this post made me laugh. And my eyes are more open to you city gals. :)- I have wished that we lived closer to a bigger town or city in hopes that I’d have more friends. But I can see that my wish is only a dream. For I see that you, city-girl, go through the same situations! I struggle finding friends in the middle-of-no-where-Kansas. I’m married to a farmer, and our closest neighbors are 5 miles away. And our closest towns’ populations are 200 to 1600 people (majority ages 50-100!). I’ve tried to find friends, but it’s been hard to ‘click’ well to have an in-depth friendship close by. My closest friends live an hour to three hours away. Praise God, this last month I’ve made an AMAZING new friend….we click like we are best friends. She was in my town, doing a PA internship at a clinic. She was only in town for a month. Now, she is about 3 hours away. But I thank our Lord for our new friendship. :) And thank you for this post! This country-wife really appreciated it!