The Challenge of Adult Friendship

The Challenge of Adult Friendship

As children, we’re often taught that we can make friends with almost anyone and usually naturally—running into a new friend on the playground, being surrounded by the same groups of people in class, finding commonality on a sports team—as though the opportunity to make a friend is ever present regardless of where you are. As children and as adolescents, we spend our days surrounded by others who are experiencing similar life stages, transitions, and challenges.

Then we hit adulthood.

Suddenly, we find ourselves looking around and questioning where everyone went. We’re in a different life stage, often defined by independence and growth. Our focus may shift from our social support system to the familial system that we’re working on building, or the career that we’re establishing. But having a family or a career doesn’t mean we don’t still need ongoing support from friends.

In reality, adulthood has a way of removing many of the structures that once made connection feel effortless.

What Stands in the Way?

Changing Structure

No one really teaches us in childhood that the older we get the more unnatural it can feel to make new friends. We don’t spend the majority of every day in the same environment with the same group of people anymore. Our lives are instead filled with responsibility, schedules and competing priorities.

Even when we value the friendships we have worked so hard to build, they can become increasingly difficult to maintain. Though there’s a strong return on investment, investing in the relationship still requires time and energy—time and energy that is often spent on every other item and task on a never ending to-do list.

Emotional Bandwidth

A text goes unanswered. A coffee date is rescheduled. And the next thing you know, it’s been months since you’ve seen or really talked to your friends. That doesn’t mean you don’t care. It just means we’re all operating with limited emotional bandwidth. It’s not that friendship becomes less important, it’s just that it requires much more intentional effort.

Friendships Change as We Change

Our values, priorities and lifestyles tend to evolve as we move through each phase of life. As I’m sure everyone has heard by now—we’re all on different timelines. Which means that one person may become a parent, while another one stays childfree. Or one friend might have to relocate for a job opportunity, figure out how to navigate divorce, care for aging parents, or shift entirely and find a new calling in life. All of these changes have the potential to create distance in friendships when people are evolving in different directions. Sometimes friendships fade, but the challenging part is that conflict isn’t always what ends a friendship. Sometimes time does it for us instead.

Vulnerability Becomes More Difficult

Sometimes it seems like children have the whole “vulnerability thing” figured out. They tend to be more open with their emotions. But with time, we often start to see the risk in sharing our emotional experiences. We learn that other people can cause us hurt and we do what we can to avoid it. Ironically, vulnerability is often necessary for finding deeper connections.

Past experiences of rejection, betrayal, or disappointment can make it harder for us to lean into the vulnerability that is so necessary. As a result, it can be easy to get stuck in that never ending cycle of surface-level interactions despite the desire for deeper connection.

Building friendship often requires taking emotional risks:

• • Initiating plans
• • Reaching out first
• • Sharing personal struggles
• • Admitting loneliness
• • Allowing others to support us

Though potentially uncomfortable, these are the actions that will give us the support and connection we crave.

How Do I Do It?

1. Changing the Structure

    We might not have the same social structures built into our daily life, but proximity and repetition is still key to building a strong social support network—even in adulthood. It’ll take time, effort, patience and intention, but it can be done. Rather than attending one-off events hoping to find your next best friend, think about finding activities that meet consistently. Consider joining a fitness class, a walking group or run club, a recreational sports league (pickleball is all the rage), volunteer organizations, faith communities, professional networking groups, or hobby classes. Seeing the same faces week after week allows for conversations and friendships to build over time.

2. It's Your Move

    How often have you had the thought, "if they’d just reach out, I’d go" or "Why do I have to be the one to start it?" Well, you do. You only have control over you and no control over anyone else. And if everyone functions with the thought, "Why do I have to be the first one?" no one would do anything. So be the first one to send the text. Invite someone to coffee. Ask a coworker if they’d like to go to lunch. It can feel vulnerable, but again, vulnerability is the essential building block of connection.

3. Slow and Steady

    I hear that most people are tired of the small talk. And that’s fair. You might be looking for something deeper and more meaningful in connection. But we tend to forget that deeper friendship almost always starts with that small talk. Not every interaction has to lead to an instantaneous best friend connection. Sometimes we put so much pressure on finding “our people” that we overlook the value of just getting to know someone. Take the time to lean into the small moments—a conversation after class, walking together after work, grabbing a coffee once a month, just checking in on someone to see how they’re managing life.

4. Be Willing to be Known

    Meaningful relationships require more than just talking about work, the weather or weekend plans. Sure, it starts with small talk, but as trust develops it’s important to consider sharing more about yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to sit down and share your entire life story over one coffee, but allowing people to know your life, your struggles, your interests, values and hopes allows you to start to connect on a deeper level.

5. Invest in the Friendships You Have

    Improving your social support network isn’t only about building it with new relationships, it also comes down to strengthening the relationships you already have. It can be helpful to reach out to some of the friends you’ve fallen out of touch with, or evaluate some of the acquaintances you’ve already worked to establish to determine if there's room to deepen the friendship. The strongest friendships aren’t maintained through grand gestures, but through consistent and thoughtful moments of connection.

6. Find Your Patience

    In a world where we’re used to most things happening instantaneously, friendship is one of the few things that still takes time to build. Trust, comfort, vulnerability and closeness develop gradually. Some connections will only reach the point of acquaintanceship and that’s okay. But others may build and develop over time. Rather than measuring success by how many friends you have, consider measuring it by whether you’re creating opportunities for connection and showing up authentically.

Giving Yourself Grace

No one warns us about how challenging it is to develop friendship in adulthood. If you’re having a hard time with it, I promise you’re not the only one. Many people find themselves looking around at their life and wondering where everyone went. Adulthood has a unique way of presenting challenges that make connection more complicated than most people expect. Creating and maintaining friendship requires time, energy, vulnerability and intentional effort—all of which are resources that can feel scarce in adulthood.

Instead of asking yourself, "What's wrong with me?" consider asking: “Where can I start?”

Start small and start realistically. With small, intentional effort over time, friendships have the room to develop and you give yourself the space to function within your current capacity.