#32: Friendships in Your 30s

Thank you to all my new subscribers! I hope you enjoyed my piece last week, and enjoy this week’s post.

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In her book, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond, science journalist Lydia Denworth argues that your 30s are “the decade where friendship goes to die”.

When I turned 30, I found this disheartening. Was this really true? Is it inevitable?

To answer these questions, I sought to determine what makes and strengthens friendships. I identified five crucial ones:

The first is proximity. Physical closeness is what enables you to have shared experiences, which are what create the memorable moments we spend with others.

The second is shared interests and values. Once you meet people, it’s about finding similarities. Those similarities are often beliefs, hobbies, or lifestyle choices.

The third is empathy. Once you’ve met someone and found similarities, you’ve likely created the preliminary elements of friendship. When you can empathize with these people, it can help you connect on a deeper level.

The fourth is communication and trust. Once you’ve connected with someone on a deeper level, you’ve likely established a friendship. But to go from maintaining to strengthening a friendship is all about being honest, loyal, and reliable.

The fifth and final one is time and effort. Everyone is busy. Friendships and really any relationships require both people to prioritize each other against alternatives.

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Now that I defined the criteria, I wanted to evaluate our 30s against our 20s. In doing so, Denworth’s claim started to make sense.

The reason why I made most of my friends in my teens and 20s was physical closeness. I saw the same people in my neighborhood growing up. I saw the same people every school day. I saw the same people in my classes and at parties on campus.

Proximity to our friends gets harder as we get older. We may move to a new city that creates distance between us and our friends. Just this single action creates a new obstacle in the friendship.

As we get older, our interests change. While we are all spending time in our college and young professional days similarly, our new environments and our careers start to change how we spend our lives. This shapes a shift in our beliefs, our values, and often our interests.

As our environments and beliefs change, it may become harder to empathize with the people who used to be our close friends. We find it harder to understand and share the feelings of our friends. We might ask: What happened? Why do I no longer relate to them? How have we grown so apart?

Just asking these questions starts to put a damper on our mindset and the trust in the relationship. Particularly when distance is an obstacle, honest, open, and vulnerable communication is critical.

Coupled with our growing differences in interests, we start to communicate even less. We start to plant doubts in our head that the other person doesn’t care about our friendship. And as a result, we talk less, we end up depending on those friends less, and suddenly they’re less involved in our lives.

With these friendships on the brink of collapse, we get even busier with new hobbies, new relationships, a more demanding career, and greater distractions. It requires us to be prioritize the friendship even more, but instead we both tend to let it drift away naturally. We justify it to ourselves: We’re just different people now.

And soon enough the friendships that made our 20s so fruitful, exciting, and memorable have evaporated. We’re left with a semblance of an acquaintanceship. The prophecy that friendship goes to die as we hit 30 has been fulfilled.

Sound familiar? Maybe even a few lost friendships came to your mind as you read this.

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So while it seems like Denworth’s statement generally holds true, are there things we can do to prevent the decay of our friendships and make new ones?

Fortunately, the answer is yes. With age comes wisdom. And this newfound knowledge can help inform us on how to make new friends and strengthen our existing friendships.

We can use the internet to expand our definition of proximity. With advancements in technology, it has never been easier to stay connected. The reality is I’m just a phone call or a FaceTime away from a close friend. I have met like-minded people online through Twitter or other online communities, challenging the idea that we must be physically located in the same city to become friends.

One of the fatal flaws I used to make is that I thought my friends and I had to have all the same interests and values. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that not everything is going to align with others, and that’s okay. And this is an opportunity to make new friends and further solidify existing ones.

Many of my interests don’t align with a large share of my friends. Furthermore, my friends and I may disagree about many things. But I find the few things where our interests do align, and we strengthen our friendship around those activities.

If I want to watch a basketball game, I have my people. If I want to go to a Broadway show or go to a museum, I have my people. If I want to eat at a nice restaurant and go out at night, I have my people. If I want to learn more about a particular subject or have deep insightful conversations, I have my people.

Even if I grow apart from a friend over time, I can still find parts of life that we are both aligned on. I’ve found it key to optimize your friendships around those. And if you don’t have those people, join a community, befriend a co-worker, or go to an event in the city. You can likely meet that person and gain a new friend.

I’ve also begun to realize that life is a lot more nuanced and complex than it seemed in my 20s. And with that acknowledgement comes greater empathy for different perspectives and different circumstances.

In my 20s, almost everyone was single and career-oriented. Now in my 30s, I have friends of varying lifestyles, motivations, and priorities. And with this comes a greater appreciation for those different options.

Being open and honest about my flaws and imperfections comes easier now, too. I am notoriously bad at texting and calling friends. But I don’t hide it anymore. I apologize often, and my friends find it genuine and sincere. It’s these little moments of vulnerability that have a large impact on maintaining friendships.

Finally, priorities change over time. As you get older, there’s an increased likelihood you are caring for more people beyond yourself. Some of my friends have kids. Many are married. Others are in long-term relationships or have busy work lives. Yes, friendship is a two-way street. Both parties have to prioritize each other. But I also recognize that I might have it a little easier than those friends.

So be proactive. Being the first one to reach out can go a long way. For me, it’s often as simple as sharing an old photo or a joke that reminds us of something in the past. The beauty is that the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized my time in life is limited. In your 30s, there’s a higher likelihood the person on the other side has that same mindset and is willing to put in the work, too.

So to those of you who are on the brink of turning 30 or those of you like me who have spent a few years in your 30s, remember that it’s not too late to make new friends or to re-establish existing ones.

Life is all about connection, and connection leads to greater life satisfaction. Don’t let the inner voice kill your friendships or prevent you from creating new ones.