In my 20s, I had a slew of friends I would hang out with. Some were childhood friends, some were college friends, and some were friends I met at work. As I aged into my 30s and 40s, some of those friendships fizzled out naturally due to people moving, getting married, having kids, changing careers, or no longer sharing the same interests and ideas of fun.
However, many of my long-time friendships have flourished despite the different paths my friends and I have taken (though it does take effort). And during my nearly two decades of being a parent, I have established new friendships along the way, some dissolving and some holding strong.
According to research, my friendship evolution is typical. One study found that after age 25, people begin to lose friends until around age 45. From 45 to about 55, our number of friends tends to stabilize.
“Some friendships will stick and some won’t, and it’s not a testament to you and your value or lovability. It’s not a testament to some friendships were fake, and that’s why they didn’t last. It’s just the ebb and flow of life,” says Danielle Bayard Jackson, friendship educator. “Sometimes new people came into our lives and they are a fit to where we are in our season.”
How Friendships Evolve Over the Decades
During school-aged years, people tend to experience similar phases of life and connect through shared activities. As you enter your 20s, proximity to friendships becomes more apparent.
“This is often why people will report having friends at work who are older than them. We spend a lot of time with these people whom we may grow to become friends with due to relatability in career,” says Kelley Kitley, licensed clinical social worker. When people relocate to major cities, they may be more open to making new friends compared to those who have lived in the same location for most of their lives, she adds.
“It becomes less about creating new friendships and more about friendship maintenance,” says Bayard Jackson.
Friends who aren’t experiencing similar life events might start to drift. “And that’s okay,” says Kitley. “There doesn’t need to be resentful feelings. We can accept this change as a normalcy in human evolution and practice gratitude for the friendship that was.”
As you enter your 40s, people get more intentional with the friendships they value and put energy into due to balancing work while raising children and caring for aging parents.
“We also become more nostalgic and may reach out to someone in our past,” says Kitley.
For friendship in your 50s, 60s, and beyond post-retirement, you may have made friends with people in your neighborhood or parents of your kids’ friends, yet they begin to relocate or retire.
“Meeting people in mid-life might not be as fluid as it once was through school or work. Finding like-minded people in your community who enjoy similar activities through a walking group, book club, volunteering, helps people feel more of a sense of purpose and less lonely,” says Kitley.
5 Ways to Maintain Friendships Despite Life’s Demands
If you feel like a friendship is slowly slipping away or you are having a hard time maintaining friendships you value, consider the following tips.
Determine Your Core People
If you’re stretched for time, think about who your top people are and focus on them. Bayard Jackson says her clients who are extroverts often share that they feel guilty that they can’t connect with everybody and exhausted because they’re over-extended.
“It might sound unsexy to speak about friendship in such a technical and strategic way, but it’s necessary if you want to feel…clarity and ease in the way that you integrate friendship into your life,” she says.
Announce Your Intentions
Like with romantic relationships, Bayard Jackson says ask friends to be intentional about staying connected. For instance, tell them that talking every other month isn’t enough or that you want to make effort to see each other more often. “That automatically increases buy-in from other people and it reduces the ambiguity,” she says.
While this approach might come across as too demanding or unnecessary, she says, your friend might share the same feelings. “Some people…are trying not to appear like a high maintenance
friend so they don’t declare their desire for more time together.”
Try to Be Understanding
Even if you’re in a different season of life than friends you want to hold onto, try to relate to the
pressures in their life they may be facing like caring for kids or parents.
“You’re still looking for your friends to show understanding even if they don’t understand the details of your challenges and desires,” says Bayard Jackson. “Instead of getting caught up in ‘I don’t understand the details’ or ‘I can’t relate anymore,’ it can take a little bit of work to still show understanding, affirmation, and care.”
While it can be easy to let go of friendships just because a friend’s life is different than yours or has
changed, she says think about the circumstances that have changed and how you can keep them from interfering with your friendship. “When we ‘other’ our friend, it becomes hard to reconcile with her if we’re like ‘she’s so different,’” says Bayard Jackson.
Think about how you can navigate the situation. For instance, if your friend is a new mom, ask yourself, “How do I give us some grace because we don’t have experience being friends while she is
responsible for a baby?”
Get Creative With How You Hang Out Together
The way you socialize with friends in your 30s, 40s, and beyond may differ from how you used to in your 20s due to time constraints, obligations, and changing interests.
If frequent hours-long brunches aren’t an option, incorporate monthly brunches or dinners. You can also knock out two things at once with a friend. For instance, walk together to catch up, join a pickleball league together, or volunteer at the same place.
“[Invite] a friend to go with you to Cosco while she fills you in on her date last night,” says Bayard Jackson. “Do life together. Bake the hangouts into your life so your friendships are not reduced to
quarterly self-reports.”
You can even schedule a weekly or monthly phone call or Facetime. “Anything you can do to remove the mental labor of constantly trying to figure out days and times that work makes maintaining
friendship easier,” notes Bayard Jackson.
Danielle Bayard Jackson, Friendship Educator
Do life together. Bake the hangouts into your life so your friendships are not reduced to quarterly self-reports.
— Danielle Bayard Jackson, Friendship Educator
When all else fails, make it a point to send your friend a text in-between transitions from work to home, while waiting at an appointment or in line at the grocery store. Kitley says writing something
as simple as, “Hi, thinking of you. Hope you’re having a good day” will let your friend know you want to stay connected.
Embrace Healthy Conflict
While many people think that to make a friendship last there needs to be no arguments, Bayard Jackson says healthy conflict is the way to strengthen a friendship.
“I’m certainly not encouraging anyone to be combative or confrontational for the sake of getting into it, but we know from the research that people report feeling closer to one another after engaging in healthy conflict,” she says.
This means if there is tension, disagreement, or unsure feelings between friends, bringing it up and working through it can make friends feel closer. “Anything that you’ve been holding in that makes you feel uncomfortable, unseen, frustrated, dismissed, whatever it is, bring it up,” she says.
If doing so ends the friendship, then it might not have been strong to begin with. “If you want a long-lasting friendship, it has to be a place where you can share your needs, desires,
goals, etcetera,” Bayard Jackson says.
Keep in Mind
As the stages of life evolve, so do friendships. With a little effort and flexibility, you can maintain and strengthen friendships worth keeping.
