It's common for our friendships to change as we get older. 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. With a little effort and flexibility, you can maintain and strengthen friendships worth keeping.
"Some friendships will stick and some won't, and it's not a testament to you and your value or lovability.... It's just the ebb and flow of life. Sometimes new people came into our lives and they are a fit to where we are in our season."
During the school-aged years, people tend to experience similar life phases and connect through shared activities. As you enter your 20s, proximity becomes more important to friendships. "This is often why people report having friends at work who are older than them," says Kelley Kitley, LCSW. People who relocate to major cities may also be more open to making new friends, she adds.
In your 30s, friendships can grow stronger through shared experiences such as marriage and having kids. Research shows people in their 30s and 40s have the least leisure time of any generation. "It becomes less about creating new friendships and more about friendship maintenance," says Danielle Bayard Jackson, friendship educator. Friends who aren't experiencing similar life events might start to drift. "And that's okay," says Kitley.
As you enter your 40s, people become more intentional about the friendships they invest energy in as they balance work, raising children, and caring for aging parents. "We also become more nostalgic and may reach out to someone in our past," says Kitley.
In your 50s, 60s, and beyond, you may have made friends with neighbors or parents of your kids' friends, yet they begin to relocate or retire. "Finding like-minded people in your community through a walking group, book club, or volunteering helps people feel more purposeful and less lonely," says Kitley.
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.
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.
Like with romantic relationships, Bayard Jackson says to ask friends to be intentional about staying connected — tell them that talking every other month isn't enough, or that you want to see each other more often. "That automatically increases buy-in from other people and reduces the ambiguity," she says.
Even if you're in a different season of life than your friends, try to relate to the pressures they're facing, like caring for kids or parents. It's easy to let go of a friendship just because a friend's life has changed, but consider the circumstances. "When we 'other' our friend, it becomes hard to reconcile with her if we're like 'she's so different,'" says Bayard Jackson.
How you socialize in your 30s, 40s, and beyond may differ from your 20s. If frequent brunches aren't an option, try monthly dinners, or knock out two things at once — walk together, or volunteer at the same place. "Invite a friend to go with you to Costco while she fills you in on her week," 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 video chat. "Anything you can do to remove the mental labor of figuring out days and times that work makes maintaining friendship easier," notes Bayard Jackson.
When all else fails, make it a point to text your friend between transitions from work to home, 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," lets your friend know you want to stay connected.
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. "We know from research that people report feeling closer to one another after engaging in healthy conflict," she says.
This means that if there is tension, disagreement, or uncertainty between friends, bringing it up and working through it can make them feel closer.
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.