2-3-4 Friday - why we lose friends

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

As you grow up, you might experience a slow dwindling of your friendships.

Go on, try writing down a list of the 5 friends you feel closest to today.

Then try writing down a list of those 5 friends you felt closest to 5 years ago.

Chances are, those friends probably have changed significantly.

Why?

The common answer is that people move on. They grow up, have different experiences, and you find your lives on different trajectories. You thus realise they don’t fit as well with you anymore.

Think of friendship as your favourite pair of shoes. Over the short to medium term, they grow more and more comfortable. But then some time later, holes start appearing. The soles start wearing off.

It no longer seems to be as comfortable being around them as before.

The problem isn’t that we outgrow our friends, or that our friends outgrow us.

It’s that we never seem to bother to repair and mend those holes that appear.

If you recall how you made your first great friend, you might have met them at school, spent lots of time together, and then slowly it became meals together.

And more coffees together.

After a while, that gets boring. You wonder why you don’t feel as close as before.

Part of the reason is that you no longer turn to them for help like before, especially when you have different schedules.

You have a work issue, you might not text your friend, but speak to close work colleague.

Slowly you find yourself drifting apart.

Another reason may be that you do not speak about the hurt that you feel.

You might find it really discomforting to say to a friend,

hey, I felt quite frustrated and invalidated by what you said just now.

Your friend might have said it because he felt that you had known each other for a long time, and that you might have understood the intent behind the malice.

You might think,

Gosh, we are just friends. There’s no need to treat it that seriously.

Right?

Wrong.

Friendships are still relationships. And if they matter to you, treating your friend as a significant “other” who deserves the same amount of love and attention as your partner matters.

1 talk

You don’t just make friends. You have to keep them.

1 tip

I’m lazy. I go to the shop, and buy the same cake of soap every time. You’d see me carrying out 17 bars of Dove soap.

That’s why my approach to friendships are the same.

Because I think the friend you had, won’t be the friend you keep. Friends grow.

And you grow too.

What we pay less attention to is the friendship that exists between us.

We focus on where to meet, how to meet, what to do, but we focus less on the substance and the quality of the friendship.

If there’s one thing I’d hope you take away today, it’s this.

Nurture the friendship, like you would nurture your romance. Give time to it. Talk about the difficult things that happen.

Don’t just let it slide , just because ‘it’s just a friendship.’

It’s not just a friendship.

It is a friendship.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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