Making and keeping friends as an adult

Our friends have a major impact on our lives. Think how you can sense where people are going to end up, just by watching who they hang out with.

So pick your friends well. Choose people who hold similar values and aspirations to yours, because they’ll help to achieve them. Think how difficult it is to work, for example, if your mates are determined to party!

Choose friends who lift your mood, who have a thirst for knowledge, and who are serious about their goals, work and relationships. Who get things done and don’t waste time. And who are genuinely happy to see you succeed. That saying: ‘Be wary of people who don’t clap when you win’ is really true.

Don’t shy away from friends whose interests and opinions differ from yours, because it’s healthy to have your beliefs and expectations challenged. And recognise that what you need from your friends will change as you go through life. 

Their numbers will also fall. Basically because it’s far harder to make new friends once you’ve left college. The world of work is highly competitive, and so colleagues rarely share their real interests or vulnerabilities. Workmates get reassigned and move on. And it’s hard to be friends with anyone who’s earning lots more than you, lots less, or has a very different status to you.

You also get far busier, and much pickier about who you hang out with. You’re less willing to meet almost anyone for a night on the town, and have no time for the endless manipulators, drama queens and egomaniacs you tolerated in college.

Good friends

And the difficulties increase once everyone starts seriously coupling up. Because our interests, goals and values change as we go through each of life’s big transitions. Such as getting married or starting a family.

So for example, one of the hardest things newly married couples have to adjust to is the realisation that they will need to change all their friends. Some of them will be the same people, of course, who just happened to marry at the same time as they did, and who understand how that changes friendships.

But most won’t, because committed couples need to be friends with committed couples. And to do couple things together. Marriages quickly get into trouble if one or both partners hold on to their single friends, and go on doing single stuff with them.

Even making friends with other couples is harder, because it’s like matchmaking for two. Having children only make matters worse. Play dates might seem to help, but few ‘parent friends’ become close. That’s because you didn’t choose them. Your children chose them, but only because their kids were about the same size as yours.

So as you get older you’ll probably have fewer friends. But actually it’s better that way. Because a few really good friends who truly match your needs are far more valuable than endless drinking buddies who just lead you astray.

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