The past few weeks, I've been really wondering the key to making friendships as an adult. N shared this article that looks at the challenges of making friends after you're 30. Since then, this article is being shared by many Facebook friends.
My friend pool is quite diverse - filled with friends from different parts of my life. The friends span people who are very creative and artistic versus scientific, risk takers vs. cautious, married vs singled, have kids vs. none at all, and the list could go on. Bu the qualities the people who I call friends have in common are: genuinely good people, kind, loyal, and fun! I can't think of anyone in this friend pool who I can't laugh with until my sides ache.
I looked at G$'s friends and see the same qualities with the people he holds dear to him.
When I moved out to the Bay Area, I had quite a difficult time making friends and was lucky that G$'s friends accepted me with open arms and soon became my friends. It's hard to make that adult friend transition. As kids, you make friends based on who is in your class or is friends with your parents (ahem miss N); then you migrate to college and that's the best time to make friends since you traditionally live 3.5 minutes away from them. When I graduated, I still had all my college friends so close by and assumed that is how it would always be. But little did I know, that after college - friendships are hard to come by and take effort.
As I've transitioned into this phase, the ideal friendships are ones the person (if they're single) or couple get along well with both G$ and I. It's hard to have a close friendship when your spouse can't stand the sight of them or their partner. And like the article highlights, Facebook makes you feel like everyone in the world has millions of friends and is always having fun times!
Free time is also more a rarity than it used to be. Scheduling plans with friends who have kids poses a challenge around nap times, ballet schedules, swimming lessons, etc. And I am a challenge to make plans with during the week since my travel schedule is a bit sporadic and last minute. Having a few glasses of wine on a work night with girlfriends used to be easy - now I'm tired for a day or two after :)
I'm starting to learn that friends are still important in our lives, but aren't always the key to a social life that satisfies us. I feel lucky that I do have good friends (spanning my entire life) to count on when I have news to share (whether good or bad), and friends that I don't have to see for years but just pick up where I left off.
Has it been easy for you to make friends as you get older? Any secrets?
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