Remember when making friends was as easy as swapping stickers or bringing a ball to the playground? The days of BFF by proximity were fun—and easy. But once you hit adulthood, you find your friends are scattered across the map, and maintaining true friendships requires a degree of social acrobatics with each new life stage. Finding people with similar interests, similarly aged children, and a similar ability to participate in activities becomes more complicated, and simply nurturing the friendships that already exist takes time and energy—things many Americans feel they have little of.
But forming and maintaining friendships, whether in person or through tech, can actually yield health benefits. Many studies have shown that people who feel connected to others have better health and are more likely to recover when they fall ill. In fact, one study conducted by the American Cancer Society suggests women with larger social networks had higher rates of breast cancer-specific and overall survival.
According to Susan Knapp, LMFT, a marriage and family therapist, “friendships and special connections are essential to our health and well-being.” But she stresses that the friendships need to be “healthy” in that they support while also respect boundaries. “Healthy adult friendships are unique because they are not tit-for-tat. Rather, they are there when we need them, and it’s OK for there to be periods of time when the connection is a bit cooler as life unfolds,” Knapp says.
She also points out that not everyone needs a wide network of friends. “You determine what works for you—some people are perfectly happy with only a few friends—and that is fine,” she says, explaining that it’s more about the quality of the relationship that counts.
Sidebar—I’m particularly curious about whether there are differences between male and female friendships, because my husband’s connections to his friends looks so different from my own.
Knapp says that while everyone is different, “men tend to focus less on details, but still value the relationship,” she explains. She offered the example of a friend’s husband who shared with his wife that his friend had just become a grandfather. When his wife asked what they named the baby, he didn’t know.
Men. Lol. But Knapp insists that there is no right or wrong. It’s just different.
Here are some tips she offered for making and sustaining friendships in adulthood:
- Attend events connected to your hobbies and interests
- Try apps like Bumble BFF
- Attend social gatherings, even if you have to push yourself a little
- Try new things to expose yourself to new people
- Really think about what type of friends to want … and what type of friend you want to be
One last piece of advice from Knapp—do not gossip behind friends’ backs. “I believe as a therapist and a friend, if someone asks you to keep a piece of information between the two of you, do it,” she says.
This aligns with my own personal mantra when it comes to friendships: If it’s not my story to tell, I don’t tell it.
Here’s to putting yourself out there and meeting new people!
