Making Friends Post 20-Something Is Harder Than Meeting a Mate

[PrincessFiona]

Here is my offering of hope: It gets easier in your 40's. People are more settled and established and are more comfortable as parents and individuals (says the closet introvert who was out with 5 friends last night).

It will happen for you again. Many of my relationships now have that highschooly feel about them too .... fun, care-free, and yet a little more grown up and honest.

Seriously, if I can make friends in my 40's I primise you that anyone can....really....I mean it.

[Liisi]

When I was single, I had many wonderful, close friendships and spent a lot of time with friends... come to think of it, most of them were single, too! Now that I have a partner, it's different. We just want to spend all of our time together. I find myself putting so much of my "social" energy into our relationship that I am less motivated to keep up with friendships, but it would probably be healthier for me in the long run to work at maintaining friendships. Right now, my partner and I have many "friends/acquaintances" - people we get together with irregularly for a dinner here or a concert there... but it's so different from how my friendships used to be. My friendships used to be really deep and intense - we'd have hearty discussions for hours, on big things like politics, psychology and human nature, our spiritual lives, love and relationships, and the meaning of life... we'd hug, cry... we'd see each other so regularly that we started conversations with things like "So, how'd that thing go yesterday?" instead of needing to catch each other up on the last 3 months of our lives, you know? That's the way it is now with my friends - we only see each other once every couple of months, so conversations are very skim-the-surface and generalized, almost like we're giving each other newsletter-style updates: "Oh, things are good, busy! We went to visit my brother last month, and I've been getting back to yoga every now and then, blah blah...When did you cut your hair? It looks great!" It's a strange feeling. And yet, I feel like I had plenty of time to enjoy the single life and the abundance of time with friends, and now, I'm in a new phase of my life - very focused on my relationship with my partner. Right now, I'm okay with having friendships that are more casual and sporadic than they used to be. That might change in the future... but I feel good with how it is right now. It also helps that I'm an introvert and enjoy my own company!