Making Adult Friendships

I don’t understand why it can be so difficult to make friends in adulthood. To be honest, I assumed it would be easy to make friends for people who are roughly 35 years and younger. And after that age bracket, I thought making friends would become much harder.

But I was so WRONG!

It was so much easier to make friends when were kids. And now it seems nearly impossible when we became adults.

Friendships During Adulthood

Let me clarify. It seems nearly impossible to make  GOOD friends after high school or college. I could be wrong, but from my point of view, somewhere between the ages of 18-22, most people stop trying to make good friends or ensure a deep friendship.

It seems like everyone is just looking for a good time. OR! People don’t give 100% into their friendships and someone ends up working so much harder than the other.

Which is so crazy to me because when we enter adulthood, we each have a better understanding of who were as well as our interests without yet becoming rigid in our ways so that we’re no longer open-minded to new ideas and experiences.

As we became young adults, I thought more people would be ready to meet new people and learn about different cultures and view points. On the contrary, many young adults cling so tightly to the friends they grew up with that they don’t open themselves up to new people.

Why aren’t we giving the same energy to our platonic relationships as we do our romantic ones?

#NONEWFRIENDS

Friendships During Childhood

On another note, when we were younger, friendships were either based on proximity(school or neighborhood) or who you knew (mom’s best friends child). And even with that, your best friend that year may have been someone who happened to be same age as you, you wore the same backpack the 1st day of school, or your favorite colors were the same.

In other words, there was no real depth to the friendship. We only made friends with people when it was convenient.

If you were lucky as a child, your childhood friends remained your friends into adulthood. Along the way, you both grew and matured together and your relationship became a deeper one.

But then a weird shift happens during adolescence. Friendships become based on status and popularity. As shallow as these friendships tend to be, but here we now see ourselves thinking critically about who to becomes friends with.

As adolescents merge into a young adult, they are now into somewhat of a rebellious phase. Almost no one is off limits when it comes to friends.

Between then (young adult) and now (adulthood), when did we stop being so open? And why?

Now that we’re older, we can actually create deeper connections with one another by way of culture, activities, or similar was in music, movies or books. As a result of having common interests, two individuals can create a long-lasting friendship that is able to withstands the trails ad tribulations within the relationship.

How Do We Benefit from This?

Are we afraid of something? Maybe some past friendships or relationships scar our mind or hearts and now those past memories are preventing us from opening up to one another.

Because if I do witness adult friendships, they tend to be extremely superficial and shallow. Yet they consider each other friends even though they treat one another as an acquaintance to hang out with on the weekends.

I believe that our lives can become richer when we allow ourselves to open up no new friendships or create a deeper connections with the individuals we already have in our lives.

Here is this adult person who believes you are this interesting-ass person but you already have it in your mind that you don’t need anyone else in your life?

I don’t understand who you could know that without getting to know the person.