The 5 Hard Truths I’ve Learned About Friendships In My Mid-20s
Friendships will either push you forward or hold you back
Photo by Felix Rostig on Unsplash
Friendship is like water. We need it to survive, we crave it when it’s scarce, it runs through our veins and yet we forget its value simply because it’s always available — Kate Leaver
Your 20s is a time of constant change.
Social psychologist Meg Jay estimates that we will make up to 80% of life’s major decisions in our 20s. Decisions that will impact the trajectory of our lives such as choosing a career, marriage, and having kids.
Or if you’re like me, recently signing up to a death pledge (Original French meaning of a mortgage).
The one thing that is never discussed is how drastically your friendships will change in your 20s. No one tells you how to maintain friendships until it is too late or how difficult it is to create new friendships as an adult.
When the convenience of seeing your friends every day in school is removed, priorities grow and values change, many friendships simply fade away. Not with a dramatic boom, but gradually over time. Like a river chipping away at two mountains until they are stand-alone islands.
Being 26 years old, I’ve experienced my fair share of making and removing friendships from my life. I’ve been feeling the impact that working full-time and having additional responsibilities has on your ability to maintain adult friendships.
Here are 5 hard truths I wished someone told me earlier about friendships. Having this knowledge earlier would have saved me a lot of heartbreak, time, and energy.
Hard Truth #1: Your Personal Growth Will Upset Some People.
“Your past started the friendship, but your current version can’t maintain it.” —
I am 26 years old now and I am starting to see how my friendship patterns are changing. I’ve become distant from most of the groups I went to high school with. There is no drama or gossip to tell you, we just grew apart.
Most of our friendship was built on having a good time. Drinking, partying and getting up to mischief. Once I started to become more intentional with my life, we no longer had anything to bond over.
The conversation we usually had consisted of talking about:
Where we got drunk last week.
Where we will get drunk this week.
Where we are planning to get drunk next week.
This environment is great if you want to party, but is sterile if you want to grow into a better version of yourself.
Since I’ve become more focused on personal development, building a career, and launching side businesses in my spare time, I have less and less tolerance for meaningless conversations. I just don’t have the time or energy.
I won’t lie. There will always be a part of me that is sad we have drifted so much. These people were part of the most important events in my life: high school graduation, turning 18, going to university, etc.
But the grief I feel is only fleeting. And a reminder of how much progress I’ve made. “What you used to have in common doesn’t matter. Memories can enrich a friendship, but they can’t sustain them on their own,” writes Jessica Wildfire
Life is about change and becoming a better version of yourself. Hard choices now create an easier life later. And some of those hard choices mean prioritizing your growth over friendships that have died long ago.
“Friendships fade with life. It doesn’t have to be a bad ending. We can outgrow when we don’t have anything in common or when we’re communicating with a shell of a person,” writes Jessie Vee.
Hard Truth #2: Your Ambition Will Make You Misunderstood or Disliked.
Not everyone will be with you on your journey to the top.
If you’re someone who wants more out of life and is committed to improving yourself, you’re going to have to accept that you will be lonely at certain stages of your journey.
Your ambition can make you feel like your path is splitting off from others. There is a price to pay for wanting more out of life. But for me, the pain of ambition is easier to take than the pain of regret.
Some people just won’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Others will feel intimated that you’re taking control of your life and it reminds them of how much they aren’t.
I’ve had “friends” who would chastise me for reading books. Seriously. They were annoyed that I read books. I wasn’t even talking about the books that I was reading to them. They just didn’t like that I read so many books.
I should have seen it for the red flag that it was.
At first, I tried to hide my ambition and love for personal development. I kept my big, hairy audacious goals to myself because I didn’t want my friends to think I was weird or why I cared so much.
I would hide what I was working on to make them feel more comfortable. I would lower my intelligence so that I didn’t upset anyone. I was freakin’ miserable.
It worked for a time. But after a while, I found myself feeling even more isolated, and less satisfied with how I was spending my time. The more I had to filter myself and lower my vibes to fit in, the lonelier I felt.
At some point, I decided that I didn’t want to hide anymore. I deserved to find a group of people that valued my curiosity and ambition. I would also rather be alone than constantly censoring myself.
I’ve learned that many friendships won’t survive ambition. And that’s fine. There is often no malice in it. I’ve made more space for a small group of people who are supportive of what I do.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to go after what you want. And trying to make everyone else happy is the fastest way to make sure you remain unhappy.
Don’t lower yourself just to fit in with them. Find a new group. And embrace what brings you joy and energy.
Hard Truth #3: Not All Friendships Are Created Equally.
“It’s essential to acknowledge how some friendships last a season, lifetime, or somewhere in between” —
Some friendships are timeless and endure throughout our lives. Savor these friendships. Integrate them into your life. These are the people who will be with you for a long time.
I’ve got a close group of 2–3 friends from high school that I speak to or see every week. I am active in planning events and I put a lot of effort into celebrating milestones and birthdays.
Some friendships are in our lives for a season and nothing more. Enjoy these friendships for what they are. Situational friendships are no less meaningful. They can teach you a lot about yourself and the time of your life you find yourself in.
I look back fondly on the people I met during my solo travels in New Zealand. Despite many of them living in Melbourne, we rarely talk or catch up. But I still look back happily on the memories we created together.
Not every friendship is made to be in your life forever. And that’s okay. The length of a friendship does not detract from how meaningful it was to you.
Hard Truth #4: Time Is Not An Indicator Of The Quality of Friendship
Just like how past performance in the stock market is no indicator of future performance, the length of a friendship is not a reliable indicator of the quality of friendship either.
One of my best friends is stuck in a high school friendship group that is not satisfying. While I have actively distanced myself from this group, she continues to slave away to try to fit in even when they constantly treat her like sh*t.
They exclude her, don’t invite her to events, and are generally insensitive to her needs as a friend. Those reasons are enough for me to distance myself and create new friends. I even suggested she do this herself.
But she will say things like: “we’ve been friends for so long” or “we’ve gone through so much together”. But if a friendship stops being meaningful, it is time to move on. Sunk costs can’t be recovered no matter how much you try.
There is no point in trying to salvage a past friendship by sacrificing the future and making yourself miserable in the present.
Friendship length does not determine quality. Quality determines quality.
Hard Truth #5: When Someone Shows You Who They Are, Believe Them.
Someone’s past behavior is not an indicator of future behavior. But it is still the most reliable information you have about someone.
When I was younger, I was always that person who has given people the benefit of the doubt. A second or third chance. Even when people wronged me and didn’t apologize for it.
I am much less likely to do so now.
The first thing I look for in a friendship is integrity above all else.
In 2020, I cut a friendship off with a close friend after I witness them make one too many low-integrity decisions. I saw them lie and cheat behind someone’s back and pretend as if nothing happened to their face.
I’ve seen them do this before when we were younger. I thought they would grow out of it. I started to realize that this was a pattern of behavior, not a coincidence.
I thought to myself that it was only a matter of time before they did something like that to me. I wasn’t going to give them the chance. As Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Summary:
In your 20s, friendships will come and go with the changes in your life. Some friendships will naturally fade. Others will blossom and grow. And some friendships you should actively distance yourself from.
The 5 hard truths of friendships I’ve experienced:
The pain of growth might mean the pain of losing certain friendships. Would you rather lower yourself to stay the same or grow into the person you know you want to become?
Wanting more out of life might require you to leave some people behind. Not everyone will be with you on your journey. Surround yourself with people who support you.
Some people are only in your life for a moment or a season. Others are here to stay. Value all friendships for what they are.
Quality friendships are not measured in time. Quality friendships are those that are meaningful and mutually beneficial.
Judge people on their behavior, not their words. Behavior is all that matters, words are cheap.
While friendships change, people also change.
The person you were friends with in the past, but not currently friends in the present, does not mean you won’t be friends in the future. Sometimes you’ve got to let people go today to have a better future tomorrow.
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