Recently someone approached me to ask “why are we so bad at friendships?” This wasn’t a personal question, directed at me and them, but a larger scale question that seeks to find the answers to the barriers people face as a whole, that are impacting our relation styles. While there are many factors, with each being potentially as nuanced and unique as the individuals themselves, here is a brief rundown of my personal opinion on the common broadscale issues we all seem to face to varying degrees.
1. Let me start by addressing the unwritten, and even sometimes unspoken rules by which our society lives! As a whole, our society seems to associate friendship with youth. We are surrounded by friends in school and during extended study. During these years we are largely expected to be “irresponsible and selfish” and “have foolish fun” with our friends. But the older we get the more it’s expected we stop “messing around” and “get serious” and “settle down.” Which means spend more time at work, find a monogamous partner, get onto the property ladder, and start a family. During this next phase, time with friends is viewed as frivolous, indulgent and allocated for special occasions like a birthday. We feel guilty for making time for or spending large amounts of time with friends, particularly if those hours spent are unproductive.
2. Which flows nicely into my next point, that time and convenience are huge factors. Everyone is busier with most couples having both parties in full time work, then fitting in child care, extended family, hobbies and housework in limited weekend or after work hours. People tend to have work friends to meet their social needs, because it’s people they see daily, have things in common with and ultimately don’t have to extend any “extra time” or “effort” to maintain the connections. Simply put, work friends are easier. And even if work friends move on, they’re replaced for you somewhat effortlessly by the employer. People seem to lack time and are too burnt out at the end of the day for real connection. They prefer to binge watch whilst mindlessly scrolling the screens.
3. Speaking of the screens, social media and media have changed significantly over the years - giving us a false sense of keeping up with each other. If you scroll at bedtime for an hour you’ll see your friend’s updates, and with a simple emoji reaction your obligation feels complete. However you don’t know the real story, just the created reality social media allows. When it comes to media that portrays friendships, you’ll commonly see the series comes to an end when the characters all marry and have children, or the children will be almost never in the show at all. It is very hard to find the balance when there is not many real life examples to model it from.
4. Why are there no real life examples to model from though? I feel like the casual nature of friendships, automatically dictates that they’re not given priority or any sense of importance. People don’t view them with the same sense of responsibility that they do other relationships. I suppose the truth is that people don’t seem to consider them as relationships at all. They’re “meant” to be carefree, easy, almost transient relationships that grow in the cracks of time and attention people have for them. If anyone ever has any at the same moment. Listening is a skill that is quickly atrophying, because while everyone wants someone to talk to…. if we want someone to listen we are expected to pay a psychologist! We are a little bit insular and self involved; we don’t always remember when our friend is having a surgery or important appointment. So we inadvertently let them down. We just want to zone out, and have nobody asking, or expecting anything of us.
5. Speaking of expectations, our expectations can get skewed, and a lot of the problem seems to be a lack of expectations entirely. If our life makes no difference without you for a year, as is referred to in all the memes about low maintenance friends, (who can go a year without interacting and pick up where they left off,) what value does your presence hold? We value that people still like and love us with no effort - but the lack of effort still makes a lonely existence. If all the relationships in our lives were like this, wouldn’t we be lonely? Would we accept a partner who said they loved us dearly but didn’t see us or interact with us for a year, only via a like on social media or the exchange of memes? Would we expect people to feel cared about while we did nothing to actually show care. Love is an action word, even platonically!
People with more time, like myself can have higher or mismatched expectations from others. As I have more availability to put time and effort into acts of care and support, I can easily be left feeling like my friendships are heavily one sided, while my friends can be left feeling like nothing is ever enough when they have given what little they had left to offer. And we do struggle to put ourselves in the positions of others. It’s hard to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. I have a close friend I write about fairly often who is really quite incompatible with me due to her busy life and large family and full time job. It can be tricky to make it work, although it is worth it for us both to keep trying. However, she’s a single woman who spends most of her free time with her large family and nieces and nephews. I have a small insular family, as does my husband. I imagine, one day in the future I’ll be busy with grandchildren and the responsibilities of that, while my friend will be retired, her family more grown and less available. She will be more available and needing more socially, while I am less available and needing more space socially. And only then, will we truly understand things from the other persons perspective. Knowing and feeling it (or living that reality) are quite different.
That’s it for now folks, tune in again next week for the last 5 reasons I feel we can be good people who are bad at friendships!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
