By my early 30s, I’d moved 16 times. I’d transferred schools 5 times, lived in 14 different cities, and moved boxes in and out of countless apartments and houses.

I’d always considered this my social superpower: I knew how to harness the allure of being “the new kid.” I was both extroverted and judgy; I sorted people quickly and built friendships that blazed quick and hot. (There’s nothing like an expiration date to cement intense friendships.) The cycle was: meet, befriend, leave, over and over again.

It took me years to realize that this supposed “superpower” was holding me back from real, deep friendship.

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Do We Still Need Friends? The Allure of the “Everything” Relationship

It’s not just me who lacks friendship skills. From the “loneliness crisis” to viral content on “how to make friends as an adult,” it seems a lot of us are craving friendship.

This lack feels baked into our culture. America doesn’t prioritize or center friendships, instead it’s largely oriented around romantic partnerships. (You can’t, for instance, share health insurance with a friend, no matter how close you are.)

As many of our community affiliations (such as churches or civic groups) have dwindled in the past 50 years, more and more of our emotional and practical needs have fallen to our romantic partners. Our romantic expectations have never been higher: we want someone who will not only sweep us off our feet and do their fair share of domestic drudgery, they also need to also be our best friend.

These expectations have given rise to what psychotherapist Esther Perel dubs, “The Everything Marriage”:

“Everything that we wanted from a traditional marriage — companionship, family, children, economic support, a best friend, a passionate lover, a trusted confidante, an intellectual equal — we are asking from one person what an entire village once provided. And couples are crumbling under the weight of so much expectation.”

(emphasis mine)

Writing about this phenomenon for The Atlantic, author Rhaina Cohen calls it the “self-expressive” marriage: “spouses expected their partnership to be the site of self-discovery and personal growth.” (Gift link here.)

As Perel and others have pointed out: expecting one person to be your everything generally doesn’t work. No one person is going to share all our interests, fill every single one of our needs, always be sexy and smart and interesting.

Taking responsibilities for our needs means when one person can’t meet a specific need, we can find support in other relationships. I’m lucky to have a fantastic husband, but we don’t do everything together—he loves outer space and I love reality TV. I refused to see Project Hail Mary and he, in turn, doesn’t watch Love Island.

We need friends to share our quirky hobbies with. We need them to help with care- and domestic work. We need people who’ll willingly listen to us complain about our spouses or our jobs or our kids. We need people to split the cost of a vacation house or a Netflix account.

But for all these known benefits, many of us still struggle.

Why Keeping Friendships Can Be So Hard & What to Do About It

All the things that make friendship easy, like proximity and stage of life, can work against you as life goes on. That friend who lived down the hall in your college dorm now lives across the country. Things that were easy now take effort, and we only have so much effort to go around.

Here is my Very Scientific List of Things that Make Maintaining Friendship Difficult:

* Physical distance

* Changing life circumstances: one friend gets married, has a kid or takes on other caretaking responsibilities, loses their job, etc.

* Lack of clarity around the friendship. The label “best friends” hardly seems adequate for some of these relationships, which are more like platonic partnerships. But our culture/families doesn’t really understand ordering life around friendship vs. a romantic relationship. (More of this in The Atlantic article linked above)

Yet maintaining friendships across these changes is possible! A highly scientific survey of readers on Substack Notes and on my Facebook revealed some great tips:

* Embrace the awkwardness. If it’s been a while, things may feel weird at first. That’s okay! My tendency is to act like I know what’s going on, but I’m learning a better strategy is just to own your ignorance and ask questions (“What’s your kid’s name?”) People are, generally, pretty forgiving.

* Get creative with technology: emails, group chats, Marco Polo, Facebook, and doing book clubs over Zoom were just some of the tools mentioned.

* Reciprocity, but with grace. Friendships flourish when both sides do their best to connect while still understanding that sometimes it may be harder for one party or the other.

* Irregular visits. Face-to-face time, even years apart, has a way of making it feel like no time has passed.

* Understand there are different levels of friendship, and that’s okay. That person who used to be your confidante might be more of a casual friend now, and that’s okay. A healthy social network includes varying levels of intimacy.

The Secret Friendship Ingredient? Accountability

Growing up as the consummate “new kid” I was never lonely, but I also never learned how to work through conflict.

I distinctly remember moving to my last elementary school in Missoula, Montana. My dad had retired from the army and announced: no more moves. Shortly thereafter, there was some kind of 4th grade blow up, and it felt like half the class was mad at me.

I thought, “Oh well, I’ll probably move soon anyway, I can tolerate everyone being mad at me for a month or two.”

Then I stopped short. There would be no more moves. Many of these same kids would be my classmates through high school!

This was the first, but definitely not last, time I had to learn to be accountable (ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) Accountability, I’ve since realized, is the secret ingredient that makes relationships viable. More on that next week…

What do you think? Are you good at staying in touch? Do you have routines or rhythms for how often you’re in contact with old friends? Please share your stories, tips, and questions in the comments.

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