Loved the original post, and loved it again when I re-read it just now. (And can’t wait to read your book)
I’m 40 and have been experiencing the friendship dip for probably 10 years now (slowly at first, then very quickly) when most of my friends started having kids and I chose not to. As the nuclear family gets tighter/stronger/bigger, friendship ties tend to get looser. Of course, lack of time & planning difficulties play a major part in this, but I’ve observed something else… friendships evolve from a place of “shared experiences” in your twenties (trips, nights out, meandering days etc) to a place of “catchups” (dinners or lunches during which you each go through bullet point updates on your respective lives). You go from BEING in each others’ lives to HEARING about each others’ lives. Intuitively, it doesn’t feel like that could be the foundation for a strong friendship (but I could be wrong). It certainly doesn’t make you feel close to one another.
There’s also the added complication of your spouse becoming your #1 confidante (and often times, a feeling that talking about your marriage could be perceived as airing dirty laundry). This in turn means you start sharing less and less with friends. And decreased vulnerability leads to weaker friendships.
As for men - my very simplistic observation is that while they are quick to make superficial friends through shared interests / hobbies, they are very slow to deepen friendships - and again I think this is tied to the vulnerability (or lack thereof) point above. Men are generally conditioned to keep friendships light and banter-filled; vulnerability/earnestness is viewed as “cringe”.
100%, and I'm a man who, at age 57, for the first time IN MY LIFE, made friending a priority. Diane and I didn't raise kids, we had grandkids but they weren't a huge lift, we just had each other and were going through the world together. I do wish I'd held onto more close friends but really, I was good.
Then dementia. So we moved back to Evanston after 25 years away and it took well over a year until I could catch my breath, with all the changes. We had settled into our place and we had caregivers who got along with Diane (several quit or were let go by me). Diane had gone through that sad transition but was now living peacefully in the liminal space where cognition isn't required.
And then a muscle relaxed. I started to reach out to the world again. I realized my co-working space was shitty (and has since closed) and switched to the one where everyone on Google said, "What a great coworking space." That's where we started Soup Club. I had run through all of our old friends from when we used to live here, and realized they've all moved on, not interested in reconnecting with me (or me with a demented wife; their loss).
So I found other guys, mostly my age, who were looking for connections. I think there are a lot of us. Some connections stay at the surface level but then, when I'm not expecting it, one will go deeper. Or someone will find my newsletter and that sparks an intimate conversation. But first I had to lean into friending as if my survival depended on it. Which, given the mental health stats on caregivers, isn't a stretch.
"You go from BEING in each others’ lives to HEARING about each others’ lives." -- Thank you for putting words to something I've experienced too (also in my 40s/married/no kids/friends mostly do have kids).
I have had some more luck in the past couple of years on the 'being' side of things, but primarily with folks whose kids are getting older, and definitely through the route of shared activities/interests.
Agree that this is a very astute point from Eva — and the way I've countered it is aiming for more experiences that feel more like "just being together" the way we were in our 20s. In practice, that means very casual come-over-and-hang-for-dinner, a weekend where I stay at someone's house, or a longer vacation we plan together (like I just did with one of my best friends and her kids). Some of those are bigger time commitments but some (the ambient hang, let's just fold laundry together!) are not.
I've found that Shabbat is a helpful organizing principle to routinize the "very casual come-over-and-hang-for-dinner" thing. It's weekly, it's already ritualized, and it can be made low-barrier-to-entry (you can buy bread instead of baking challah, etc.)
YES! This has come up again and again in my interviews — the people who've created these sorts of connections are ones who are willing to make things VERY regular and very low-pressure. "Every Friday night, we go to this brew pub where our kids run around in circles, come hang out," "every Sunday at noon, we have a brunch spread and endless coffee, please come next week if you can't come this week," etc. etc.
I just sent a bunch of texts yesterday to start something like this! Family playdate -- literally just come hang out in our yard Sunday afternoon. It took a lot to get over the social anxiety of reaching out but it feels worth it and more important than ever these days.
I think the people who experienced a lot of ambient "just being together"-ness in their 20s that they lack/miss now are maybe solely people who experienced college and college proximity-forced time with people? I know for me -- a person who did not go to college --, at 44, I probably have a similar number of close friends now as I ever did (which is a handful), and spend -- if you account for COVID-caution lessening of social activities (and for a person who is basically a hermit and has never wanted to spend too much time being social with people regardless)-- pretty much the same amount of time with them as I ever have. But people who are basing their expected/desired level of friend saturation on college/just-post-college days are necessarily going to have a pretty heavily weighted metric, I think.
You make such an excellent point here re: sharing less about your primary romantic relationship with your friends out of a desire to avoid airing dirty laundry. There are many topics you can choose to be vulnerable about with friends, but a major romantic relationship takes up a huge amount of air in your life and headspace. Feeling like I have to swallow that down out of a sense of fairness to both my spouse and our mutual friends and keep to more neutral conversational ground does not engender the kind of closeness that shared vulnerability can offer.
Eva, I'm 38 and have had a similar experience. That shift from being in someone's life to hearing about it is really difficult, especially when it's mediated through social media like Instagram and you are seeing and hearing it, but with so much distance. I really don't enjoy keeping up with my friends through their Instagram feeds, mostly because I don't like the app itself and try to spend as little time on it as possible.
I'm male, childless and have been mostly single as an adult (by choice), with the exception of a few romantic relationships in the past 3-4 years. I'm fortunate that I usually have the energy to call up my friends to see what they're up to and make plans, and I don't mind going places by myself and striking up conversations with people I don't know. I work in the art world in Denver and am a musician, so I have a fairly social lifestyle between those two things. I have an open mind about what's right for me at any given time, whether that's actively dating or feeling fine on my own. I also enjoy the solitude and freedom that come with being single. But there's always a limit to that, right? I always wish I could see my friends more and dig in deeper with them, and it's hard when virtually all of my friends are married or married with kids. The dynamic changes a lot. And sometimes I miss having that go-to confidant that I had in previous romantic relationships. Maybe some of what I'm describing dovetails with what Anne Helen is finding through her work on male friendships. I'm lucky to have what I have, and I know other men are struggling and don't have an outlet to talk about it. But I still can't shake the feeling that it seems harder than it used to be to see my friends as often as I'd like.
Yes! From being to hearing. I moved from Montreal to the Ottawa area 8 years ago for work, it's a 2.5 hours drive. I have stayed in touch with a core group of old friends, and accumulated some friends here via my kids - mostly parents I get along with, also former colleagues when I change jobs and I keep in touch. 3 observations:
1. Last year I celebrated my 40th. I sent an invitation months in advance, people made plans including friends from Montreal. But I had to delay it by a week, which felt horrible (especially as someone who is terrified of organizing a party and have nobody show up). Not a single one of my old friends was able to make it, which felt awful, but a lot of new friends and acquaintances did come. It was also a house warming and it showed me that my new community was there for me, which was super lovely. We are in each other's lives through kids, neighborhood activities, running into each other at the grocery or the library. I hear from close friends who live in other cities or countries, and we support each other through voicemails, but it requires conscious efforts and we cannot literally be there to hold hands when we need it.
2. Divorce with shared custody has been a game changer. I have a ton more time and energy, a lot more reasons to reach out to do things with other families, and I can do things on my own or with my boyfriend sans kids. I'm doing a lot of things I technically could have done while married but never did. It led me to a housemates situation with a family of 4 (we're a family of 3, with 2 part-time members). Women have been reaching out to me in droves to tell me they are at various stages of considering divorce. The strongest links are with other moms in the same situation, we're syncing weekends so we can hang out with and without the kids.
3. My former spouse, who has had the exact same conditions, does not have friends. Maybe one buddy, a dad friend from daycare, with whom he goes to see movies twice a year. Some of it is personality, but some of it is structural and I just don't know how he lives like that with nobody close.
Anaïs, me too about divorce with shared custody giving me more time and interest to apply to friendships! I love it!! I felt like my spending time with my spouse was always the 'default,' for Saturday nights, for vacations, etc, and that I had to actively chose (and maybe ask permission, at least in my head) to make plans with someone else. Now at age 42 I can ask myself, what do I feel like doing and who do I feel like doing it with?
I also feel like as a small household (me and my daughter half the week), we're easier to make plans with. It's easier for the two of us to join up with a family of four than for two families of four to try to line up everything.
It is still tricky sometimes to be vulnerable and ask other people if they'd like to share an experience that is typically 'for families' only. I have realized that I prefer vacations with friends and their children, but it feels like a big ask to suggest a joint vacation when that's 'family time.'
Your point about catchups is so salient! As I like to call it the friendship interactions become status updates. Almost feels like a work Annual General Meeting where you go around to room and provide an update. For the single friend/no kid crew it adds an extra layer of hurt since your status updates don't align or really resonate with others. It honestly feels like a good decade since I've actually been friend friends with my friends who are moms. Like I can't remember the last time we "did an activity" together, or acted goofy, or shared a bit.
I've also found making friends with men to be easier as the friendships are able to be based around a shared hobby. Everything is like super surface level...Like I have friends (buddies really) where I'm actually not positive what their first name is. But my men friends are more in my life (like we spend time together, have shared jokes, have proper banter) in a way I don't have with my mom/girl friends.
A perfectly articulated summary Eva. I’m nearly 38 and feeling all of this very much. I’ve recently experienced a breakdown of what I considered my “core” friendship group, lots of it related to issues with not airing dirty laundry etc. I’ve been distracted with my young kids but now I’m coming out of the fog a bit and I’m wondering wtf has happened to my friendships.
I think it's really interesting that the parameters of this column are set around becoming a couple, and navigating friendship around that. Even the examples of people who "get" how to friend are no from people who are single / operate within webs of friendship all the time, but from an older generation. (No shade on that older generation; I take the point about generational differences.)
I emigrated to the US, alone, when I was 22 years old. I have no family in this country. I do not feel pulled toward coupledom. I am happily and cheerfully single and do not have any children. And so my support systems are entirely put together through friendship. I have friends near and far - my immediate, local community; my friends scattered all over the Midwest but within driving distance; my long-distance friendships mostly maintained online and through the mail. I'm certain I'm not the only person for whom this is the norm, embedded in found family through friendship for a variety of reasons. I wonder what those of us who have had to put our energy into friendship this way might know / offer about friendship too?
I agree with you. A lot of this commentary doesn’t apply to my life-single & no plans to ever marry or live with a partner, don’t want kids. Live far away from my parents who are in good health & live close to my four siblings who will be the ones taking care of them if they need it (I did my family caregiving work as a child and am DONE). I am fairly free, extroverted, and social. Yet friendship has been such a struggle the last few years of my late 30s as others have moved, had kids, or otherwise deprioritized friendships. I can make new friends, but when I have to do that almost continuously, it’s exhausting.
I just finished writing up one of my favorite interviews, with a woman who's cultivated a really vast array of friendships and community support — which unintentionally is largely composed of other people who don't have kids. In some situations, it just really makes sense to match your rhythms with others whose rhythms are already similar to your own.
I’m interested in this too— I have essentially always been single/no kids and (out of necessity) cultivated a web of friends who live near and far from me. Many of those friends are coupled and have kids but not all. Those relationships just look a little different, as a long distance friendship looks different to a neighborhood bestie.
I think more than shared rhythms, I find it is shared values. People who are aligned with me on the importance of our friendships will figure out how to make it work no matter what our lives look like. I also find those friendships can weather big changes— those desired and not so much.
This echoes for me. I've dated and had long term relationships, but my default has been single and my friendships were formed in those times. I'm now in a partnership and a big struggle for me is maintaining my friendships and the relationship...it's so easy (at first) to let them slip away.
Something that I haven’t seen come up when discussing how earlier generations built and prioritized community engagement and deep friendships: smartphones. So many of us fill every second of downtime with a quick or (long) scroll, catch up on a podcast, or to stream a show. It contributes to this “busyness” badge that many people carry around, thinking they don’t have time to add even one more thing to their day. Our phone habit encourages us to waste those pockets of time that are available; now we can’t even fathom that they were ever there. When was the last time you stood in line, rode public transport, or waited in the car without scrolling?
In the “before-times” (no smartphones), people’s minds could wander to wonder how their friends were doing and then give them a call to find out. They could carve out an hour for bowling league, a church meeting, to volunteer, or to learn something new. They simply had more time to think and engage. They could do this even as they built careers and raised kids.
I've been less willing to hang out with a couple of friends and family because they are always on their phone even if we're in a movie theater or in the middle of a conversation. My teenaged sibling started texting in the middle of a video game and we lost because of that. With my sibling, I felt okay telling them that was rude but I don't know how to tell other adults that their phone use is out-of-hand.
It's a sensitive topic, but it feels like it's less okay than it used to be to ask people for their full attention when they're with you.
i am still trying to figure this out. have tried to start a weekly game night but it’s still hard between sick kids or helping out at school
to assemble candy grams. but i am also trying to challenge the narrative that my husband (and me too, by default) has that when we need to do things for our family, we have to do it or pay someone else. (for example, when our babysitter was unexpectedly out, i frantically searched for a new one, and my friend was like, i can do it!)
which brings me to your question about men and friends. i don’t know if this is true as a whole, but i have noticed that my husband has a community but often needs to be reminded he does. for example, when talking about trips for the year, and i mentioned going on a girl trip with my bf, he was like, “maybe i’ll go on a solo train trip.” and i was like, “you have friends! what about this guy you haven’t seen recently? what about this guy? what about your BROTHER?” and he looked genuinely surprised about the thought.
i wonder if men in particular absorb this individualistic narrative even more so than we do (see: family help is only us or people we pay; see: solo trip), and that accounts for the male friend gap.
i also recognize this is MY experience and there are plenty of other men who have found a way to connect with others (like my friend’s husband who has monthly DnD night with neighbors).
I think this highlights my primary (though far from original) observation about male friendships, which is that they are very much built around doing stuff (bar trivia, golf, birding, going to the game, ski trip, fishing, whatever) together. This is certainly true of my friendships compared to my wife's. It also means that I had a very significant dip right around when my first child was born that lasted for 5-6 years until my second child was around three and it became a bit easier to either travel with kids (e.g. a ski weekend with other friends and their kids) or to swap off solo outings with my wife without feeling like we were abandoning the other to a day or night or weekend of misery and exhaustion.
Also doing stuff costs money. I know there are lots of kinds of stuff, but a great many dude hobbies tend to be a bit spendy (gear, travel, various entrance fees, etc.) which I'm sure leads to there being some pretty significant class separation to this. My dad spends an astonishing amount of money on fishing related stuff (and the upward bound of what you can spend on it is basically limitless once you start talking travel and boats and god knows what else) because that's his social circle. But he does have a social circle there!
Another reason running is the best! It's a cheap sport for sure, but also offers endless time for people to chitchat and bond. The only downside for most people is the running part
"Doing stuff" costing more money is a big factor! I used to go to 30-40 concerts in a year, and now I look at ticket prices and it feels prohibitive. That's partially because of Ticketmaster's monopoly and notoriously high fees, and also because some smaller/cheaper venues I used to frequent in NYC didn't make it through the pandemic (RIP Rockwood).
I just put a note on my fridge that says, "Who can come?" We have neighbors and close-driving-distance friends we "should" have over for dessert or a walk. We just get tired and forget to invite.
Also, I have lived in two different cities with "school choice" obsessions now, and I don't understand why people can't see that it's ruining everyone's life. Shuttling kids all over the city to public, private, charter, and homeschool co-ops has everyone constantly in their cars. It keeps people from living where they actually want to live because of zoning. And it feeds a mentality that parenting/life are about getting the next better thing for your kid, instead of building a better thing for our kids. The busyness and individualism can really make friendship hard.
Yes! School is a weighted and personal thing, but our lives have been improved 1000% by choosing a daycare, elementary, and now middle school that are a walk or short public bus ride away from our home. Our lives are simplified and we’ve made friends where we live. It’s easy to ask for or offer help with pickups, attend school events, and meet up with people outside of schools to solidify relationships. None of these are “great” schools by some metrics but they have been wonderful for our kids AND our lives as parents.
100%. And I say that having shuttled two kids to a private school well outside our neighborhood (a 15-20 min interstate drive away) for all of their middle and high school years. Things were so much better when they went to the local public elementary school and their friends all lived nearby. The new private school prided itself on having kids hail from something like 50 different zip codes in our large city, but let me tell you that makes it tough on parents! And quite frankly the kids! And honestly I liked the families whose kids went to our public elementary school better—not surprisingly because we all chose to live in smaller homes in the heart of our city vs in the burbs (similar sensibility/take on life).
Compared to when this essay was published, I'm realizing that it has taken me a long time (years, literally) to break the patterns and habits I established during Covid, which coincided with my now-fiancé and I moving in together in the spring of 2020. Our default is still to hang out at home after work, cooking dinner, watching TV and just being in each other's company. That pattern started because in 2020, there was nothing else to do! But it is kind of remarkable to me how much of a homebody I became, and how much effort it takes to overcome that inertia and get back in the habit of being out in the world connecting with people face-to-face. Working on it!!
I’m stuck in the same pattern and trying to find my way out. I have one close friend left and we barely see each other. My (now) husband and I moved to a new town where we knew no one and began living and working together in 2017, 8o hour weeks meant there just wasn’t much room for meeting other people, and the pandemic only made it worse. We are both now such aggressive homebodies, it’s a really tough cycle to break. I’m really struggling, but still determined that 2025 is the year of new friends!!
My partner and I have definitely talked into wanting to stay home more and more. BUT! We invite people over all the time. Come over, we'll make dinner. Come over, I have a lot of soup that I made the other day. Come over for drinks on the deck. I try to grocery shop with the thought in mind that I always have some snacks on hand to put out for guests.
We sometimes wonder if our friends get upset that we always want them to come to our place and we rarely go to theirs. But then again some friends have apologized for not reciprocating and having us over. So it probably all works out exactly how everyone wants
This is exactly what we've sworn we're going to do in the coming year! We are just finishing a year-long renovation and now we have the perfect space for comfortable entertaining. If we can't convince ourselves to go out, hopefully we can at least invite some acquaintances and fellow small business people over and make some new friends.
One is. The toddler comes too. I only get to see them every few months or so, but they come over between nap time and toddler bed time. We're having dinner at 4 pm this weekend so they can leave around 6.
I was just thinking about this too! In my case, I separated and moved into my own apartment three days (!!!) before lock-down in March 2020. So my experience of being separated was really formed in that aloneness where I had half the week with my kid and half the week solo where I mostly....worked. I still work long evenings the nights that I don't have my kid, which helps me be able to leave for 3pm school pick up the other half of the week, but also, is just a habit at this point that I would like to reexamine. I could have plans! I could see people! I do enjoy solo time but I would like it to be a choice not a default.
Same! Since 2020 I’ve also become a parent to two kiddos, and with a huge focus I’m NOT getting Covid while pregnant, while in early parenthood, etc; especially as so many other folks became less covid cautious. Those ingrained patterns/ habits are hard to break.
1. I feel very connected to my friends, especially those in my immediate/local community. I think a lot of this has to do with how often we get together at people's houses. It's so much easier, in my opinion, to plan a "come over at six in your comfy clothes to chat and eat snacks or play games" hang than a "what time and where should we meet for dinner and will the restaurant be expensive or loud or fancy or have enough vegetarian options and will it be hard to take public transit to get there and is it freezing and my will to put on real pants is low" etc. I'm not saying we never go out or do anything, but I am saying that if going out and doing something was the primary way we made plans with friends, we would not see our friends very often.
2. I think a lot about men's issues with friendship and connection, as my husband really struggles with this, and many of my girlfriends commiserate that their husbands struggle with it too. One thing I've noticed is how nonexistent the "constant thread of communication" is for some men compared to women. I text some of my girlfriends every single day, just about anything at all really. When something important happens in my life, I'm usually updating my circle pretty immediately and thoroughly, talking through my feelings with them. I have noticed a lot of men, including my husband, don't do this/have this - sometimes it'll come up that my husband's close friends don't know about something significant that has happened in his or our lives, and I will think to myself, how is that even possible? Like, I would have been in communication-mode with my friends fully and immediately if it were me. So I've noticed this very basic foundation can be lacking, and I think that obviously without a strong foundation, it can be very hard to build.
As a man, a few things that I have observed in myself and among my male friends:
1. The only equivalent to the "group text thread" that I have seen has been with a cohort of guys who were all single at the same time, and would hangout together often when they needed a break from or bro counseling on the dating scene. They're all pretty happily partnerned up now and all live in different cities, but they still keep tabs and visit each other, and I'm super happy to hear about how their friendships have thrived, and it's one of those rare examples where they were all in the same life situation, found a reason for hanging out, and that the group size was small enough to form close ties, but large enough to share the work of keeping the thread going. Because guys think it's more labor to keep the thread going.
2. I have a number of guy friends who I might only see once every few years when one of us happens to be in the same city as the other; but when we see each other, we can spend hours talking like we just picked up from where we left off. It's fun and valuable, but as I got older I realized, "maybe having friendships that thrive on neglect isn't actually that great?" Yet, whenever I think we should stay in touch more often, the effort isn't reciprocated; and I hesitate from making a fuss about it because this equilibrium where our friendship feels like an intermittently watered cactus is 'fine.'
Also I secretly suspect that part of the friendship's "strength" is the backlog of stuff to talk about that accumulates over years; but maybe that's a sign that the friendship is actually too weak to sustain with more regular interaction.
3. Building on #2, so much of this is a two-way street, and while I've put in the effort to check in on guy friends, share news, and make plans, I'm often putting in more than my share; and while I don't necessarily begrudge them for not carrying their weight, the amount of effort required does limit the number of male friends that I invest in.
I definitely have friends like this, but in the same way that a cactus is not a BAD type of plant, it's just a different one, I'm generally happy to just have this as a different category of type of friend - as long as you're still enjoying yourself when you do get together, what's the harm?
Thanks for these insights. As a therapist and feminist masculinity researcher, I can’t help noticing a few things: a) this dude friend group you mentioned, their shared experience was not having a partner and commiserated/supporting around that. And “still keep tabs” and now have partners. The subtext being, it’s acceptable for men to support other men if it’s around finding romantic/sexual partnerships whereby once found, they can then get those emotional needs met by that (likely femme) partner. And then this comment below about said partner’s being tasked (and this is alluded to lots in other comments in this thread too) with creating all the conditions for that male partner to try to get his connection needs met. Ooofffff…explicitly, this is femmes doing too much/mascs fears of any vulnerability=subtle examples of patriarchy’s expectations at work. Re: men and friendship, American (white sup, colonial, patriarchal, capitalistic) culture does everything possible to separate boys and men from their bodies/emotions/relationality/the earth. It constructs all of those things as feminized and that’s of course THE WORST thing one could ever be. Patriarchy’s fundamental tenet is binary (dominate/subordinate) which is so antithetical to our own humanity. So men are expected (in order to find love, safety and belonging) to dominate over femmes, queers, other men, the planet, their own interior life, and, unless they are a psychopath, that feels bad/disorienting/isolating to them and, surprise, they are lonely, they retreat and often do violence to themselves (sub use) or others (abuse, harassment, voting for harm-doers), to avoid the pain of loneliness and/or vulnerability, and certainly to avoid the pain that comes from turning towards your own complicity in harming others.
Fascinating insight! So like, how do you satisfy your friend needs when you see these men not truly reciprocating them? Do you have women friends? I'm a woman and would suffocate without my girls
oh, yes, I do have a few female friends. My wife and I actually had a Man of Honor on her side and a Best Ma’am on mine because eventhough we’re both cishet, we’re both good with maintaining friendships across genders. But also, I’m a pretty introverted dude who doesn’t have super high friendship or socialization needs. My friendships are much less about the daily group chat with pictures, links, and jokes; and more about the monthly or biweekly dinner party, gaming Sunday, backpacking trip, or bar hang.
With that said, I have mentioned making a conscious effort to do more to hang with friends, and most of that has come from these conversations about male loneliness and emails from my friends’ wives and partners asking me to ask their dude out to spend more time with his friends. So that was a signal for me that even if I didn’t need the hangouts, my friends might, therefore I shouldn’t be so complacent and I should actually try to check in folks more and be there for them; because that doesn’t have to be a job that their partner does.
"Maybe having friendships that thrive on neglect isn't actually that great." I've wondered this too. I wither with "weekly" friends and love the friends best that give me lots of room to roam. But it makes me wonder if I have a lot more growing to do...or if it's actually just fine, because as you say, cacti are just fine?
Your second point absolutely fits my general understanding of how things work, but it is so far from my experience. My husband is in multiple group texts that are NONSTOP and at least in a couple cases very intimate. Like they are definitely joking around about sports and politics but also talking about very big life stuff. A couple weeks ago my husband woke up with a swollen big toe and within hours one of the guys from his group text was on the phone advising him about the possibility of gout. What's interesting is that it's obviously not just something about my husband as an individual, because these are not two or three-person group texts, they're more like 10 people. (Actually I guess there is also a Discord in the mix? Just heard that he got a gift subscription to some substack from someone who offered it in that Discord partially out of gratitude for support given during a medical emergency? And he's shopping around the resume of another guy in the same Discord whose job offer evaporated under Trump?) Anyway, I guess if there's an emotionally open, highly communicative guy out there anywhere, my husband will end up in some kind of group chat with him. Downside for me being he is *constantly* on his phone.
My husband is the more social of the two of us and he has deep, loving and warm friendships (with both men and women) that span decades. But here's the weird thing to me: he doesn't talk to most of them. He has one friend he'll do long phone calls with while the friend is driving somewhere, but other than that, he has people he loves deeply and who are very important to him that he'll just not speak to for months or years. He invited people to our wedding who were very important to him (and who are great!) that I'd never even met. He has no idea where some of the people he loves the most are, like, physically in the world, what they do for work, if they're married, have a new tattoo, have a new kid, have a medical thing, etc. They'll occasionally text and pop back up in his life, but it's wild to me how his bonds with them don't atrophy with time and absence.
(of course, that's his point of view -- I'd be really interested to know if some of those people were mystified at the invitation to our wedding ("Balthazar? Wow, haven't heard from him in years. Didn't think we were that close anymore.") or consider the friendship to be less strong than he thinks it is.)
My husband is really good, actually, at maintaining friendships. He's an introvert, and doesn't have a huge circle of friends locally; but he's got good, supportive friendships with long-distance friends.
He's part of a text string that he and three other college friends are on; one lives in Europe, the others in the Rocky Mountain West, and they probably exchange 5-30 texts/day. They talk about work, current events, etc. but most of their conversations really seem to be more intimate - about how THEY are doing, how their spouses are, how their kids are doing. Lots of joking and advice and checking in. They have supported each other through difficult work situations, children with mental health issues, etc.
He's also attentive to friends - pays attention to when birthdays are, or anniversaries (good or bad) in their lives - we are both part of an online discussion group with a large group of college friends, and he's especially likely to notice if someone seems "off," and then either he or I will reach out to check on them. I know we both tend to be that way, but it's really nice that we are both carrying that load, and the friendship maintenance is not just on my shoulders.
I do wish he had more local friends - to go mountain biking with or skiing with (although we ski together :) ) - but it is hard to make friends locally, when you work from home and aren't really into schmoozing or social climbing.
There's also a friendship dip that's caused by a partner alienating you from friends. That one probably happens more often than most would care to admit, and unless you break the cycle of abuse, will mean you'll always be friendless, by someone's choice, not your own.
I didn't think about friendship until I was divorced. I had very few friends as a child, and as a young adult the only friends I was allowed to have were the wives and girlfriends of my (now ex-)husband's friends. Newly single, I tried making friends at college, at work, in the neighborhood, in my volunteer group. The only ones that stuck were in the volunteer group, and I still have two close friends (one my age, one decades younger) from that group, even though I am no longer active with them.
I found out that not having lots of friends was a personality thing. My mother and my daughter are social butterflies, and I'm a loner who prefers an evening with a book to a party nine times out of ten. People have encouraged me to make more friends, but I've found that a big group of friends leads to a big group of people who don't understand boundaries or privacy. I've acknowledged that friendship for me is better in small doses.
I think I had more 'friends' at school or university, but I also had a lot more anxiety about those relationships. I was always conscious that I found making friends difficult so I would force things that didn't naturally exist, and was bad at tracking signals that people weren't interested.
Later in my life, as I've come to understand myself more, placed more importance on who I want to spend time with, have been able to give myself grace, and understand more about how autism affects me I've found a lot more peace socially. Even if the qual number of friends is smaller.
I could have written this comment. My social life (such as it is) got so much easier when I realized making friends would never be easy or fun, and I would always kind of not get what friendships are *for,* and that's just the way my brain is built and I should stop beating myself up over it. Taking the pressure off has made the few friendships I do have so much more enjoyable and allowed me to relax into them in a way I never could have in my teens or 20s.
The dip for me hasn’t really been around CLOSE friendships. I still have essentially the same group of close friends (with a few folks moving in or out over time) that I’ve had for decades. What’s missing for me is the more casual strata of friends. Friends of friends, work friends, single purpose connections (concert buddies, happy hour go-to’s, neighborhood acquaintances who will check your mail or might be the first one to notice that you haven’t been seen for a few days). Particularly as my closest friends have become very different from me, or moved further and further away, I’m not looking for more “would be my emergency contact/help bury a body/are in my will as potential dog guardian” friends, but really for more “Wanna go see Wicked on Friday and grab a drink after” level connections.
I feel like the pandemic really gutted this level of folks for me, and I’m still struggling to get it back.
Yes, completely agree. I've been able to keep up close friends despite distance. Related to what people are mentioning here - I think the pandemic really put the kibosh on casual friendships in a way we haven't quite articulated culturally yet. It's taken me years to realize that being holed up at home for every function of life really did halt casual friendships in their tracks.
One thing I've been doing intentionally in recent months is being pushy about building people into ROUTINES. Making people commit to an every-other-Sunday-night-dinner together. Making my women friends come together on the fourth Tuesday. Nobody wants to schedule in our already over-scheduled lives. This is the only way it happens without stress, and it's paying off. These casual friends are turning into close friends through routine.
The other thing I've noticed is a lack of THIRD SPACES (hopefully a theme in the book!). I still work from home and only run into people at school pickup (and even that is meager). I live in Maine so life pretty much shuts down from a social standpoint in the winter unless you already know people and go to their houses (we really need to fix that). I wish we had more cafeteria-style restaurants where people could show up at different times, have plenty of seating, bump into each other. In Western Mass, near where I grew up, there was an indoor park in a mill building until the pandemic hit. It was brilliant. It had play spaces for kids, WiFi and tables, beer for the grown ups - truly an accessible space for all. If we had more places to coexist outside of work and home, I think we'd see a much faster return to friendships in this age.
I agree! My close friendships remain solid but I miss the casual, regular interactions I would have at the office (everyone is WFH) or from having a school aged child. I still run into some of those folks around the neighborhood but much less than I used to and I miss it.
One of the best things my husband and I have done is focus our lives around friends. One of the ways this works is that we try to say yes to everything we can; I, too, love the feeling of cancelled plans but I love friends more, and if you always say no to things, people stop asking. We unabashedly host as frequently as we can, and we have birthday parties, and super bowl parties, and board game parties where we play giant social deduction games. (Blood on the Clocktower forever!) And it's led us to having a large group of super fulfilling relationships I am immensely grateful for.
Okay, can I just zero in on one thing you mentioned? "picking up my friend’s kid from school and talking about Harry Potter will not doom my entire day" - when I read that, I find myself thinking, "But how did that arrangement happen? Did your friend text you saying, 'I'm so sorry to ask this, Anne, but I have X going on and could you possibly pick up [name] from school today?' or did YOU send a message saying, 'Hey, I've got some extra time this afternoon and wondering if it would be helpful it I pick up [name] from school since I know you've got X going on.'" I realize it sounds silly, but I think people need this level of understanding of HOW this kind of living together actually happens - because the logistics, and the guilt for parents, and the awkwardness of social expectations make this actually a really incredible feat, IMHO! TBH, as a parent, I have just two friends in my life whom I would feel comfortable asking to do something like that. Otherwise, I would worry about putting someone else out.
Cosigning what Meagan said below — I'm close enough with this friend that she could text me and say "I'm gonna miss the next ferry, can you pick [X] up from school and then I'll swing by your house?" They also put me and Charlie and on the "okay to pick up" list at the beginning of the year so it wouldn't be a problem. Now the kids are old enough to be on their own for short bits after school if their parents aren't around and I actually kinda miss serving that function!
I text people and ask them for help--neighbors, friends, other parents at school. I may say something like, "Hey, the baby had a rough time and finally fell asleep. I hate to wake her for school pick up--could you walk {older daughter} home?" I found that once I've done it, it opens the door for others to both offer help and ask for help themselves. Someone has to knock down that door! I always remind myself that people are adults--they can say no, and I can accept that. If they say yes, I take it as face value that they don't mind. Personally, I LOVE being asked to help out someone else--it makes me feel included and valued.
I find that the big indicator of whether or not you can make a *big* ask of someone is whether they feel comfortable saying no and you feel comfortable receiving it. Most people will understand that if they’re asking someone if they can pick up their kid with a few hours' notice, that person might not be able to and will say no, and that’s fine! I think the ask is only a problem if the asked person feels like they HAVE to say yes. But hopefully in a strong friendship that won’t be the case, and so I think many people can grant themselves a little more leeway in asking for help when they need it.
My friend Wren and I live in different states and over the last couple of years have shared concerns about loneliness, hustle culture, lack of third spaces, fractured community, and our dwindling social lives that is all over the media. This article, and several others by Anne Helen, including "Did your parents have friends," and "How people are making friendship work right now," have inspired us to start our own Substack, the Kitship Dispatch, https://kitshipdispatch.substack.com/, where we're doing exercises to stretch our social muscles, reinvigorate our friend groups and overhaul hospitality. We’re choosing community and curiosity, investing in IRL (in real life!) experience, and prioritizing personal connection, leisure, rest and relaxation. If you're looking for some new tools to bolster belonging, we'd love for you to join us for some good old fashioned friend building!
Have you talked to any folks in DC about this? Because DC is such a transient city it’s talked about much more openly than I imagine it is in other cities. For example, I had five close friends here and they all moved away within a span of 2 years. It’s just something that happens to everyone - I wonder if that changes how people feel about it / handle it? If that’s interesting to you happy to talk or connect you with folks!
This is so interesting! I’m 37 and have lived in DC since I was 22. I think the transient element of DC is WAY more pronounced for those of us who aren’t originally from here. For me, this was a heartbreaking reality of life in my 20s and the first part of my 30s. But I’m finding now that the churn is slowing somewhat for me (although I think the churn is about to accelerate in an unprecedented way because of what the Trump Administration is doing to the federal workforce). I am finding that — at least in my little corner of life — the folks who moved here are putting down roots and really hooking into our communities. It feels good. But I realize my experience might be somewhat unique: I have a kid in a neighborhood public school that has worked exceptionally hard to build community, I am recently divorced and so I have much more time and energy to pour into my community, I have been blessed to get to a place in my career where I don’t have to constantly hustle and work overtime for job security, etc.
Baby boomer Army brat here, met and married husband in D.C. in 1980 and then lived in the midwest and Montana before retiring back to D.C a few years ago. We have made more friends here than any place else we ever lived -- maybe because because people in Minneapolis, Red Lodge and Kansas City were full-up on friends whom they'd known since grammar school and didn't have time for any new friends! But D.C. is full of interesting people from all over the globe -- reminds me of Army bases, also transient, where people are quick to befriend neighbors. Dogs and babies help men open up in the neighborhood. We have great block parties which point up how our neighborhood is turning over -- so many babies being born! But then we also have a regularly-scheduled cocktail party/hangout with ten neighbors every two weeks to chew over current events and culture. It's like one continuing conversation over five years. Get to know the baby boomers in your neighborhood--remember it was your mom who made social events happen! We can help create community around you while you pursue your career and raise kids.
I love this so much! We just bought a house in DC and are moving back late spring. My husband is military so we left for a stint in Colorado and I am sooooooo looking forward to your life and neighborhood parties!
I’ve found an element of this living in Brooklyn because of how common it is to move to the suburbs once your kids are elementary school aged or so. When we meet new people our age (usually, though not always other parents at our school/daycare) my wife and I absolutely try to suss out whether we think they’ll still be living here in a few years…
I live in Berlin, Germany, which is also a very transient city. Most of the people we befriended as new parents have moved on elsewhere by now. I’ve started to be very selective which relationships I invest in(or we as a couple), as it is exhausting to just go over the same cycle over and over. The pandemic and the extreme rent increases after were a full-on exodus. We don’t have small children at home any more, so now most of my close friends are people I know from work-related events.
This is interesting because while I was one of the DC transients (I was there for four years) and a lot of the people who I knew there have moved also, it was also the place I had the largest number of friends, and enough people have stayed there (or left for a few years and then moved back) that if we moved back there, we would have a lot more friends than we do where we are now. So I still think of it as the friendship mecca. Like when we go there for a weekend it's basically a 48-hour sprint to try to see 10 different people.
This is interesting to me because I grew up in DC and, as a result, accepted that stability (my family and many family friends) + transience (friends) could co-exist. And I was conditioned to stay in touch with transient friends — by letter(!), phone (Sundays were cheaper!), and intentionally making the effort to see them when traveling or when they were back visiting. As an adult who was migratory for awhile, I had a really hard time making friends in places where transience wasn’t common (Midwest, I’m looking at you), but also have a vast and far-flung friend network that I’ve maintained kind of as a default (of course that’s what you do — by email, phone, text, visits, etc)
I never know how much is DC-specific or just an aspect of being a city. I have to say I don't see the churn but I'm from the larger DC area so have been here forever and so have my friends, so I really haven't had a whole lot of friends leave the area. But from what I can tell the peak transience is mid 20s to mid 30s. If you make it past that you're probably sticking around the area.
I just had a similar conversation with a friend who lives in Los Alamos, NM. Because there is only ONE major employer (a national research laboratory) in that town, a lot of career aged professionals appear and disappear year over year, and she’s found it hard to build community for herself and her children.
And on the question of male loneliness, when I think about this question I notice my mind immediately goes to able-bodied, straight white guys as the people I am worried about. And yet the literature on loneliness usually points to difference being something that makes it more likely that people are likely to experience chronic loneliness. So I guess I'm curious about the diversity of experience of male loneliness, and how that looks different for different groups (ie, are gay men experiencing this in the same way as straight men? How does ethnicity/class affect this?).
Regarding how sexuality plays in, in my own experience as a (white, able-bodied, cis) gay man, I’m not hurting for close friendships and feel good about my ability to maintain and nurture them. That generally seems to be the case for a lot of my other gay make friends as well.
But I do think it’s interesting that many of my close friendships are with women (and have been since elementary school). I have two close straight male friends and often find it difficult to connect with new potential straight male friends on any sort of meaningful level, and I wonder if that’s just me or if it has to do with differences in how queer and straight men are socialized/navigate the world at an early age and what they come to expect out of friendship.
Your comment about straight men and how to connect with them made me look up this AMAZING Crazy Ex Girlfriend song about how men how men communicate... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om80Y_V3fhw
Over the last year I went from occasionally going out with a handful of friends to going out once a week with one group. A chance meet-up at a bar got my mother and I to agree to having dinner with people we have known for years from church. This morphed into a group of 3-10 people meeting every Wednesday night for dinner plus other get togethers. And all of this is because one of our friends works hard to engage with her friends. She is always trying to get a group together to go to various places in town.
Loved the original post, and loved it again when I re-read it just now. (And can’t wait to read your book)
I’m 40 and have been experiencing the friendship dip for probably 10 years now (slowly at first, then very quickly) when most of my friends started having kids and I chose not to. As the nuclear family gets tighter/stronger/bigger, friendship ties tend to get looser. Of course, lack of time & planning difficulties play a major part in this, but I’ve observed something else… friendships evolve from a place of “shared experiences” in your twenties (trips, nights out, meandering days etc) to a place of “catchups” (dinners or lunches during which you each go through bullet point updates on your respective lives). You go from BEING in each others’ lives to HEARING about each others’ lives. Intuitively, it doesn’t feel like that could be the foundation for a strong friendship (but I could be wrong). It certainly doesn’t make you feel close to one another.
There’s also the added complication of your spouse becoming your #1 confidante (and often times, a feeling that talking about your marriage could be perceived as airing dirty laundry). This in turn means you start sharing less and less with friends. And decreased vulnerability leads to weaker friendships.
As for men - my very simplistic observation is that while they are quick to make superficial friends through shared interests / hobbies, they are very slow to deepen friendships - and again I think this is tied to the vulnerability (or lack thereof) point above. Men are generally conditioned to keep friendships light and banter-filled; vulnerability/earnestness is viewed as “cringe”.
100%, and I'm a man who, at age 57, for the first time IN MY LIFE, made friending a priority. Diane and I didn't raise kids, we had grandkids but they weren't a huge lift, we just had each other and were going through the world together. I do wish I'd held onto more close friends but really, I was good.
Then dementia. So we moved back to Evanston after 25 years away and it took well over a year until I could catch my breath, with all the changes. We had settled into our place and we had caregivers who got along with Diane (several quit or were let go by me). Diane had gone through that sad transition but was now living peacefully in the liminal space where cognition isn't required.
And then a muscle relaxed. I started to reach out to the world again. I realized my co-working space was shitty (and has since closed) and switched to the one where everyone on Google said, "What a great coworking space." That's where we started Soup Club. I had run through all of our old friends from when we used to live here, and realized they've all moved on, not interested in reconnecting with me (or me with a demented wife; their loss).
So I found other guys, mostly my age, who were looking for connections. I think there are a lot of us. Some connections stay at the surface level but then, when I'm not expecting it, one will go deeper. Or someone will find my newsletter and that sparks an intimate conversation. But first I had to lean into friending as if my survival depended on it. Which, given the mental health stats on caregivers, isn't a stretch.
"You go from BEING in each others’ lives to HEARING about each others’ lives." -- Thank you for putting words to something I've experienced too (also in my 40s/married/no kids/friends mostly do have kids).
I have had some more luck in the past couple of years on the 'being' side of things, but primarily with folks whose kids are getting older, and definitely through the route of shared activities/interests.
Agree that this is a very astute point from Eva — and the way I've countered it is aiming for more experiences that feel more like "just being together" the way we were in our 20s. In practice, that means very casual come-over-and-hang-for-dinner, a weekend where I stay at someone's house, or a longer vacation we plan together (like I just did with one of my best friends and her kids). Some of those are bigger time commitments but some (the ambient hang, let's just fold laundry together!) are not.
I've found that Shabbat is a helpful organizing principle to routinize the "very casual come-over-and-hang-for-dinner" thing. It's weekly, it's already ritualized, and it can be made low-barrier-to-entry (you can buy bread instead of baking challah, etc.)
YES! This has come up again and again in my interviews — the people who've created these sorts of connections are ones who are willing to make things VERY regular and very low-pressure. "Every Friday night, we go to this brew pub where our kids run around in circles, come hang out," "every Sunday at noon, we have a brunch spread and endless coffee, please come next week if you can't come this week," etc. etc.
I just sent a bunch of texts yesterday to start something like this! Family playdate -- literally just come hang out in our yard Sunday afternoon. It took a lot to get over the social anxiety of reaching out but it feels worth it and more important than ever these days.
I think the people who experienced a lot of ambient "just being together"-ness in their 20s that they lack/miss now are maybe solely people who experienced college and college proximity-forced time with people? I know for me -- a person who did not go to college --, at 44, I probably have a similar number of close friends now as I ever did (which is a handful), and spend -- if you account for COVID-caution lessening of social activities (and for a person who is basically a hermit and has never wanted to spend too much time being social with people regardless)-- pretty much the same amount of time with them as I ever have. But people who are basing their expected/desired level of friend saturation on college/just-post-college days are necessarily going to have a pretty heavily weighted metric, I think.
You make such an excellent point here re: sharing less about your primary romantic relationship with your friends out of a desire to avoid airing dirty laundry. There are many topics you can choose to be vulnerable about with friends, but a major romantic relationship takes up a huge amount of air in your life and headspace. Feeling like I have to swallow that down out of a sense of fairness to both my spouse and our mutual friends and keep to more neutral conversational ground does not engender the kind of closeness that shared vulnerability can offer.
Eva, I'm 38 and have had a similar experience. That shift from being in someone's life to hearing about it is really difficult, especially when it's mediated through social media like Instagram and you are seeing and hearing it, but with so much distance. I really don't enjoy keeping up with my friends through their Instagram feeds, mostly because I don't like the app itself and try to spend as little time on it as possible.
I'm male, childless and have been mostly single as an adult (by choice), with the exception of a few romantic relationships in the past 3-4 years. I'm fortunate that I usually have the energy to call up my friends to see what they're up to and make plans, and I don't mind going places by myself and striking up conversations with people I don't know. I work in the art world in Denver and am a musician, so I have a fairly social lifestyle between those two things. I have an open mind about what's right for me at any given time, whether that's actively dating or feeling fine on my own. I also enjoy the solitude and freedom that come with being single. But there's always a limit to that, right? I always wish I could see my friends more and dig in deeper with them, and it's hard when virtually all of my friends are married or married with kids. The dynamic changes a lot. And sometimes I miss having that go-to confidant that I had in previous romantic relationships. Maybe some of what I'm describing dovetails with what Anne Helen is finding through her work on male friendships. I'm lucky to have what I have, and I know other men are struggling and don't have an outlet to talk about it. But I still can't shake the feeling that it seems harder than it used to be to see my friends as often as I'd like.
Yes! From being to hearing. I moved from Montreal to the Ottawa area 8 years ago for work, it's a 2.5 hours drive. I have stayed in touch with a core group of old friends, and accumulated some friends here via my kids - mostly parents I get along with, also former colleagues when I change jobs and I keep in touch. 3 observations:
1. Last year I celebrated my 40th. I sent an invitation months in advance, people made plans including friends from Montreal. But I had to delay it by a week, which felt horrible (especially as someone who is terrified of organizing a party and have nobody show up). Not a single one of my old friends was able to make it, which felt awful, but a lot of new friends and acquaintances did come. It was also a house warming and it showed me that my new community was there for me, which was super lovely. We are in each other's lives through kids, neighborhood activities, running into each other at the grocery or the library. I hear from close friends who live in other cities or countries, and we support each other through voicemails, but it requires conscious efforts and we cannot literally be there to hold hands when we need it.
2. Divorce with shared custody has been a game changer. I have a ton more time and energy, a lot more reasons to reach out to do things with other families, and I can do things on my own or with my boyfriend sans kids. I'm doing a lot of things I technically could have done while married but never did. It led me to a housemates situation with a family of 4 (we're a family of 3, with 2 part-time members). Women have been reaching out to me in droves to tell me they are at various stages of considering divorce. The strongest links are with other moms in the same situation, we're syncing weekends so we can hang out with and without the kids.
3. My former spouse, who has had the exact same conditions, does not have friends. Maybe one buddy, a dad friend from daycare, with whom he goes to see movies twice a year. Some of it is personality, but some of it is structural and I just don't know how he lives like that with nobody close.
Anaïs, me too about divorce with shared custody giving me more time and interest to apply to friendships! I love it!! I felt like my spending time with my spouse was always the 'default,' for Saturday nights, for vacations, etc, and that I had to actively chose (and maybe ask permission, at least in my head) to make plans with someone else. Now at age 42 I can ask myself, what do I feel like doing and who do I feel like doing it with?
I also feel like as a small household (me and my daughter half the week), we're easier to make plans with. It's easier for the two of us to join up with a family of four than for two families of four to try to line up everything.
It is still tricky sometimes to be vulnerable and ask other people if they'd like to share an experience that is typically 'for families' only. I have realized that I prefer vacations with friends and their children, but it feels like a big ask to suggest a joint vacation when that's 'family time.'
Your point about catchups is so salient! As I like to call it the friendship interactions become status updates. Almost feels like a work Annual General Meeting where you go around to room and provide an update. For the single friend/no kid crew it adds an extra layer of hurt since your status updates don't align or really resonate with others. It honestly feels like a good decade since I've actually been friend friends with my friends who are moms. Like I can't remember the last time we "did an activity" together, or acted goofy, or shared a bit.
I've also found making friends with men to be easier as the friendships are able to be based around a shared hobby. Everything is like super surface level...Like I have friends (buddies really) where I'm actually not positive what their first name is. But my men friends are more in my life (like we spend time together, have shared jokes, have proper banter) in a way I don't have with my mom/girl friends.
A perfectly articulated summary Eva. I’m nearly 38 and feeling all of this very much. I’ve recently experienced a breakdown of what I considered my “core” friendship group, lots of it related to issues with not airing dirty laundry etc. I’ve been distracted with my young kids but now I’m coming out of the fog a bit and I’m wondering wtf has happened to my friendships.
I think it's really interesting that the parameters of this column are set around becoming a couple, and navigating friendship around that. Even the examples of people who "get" how to friend are no from people who are single / operate within webs of friendship all the time, but from an older generation. (No shade on that older generation; I take the point about generational differences.)
I emigrated to the US, alone, when I was 22 years old. I have no family in this country. I do not feel pulled toward coupledom. I am happily and cheerfully single and do not have any children. And so my support systems are entirely put together through friendship. I have friends near and far - my immediate, local community; my friends scattered all over the Midwest but within driving distance; my long-distance friendships mostly maintained online and through the mail. I'm certain I'm not the only person for whom this is the norm, embedded in found family through friendship for a variety of reasons. I wonder what those of us who have had to put our energy into friendship this way might know / offer about friendship too?
I agree with you. A lot of this commentary doesn’t apply to my life-single & no plans to ever marry or live with a partner, don’t want kids. Live far away from my parents who are in good health & live close to my four siblings who will be the ones taking care of them if they need it (I did my family caregiving work as a child and am DONE). I am fairly free, extroverted, and social. Yet friendship has been such a struggle the last few years of my late 30s as others have moved, had kids, or otherwise deprioritized friendships. I can make new friends, but when I have to do that almost continuously, it’s exhausting.
I just finished writing up one of my favorite interviews, with a woman who's cultivated a really vast array of friendships and community support — which unintentionally is largely composed of other people who don't have kids. In some situations, it just really makes sense to match your rhythms with others whose rhythms are already similar to your own.
I’m interested in this too— I have essentially always been single/no kids and (out of necessity) cultivated a web of friends who live near and far from me. Many of those friends are coupled and have kids but not all. Those relationships just look a little different, as a long distance friendship looks different to a neighborhood bestie.
I think more than shared rhythms, I find it is shared values. People who are aligned with me on the importance of our friendships will figure out how to make it work no matter what our lives look like. I also find those friendships can weather big changes— those desired and not so much.
Really looking forward to reading the book!
Excited to read that one!
This echoes for me. I've dated and had long term relationships, but my default has been single and my friendships were formed in those times. I'm now in a partnership and a big struggle for me is maintaining my friendships and the relationship...it's so easy (at first) to let them slip away.
Something that I haven’t seen come up when discussing how earlier generations built and prioritized community engagement and deep friendships: smartphones. So many of us fill every second of downtime with a quick or (long) scroll, catch up on a podcast, or to stream a show. It contributes to this “busyness” badge that many people carry around, thinking they don’t have time to add even one more thing to their day. Our phone habit encourages us to waste those pockets of time that are available; now we can’t even fathom that they were ever there. When was the last time you stood in line, rode public transport, or waited in the car without scrolling?
In the “before-times” (no smartphones), people’s minds could wander to wonder how their friends were doing and then give them a call to find out. They could carve out an hour for bowling league, a church meeting, to volunteer, or to learn something new. They simply had more time to think and engage. They could do this even as they built careers and raised kids.
I've been less willing to hang out with a couple of friends and family because they are always on their phone even if we're in a movie theater or in the middle of a conversation. My teenaged sibling started texting in the middle of a video game and we lost because of that. With my sibling, I felt okay telling them that was rude but I don't know how to tell other adults that their phone use is out-of-hand.
It's a sensitive topic, but it feels like it's less okay than it used to be to ask people for their full attention when they're with you.
YES. Or we "connect" to those friends over text...but it's a 20 minute "conversation" to say what we could have and connected more in 2 minutes.
i am still trying to figure this out. have tried to start a weekly game night but it’s still hard between sick kids or helping out at school
to assemble candy grams. but i am also trying to challenge the narrative that my husband (and me too, by default) has that when we need to do things for our family, we have to do it or pay someone else. (for example, when our babysitter was unexpectedly out, i frantically searched for a new one, and my friend was like, i can do it!)
which brings me to your question about men and friends. i don’t know if this is true as a whole, but i have noticed that my husband has a community but often needs to be reminded he does. for example, when talking about trips for the year, and i mentioned going on a girl trip with my bf, he was like, “maybe i’ll go on a solo train trip.” and i was like, “you have friends! what about this guy you haven’t seen recently? what about this guy? what about your BROTHER?” and he looked genuinely surprised about the thought.
i wonder if men in particular absorb this individualistic narrative even more so than we do (see: family help is only us or people we pay; see: solo trip), and that accounts for the male friend gap.
i also recognize this is MY experience and there are plenty of other men who have found a way to connect with others (like my friend’s husband who has monthly DnD night with neighbors).
I think this highlights my primary (though far from original) observation about male friendships, which is that they are very much built around doing stuff (bar trivia, golf, birding, going to the game, ski trip, fishing, whatever) together. This is certainly true of my friendships compared to my wife's. It also means that I had a very significant dip right around when my first child was born that lasted for 5-6 years until my second child was around three and it became a bit easier to either travel with kids (e.g. a ski weekend with other friends and their kids) or to swap off solo outings with my wife without feeling like we were abandoning the other to a day or night or weekend of misery and exhaustion.
Also doing stuff costs money. I know there are lots of kinds of stuff, but a great many dude hobbies tend to be a bit spendy (gear, travel, various entrance fees, etc.) which I'm sure leads to there being some pretty significant class separation to this. My dad spends an astonishing amount of money on fishing related stuff (and the upward bound of what you can spend on it is basically limitless once you start talking travel and boats and god knows what else) because that's his social circle. But he does have a social circle there!
Another reason running is the best! It's a cheap sport for sure, but also offers endless time for people to chitchat and bond. The only downside for most people is the running part
"Doing stuff" costing more money is a big factor! I used to go to 30-40 concerts in a year, and now I look at ticket prices and it feels prohibitive. That's partially because of Ticketmaster's monopoly and notoriously high fees, and also because some smaller/cheaper venues I used to frequent in NYC didn't make it through the pandemic (RIP Rockwood).
I just put a note on my fridge that says, "Who can come?" We have neighbors and close-driving-distance friends we "should" have over for dessert or a walk. We just get tired and forget to invite.
Also, I have lived in two different cities with "school choice" obsessions now, and I don't understand why people can't see that it's ruining everyone's life. Shuttling kids all over the city to public, private, charter, and homeschool co-ops has everyone constantly in their cars. It keeps people from living where they actually want to live because of zoning. And it feeds a mentality that parenting/life are about getting the next better thing for your kid, instead of building a better thing for our kids. The busyness and individualism can really make friendship hard.
Yes! School is a weighted and personal thing, but our lives have been improved 1000% by choosing a daycare, elementary, and now middle school that are a walk or short public bus ride away from our home. Our lives are simplified and we’ve made friends where we live. It’s easy to ask for or offer help with pickups, attend school events, and meet up with people outside of schools to solidify relationships. None of these are “great” schools by some metrics but they have been wonderful for our kids AND our lives as parents.
100%. And I say that having shuttled two kids to a private school well outside our neighborhood (a 15-20 min interstate drive away) for all of their middle and high school years. Things were so much better when they went to the local public elementary school and their friends all lived nearby. The new private school prided itself on having kids hail from something like 50 different zip codes in our large city, but let me tell you that makes it tough on parents! And quite frankly the kids! And honestly I liked the families whose kids went to our public elementary school better—not surprisingly because we all chose to live in smaller homes in the heart of our city vs in the burbs (similar sensibility/take on life).
Yes - I didn't veer into "the kids" territory in my comment, but it seems like most of them would be served by simplicity!
Your last paragraph makes me want to be your friend. :)
Sounds great!!
Compared to when this essay was published, I'm realizing that it has taken me a long time (years, literally) to break the patterns and habits I established during Covid, which coincided with my now-fiancé and I moving in together in the spring of 2020. Our default is still to hang out at home after work, cooking dinner, watching TV and just being in each other's company. That pattern started because in 2020, there was nothing else to do! But it is kind of remarkable to me how much of a homebody I became, and how much effort it takes to overcome that inertia and get back in the habit of being out in the world connecting with people face-to-face. Working on it!!
I think a lot of people feel this way!
I’m stuck in the same pattern and trying to find my way out. I have one close friend left and we barely see each other. My (now) husband and I moved to a new town where we knew no one and began living and working together in 2017, 8o hour weeks meant there just wasn’t much room for meeting other people, and the pandemic only made it worse. We are both now such aggressive homebodies, it’s a really tough cycle to break. I’m really struggling, but still determined that 2025 is the year of new friends!!
My partner and I have definitely talked into wanting to stay home more and more. BUT! We invite people over all the time. Come over, we'll make dinner. Come over, I have a lot of soup that I made the other day. Come over for drinks on the deck. I try to grocery shop with the thought in mind that I always have some snacks on hand to put out for guests.
We sometimes wonder if our friends get upset that we always want them to come to our place and we rarely go to theirs. But then again some friends have apologized for not reciprocating and having us over. So it probably all works out exactly how everyone wants
This is exactly what we've sworn we're going to do in the coming year! We are just finishing a year-long renovation and now we have the perfect space for comfortable entertaining. If we can't convince ourselves to go out, hopefully we can at least invite some acquaintances and fellow small business people over and make some new friends.
Are any of the friends you're inviting over parents? If so, how does this work with their parenting responsibilities and kids' schedules?
One is. The toddler comes too. I only get to see them every few months or so, but they come over between nap time and toddler bed time. We're having dinner at 4 pm this weekend so they can leave around 6.
I was just thinking about this too! In my case, I separated and moved into my own apartment three days (!!!) before lock-down in March 2020. So my experience of being separated was really formed in that aloneness where I had half the week with my kid and half the week solo where I mostly....worked. I still work long evenings the nights that I don't have my kid, which helps me be able to leave for 3pm school pick up the other half of the week, but also, is just a habit at this point that I would like to reexamine. I could have plans! I could see people! I do enjoy solo time but I would like it to be a choice not a default.
Same! Since 2020 I’ve also become a parent to two kiddos, and with a huge focus I’m NOT getting Covid while pregnant, while in early parenthood, etc; especially as so many other folks became less covid cautious. Those ingrained patterns/ habits are hard to break.
Two immediate thoughts:
1. I feel very connected to my friends, especially those in my immediate/local community. I think a lot of this has to do with how often we get together at people's houses. It's so much easier, in my opinion, to plan a "come over at six in your comfy clothes to chat and eat snacks or play games" hang than a "what time and where should we meet for dinner and will the restaurant be expensive or loud or fancy or have enough vegetarian options and will it be hard to take public transit to get there and is it freezing and my will to put on real pants is low" etc. I'm not saying we never go out or do anything, but I am saying that if going out and doing something was the primary way we made plans with friends, we would not see our friends very often.
2. I think a lot about men's issues with friendship and connection, as my husband really struggles with this, and many of my girlfriends commiserate that their husbands struggle with it too. One thing I've noticed is how nonexistent the "constant thread of communication" is for some men compared to women. I text some of my girlfriends every single day, just about anything at all really. When something important happens in my life, I'm usually updating my circle pretty immediately and thoroughly, talking through my feelings with them. I have noticed a lot of men, including my husband, don't do this/have this - sometimes it'll come up that my husband's close friends don't know about something significant that has happened in his or our lives, and I will think to myself, how is that even possible? Like, I would have been in communication-mode with my friends fully and immediately if it were me. So I've noticed this very basic foundation can be lacking, and I think that obviously without a strong foundation, it can be very hard to build.
As a man, a few things that I have observed in myself and among my male friends:
1. The only equivalent to the "group text thread" that I have seen has been with a cohort of guys who were all single at the same time, and would hangout together often when they needed a break from or bro counseling on the dating scene. They're all pretty happily partnerned up now and all live in different cities, but they still keep tabs and visit each other, and I'm super happy to hear about how their friendships have thrived, and it's one of those rare examples where they were all in the same life situation, found a reason for hanging out, and that the group size was small enough to form close ties, but large enough to share the work of keeping the thread going. Because guys think it's more labor to keep the thread going.
2. I have a number of guy friends who I might only see once every few years when one of us happens to be in the same city as the other; but when we see each other, we can spend hours talking like we just picked up from where we left off. It's fun and valuable, but as I got older I realized, "maybe having friendships that thrive on neglect isn't actually that great?" Yet, whenever I think we should stay in touch more often, the effort isn't reciprocated; and I hesitate from making a fuss about it because this equilibrium where our friendship feels like an intermittently watered cactus is 'fine.'
Also I secretly suspect that part of the friendship's "strength" is the backlog of stuff to talk about that accumulates over years; but maybe that's a sign that the friendship is actually too weak to sustain with more regular interaction.
3. Building on #2, so much of this is a two-way street, and while I've put in the effort to check in on guy friends, share news, and make plans, I'm often putting in more than my share; and while I don't necessarily begrudge them for not carrying their weight, the amount of effort required does limit the number of male friends that I invest in.
I definitely have friends like this, but in the same way that a cactus is not a BAD type of plant, it's just a different one, I'm generally happy to just have this as a different category of type of friend - as long as you're still enjoying yourself when you do get together, what's the harm?
Thanks for these insights. As a therapist and feminist masculinity researcher, I can’t help noticing a few things: a) this dude friend group you mentioned, their shared experience was not having a partner and commiserated/supporting around that. And “still keep tabs” and now have partners. The subtext being, it’s acceptable for men to support other men if it’s around finding romantic/sexual partnerships whereby once found, they can then get those emotional needs met by that (likely femme) partner. And then this comment below about said partner’s being tasked (and this is alluded to lots in other comments in this thread too) with creating all the conditions for that male partner to try to get his connection needs met. Ooofffff…explicitly, this is femmes doing too much/mascs fears of any vulnerability=subtle examples of patriarchy’s expectations at work. Re: men and friendship, American (white sup, colonial, patriarchal, capitalistic) culture does everything possible to separate boys and men from their bodies/emotions/relationality/the earth. It constructs all of those things as feminized and that’s of course THE WORST thing one could ever be. Patriarchy’s fundamental tenet is binary (dominate/subordinate) which is so antithetical to our own humanity. So men are expected (in order to find love, safety and belonging) to dominate over femmes, queers, other men, the planet, their own interior life, and, unless they are a psychopath, that feels bad/disorienting/isolating to them and, surprise, they are lonely, they retreat and often do violence to themselves (sub use) or others (abuse, harassment, voting for harm-doers), to avoid the pain of loneliness and/or vulnerability, and certainly to avoid the pain that comes from turning towards your own complicity in harming others.
Fascinating insight! So like, how do you satisfy your friend needs when you see these men not truly reciprocating them? Do you have women friends? I'm a woman and would suffocate without my girls
oh, yes, I do have a few female friends. My wife and I actually had a Man of Honor on her side and a Best Ma’am on mine because eventhough we’re both cishet, we’re both good with maintaining friendships across genders. But also, I’m a pretty introverted dude who doesn’t have super high friendship or socialization needs. My friendships are much less about the daily group chat with pictures, links, and jokes; and more about the monthly or biweekly dinner party, gaming Sunday, backpacking trip, or bar hang.
With that said, I have mentioned making a conscious effort to do more to hang with friends, and most of that has come from these conversations about male loneliness and emails from my friends’ wives and partners asking me to ask their dude out to spend more time with his friends. So that was a signal for me that even if I didn’t need the hangouts, my friends might, therefore I shouldn’t be so complacent and I should actually try to check in folks more and be there for them; because that doesn’t have to be a job that their partner does.
I really like your answer, Cris! I hope it works out as you want! :)
"Maybe having friendships that thrive on neglect isn't actually that great." I've wondered this too. I wither with "weekly" friends and love the friends best that give me lots of room to roam. But it makes me wonder if I have a lot more growing to do...or if it's actually just fine, because as you say, cacti are just fine?
Your second point absolutely fits my general understanding of how things work, but it is so far from my experience. My husband is in multiple group texts that are NONSTOP and at least in a couple cases very intimate. Like they are definitely joking around about sports and politics but also talking about very big life stuff. A couple weeks ago my husband woke up with a swollen big toe and within hours one of the guys from his group text was on the phone advising him about the possibility of gout. What's interesting is that it's obviously not just something about my husband as an individual, because these are not two or three-person group texts, they're more like 10 people. (Actually I guess there is also a Discord in the mix? Just heard that he got a gift subscription to some substack from someone who offered it in that Discord partially out of gratitude for support given during a medical emergency? And he's shopping around the resume of another guy in the same Discord whose job offer evaporated under Trump?) Anyway, I guess if there's an emotionally open, highly communicative guy out there anywhere, my husband will end up in some kind of group chat with him. Downside for me being he is *constantly* on his phone.
My husband is the more social of the two of us and he has deep, loving and warm friendships (with both men and women) that span decades. But here's the weird thing to me: he doesn't talk to most of them. He has one friend he'll do long phone calls with while the friend is driving somewhere, but other than that, he has people he loves deeply and who are very important to him that he'll just not speak to for months or years. He invited people to our wedding who were very important to him (and who are great!) that I'd never even met. He has no idea where some of the people he loves the most are, like, physically in the world, what they do for work, if they're married, have a new tattoo, have a new kid, have a medical thing, etc. They'll occasionally text and pop back up in his life, but it's wild to me how his bonds with them don't atrophy with time and absence.
(of course, that's his point of view -- I'd be really interested to know if some of those people were mystified at the invitation to our wedding ("Balthazar? Wow, haven't heard from him in years. Didn't think we were that close anymore.") or consider the friendship to be less strong than he thinks it is.)
My husband is really good, actually, at maintaining friendships. He's an introvert, and doesn't have a huge circle of friends locally; but he's got good, supportive friendships with long-distance friends.
He's part of a text string that he and three other college friends are on; one lives in Europe, the others in the Rocky Mountain West, and they probably exchange 5-30 texts/day. They talk about work, current events, etc. but most of their conversations really seem to be more intimate - about how THEY are doing, how their spouses are, how their kids are doing. Lots of joking and advice and checking in. They have supported each other through difficult work situations, children with mental health issues, etc.
He's also attentive to friends - pays attention to when birthdays are, or anniversaries (good or bad) in their lives - we are both part of an online discussion group with a large group of college friends, and he's especially likely to notice if someone seems "off," and then either he or I will reach out to check on them. I know we both tend to be that way, but it's really nice that we are both carrying that load, and the friendship maintenance is not just on my shoulders.
I do wish he had more local friends - to go mountain biking with or skiing with (although we ski together :) ) - but it is hard to make friends locally, when you work from home and aren't really into schmoozing or social climbing.
There's also a friendship dip that's caused by a partner alienating you from friends. That one probably happens more often than most would care to admit, and unless you break the cycle of abuse, will mean you'll always be friendless, by someone's choice, not your own.
I didn't think about friendship until I was divorced. I had very few friends as a child, and as a young adult the only friends I was allowed to have were the wives and girlfriends of my (now ex-)husband's friends. Newly single, I tried making friends at college, at work, in the neighborhood, in my volunteer group. The only ones that stuck were in the volunteer group, and I still have two close friends (one my age, one decades younger) from that group, even though I am no longer active with them.
I found out that not having lots of friends was a personality thing. My mother and my daughter are social butterflies, and I'm a loner who prefers an evening with a book to a party nine times out of ten. People have encouraged me to make more friends, but I've found that a big group of friends leads to a big group of people who don't understand boundaries or privacy. I've acknowledged that friendship for me is better in small doses.
I think I had more 'friends' at school or university, but I also had a lot more anxiety about those relationships. I was always conscious that I found making friends difficult so I would force things that didn't naturally exist, and was bad at tracking signals that people weren't interested.
Later in my life, as I've come to understand myself more, placed more importance on who I want to spend time with, have been able to give myself grace, and understand more about how autism affects me I've found a lot more peace socially. Even if the qual number of friends is smaller.
I could have written this comment. My social life (such as it is) got so much easier when I realized making friends would never be easy or fun, and I would always kind of not get what friendships are *for,* and that's just the way my brain is built and I should stop beating myself up over it. Taking the pressure off has made the few friendships I do have so much more enjoyable and allowed me to relax into them in a way I never could have in my teens or 20s.
The dip for me hasn’t really been around CLOSE friendships. I still have essentially the same group of close friends (with a few folks moving in or out over time) that I’ve had for decades. What’s missing for me is the more casual strata of friends. Friends of friends, work friends, single purpose connections (concert buddies, happy hour go-to’s, neighborhood acquaintances who will check your mail or might be the first one to notice that you haven’t been seen for a few days). Particularly as my closest friends have become very different from me, or moved further and further away, I’m not looking for more “would be my emergency contact/help bury a body/are in my will as potential dog guardian” friends, but really for more “Wanna go see Wicked on Friday and grab a drink after” level connections.
I feel like the pandemic really gutted this level of folks for me, and I’m still struggling to get it back.
Yes, completely agree. I've been able to keep up close friends despite distance. Related to what people are mentioning here - I think the pandemic really put the kibosh on casual friendships in a way we haven't quite articulated culturally yet. It's taken me years to realize that being holed up at home for every function of life really did halt casual friendships in their tracks.
One thing I've been doing intentionally in recent months is being pushy about building people into ROUTINES. Making people commit to an every-other-Sunday-night-dinner together. Making my women friends come together on the fourth Tuesday. Nobody wants to schedule in our already over-scheduled lives. This is the only way it happens without stress, and it's paying off. These casual friends are turning into close friends through routine.
The other thing I've noticed is a lack of THIRD SPACES (hopefully a theme in the book!). I still work from home and only run into people at school pickup (and even that is meager). I live in Maine so life pretty much shuts down from a social standpoint in the winter unless you already know people and go to their houses (we really need to fix that). I wish we had more cafeteria-style restaurants where people could show up at different times, have plenty of seating, bump into each other. In Western Mass, near where I grew up, there was an indoor park in a mill building until the pandemic hit. It was brilliant. It had play spaces for kids, WiFi and tables, beer for the grown ups - truly an accessible space for all. If we had more places to coexist outside of work and home, I think we'd see a much faster return to friendships in this age.
Absolutely on the lack of "third spaces"! -- especially ones where you can hang out for free, or on the cheap!
I agree! My close friendships remain solid but I miss the casual, regular interactions I would have at the office (everyone is WFH) or from having a school aged child. I still run into some of those folks around the neighborhood but much less than I used to and I miss it.
One of the best things my husband and I have done is focus our lives around friends. One of the ways this works is that we try to say yes to everything we can; I, too, love the feeling of cancelled plans but I love friends more, and if you always say no to things, people stop asking. We unabashedly host as frequently as we can, and we have birthday parties, and super bowl parties, and board game parties where we play giant social deduction games. (Blood on the Clocktower forever!) And it's led us to having a large group of super fulfilling relationships I am immensely grateful for.
So when you can... say yes!!!
We’re yes people too!
Okay, can I just zero in on one thing you mentioned? "picking up my friend’s kid from school and talking about Harry Potter will not doom my entire day" - when I read that, I find myself thinking, "But how did that arrangement happen? Did your friend text you saying, 'I'm so sorry to ask this, Anne, but I have X going on and could you possibly pick up [name] from school today?' or did YOU send a message saying, 'Hey, I've got some extra time this afternoon and wondering if it would be helpful it I pick up [name] from school since I know you've got X going on.'" I realize it sounds silly, but I think people need this level of understanding of HOW this kind of living together actually happens - because the logistics, and the guilt for parents, and the awkwardness of social expectations make this actually a really incredible feat, IMHO! TBH, as a parent, I have just two friends in my life whom I would feel comfortable asking to do something like that. Otherwise, I would worry about putting someone else out.
Cosigning what Meagan said below — I'm close enough with this friend that she could text me and say "I'm gonna miss the next ferry, can you pick [X] up from school and then I'll swing by your house?" They also put me and Charlie and on the "okay to pick up" list at the beginning of the year so it wouldn't be a problem. Now the kids are old enough to be on their own for short bits after school if their parents aren't around and I actually kinda miss serving that function!
I text people and ask them for help--neighbors, friends, other parents at school. I may say something like, "Hey, the baby had a rough time and finally fell asleep. I hate to wake her for school pick up--could you walk {older daughter} home?" I found that once I've done it, it opens the door for others to both offer help and ask for help themselves. Someone has to knock down that door! I always remind myself that people are adults--they can say no, and I can accept that. If they say yes, I take it as face value that they don't mind. Personally, I LOVE being asked to help out someone else--it makes me feel included and valued.
I find that the big indicator of whether or not you can make a *big* ask of someone is whether they feel comfortable saying no and you feel comfortable receiving it. Most people will understand that if they’re asking someone if they can pick up their kid with a few hours' notice, that person might not be able to and will say no, and that’s fine! I think the ask is only a problem if the asked person feels like they HAVE to say yes. But hopefully in a strong friendship that won’t be the case, and so I think many people can grant themselves a little more leeway in asking for help when they need it.
I wholeheartedly recommend the substack Auntie Bulletin for lots of good practical advice on this stuff!
My friend Wren and I live in different states and over the last couple of years have shared concerns about loneliness, hustle culture, lack of third spaces, fractured community, and our dwindling social lives that is all over the media. This article, and several others by Anne Helen, including "Did your parents have friends," and "How people are making friendship work right now," have inspired us to start our own Substack, the Kitship Dispatch, https://kitshipdispatch.substack.com/, where we're doing exercises to stretch our social muscles, reinvigorate our friend groups and overhaul hospitality. We’re choosing community and curiosity, investing in IRL (in real life!) experience, and prioritizing personal connection, leisure, rest and relaxation. If you're looking for some new tools to bolster belonging, we'd love for you to join us for some good old fashioned friend building!
This overjoys me, I can’t wait to read more!
Have you talked to any folks in DC about this? Because DC is such a transient city it’s talked about much more openly than I imagine it is in other cities. For example, I had five close friends here and they all moved away within a span of 2 years. It’s just something that happens to everyone - I wonder if that changes how people feel about it / handle it? If that’s interesting to you happy to talk or connect you with folks!
This is so interesting! I’m 37 and have lived in DC since I was 22. I think the transient element of DC is WAY more pronounced for those of us who aren’t originally from here. For me, this was a heartbreaking reality of life in my 20s and the first part of my 30s. But I’m finding now that the churn is slowing somewhat for me (although I think the churn is about to accelerate in an unprecedented way because of what the Trump Administration is doing to the federal workforce). I am finding that — at least in my little corner of life — the folks who moved here are putting down roots and really hooking into our communities. It feels good. But I realize my experience might be somewhat unique: I have a kid in a neighborhood public school that has worked exceptionally hard to build community, I am recently divorced and so I have much more time and energy to pour into my community, I have been blessed to get to a place in my career where I don’t have to constantly hustle and work overtime for job security, etc.
Yes, somewhat purposefully because it *is* so hard/interesting to make connections in a place like DC!
Baby boomer Army brat here, met and married husband in D.C. in 1980 and then lived in the midwest and Montana before retiring back to D.C a few years ago. We have made more friends here than any place else we ever lived -- maybe because because people in Minneapolis, Red Lodge and Kansas City were full-up on friends whom they'd known since grammar school and didn't have time for any new friends! But D.C. is full of interesting people from all over the globe -- reminds me of Army bases, also transient, where people are quick to befriend neighbors. Dogs and babies help men open up in the neighborhood. We have great block parties which point up how our neighborhood is turning over -- so many babies being born! But then we also have a regularly-scheduled cocktail party/hangout with ten neighbors every two weeks to chew over current events and culture. It's like one continuing conversation over five years. Get to know the baby boomers in your neighborhood--remember it was your mom who made social events happen! We can help create community around you while you pursue your career and raise kids.
I love this so much! We just bought a house in DC and are moving back late spring. My husband is military so we left for a stint in Colorado and I am sooooooo looking forward to your life and neighborhood parties!
Good luck Kristen!
I’ve found an element of this living in Brooklyn because of how common it is to move to the suburbs once your kids are elementary school aged or so. When we meet new people our age (usually, though not always other parents at our school/daycare) my wife and I absolutely try to suss out whether we think they’ll still be living here in a few years…
I live in Berlin, Germany, which is also a very transient city. Most of the people we befriended as new parents have moved on elsewhere by now. I’ve started to be very selective which relationships I invest in(or we as a couple), as it is exhausting to just go over the same cycle over and over. The pandemic and the extreme rent increases after were a full-on exodus. We don’t have small children at home any more, so now most of my close friends are people I know from work-related events.
This is interesting because while I was one of the DC transients (I was there for four years) and a lot of the people who I knew there have moved also, it was also the place I had the largest number of friends, and enough people have stayed there (or left for a few years and then moved back) that if we moved back there, we would have a lot more friends than we do where we are now. So I still think of it as the friendship mecca. Like when we go there for a weekend it's basically a 48-hour sprint to try to see 10 different people.
I felt the same way living in Austin. And now I work right outside DC if you ever want to chat!
I met another new hopefully future friend right in these very comments.
This is interesting to me because I grew up in DC and, as a result, accepted that stability (my family and many family friends) + transience (friends) could co-exist. And I was conditioned to stay in touch with transient friends — by letter(!), phone (Sundays were cheaper!), and intentionally making the effort to see them when traveling or when they were back visiting. As an adult who was migratory for awhile, I had a really hard time making friends in places where transience wasn’t common (Midwest, I’m looking at you), but also have a vast and far-flung friend network that I’ve maintained kind of as a default (of course that’s what you do — by email, phone, text, visits, etc)
I never know how much is DC-specific or just an aspect of being a city. I have to say I don't see the churn but I'm from the larger DC area so have been here forever and so have my friends, so I really haven't had a whole lot of friends leave the area. But from what I can tell the peak transience is mid 20s to mid 30s. If you make it past that you're probably sticking around the area.
I just had a similar conversation with a friend who lives in Los Alamos, NM. Because there is only ONE major employer (a national research laboratory) in that town, a lot of career aged professionals appear and disappear year over year, and she’s found it hard to build community for herself and her children.
And on the question of male loneliness, when I think about this question I notice my mind immediately goes to able-bodied, straight white guys as the people I am worried about. And yet the literature on loneliness usually points to difference being something that makes it more likely that people are likely to experience chronic loneliness. So I guess I'm curious about the diversity of experience of male loneliness, and how that looks different for different groups (ie, are gay men experiencing this in the same way as straight men? How does ethnicity/class affect this?).
Regarding how sexuality plays in, in my own experience as a (white, able-bodied, cis) gay man, I’m not hurting for close friendships and feel good about my ability to maintain and nurture them. That generally seems to be the case for a lot of my other gay make friends as well.
But I do think it’s interesting that many of my close friendships are with women (and have been since elementary school). I have two close straight male friends and often find it difficult to connect with new potential straight male friends on any sort of meaningful level, and I wonder if that’s just me or if it has to do with differences in how queer and straight men are socialized/navigate the world at an early age and what they come to expect out of friendship.
I'm glad you are doing okay!
Your comment about straight men and how to connect with them made me look up this AMAZING Crazy Ex Girlfriend song about how men how men communicate... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om80Y_V3fhw
Over the last year I went from occasionally going out with a handful of friends to going out once a week with one group. A chance meet-up at a bar got my mother and I to agree to having dinner with people we have known for years from church. This morphed into a group of 3-10 people meeting every Wednesday night for dinner plus other get togethers. And all of this is because one of our friends works hard to engage with her friends. She is always trying to get a group together to go to various places in town.