Apr 2, 2023·edited Apr 2, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
I am such an evangelist for prioritizing living near people who nourish your spirit. My husband and I lived in Brooklyn pre-pandemic and were totally in love with it. My brother and his wife, who are my best friends, have lived in Chicago for over a decade. My husband and I moved upstate during the pandemic, into a 9-month rental. Honest to god ONE WEEK before we were supposed to move again into another temporary sublet just for the summer, before returning to Brooklyn permanently in the fall, a tree fell on the new house and destroyed it. Coincidentally, the same week the tree crushed the house we were supposed to move into, my brother's upstairs tenants who had been occupying the second unit in the two-flat my brother owns moved out.
My husband and I decided to follow the signs of the universe and load up our tiny car with as much as would fit in the trunk, give our pandemic rescue dog some anxiety meds and a comfy back seat arrangement, and drive from upstate NY to Chicago for what we thought would only be a month or two while we continued to search for an apartment in Brooklyn. We lived in the truly nearly completely empty upstairs apartment unit for the summer of 2021 and I was overwhelmed with joy. We reconnected with a small but extremely close group of friends here. I was crying with happiness frequently, wondering how I would ever be able to choose to leave and return to Brooklyn.
Fast forward 1.5 years, we are still here. Living upstairs from my best friends has been the most impactful thing on my happiness ever in my life. I've never had such low anxiety, or so much peace and joy. We see each other pretty much everyday, in different ways. Some days I'll just pop in to their apartment on my way outside to walk our dog and let her say hello to my brother and sister-in-law's dog and we sit and chat for a few minutes about how its goin that day. Some days we have dinner together, play games together, go for walks and bike rides together. We dog-sit for each other, we go on trips together, we bring in each other's packages and text "going for a walk in five, anyone want to join?" The whole thing is casual, communal, everyday joy of being near people who make me laugh and feel seen.
I don't think anything else in my life matters as much as being near loved ones now. The pandemic definitely impacted this, and literally rearranged our lives, but really - I'm like, job ambition? Not that important. Exciting city? Not that important. Seeing my best friends easily, casually, consistently? Life-changing.
I don’t ever want to move out, which I once felt self-conscious saying. But now I don’t. I’m so happy living like this. It makes sense I don’t want to give it up. It’s hard to push back on the pressures of capitalism and definitions of success based on the nuclear family. But fuck that. I’m going to die someday, and I want to look back on my life and feel that I spent as much time as possible with the people I love, prioritizing joy and my personal values as much as possible. All of the constructed pressures around home ownership, wealth accumulation, job status — none of it inspires genuine peace or gratitude like being in community with the people who fill your heart. At least not for me. And so now I preach the good word — a meaningful social life over everything, if you can make it happen. (I know not everyone can.)
This is the absolute dream for me. I have wanted to do something like this for years. Buy a two- or three-flat with friends - we'd all have our own spaces, but shared yard, etc. The biggest block has been one not listed in your post (but maybe related to #3): We are not all in the same space financially. Those who make more aren't super interested in downsizing to space that would be affordable for those who make less. And those who make less are priced out of the neighborhoods where our richer friends live.
My building is actually for sale right now (a small two-flat) and I actually asked a friend if they would be interested in buying it with me. They were looking to buy a condo soon and while they were interested in the idea of us buying a place together, they had their heart set on something larger (3br/2ba vs. the 2br/1ba my building has) - which would, unfortunately, be beyond my budget.
Yes, this has been the rub for me and my friend group - we're all in different places financially. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable straight up paying for a place for everyone to live or being my friend's landlord... It sucks!
Oh yes of course that’s huge! I am so fortunate my brother was in a position to buy the two-flat I now live in. I like our neighborhood, but I don’t love it. If he asked me to co-buy this house with him, I might actually say no. Money makes everything weird doesn’t it?
This is very much like my experience. I moved into my now-husband's apartment in 2016. He was already very friendly with lots of his neighbors, and we are now a fairly tight group of friends. This intensified during lockdown, which we spent in a bubble of 8 people, helping each other out with cooking, shopping, and so on. In 2021 a friend who lived on the other side of town moved into the building to join us in the Castle of Friendship.
We eat with at least one of our neighbours probably 3 nights a week. We watch each other's pets, and go in to close windows if it rains unexpectedly. When I cut myself badly on a kitchen knife a few weeks ago, someone came round immediately to bandage me up. I regularly let myself into someone else's place and get work done on his couch when I need a break from my husband - we both work from home.
This piece made me cry, so I think you put your finger directly on a nerve. Especially as a single, childless adult, highly (over?)educated and working in one of the hyperspecialized professions you mentioned, I am only now (age 42) realizing how I have never been able to put down a deep root network, and what that has meant for my life.
When I was writing the section on how our society doesn't prioritize friendship, I was thinking of the people in my life who've expressed this sentiment, and how hard it is, and how it's not your fault — and how you'll never be able to spontaneously create those deep roots, but that doesn't mean that you can't start the process now. And yet: I still know how hard that is, when it seems everyone else's roots are intertwined with other people's. Sending you a lot of care today — I see you and see how hard it is.
I will add that one upside to the shallow root network is that while it's one inch deep, it IS a mile wide. I have friends all over the place and that is a nice thing, especially when you want to travel or look for a new job. It's less good when you put your back out and you need someone to go get robaxicet for you 🙃
yes! I have a huge network from years of being Terminally Online, and I know that if I go somewhere new, there's probably someone I know well enough to meet up with for dinner.
What has worked for many of my friends (much older than you) as an alternative to a long-established root structure is volunteering at an organization that has a cohesive long-term body of volunteers. I have never known so many educated, engaging, single and childless women and men as I have since volunteering, as well as empty nesters.
I am not saying it is easy. I have a daughter a little younger than you with a big career and a child, and I am so hopeful of her finding time to make friends after a move last year.
Thanks, Fritzie. It is true, volunteering is a great way to meet new friends. One thing I appreciated about Anne's piece, though, was the observation that nothing can really replace the sort of deep relationships that one develops over years and years. We need both in our lives. I've made new friends, but those friendships don't yet run very deep, and I think you need to be in the same place, consistently building relationships for a long time before that happens. Or move closer to those with whom you already have profound connection...
I would look for an organization that has a lot of volunteers and educational/growth opportunities for volunteers. I steer away from political organizations myself, because I need respite from heartbreaking efforts, but some other people may have the emotional bandwidth for that.
A community chorus or musical ensemble suits some people, with regular practices and performances.
A zoo, an arboretum, or a museum will often had a cadre of docents and ambassadors who become expert in the sorts of exhibits those institutions feature. The institutions are so happy to have the volunteers, there are often regular lectures, chances to participate in events, mentoring opportunities, chances to develop specialties, book groups and so forth. At the art museum and at the zoo in Seattle, for example, there are volunteers who have been there for thirty years.
A natural history museum will use volunteers in research labs, working directly with fossils.
I have no religious institutional affiliations, but one of my friends has handled one day a month of feeding community members downtown for thirty years.
The places with the best volunteer programs can keep volunteers for decades.
It doesn't always work out as planned. A few years ago I moved back to my hometown after 10 years away and I was so excited about being back near my people. But I'm a child-free single woman and they all have families. No matter how much I have tried to make plans so we can catch up, even if it's just running errands together or helping them chop vegetables while they make dinner, no matter how often I have reassured them that I don't care if there are screaming children or a messy house (which they all know because this is how things would go when I'd be back in town for a visit), it has proven very difficult to get any of them to follow through. I just saw one friend for tea the other week for the first time in a year and a half! There are a couple I haven't seen in longer than that.
It's been disheartening because I know they care about me. But friendship isn't at all their priority, at least not with me. Perhaps they got used to pushing responsibilities to the side whenever I'd come back into town but now there isn't an urgency since I live here again and so it's easy to let it slide. Complicating this is that I've been estranged from my parents for four years so my friends are everything and I was so hopeful to have that foundation again in my hometown. About a year ago I decided I needed to focus more on making new friends instead of continually asking the old ones, just for my own well-being. Perhaps they'll reemerge once their kids go off to college. In the meantime, I'm grateful for the friend I didn't know before I moved back who has become one of my closest people in the last couple of years. She has four kids and we get together at least every week or two. She's a reminder that people can make time for what they choose. I'm so glad she keeps choosing me and that helps me feel like I'll find more of my people here in time.
You are absolutely not the only person I know who's experienced this, and it reminds me, as another commenter put it below, that the hegemony of partnership and nuclear family is just the worst.
Oh my gosh, I can totally relate to how you offered to chop vegetables with your friends if it meant getting to see them!!
When my friends started having babies, I could see how exhausted and overwhelmed there were. I offered all kinds of help that they refused, including doing chores/errands for them, holding their babies while they the moms napped, or playing with the babies while the moms got stuff done around the house. I tried to suggest anything and everything that might be helpful, knowing that asking how I could help would be putting the mental load on them… and nada…
I went from seeing them very often to seeing them a handful of times per year. Children’s sport schedules come first. My parent-friends all love their children a lot, but none of them seem very happy or fulfilled.
It all feels really sad. I have time and would love to be part of their extended friend-family, but they won’t let me in on that level. I wonder how I will ever have a family, given that I am an only child with no cousins, and my husband and I are estranged from his family for political and social reasons.
My friends here and in other places I've lived had an easier time letting me be involved when their kids were babies and toddlers. Maybe they were home more then? But once they reached elementary school and especially middle school, activities and sports took over. Not in all cases, as my friend with 4 kids manages to juggle complicated schedules and still make time for me. But the Kids Activity Industrial Complex is real and I wish so many of us didn't relate to being sidelined by it.
“Children’s sport schedules come first. My parent-friends all love their children a lot, but none of them seem very happy or fulfilled.” Yes!!! It’s so hard to watch and unbelievably sad and frustrating.
These stories are making me think that there are several definitions of "friendship" that we lump all together and pretend to mutually understand each other. I'm thinking of all the people in my old town who always wanted to "get coffee" but would always just schedule another coffee date for six months in the future...they wanted to maintain a tenuous connection or decompress or something, but they didn't really want to build a relationship of trust and mutual care.
And do we need better skills/structures/language for gently confronting our friends who claim to care or to be lonely, but won't make these hard choices or daily adjustments to prioritize it? That sounds scary, but as I look ahead to parenthood, I sure hope someone would do that for me if I were too overwhelmed to make those choices well on my own. Maybe I'm a little weird that way, though.
I think you're right about there being different definitions of friendship, as well as different expectations we assign to people depending on how close we think they are.
This is an excellent point - part of the problem is the imprecise nature of the word “friend,” which we use to encompass everything from a soulmate, to the neighbor we occasionally go walking with, to someone we know from childhood and see once a year at the Christmas party. We need more descriptive language so we can better define the concept and set clearer expectations with each other!
I so wish people wouldn’t say “let’s get coffee” if they don’t have the intention or capacity to actually do it. Wouldn’t it be nice if people just said “I’m so glad I ran into you!” instead of setting off that cycle of trying to schedule/realizing they didn’t actually mean to get coffee with me/wondering if it means they don’t really like me? This social pattern drives me bananas.
It's just like dating (not that I've dated in a long time): some people are looking for a relationship, and some are doing it just to do it, and for whatever reason they won't always declare themselves (be honest with themselves??!). And it's kind of impossible to play the game at all without taking it personally.
I had a friend who would only meet people for walks or at her house, which is just a shade more intimate than "coffee." I think it worked to filter out some noise.
I’m right there with you. And I’m so sorry, because I know how hard it is. I moved back to my hometown in 2015 after 6 years living in NYC and was blindsided by how little I was able to see my closest friends, all of whom I had known for decades. I’m also a childfree, single woman (left NYC after a divorce) and while I was away all of my friends had started to have children and move to the suburbs. Even if I had wanted to live in the suburbs closer to them, which I did not, I would not have been able to afford to live in any of their neighborhoods. I was overwhelmed with grief and coped by reconnecting with people in my extended friend group, who were also childless, and hitting the bars. While that had it’s moments, the friendships were shallow and mostly unfulfilling. After 3 years I decided on a whim to move to the Midwest to be near my sister who is also childless. We had not lived in the same city ever as adults so there was an adjustment period, but it was a welcome relief and sustained me for 3 years until she abruptly moved back to the east coast. So I’ve been alone in a city where I know virtually no one for the past 2 years, and for all of the fun financial reasons mentioned in the piece, I cannot afford to leave anytime soon. I had started to cultivate friendships through volunteering when I first moved here, but they were not strong enough yet to survive the pandemic.
I relate so much to your frustration over how difficult it is to get friends with kids to follow through. I text with my close friends every day, but they have only visited me once (in 2019) since I moved here. And the last time I visited them, it was as if I had popped in unexpectedly. I do not have the financial means that they have and I have to find and pay for care for my dogs and cats in order to travel, so when I do it’s a huge ordeal and extremely stressful. And yet none of them changed their weekend activities (mostly taking kids to various sports practices) during my short visit. We talk constantly about taking a girls trip but no one will ever commit because... overscheduling. Yet they are always going on family vacations. Invite me! I’ll come on your family vacation if that means I get to see you! But I honestly don’t think it even occurs to them because the nuclear family model is so ingrained. I’m also estranged from most of my family so I spend most holidays alone and do not have the option for family vacations, which absolutely makes losing this foundation so much harder.
I know my friends care about me too, but I also know that there are people with children who still prioritize friendships, so it’s difficult not to feel hurt even though I know that it’s not intentional. I am that friend Anne mentioned who is always sending Zillow links for potential commune properties lol. We talk about it all the time. And I even think a couple of my friends would really go for it, but they don’t feel like they have a choice. Doing anything that subverts the nuclear family structure, even though it’s admittedly making some of them miserable, isn’t possible for them because it’s just not done. Which is funny to me because I have been subverting social norms my entire adult life, including now as a single 41 year old woman who lives alone with her animals and has no interest in dating, and it seems like you have too, so I know that it can be done. It frustrates me that they can’t envision a different way of living.
I’m so happy you shared your story. You are not alone. And it gives me hope that you were able to meet someone who actually prioritizes friendship. I had pretty much given up on finding a friend like that here, but I will keep trying. Good luck!
Oh, Emily!! There's so much I relate to in your response. I'm so sorry your sister moved away and now you're having to figure out life in that city on your own. I moved a few times during my decade away and was torn between coming back to my hometown in the Chicago suburbs or going back to Nashville, where I lived for 5 years and still have strong ties. Coming back home felt right and in many ways I'm glad I'm back, even though the community piece fell completely apart. But it's so hard to start from scratch in a place where I ostensibly have deep ties! It makes me wonder if I should have gone back to Nashville but god, I'm so glad I don't live in Tennessee right now. There's no perfect place, I know, but I really hope we both find our people sooner than later.
Sadly, this is so relatable. From my experience, most people who have kids very quickly drop their friends who don't, and they don't re-emerge when the kids are older. If they were to re-emerge, very likely that after all those years you wouldn't have much in common anymore. Perhaps YMMV - I hate to be a hope-destroyer! But definitely focus on friends who want to be with you *now*.
I'm auntie to a number of friends' kids but they all live in places I used to live so I know it's possible to maintain those relationships. I just really did not expect that the friendships I maintained during the 10 years I was away wouldn't continue once I lived in the same place again. I was really happy when that friend reached out to have tea the other week and I'm certainly open if any of the others reach out. But yeah, I have no idea who we'll all be whenever they're empty nesters so I'm not holding my breath.
I feel you on this. Have been in my hometown for a while and people either moved away (rural-ish tourist town) after a while or have families. I have never been able to penetrate the nuclear family dome with these people and only see them occasionally. It is what it is, but I need more. Despite my family being in the area, I don't think staying here is in the cards for me.
Fingers crossed for you! After moving a few times during my decade away, it's been a relief to stay put for a while. But I'm definitely contemplating whether another move will be in my future and where I might try next. Either way, I'm with you on prioritizing child-free people and empty nesters.
I moved to the Boston area for college and in choosing to stay there post-college, my friends were my support system. As more and more of my friends got married and moved to the suburbs, I as the single one, found myself with less and less of a support system that I felt I could just drop in on when having a bad or great day. Only a few of them had significant others that recognized the importance of our friendship and so I often felt I was intruding when dropping by unannounced or spending too many consecutive hours with them.
In 2019 I chose to move to DC as that is where my sister was and my soon to be niece. I wanted to be her one physically close family member because I knew how important that was, but I also needed a place I could go after a bad day, that didn't require a phone call first or feel like I was intruding on a young marriage, which is how I often felt with my college friends. As a teacher in an independent school finding a new job wasn't too hard and I was lucky enough to be able to afford my own apartment without having to find a random roommate, but then the pandemic happened. My sister asked me to spend my days remote teaching from her house, so that we could together juggle childcare with remote work. It was a hard time, but one I am grateful for. I have a bond with my niece like none other and my sister finally experienced how tough my job can be listening in first hand. Our relationship is so much stronger now as it had been a while since we had lived in the same city and gone through life together. I still had my apartment and went home most weekends to enjoy the silence and lack of schedule, but as the pandemic went on, I stayed at her place more and more.
I had made a few friends at work pre-pandemic but didn't really have a social life in DC. When I was forced to go back to teaching in-person, my sister was pregnant again and did not feel safe with me in her house with none of us being vaccinated and still a lot of unknowns about Covid. I understood and respected this, but I didn't realize how much I had come to love living with her and her family and how the silence of my apartment was no longer the joy it had been a year before, when I began living sans roommates for the first time. One friend from work who I had only hung out with a couple of times outside of work before the pandemic, for some reason chose to keep growing our friendship in the new normal. I don't know why, as I was in a rough place, and not at all choosing to put myself out their to building relationships but somehow she recognized my struggle in our daily zoom meetings, or saw beyond my current state to the person and friend I one day hoped to get back to being. She invited me over to sit on her back deck around the fire pit at a six-feet distance. Every Friday after teaching I drove over there, especially when we suddenly went back to remote teaching, to sit and talk with her in all sorts of weather. Occasionally her family joined us or another friend, but it was often just the two of us.
Now I am still teaching at the school, but she has left. When she told me she was leaving I was very afraid of how our friendship would remain in place. I didn't really know her family or other friends as our relationship had blossomed in the middle of a global pandemic. As the school year started without her, I knew I still wanted her in my life, as she had become so much more than a coworker. We started a weekly Tuesday tradition, of me coming to her house and having dinner with her family. In that time I got closer with her kids, and occasionally her husband though he was often away on business trips. She was giving me family time that I craved so much, especially since my sister had now moved over an hour outside of the city and with two kids under two, when I visited I was auntie first not best friend sister.
Sometime last winter or early spring, my friend's husband was gone for a month on a business trip and some things happened in which she needed support. I felt so loved and wanted when she asked me for help and I was ready to do whatever was needed, to reciprocate all that she had been doing for me. That spring I spent so much time with her, started to grow close with her kids as auntie, who sometimes became a coparent, and somehow fit myself into her family routine. Instead of just Tuesday dinners, it slowly became every other Saturday too. And then why not just go right after work on Friday, so we could have movie night before running errands together all of Saturday. I am lucky that her home is large enough for me to have my own room and privacy when I need it and so that I don't feel like I am intruding in her family's space, when I choose to spend the night and another day over there.
This school year has been real tough for me and she and her family have been everything. She knows what about my job is hard, she knows all the people, so I don't have to explain. I am now spending almost every weekend and a few weeknights at her house. Sometimes its planned, sometimes I just have a day where I can't go home to an empty apartment and feel safer in the noise and chaos of her family. Our other friends often joke I should just move in with her as I am there so often.
As of last week, it really isn't a joke any more. I am looking for a new job and know I will be taking a pay cut and so need to find a cheaper apartment, but as I started searching I realized the thing I want most is to not live alone anymore and to live with people that love me and respect me. So I asked her, when my lease is up this summer, can my new apartment just be her guest room. I am already sleeping there three or four nights a week, so why not just make it permanent. She said yes, and it was a huge relief. We still have to talk details as I don't want this to change our friendship and need to find my place in how I can contribute to the family, but knowing that she wants this too means the world. I know this will not be forever, but at this current moment in my life, I need to live with people who love me and it is my dear friend who is the one I have chosen. I know my sister would have also said yes, because as sisters that is what we do for each other but while I love her and her family, they are at a different stage in their family life and in making my choice, my friend's home felt like the one I belonged in. I know if I weren't single or hadn't been so accepted by her husband and kids, or if her home didn't have a guest room, this may not be possible, but it is. It seems crazy that someone I have known for less than four years would mean this much to me and me to her, but I am so lucky to have found her and built this relationship.
I am so happy it will soon not take me a half hour to get to her house, and maybe one day being in the same city or neighborhood will be enough, but I am not ashamed to admit that knowing I can be under the same roof as my friend in a few months, has brought me such joy and the strength to get through some of the other big decisions I need to make in the coming months. This article just makes it clear my personal needs are shared by others. Friends as family, its the best!
❤️🩹 This was gorgeous to read! What an exciting step to take - and how lovely for your friend’s kids to grow up with another adult figure they can look up to.
Okay I have a lot to talk about here - because I am actually doing this, this year!
First, some backstory, and the acknowledgement that I’m in the UK where distances are smaller. Although both of my parents are British, neither of them are *from* the town they live in now, where I was brought up - they both moved to London as adults, and then to the commuter belt when I was a baby (think, a town that is the British equivalent of Westchester/ has enough money to change the world but votes Conservative and doesn’t want to - yes, that IS why I left that town). So I grew up thinking that you went and got whatever education you were going to, and then chose where to live - and kind of assumed I’d end up back in London.
BUT I got a job in Edinburgh, Scotland, out of university - and love it here. There’s a huge literary scene, lots of arts, and I have built some friendships here over the half-decade-plus I’ve been here. When I moved here, it was the only city (of the offices I could have worked in with my organisation) that met the criteria of: being able to afford to live alone, in a nice place, within a 20-30 minute walk of work. I love living in Edinburgh - I just hate that it’s a full day’s travel to get to where most of my friends and family live, and I’m completely at the mercy of the train schedules, as even if I had a car, it would be too far to drive alone.
Now, though, the parameters have changed: I earn more than I did as a fresh graduate, and most importantly I don’t have to be in the office more than once every week or two - and I’m in head office in London more than I am my local ‘hub’, just because of how work works now.
And all my friends from back home are getting married and having babies and I am barely involved in their lives.
So I’m moving back. I can’t afford the life I want in London, so I’m moving back to the small city I went to university in, where I have a bunch of mates either in that city, its larger neighbour (where there is an office for my company, which will be my ‘hub’), or in London, which is 90 minutes away on the train. I can’t wait.
I actually made the decision towards the end of 2021 but there’s a bunch of things that have had to happen before I can sell my flat (which I bought at the end of 2018, assuming I was going to continue to build my life here indefinitely). I expect it to finally happen this summer. On the financial note, though, I’m making what my parents initially saw as a stupid financial decision to do this - selling my flat and going back to renting. It took a while to convince myself - and them - that it was the right decision for me.
Part of what’s made me more determined to do this is the realisation that I sit somewhere on the ace-spectrum. Or that I find it more difficult than many seem to to get into romantic relationships, if you don’t feel the need to label it. That’s made me feel free-er to prioritise my friendships. My best best friend, who is long term single, and knows that he will be man-of-honour if and when I do eventually find a man to marry, came as my date to my mum’s 60th birthday party earlier this year (he’s incredibly lovely as both he and I are interested in men, there’s no romantic possibilities!) - a choice I don’t know if I’d have felt empowered to make/ an invite I don’t know if I’d have felt entitled to ask for, if I hadn’t come to that realisation last year. (Courtesy of Alice Oseman’s Loveless and Alison Cochrun’s The Charm Offensive). I also joke that I’ve seen all the men on the dating apps in Edinburgh, and I’m not going to swipe right now on someone Bumble has been showing me for six years, haha!
The other part - which is sadder - is the realisation that I won’t have my parents forever. I want to spend more time with them while I can - and the kind of low pressure just hanging out time, rather than planned time for events and occasions.
(I talked about this more - yes, that is possible! - on my own newsletter at the start of Feb)
Yes! It is so much harder when you’re ace/aro and you will probably always be single! (That may not be the case for you, but it sure is for me. I’d say I’ve got like a 10-15% chance of ever finding a life partner, for a variety of reasons.)
Life is just so much harder when you’re on your own! Having to shoulder the burden of all of life’s tasks by yourself? It’s hard and exhausting! (Though still imo much to be preferred to being in a bad or even mediocre relationship.)
And if most of your friends are partnered off, there’s the perpetual fear of being the 3rd/5th/whatever wheel, where they are always always more of a priority for you than you are for them.
Apr 2, 2023·edited Apr 4, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
Yes, exactly! I don’t want to make life decisions on the assumption that I will find a life partner, because evidence to date... doesn’t support that. Being closer to friends and family will, I hope, mitigate the feeling of always having to do everything for myself - although not as you say the 3rd/5th wheel phenomenon!
Car-centric culture plays a role, too. I do live near friends but wouldn’t see them very often if we couldn’t walk or bike to one another’s houses. That only gets worse as population increases in our county and driving becomes such a headache. That’s wrapped in with zoning codes and the legacy of redlining and how highways were deliberately built to tear apart neighborhoods and communities (most of color, to benefit mostly white-populated suburbs).
And let’s talk more about how expensive moving is. So expensive! And I’m really glad you made that point about some states--many states--becoming actively unsafe. Even if the state isn’t, the area your friends live in might be actively hostile. I’d love to have and hear more conversations about this reality.
Last thing: It seems important not to idealize this *too* much. You live near friends and spend a lot of time together and you’ll have rocky times to navigate. You’ll have misunderstandings and fallings-out, or your friends will with one another, and your relationships will change over time. You might even drift apart.
I love the point here (and that you made in another comment) about how this type of friendship is not always simple or easy — it's messy, and much like any other intimate relationship, requires a lot of communication and working through shit and grace.
This is super fascinating for me because I’m doing the thing, while renting in NYC. I have a great crew of friends who all live within a ten minute walk from my studio apartment, with the closest friends who have my spare keys being just around the block.
Here’s the trick: we’re a group that became friends as young adults at our synagogue. If you’re the kind of observant Jew who doesn’t drive or take transit on Shabbat and holidays, then you have to live walking distance from your synagogue, and so we all do. Even those of us who do take transit on Shabbat - myself included - live in the neighborhood because if you want to have friends over for Shabbat dinner, they need to be able to walk! And because observing Shabbat is part of our routines, you can find some combination of us hanging out at someone’s apartment almost every week. Friday dinners and long leisurely Saturday lunches are just part of our lives. In the summer we’ll just declare a spot in a park for people to hang on Saturday afternoon, whoever is free. And outside of Shabbat, I always can find someone to run an errand with, go for a walk, help me with a home task, etc.
The group has shifted to bring in new people, and we’re just approaching the point where some folks might move away to the suburbs - the first pregnancy in this big group of friends - but enough of us are committed to staying in the city that I feel very secure. Maybe that will change - we do all rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world - but for now I feel like I am living the dream.
I grew up in a reformed Jewish family, and had a best friend who was modern orthodox. Every once in a while, I would spend the whole Shabbat weekend at her house, where she was embedded in a community of modern orthodox Jews who all lived walking distance from their synagogue. Those weekends were so incredibly lovely - they made a huge impression on me. It was all community, long walks outside, eating meals with other families, playing games - so peaceful and so loving and so grounded.
Rachel, I resonate so strongly with this – had been writing my own comment with similar structure. My closest NYC friendships were formed when we were all in our early 20s in a church community. Like yours, and even after the dissolution of that church / amidst diverging faith journeys, my close group of friends have maintained a kind of familial intimacy that is both intentional and instinctual; we go to each other's doctor's appointments, take care of each other's pets, bring food by when someone's sick, have keys to each other's apartments, etc. (and I also live in a studio apartment with most of this close group in a 10 minute radius!). These relationships are my foundation and the locus of so much joy for me.
The one thing I miss about being observant was being a part of that community. There's just something so safe about the rhythm of life within that structure.
Yes! Intentional rhythm of life, always knowing that the next Shabbat is coming soon, the Sunday/Monday/Tuesday text messages “do you have dinner plans? Do you have lunch plans? Do you want to play board games Saturday afternoon?” Even if my week is busy with work and whatever else, I know I’ll see my people and have time to spend sitting around on a couch with them shmoozing.
You might enjoy Judith Shulevitz's THE SABBATH WORLD, which is an appreciation for these very rhythms (and why, even outside of religion, they can and should be extended to the rest of society):
I love all of this, thank you for sharing! I don't have anything like this in my life right now, but I've been listening to Casper ter Kuile's The Power of Ritual, which talks a lot about these rhythms too, so I'm going to add The Sabbath World to my hold list now!
There's this weird way in which the idea of the friendgroup commune has become such a pervasive fantasy among so many folks I know, that it almost feels like the fantasy-ness of it is yet another reason making it less likely to come to pass. Like it's become some kind of semiotic security blanket for dealing with the uncertainty of late-stage capitalism, to know that we all share a vague back-up plan that we've at least *fantasized* about. But since our lives are freighted by all the factors you lay out (and more!), we're not actually close to taking action to make this thing a reality. Frustrated dreaming just seems like such a big part of what our culture is offering us and incentivizing right now.
My friends and I all know exactly which subjects we're going to teach at the Montessori-like school we collectively run on a commune in Vermont one day ;)
I was just in my cups over that quote from maybe-Fitzgerald and then I read this. Ouch. 😆 but it brought me out of the Land of Extremely Glum for a moment.
The challenge I've found, as a single woman in my late 40s, is #1. Almost all of my friends are partnered. No matter how close we are, their partners (or children) are the priority. I understand and respect this, but at the same time, it leaves someone who doesn't have a partner or kids out of luck; we are no one's priority, unless the need is urgent and acute. Regular friendship isn't urgent and acute, and so I am usually the person who initiates plans, and I'm often worried about being a burden to my friends who have more familial obligations and responsibilities than I do. So I spend way more time alone than is healthy for me.
I have struggled not to carry resentment; everyone is doing their best in a difficult human life. I have also tried to make new friends, especially single friends, but as we know, making new friends is hard! You have to find people you like, which is hard, and you also need some shared interest in and time and space for a new friendship, which is luck.
The hegemony of partnership and nuclear family is just the worst. There's a helpful suggestion in this thread about having intentional conversations with your friends about expectations/desires of closeness. I think that's the right direction, at least for older friends, though a conversation is not the same as the actual day to day practice. I'd welcome any wisdom that folks have to offer here.
As an autistic person, I have a hard time committing to frequent/seasonal video calls. Not because I don't want to connect, but because eye contact and verbal articulation depletes me in a way I am still trying to understand while remaining connected to people I love. Something that I have been experimenting with these last 3 years is asking myself, How would I like someone to connect with me if they were trying to authentically and consensually come closer? For me, I realized asking friends one at a time (not in a group, that was way too much work!) to read a book together and discuss via voice memos and texts, and letting my friends know I'm open to almost any online class together has been a way I have cultivated ritual with something that anchors and nourishes me - learning. When I think about my mom who is in her 80s and doesn't use the internet, I realized she goes to the same places and has been for decades. Same grocery store, dance class, hardware shop, etc. She's organically "picked up friendships" because she is that woman that is often there. I wonder if there are places you are a regular at where you could post on Next Door or a similar MeetUp for folks to meet without pressure or expectations.
I am in my late 20s and with my friends at this age, I am already seeing the deep attachment to romantic partners and I am anticipating, and fearing, what's to come in the next years, that slowly I will lose touch with close friends as they prioritize the nuclear family and their partners. It's funny, we talk to each other about how that should never happen and we won't let it happen, but it's already happening.
Thank you for sharing your story. I can relate to the trying my best to "not carry resentment" part, especially when you consciously know you are no ones top priority. it's so tricky. I wish you all the best
This article has made me wonder if I need new friends. Our diversity is our strength, but it also would make it impossible to all agree on a place to live. As a Black woman, I feel unsafe and often lonely in the US outside my intensely diverse Blue city in a Blue state. I'm a single parent to a tween and need access to good diverse schools, camps, grocery delivery, and urban amenities that make my life possible. One best friend dreams of raising her daughter near the beach in LA (nope, I went to college there and felt completely isolated). Another good friend and her husband must stay near his ailing parents, but I couldn't move into their neighborhood where they were afraid to fly a rainbow flag to support their son. I could go on and on for each member of my circle. I'll be following the comments closely. I can't imagine the amount of privilege someone would need to make moving near friends feasible in the US.
I didn't get too much into the parenting needs but I think that's a huge one — not wanting to upset routines, having schools that fit their needs and are diverse, being close to a co-parent (which someone raised in another question). The privilege question is one I thought about a lot as I was writing, because at least statistically, most people in the US are unlikely to have moved far from their support network in the first place.....so living *apart* from friends is, in itself, a problem that largely (but not exclusively) afflicts the highly-educated.
I would need to know the definition of highly-educated in this scenario. We are mostly friends from college, one from high school, one from having similarly aged children in school. One Masters degree among us.
From how I understand the study that Calaraco cites above — college-educated means more likely to live farther from home, and it goes up from there. (And also more likely if you have two people with professional degrees in the home)
They're what Jilly Cooper called The Spiralists, people who move with their careers, changing locations and friends as they spiral upward. (Jilly Cooper was a popular writer maybe 1,000 years ago, but she had a good observers eye.)
Your point about privilege here is the most significant for me. Moving is so expensive! It takes a lot of cash up front to be able to relocate, even to a “cheaper” place. And then the job/career considerations too. It is insurmountable for so many people.
Someone recently remarked to me how great it is that in the US we’re so free to move around geographically and sure, I guess that’s true, but also that’s only true for people of a certain amount of privilege.
I read a great line somewhere: if progressive people truly wanted to change the US, we would make it more affordable for people of all demographics (immigrants, undocumented folks, LGBTQIA+, union workers, tradespeople, pro-choice, etc.) to move to pricey progressive areas.
Yep! When I see those "hate has no home here" signs in DC I'm like, well neither do people, so if "immigrants are welcome here" build housing people can afford.
It's #2 for me. My closest and most treasured friend group is my high school friends -- we actually used to joke about starting a commune someday. Now we're in our late 30s, and even though a handful went to the same college in the state where we grew up, we're scattered now: two couples still in our hometown(ish), one in New England, one in Maryland, one in West Virginia, a few out on the West Coast, and two of us in NYC. We're also almost all married or in committed relationships with people we met outside this group, and several folks have small kids.
We used to take a vacation together every summer (we maxed out at 21 people in a huge beach house in Virginia Beach in 2008), and we looked forward to that all year. But it's hard now that people have kids, and the last time we pulled it off was in 2017. When someone gets married, most of us show up -- but after this May, there might not be any more weddings, because almost all of the couples in the group who are on that path have already had theirs. We have a group chat (a few of us swap Wordle scores daily, which is a simple but sweet touchpoint), and those of us whose parents are still in our hometown usually get together when we visit for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving.
I *DEEPLY* wish we all lived closer. But with jobs, partners' jobs, aging parents and/or parents who care for kids, and even just geographical preferences (our California friends are not interested in coming back East and I don't really blame them!), it doesn't feel plausible. When I think about what life would feel like if I could walk to all of their houses, it makes me ache.
After living in Seattle for 10 years, I recently moved back to Buffalo – where I haven't lived in over 20 years. But after the last few years of pandemic living, I decided I wanted to be closer to family and friends. As one of my good friends back here in Buffalo said as I was thinking about the move last year, "Sometimes you just need to be close to your people." I'm very fortunate in that my job was already remote – so career wise it was easy. And in the six months I've been back, I've already spent more time with family and friends than I did over the last 10 years combined! No regrets!
Ann Arbor has lots of trees (no surprise), parks and gardens. I will be entombed in our family crypt or composted there (not yet legal in Michigan) someday and that’s fine by me.
I am a big fan of Buffalo, so I get your decision. I am about to leave New Orleans and go back to Ann Arbor. I fully plan to spend several months of the year here, and I do have a nice group of friends and professional contacts. But I have realized that no one here knows my background, no one knew my parents, no one knows what I mean when I say “Maynard, like the street.” Some people want a completely fresh start; I have discovered that I need roots.
I’m from Rochester and have been in Colorado for ~13 years, and while a lot of my friends are semi-permanently back in Rochester and Buffalo I’m having a hard time committing (mentally, for now) to a very real winter again. Being near my family and friends is very tempting, as is being able to afford a house, but I’m very worried my anxious brain wouldn’t cope well with the lack of sun. My girlfriend is also from Southern California and can barely tolerate Denver winters 😂
Oh, I definitely understand that – especially given that Buffalo experienced a supposed once-in-a-generation blizzard this past December (and I lost power for 72 hours because of the storm!). But sadly, another part of my calculus in leaving Seattle and the Pacific Northwest was that the wildfires and wildfire smoke there have been awful the last few years – and will only get worse due to climate change. Though I will still miss summers in the PNW...
Yeah, summer in the PNW is hard to beat. My best friend from high school actually moved from Portland to Denver this year. And while that’s obviously great for me so long as I stay here, I do miss having a reason to visit Oregon a few times a year and having a free place to stay.
Related to #1 (we don't prioritize friendship), I'd call out explicitly: We over-prioritize work above all else. If we're not careful, work friends become our only friends, both out of convenience and because we have no bandwidth to deepen other friendships after a long work day and commute, especially if we work in a toxic environment.
If we're lucky, work friends can become real life friends. If we're not, an entire network goes POOF after a job change and/or move.
You are so right. And it takes effort to turn work friends into actual friends. You have to get together outside of work and you need to be able to talk about things other than work, you know? And do it regularly. If you don’t, then these friendships won’t, as you note, survive when you or they are no longer at the same job. And it seems like some people retire and discover they have no friends. And that would be so lonely.
Long time reader, first time commenter. Just want to say how much I appreciate this piece. I live alone, my friends are scattered all over the country, I have very little community here...and it is so difficult. Moved here for my partner, we divorced years ago, still here and trying to make a go of it but...this piece has given me much to think about. Thank you. Last weekend on a whim I attended a reunion / fundraiser / anniversary for my summer camp. (Yeah, a Jewish summer camp, appreciated that recent piece, too). People who I haven't seen since '94 (excluding social media). There was so much love in that room, which is a separate story...but it shined a light on how little of that I have around me. And my friends are probably the ones most likely to offer that, and they aren't here. It's a bummer and a problem and I realize now how seriously I have to consider making a change.
I had a similar experience at a reunion that really clarified a lot of things for me and set a few things in motion that led to my current situation! It's a little thing, but it's not a little thing, you know?
Before going to the reunion, I thought it was a little thing. Maybe even frivolous. After...it's not a little thing at all. I forgot I could feel that way, that noticed, that appreciated. To me that's both painfully sad but also encouraging that it's possible.
This reminds me of one of the episodes of Fleischmann is in trouble. Sometimes it's nice to be around people who really liked you once upon a time — and are still likely to think positively of you.
Yes. I moved out to CA with my partner many years ago and then it didn’t work out after about 3 1/2 years. He drove back to FL, where he was from. I stayed here because… where else would I go?
I’ve always wanted to live with friends, and have been determined to make it happen after living in a multigenerational home with my in-laws. It was a life changing experience for all of us.
I believe one of the biggest barriers is communication (ie boundaries and expectations) and getting over our sense of fierce independence. It’s definitely not easy to learn to live with other adults, but it’s a skill that can be learned.
My dream is buying a farm + school house on a piece of land that can accommodate many of my close friends and their families. It will happen--but there are also lots of legal barriers and zoning rules when it comes to buying homes as a collective. That’s something that needs to change too!
Yes! It's one of those things where, like, I understand why there are laws preventing people from turning a big parcel of farm land into a suburban neighborhood....but also what about collective housing! How do we create the capacity for that to happen?
I desperately want to live in a baugrappen, if only zoning made it possible to build them in the US. I think the demand would be huge if they existed: https://www.larchlab.com/baugruppen/ I lost some relationships in the last few years that were not the healthiest and for as flawed as those relationships were in some ways, in my 30s the intimacy and sheer amount of time that went into those relationships feels impossible to recreate, but living in a community like this would make it so much easier
My friends and I have always talked about The Compound, half joking, but not really. There's definitely a desire among us to live in close proximity in exactly the way you describe. It'll never happen, but it's fun to think about.
I work in academia, and I've decided that however annoying my job gets, I realistically need to stay in my town *because* I have a support network here - lots of friends; networks of people who can help me in a jam; the wisdom of 'who do I call when X breaks?'; not to mention lengthy relationships with plumbers, health care providers, and community activists. I can't imagine trying to rebuild this at 51 in a whole new place. It can be frustrating, and who knows what it means for my career, but I value the network I'm embedded in so much.
Yes, this. I am truly baffled by people who retire and pick up and move to a sunny place. Well, not baffled by the desire to be warm. But leaving your network behind, I can’t imagine doing that. My relationships are vital to my well-being. And, for me, they need to be in-person.
I am such an evangelist for prioritizing living near people who nourish your spirit. My husband and I lived in Brooklyn pre-pandemic and were totally in love with it. My brother and his wife, who are my best friends, have lived in Chicago for over a decade. My husband and I moved upstate during the pandemic, into a 9-month rental. Honest to god ONE WEEK before we were supposed to move again into another temporary sublet just for the summer, before returning to Brooklyn permanently in the fall, a tree fell on the new house and destroyed it. Coincidentally, the same week the tree crushed the house we were supposed to move into, my brother's upstairs tenants who had been occupying the second unit in the two-flat my brother owns moved out.
My husband and I decided to follow the signs of the universe and load up our tiny car with as much as would fit in the trunk, give our pandemic rescue dog some anxiety meds and a comfy back seat arrangement, and drive from upstate NY to Chicago for what we thought would only be a month or two while we continued to search for an apartment in Brooklyn. We lived in the truly nearly completely empty upstairs apartment unit for the summer of 2021 and I was overwhelmed with joy. We reconnected with a small but extremely close group of friends here. I was crying with happiness frequently, wondering how I would ever be able to choose to leave and return to Brooklyn.
Fast forward 1.5 years, we are still here. Living upstairs from my best friends has been the most impactful thing on my happiness ever in my life. I've never had such low anxiety, or so much peace and joy. We see each other pretty much everyday, in different ways. Some days I'll just pop in to their apartment on my way outside to walk our dog and let her say hello to my brother and sister-in-law's dog and we sit and chat for a few minutes about how its goin that day. Some days we have dinner together, play games together, go for walks and bike rides together. We dog-sit for each other, we go on trips together, we bring in each other's packages and text "going for a walk in five, anyone want to join?" The whole thing is casual, communal, everyday joy of being near people who make me laugh and feel seen.
I don't think anything else in my life matters as much as being near loved ones now. The pandemic definitely impacted this, and literally rearranged our lives, but really - I'm like, job ambition? Not that important. Exciting city? Not that important. Seeing my best friends easily, casually, consistently? Life-changing.
I don’t ever want to move out, which I once felt self-conscious saying. But now I don’t. I’m so happy living like this. It makes sense I don’t want to give it up. It’s hard to push back on the pressures of capitalism and definitions of success based on the nuclear family. But fuck that. I’m going to die someday, and I want to look back on my life and feel that I spent as much time as possible with the people I love, prioritizing joy and my personal values as much as possible. All of the constructed pressures around home ownership, wealth accumulation, job status — none of it inspires genuine peace or gratitude like being in community with the people who fill your heart. At least not for me. And so now I preach the good word — a meaningful social life over everything, if you can make it happen. (I know not everyone can.)
Oh man, I hope this is secretly somehow future me writing this
This is the absolute dream for me. I have wanted to do something like this for years. Buy a two- or three-flat with friends - we'd all have our own spaces, but shared yard, etc. The biggest block has been one not listed in your post (but maybe related to #3): We are not all in the same space financially. Those who make more aren't super interested in downsizing to space that would be affordable for those who make less. And those who make less are priced out of the neighborhoods where our richer friends live.
My building is actually for sale right now (a small two-flat) and I actually asked a friend if they would be interested in buying it with me. They were looking to buy a condo soon and while they were interested in the idea of us buying a place together, they had their heart set on something larger (3br/2ba vs. the 2br/1ba my building has) - which would, unfortunately, be beyond my budget.
Yes, this has been the rub for me and my friend group - we're all in different places financially. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable straight up paying for a place for everyone to live or being my friend's landlord... It sucks!
Oh yes of course that’s huge! I am so fortunate my brother was in a position to buy the two-flat I now live in. I like our neighborhood, but I don’t love it. If he asked me to co-buy this house with him, I might actually say no. Money makes everything weird doesn’t it?
This is very much like my experience. I moved into my now-husband's apartment in 2016. He was already very friendly with lots of his neighbors, and we are now a fairly tight group of friends. This intensified during lockdown, which we spent in a bubble of 8 people, helping each other out with cooking, shopping, and so on. In 2021 a friend who lived on the other side of town moved into the building to join us in the Castle of Friendship.
We eat with at least one of our neighbours probably 3 nights a week. We watch each other's pets, and go in to close windows if it rains unexpectedly. When I cut myself badly on a kitchen knife a few weeks ago, someone came round immediately to bandage me up. I regularly let myself into someone else's place and get work done on his couch when I need a break from my husband - we both work from home.
I basically never plan to move.
This is beautiful.
This is really lovely. Congratulations.
This piece made me cry, so I think you put your finger directly on a nerve. Especially as a single, childless adult, highly (over?)educated and working in one of the hyperspecialized professions you mentioned, I am only now (age 42) realizing how I have never been able to put down a deep root network, and what that has meant for my life.
When I was writing the section on how our society doesn't prioritize friendship, I was thinking of the people in my life who've expressed this sentiment, and how hard it is, and how it's not your fault — and how you'll never be able to spontaneously create those deep roots, but that doesn't mean that you can't start the process now. And yet: I still know how hard that is, when it seems everyone else's roots are intertwined with other people's. Sending you a lot of care today — I see you and see how hard it is.
❤️❤️❤️
I will add that one upside to the shallow root network is that while it's one inch deep, it IS a mile wide. I have friends all over the place and that is a nice thing, especially when you want to travel or look for a new job. It's less good when you put your back out and you need someone to go get robaxicet for you 🙃
yes! I have a huge network from years of being Terminally Online, and I know that if I go somewhere new, there's probably someone I know well enough to meet up with for dinner.
Lol fellow Terminally Online itinerant millennial here 🤣
What has worked for many of my friends (much older than you) as an alternative to a long-established root structure is volunteering at an organization that has a cohesive long-term body of volunteers. I have never known so many educated, engaging, single and childless women and men as I have since volunteering, as well as empty nesters.
I am not saying it is easy. I have a daughter a little younger than you with a big career and a child, and I am so hopeful of her finding time to make friends after a move last year.
Thanks, Fritzie. It is true, volunteering is a great way to meet new friends. One thing I appreciated about Anne's piece, though, was the observation that nothing can really replace the sort of deep relationships that one develops over years and years. We need both in our lives. I've made new friends, but those friendships don't yet run very deep, and I think you need to be in the same place, consistently building relationships for a long time before that happens. Or move closer to those with whom you already have profound connection...
Your post intrigued me. Do you have any suggestions for organizations with the qualities you mentioned?
I would look for an organization that has a lot of volunteers and educational/growth opportunities for volunteers. I steer away from political organizations myself, because I need respite from heartbreaking efforts, but some other people may have the emotional bandwidth for that.
A community chorus or musical ensemble suits some people, with regular practices and performances.
A zoo, an arboretum, or a museum will often had a cadre of docents and ambassadors who become expert in the sorts of exhibits those institutions feature. The institutions are so happy to have the volunteers, there are often regular lectures, chances to participate in events, mentoring opportunities, chances to develop specialties, book groups and so forth. At the art museum and at the zoo in Seattle, for example, there are volunteers who have been there for thirty years.
A natural history museum will use volunteers in research labs, working directly with fossils.
I have no religious institutional affiliations, but one of my friends has handled one day a month of feeding community members downtown for thirty years.
The places with the best volunteer programs can keep volunteers for decades.
Thank you for your thoughtful response!
Same same same same.
It doesn't always work out as planned. A few years ago I moved back to my hometown after 10 years away and I was so excited about being back near my people. But I'm a child-free single woman and they all have families. No matter how much I have tried to make plans so we can catch up, even if it's just running errands together or helping them chop vegetables while they make dinner, no matter how often I have reassured them that I don't care if there are screaming children or a messy house (which they all know because this is how things would go when I'd be back in town for a visit), it has proven very difficult to get any of them to follow through. I just saw one friend for tea the other week for the first time in a year and a half! There are a couple I haven't seen in longer than that.
It's been disheartening because I know they care about me. But friendship isn't at all their priority, at least not with me. Perhaps they got used to pushing responsibilities to the side whenever I'd come back into town but now there isn't an urgency since I live here again and so it's easy to let it slide. Complicating this is that I've been estranged from my parents for four years so my friends are everything and I was so hopeful to have that foundation again in my hometown. About a year ago I decided I needed to focus more on making new friends instead of continually asking the old ones, just for my own well-being. Perhaps they'll reemerge once their kids go off to college. In the meantime, I'm grateful for the friend I didn't know before I moved back who has become one of my closest people in the last couple of years. She has four kids and we get together at least every week or two. She's a reminder that people can make time for what they choose. I'm so glad she keeps choosing me and that helps me feel like I'll find more of my people here in time.
You are absolutely not the only person I know who's experienced this, and it reminds me, as another commenter put it below, that the hegemony of partnership and nuclear family is just the worst.
Oh my gosh, I can totally relate to how you offered to chop vegetables with your friends if it meant getting to see them!!
When my friends started having babies, I could see how exhausted and overwhelmed there were. I offered all kinds of help that they refused, including doing chores/errands for them, holding their babies while they the moms napped, or playing with the babies while the moms got stuff done around the house. I tried to suggest anything and everything that might be helpful, knowing that asking how I could help would be putting the mental load on them… and nada…
I went from seeing them very often to seeing them a handful of times per year. Children’s sport schedules come first. My parent-friends all love their children a lot, but none of them seem very happy or fulfilled.
It all feels really sad. I have time and would love to be part of their extended friend-family, but they won’t let me in on that level. I wonder how I will ever have a family, given that I am an only child with no cousins, and my husband and I are estranged from his family for political and social reasons.
My friends here and in other places I've lived had an easier time letting me be involved when their kids were babies and toddlers. Maybe they were home more then? But once they reached elementary school and especially middle school, activities and sports took over. Not in all cases, as my friend with 4 kids manages to juggle complicated schedules and still make time for me. But the Kids Activity Industrial Complex is real and I wish so many of us didn't relate to being sidelined by it.
“The Kids Activity Industrial Complex” is SO funny because it’s true!! Shall we create merch to raise awareness?!
“Children’s sport schedules come first. My parent-friends all love their children a lot, but none of them seem very happy or fulfilled.” Yes!!! It’s so hard to watch and unbelievably sad and frustrating.
These stories are making me think that there are several definitions of "friendship" that we lump all together and pretend to mutually understand each other. I'm thinking of all the people in my old town who always wanted to "get coffee" but would always just schedule another coffee date for six months in the future...they wanted to maintain a tenuous connection or decompress or something, but they didn't really want to build a relationship of trust and mutual care.
And do we need better skills/structures/language for gently confronting our friends who claim to care or to be lonely, but won't make these hard choices or daily adjustments to prioritize it? That sounds scary, but as I look ahead to parenthood, I sure hope someone would do that for me if I were too overwhelmed to make those choices well on my own. Maybe I'm a little weird that way, though.
I think you're right about there being different definitions of friendship, as well as different expectations we assign to people depending on how close we think they are.
This is an excellent point - part of the problem is the imprecise nature of the word “friend,” which we use to encompass everything from a soulmate, to the neighbor we occasionally go walking with, to someone we know from childhood and see once a year at the Christmas party. We need more descriptive language so we can better define the concept and set clearer expectations with each other!
I so wish people wouldn’t say “let’s get coffee” if they don’t have the intention or capacity to actually do it. Wouldn’t it be nice if people just said “I’m so glad I ran into you!” instead of setting off that cycle of trying to schedule/realizing they didn’t actually mean to get coffee with me/wondering if it means they don’t really like me? This social pattern drives me bananas.
It's just like dating (not that I've dated in a long time): some people are looking for a relationship, and some are doing it just to do it, and for whatever reason they won't always declare themselves (be honest with themselves??!). And it's kind of impossible to play the game at all without taking it personally.
I had a friend who would only meet people for walks or at her house, which is just a shade more intimate than "coffee." I think it worked to filter out some noise.
I’m right there with you. And I’m so sorry, because I know how hard it is. I moved back to my hometown in 2015 after 6 years living in NYC and was blindsided by how little I was able to see my closest friends, all of whom I had known for decades. I’m also a childfree, single woman (left NYC after a divorce) and while I was away all of my friends had started to have children and move to the suburbs. Even if I had wanted to live in the suburbs closer to them, which I did not, I would not have been able to afford to live in any of their neighborhoods. I was overwhelmed with grief and coped by reconnecting with people in my extended friend group, who were also childless, and hitting the bars. While that had it’s moments, the friendships were shallow and mostly unfulfilling. After 3 years I decided on a whim to move to the Midwest to be near my sister who is also childless. We had not lived in the same city ever as adults so there was an adjustment period, but it was a welcome relief and sustained me for 3 years until she abruptly moved back to the east coast. So I’ve been alone in a city where I know virtually no one for the past 2 years, and for all of the fun financial reasons mentioned in the piece, I cannot afford to leave anytime soon. I had started to cultivate friendships through volunteering when I first moved here, but they were not strong enough yet to survive the pandemic.
I relate so much to your frustration over how difficult it is to get friends with kids to follow through. I text with my close friends every day, but they have only visited me once (in 2019) since I moved here. And the last time I visited them, it was as if I had popped in unexpectedly. I do not have the financial means that they have and I have to find and pay for care for my dogs and cats in order to travel, so when I do it’s a huge ordeal and extremely stressful. And yet none of them changed their weekend activities (mostly taking kids to various sports practices) during my short visit. We talk constantly about taking a girls trip but no one will ever commit because... overscheduling. Yet they are always going on family vacations. Invite me! I’ll come on your family vacation if that means I get to see you! But I honestly don’t think it even occurs to them because the nuclear family model is so ingrained. I’m also estranged from most of my family so I spend most holidays alone and do not have the option for family vacations, which absolutely makes losing this foundation so much harder.
I know my friends care about me too, but I also know that there are people with children who still prioritize friendships, so it’s difficult not to feel hurt even though I know that it’s not intentional. I am that friend Anne mentioned who is always sending Zillow links for potential commune properties lol. We talk about it all the time. And I even think a couple of my friends would really go for it, but they don’t feel like they have a choice. Doing anything that subverts the nuclear family structure, even though it’s admittedly making some of them miserable, isn’t possible for them because it’s just not done. Which is funny to me because I have been subverting social norms my entire adult life, including now as a single 41 year old woman who lives alone with her animals and has no interest in dating, and it seems like you have too, so I know that it can be done. It frustrates me that they can’t envision a different way of living.
I’m so happy you shared your story. You are not alone. And it gives me hope that you were able to meet someone who actually prioritizes friendship. I had pretty much given up on finding a friend like that here, but I will keep trying. Good luck!
Oh, Emily!! There's so much I relate to in your response. I'm so sorry your sister moved away and now you're having to figure out life in that city on your own. I moved a few times during my decade away and was torn between coming back to my hometown in the Chicago suburbs or going back to Nashville, where I lived for 5 years and still have strong ties. Coming back home felt right and in many ways I'm glad I'm back, even though the community piece fell completely apart. But it's so hard to start from scratch in a place where I ostensibly have deep ties! It makes me wonder if I should have gone back to Nashville but god, I'm so glad I don't live in Tennessee right now. There's no perfect place, I know, but I really hope we both find our people sooner than later.
Sadly, this is so relatable. From my experience, most people who have kids very quickly drop their friends who don't, and they don't re-emerge when the kids are older. If they were to re-emerge, very likely that after all those years you wouldn't have much in common anymore. Perhaps YMMV - I hate to be a hope-destroyer! But definitely focus on friends who want to be with you *now*.
I'm auntie to a number of friends' kids but they all live in places I used to live so I know it's possible to maintain those relationships. I just really did not expect that the friendships I maintained during the 10 years I was away wouldn't continue once I lived in the same place again. I was really happy when that friend reached out to have tea the other week and I'm certainly open if any of the others reach out. But yeah, I have no idea who we'll all be whenever they're empty nesters so I'm not holding my breath.
I feel you on this. Have been in my hometown for a while and people either moved away (rural-ish tourist town) after a while or have families. I have never been able to penetrate the nuclear family dome with these people and only see them occasionally. It is what it is, but I need more. Despite my family being in the area, I don't think staying here is in the cards for me.
Fingers crossed for you! After moving a few times during my decade away, it's been a relief to stay put for a while. But I'm definitely contemplating whether another move will be in my future and where I might try next. Either way, I'm with you on prioritizing child-free people and empty nesters.
I moved to the Boston area for college and in choosing to stay there post-college, my friends were my support system. As more and more of my friends got married and moved to the suburbs, I as the single one, found myself with less and less of a support system that I felt I could just drop in on when having a bad or great day. Only a few of them had significant others that recognized the importance of our friendship and so I often felt I was intruding when dropping by unannounced or spending too many consecutive hours with them.
In 2019 I chose to move to DC as that is where my sister was and my soon to be niece. I wanted to be her one physically close family member because I knew how important that was, but I also needed a place I could go after a bad day, that didn't require a phone call first or feel like I was intruding on a young marriage, which is how I often felt with my college friends. As a teacher in an independent school finding a new job wasn't too hard and I was lucky enough to be able to afford my own apartment without having to find a random roommate, but then the pandemic happened. My sister asked me to spend my days remote teaching from her house, so that we could together juggle childcare with remote work. It was a hard time, but one I am grateful for. I have a bond with my niece like none other and my sister finally experienced how tough my job can be listening in first hand. Our relationship is so much stronger now as it had been a while since we had lived in the same city and gone through life together. I still had my apartment and went home most weekends to enjoy the silence and lack of schedule, but as the pandemic went on, I stayed at her place more and more.
I had made a few friends at work pre-pandemic but didn't really have a social life in DC. When I was forced to go back to teaching in-person, my sister was pregnant again and did not feel safe with me in her house with none of us being vaccinated and still a lot of unknowns about Covid. I understood and respected this, but I didn't realize how much I had come to love living with her and her family and how the silence of my apartment was no longer the joy it had been a year before, when I began living sans roommates for the first time. One friend from work who I had only hung out with a couple of times outside of work before the pandemic, for some reason chose to keep growing our friendship in the new normal. I don't know why, as I was in a rough place, and not at all choosing to put myself out their to building relationships but somehow she recognized my struggle in our daily zoom meetings, or saw beyond my current state to the person and friend I one day hoped to get back to being. She invited me over to sit on her back deck around the fire pit at a six-feet distance. Every Friday after teaching I drove over there, especially when we suddenly went back to remote teaching, to sit and talk with her in all sorts of weather. Occasionally her family joined us or another friend, but it was often just the two of us.
Now I am still teaching at the school, but she has left. When she told me she was leaving I was very afraid of how our friendship would remain in place. I didn't really know her family or other friends as our relationship had blossomed in the middle of a global pandemic. As the school year started without her, I knew I still wanted her in my life, as she had become so much more than a coworker. We started a weekly Tuesday tradition, of me coming to her house and having dinner with her family. In that time I got closer with her kids, and occasionally her husband though he was often away on business trips. She was giving me family time that I craved so much, especially since my sister had now moved over an hour outside of the city and with two kids under two, when I visited I was auntie first not best friend sister.
Sometime last winter or early spring, my friend's husband was gone for a month on a business trip and some things happened in which she needed support. I felt so loved and wanted when she asked me for help and I was ready to do whatever was needed, to reciprocate all that she had been doing for me. That spring I spent so much time with her, started to grow close with her kids as auntie, who sometimes became a coparent, and somehow fit myself into her family routine. Instead of just Tuesday dinners, it slowly became every other Saturday too. And then why not just go right after work on Friday, so we could have movie night before running errands together all of Saturday. I am lucky that her home is large enough for me to have my own room and privacy when I need it and so that I don't feel like I am intruding in her family's space, when I choose to spend the night and another day over there.
This school year has been real tough for me and she and her family have been everything. She knows what about my job is hard, she knows all the people, so I don't have to explain. I am now spending almost every weekend and a few weeknights at her house. Sometimes its planned, sometimes I just have a day where I can't go home to an empty apartment and feel safer in the noise and chaos of her family. Our other friends often joke I should just move in with her as I am there so often.
As of last week, it really isn't a joke any more. I am looking for a new job and know I will be taking a pay cut and so need to find a cheaper apartment, but as I started searching I realized the thing I want most is to not live alone anymore and to live with people that love me and respect me. So I asked her, when my lease is up this summer, can my new apartment just be her guest room. I am already sleeping there three or four nights a week, so why not just make it permanent. She said yes, and it was a huge relief. We still have to talk details as I don't want this to change our friendship and need to find my place in how I can contribute to the family, but knowing that she wants this too means the world. I know this will not be forever, but at this current moment in my life, I need to live with people who love me and it is my dear friend who is the one I have chosen. I know my sister would have also said yes, because as sisters that is what we do for each other but while I love her and her family, they are at a different stage in their family life and in making my choice, my friend's home felt like the one I belonged in. I know if I weren't single or hadn't been so accepted by her husband and kids, or if her home didn't have a guest room, this may not be possible, but it is. It seems crazy that someone I have known for less than four years would mean this much to me and me to her, but I am so lucky to have found her and built this relationship.
I am so happy it will soon not take me a half hour to get to her house, and maybe one day being in the same city or neighborhood will be enough, but I am not ashamed to admit that knowing I can be under the same roof as my friend in a few months, has brought me such joy and the strength to get through some of the other big decisions I need to make in the coming months. This article just makes it clear my personal needs are shared by others. Friends as family, its the best!
❤️🩹 This was gorgeous to read! What an exciting step to take - and how lovely for your friend’s kids to grow up with another adult figure they can look up to.
Okay I have a lot to talk about here - because I am actually doing this, this year!
First, some backstory, and the acknowledgement that I’m in the UK where distances are smaller. Although both of my parents are British, neither of them are *from* the town they live in now, where I was brought up - they both moved to London as adults, and then to the commuter belt when I was a baby (think, a town that is the British equivalent of Westchester/ has enough money to change the world but votes Conservative and doesn’t want to - yes, that IS why I left that town). So I grew up thinking that you went and got whatever education you were going to, and then chose where to live - and kind of assumed I’d end up back in London.
BUT I got a job in Edinburgh, Scotland, out of university - and love it here. There’s a huge literary scene, lots of arts, and I have built some friendships here over the half-decade-plus I’ve been here. When I moved here, it was the only city (of the offices I could have worked in with my organisation) that met the criteria of: being able to afford to live alone, in a nice place, within a 20-30 minute walk of work. I love living in Edinburgh - I just hate that it’s a full day’s travel to get to where most of my friends and family live, and I’m completely at the mercy of the train schedules, as even if I had a car, it would be too far to drive alone.
Now, though, the parameters have changed: I earn more than I did as a fresh graduate, and most importantly I don’t have to be in the office more than once every week or two - and I’m in head office in London more than I am my local ‘hub’, just because of how work works now.
And all my friends from back home are getting married and having babies and I am barely involved in their lives.
So I’m moving back. I can’t afford the life I want in London, so I’m moving back to the small city I went to university in, where I have a bunch of mates either in that city, its larger neighbour (where there is an office for my company, which will be my ‘hub’), or in London, which is 90 minutes away on the train. I can’t wait.
I actually made the decision towards the end of 2021 but there’s a bunch of things that have had to happen before I can sell my flat (which I bought at the end of 2018, assuming I was going to continue to build my life here indefinitely). I expect it to finally happen this summer. On the financial note, though, I’m making what my parents initially saw as a stupid financial decision to do this - selling my flat and going back to renting. It took a while to convince myself - and them - that it was the right decision for me.
Part of what’s made me more determined to do this is the realisation that I sit somewhere on the ace-spectrum. Or that I find it more difficult than many seem to to get into romantic relationships, if you don’t feel the need to label it. That’s made me feel free-er to prioritise my friendships. My best best friend, who is long term single, and knows that he will be man-of-honour if and when I do eventually find a man to marry, came as my date to my mum’s 60th birthday party earlier this year (he’s incredibly lovely as both he and I are interested in men, there’s no romantic possibilities!) - a choice I don’t know if I’d have felt empowered to make/ an invite I don’t know if I’d have felt entitled to ask for, if I hadn’t come to that realisation last year. (Courtesy of Alice Oseman’s Loveless and Alison Cochrun’s The Charm Offensive). I also joke that I’ve seen all the men on the dating apps in Edinburgh, and I’m not going to swipe right now on someone Bumble has been showing me for six years, haha!
The other part - which is sadder - is the realisation that I won’t have my parents forever. I want to spend more time with them while I can - and the kind of low pressure just hanging out time, rather than planned time for events and occasions.
(I talked about this more - yes, that is possible! - on my own newsletter at the start of Feb)
Yes! It is so much harder when you’re ace/aro and you will probably always be single! (That may not be the case for you, but it sure is for me. I’d say I’ve got like a 10-15% chance of ever finding a life partner, for a variety of reasons.)
Life is just so much harder when you’re on your own! Having to shoulder the burden of all of life’s tasks by yourself? It’s hard and exhausting! (Though still imo much to be preferred to being in a bad or even mediocre relationship.)
And if most of your friends are partnered off, there’s the perpetual fear of being the 3rd/5th/whatever wheel, where they are always always more of a priority for you than you are for them.
Yes, exactly! I don’t want to make life decisions on the assumption that I will find a life partner, because evidence to date... doesn’t support that. Being closer to friends and family will, I hope, mitigate the feeling of always having to do everything for myself - although not as you say the 3rd/5th wheel phenomenon!
Car-centric culture plays a role, too. I do live near friends but wouldn’t see them very often if we couldn’t walk or bike to one another’s houses. That only gets worse as population increases in our county and driving becomes such a headache. That’s wrapped in with zoning codes and the legacy of redlining and how highways were deliberately built to tear apart neighborhoods and communities (most of color, to benefit mostly white-populated suburbs).
And let’s talk more about how expensive moving is. So expensive! And I’m really glad you made that point about some states--many states--becoming actively unsafe. Even if the state isn’t, the area your friends live in might be actively hostile. I’d love to have and hear more conversations about this reality.
Last thing: It seems important not to idealize this *too* much. You live near friends and spend a lot of time together and you’ll have rocky times to navigate. You’ll have misunderstandings and fallings-out, or your friends will with one another, and your relationships will change over time. You might even drift apart.
I love the point here (and that you made in another comment) about how this type of friendship is not always simple or easy — it's messy, and much like any other intimate relationship, requires a lot of communication and working through shit and grace.
Feels like a fruitful subscriber-only discussion topic ... 🤔 What *is* friendship, anyway?
This is super fascinating for me because I’m doing the thing, while renting in NYC. I have a great crew of friends who all live within a ten minute walk from my studio apartment, with the closest friends who have my spare keys being just around the block.
Here’s the trick: we’re a group that became friends as young adults at our synagogue. If you’re the kind of observant Jew who doesn’t drive or take transit on Shabbat and holidays, then you have to live walking distance from your synagogue, and so we all do. Even those of us who do take transit on Shabbat - myself included - live in the neighborhood because if you want to have friends over for Shabbat dinner, they need to be able to walk! And because observing Shabbat is part of our routines, you can find some combination of us hanging out at someone’s apartment almost every week. Friday dinners and long leisurely Saturday lunches are just part of our lives. In the summer we’ll just declare a spot in a park for people to hang on Saturday afternoon, whoever is free. And outside of Shabbat, I always can find someone to run an errand with, go for a walk, help me with a home task, etc.
The group has shifted to bring in new people, and we’re just approaching the point where some folks might move away to the suburbs - the first pregnancy in this big group of friends - but enough of us are committed to staying in the city that I feel very secure. Maybe that will change - we do all rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world - but for now I feel like I am living the dream.
I grew up in a reformed Jewish family, and had a best friend who was modern orthodox. Every once in a while, I would spend the whole Shabbat weekend at her house, where she was embedded in a community of modern orthodox Jews who all lived walking distance from their synagogue. Those weekends were so incredibly lovely - they made a huge impression on me. It was all community, long walks outside, eating meals with other families, playing games - so peaceful and so loving and so grounded.
One of the (many) reasons I’m currently studying to convert to Judaism is the huge emphasis on community. I love reading this!
Congratulations, welcome to the tribe! I did my dip in 2020 and I've never looked back!
Rachel, I resonate so strongly with this – had been writing my own comment with similar structure. My closest NYC friendships were formed when we were all in our early 20s in a church community. Like yours, and even after the dissolution of that church / amidst diverging faith journeys, my close group of friends have maintained a kind of familial intimacy that is both intentional and instinctual; we go to each other's doctor's appointments, take care of each other's pets, bring food by when someone's sick, have keys to each other's apartments, etc. (and I also live in a studio apartment with most of this close group in a 10 minute radius!). These relationships are my foundation and the locus of so much joy for me.
The one thing I miss about being observant was being a part of that community. There's just something so safe about the rhythm of life within that structure.
Yes! Intentional rhythm of life, always knowing that the next Shabbat is coming soon, the Sunday/Monday/Tuesday text messages “do you have dinner plans? Do you have lunch plans? Do you want to play board games Saturday afternoon?” Even if my week is busy with work and whatever else, I know I’ll see my people and have time to spend sitting around on a couch with them shmoozing.
You might enjoy Judith Shulevitz's THE SABBATH WORLD, which is an appreciation for these very rhythms (and why, even outside of religion, they can and should be extended to the rest of society):
That book is already on my TBR! Which is never ending and always growing, so maybe I need to prioritize it.
I love all of this, thank you for sharing! I don't have anything like this in my life right now, but I've been listening to Casper ter Kuile's The Power of Ritual, which talks a lot about these rhythms too, so I'm going to add The Sabbath World to my hold list now!
When my friends complain about not having community I'm internally like CONSIDER JUDAISM!
It depends on where you live though. Not all Jewish communities are the same.
Of course, as with everything there is variation in Judaism.
There's this weird way in which the idea of the friendgroup commune has become such a pervasive fantasy among so many folks I know, that it almost feels like the fantasy-ness of it is yet another reason making it less likely to come to pass. Like it's become some kind of semiotic security blanket for dealing with the uncertainty of late-stage capitalism, to know that we all share a vague back-up plan that we've at least *fantasized* about. But since our lives are freighted by all the factors you lay out (and more!), we're not actually close to taking action to make this thing a reality. Frustrated dreaming just seems like such a big part of what our culture is offering us and incentivizing right now.
I saw a quote that was attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I've never been able to confirm that:
"In your 20s you think love will save you, in your 30s you think friendship will save you, and in your 40s you realize nothing will save you."
It's kind of nihilistic, and the decades might not match up perfectly, but it's not 100% wrong.
I will add that in a lot of ways YOU can save you
My friends and I all know exactly which subjects we're going to teach at the Montessori-like school we collectively run on a commune in Vermont one day ;)
It's a popular fantasy. People imagine it as Friends, but as life intervenes it's more like The Fellowship of the Ring.
I was just in my cups over that quote from maybe-Fitzgerald and then I read this. Ouch. 😆 but it brought me out of the Land of Extremely Glum for a moment.
This is so SO well put.
Very strong point!
Thank you so much for this piece.
The challenge I've found, as a single woman in my late 40s, is #1. Almost all of my friends are partnered. No matter how close we are, their partners (or children) are the priority. I understand and respect this, but at the same time, it leaves someone who doesn't have a partner or kids out of luck; we are no one's priority, unless the need is urgent and acute. Regular friendship isn't urgent and acute, and so I am usually the person who initiates plans, and I'm often worried about being a burden to my friends who have more familial obligations and responsibilities than I do. So I spend way more time alone than is healthy for me.
I have struggled not to carry resentment; everyone is doing their best in a difficult human life. I have also tried to make new friends, especially single friends, but as we know, making new friends is hard! You have to find people you like, which is hard, and you also need some shared interest in and time and space for a new friendship, which is luck.
The hegemony of partnership and nuclear family is just the worst. There's a helpful suggestion in this thread about having intentional conversations with your friends about expectations/desires of closeness. I think that's the right direction, at least for older friends, though a conversation is not the same as the actual day to day practice. I'd welcome any wisdom that folks have to offer here.
As an autistic person, I have a hard time committing to frequent/seasonal video calls. Not because I don't want to connect, but because eye contact and verbal articulation depletes me in a way I am still trying to understand while remaining connected to people I love. Something that I have been experimenting with these last 3 years is asking myself, How would I like someone to connect with me if they were trying to authentically and consensually come closer? For me, I realized asking friends one at a time (not in a group, that was way too much work!) to read a book together and discuss via voice memos and texts, and letting my friends know I'm open to almost any online class together has been a way I have cultivated ritual with something that anchors and nourishes me - learning. When I think about my mom who is in her 80s and doesn't use the internet, I realized she goes to the same places and has been for decades. Same grocery store, dance class, hardware shop, etc. She's organically "picked up friendships" because she is that woman that is often there. I wonder if there are places you are a regular at where you could post on Next Door or a similar MeetUp for folks to meet without pressure or expectations.
I am in my late 20s and with my friends at this age, I am already seeing the deep attachment to romantic partners and I am anticipating, and fearing, what's to come in the next years, that slowly I will lose touch with close friends as they prioritize the nuclear family and their partners. It's funny, we talk to each other about how that should never happen and we won't let it happen, but it's already happening.
Thank you for sharing your story. I can relate to the trying my best to "not carry resentment" part, especially when you consciously know you are no ones top priority. it's so tricky. I wish you all the best
Oh man I feel this so much. Thank you for articulating this so beautifully!
This resonates with me so very much.
This article has made me wonder if I need new friends. Our diversity is our strength, but it also would make it impossible to all agree on a place to live. As a Black woman, I feel unsafe and often lonely in the US outside my intensely diverse Blue city in a Blue state. I'm a single parent to a tween and need access to good diverse schools, camps, grocery delivery, and urban amenities that make my life possible. One best friend dreams of raising her daughter near the beach in LA (nope, I went to college there and felt completely isolated). Another good friend and her husband must stay near his ailing parents, but I couldn't move into their neighborhood where they were afraid to fly a rainbow flag to support their son. I could go on and on for each member of my circle. I'll be following the comments closely. I can't imagine the amount of privilege someone would need to make moving near friends feasible in the US.
I didn't get too much into the parenting needs but I think that's a huge one — not wanting to upset routines, having schools that fit their needs and are diverse, being close to a co-parent (which someone raised in another question). The privilege question is one I thought about a lot as I was writing, because at least statistically, most people in the US are unlikely to have moved far from their support network in the first place.....so living *apart* from friends is, in itself, a problem that largely (but not exclusively) afflicts the highly-educated.
I would need to know the definition of highly-educated in this scenario. We are mostly friends from college, one from high school, one from having similarly aged children in school. One Masters degree among us.
From how I understand the study that Calaraco cites above — college-educated means more likely to live farther from home, and it goes up from there. (And also more likely if you have two people with professional degrees in the home)
They're what Jilly Cooper called The Spiralists, people who move with their careers, changing locations and friends as they spiral upward. (Jilly Cooper was a popular writer maybe 1,000 years ago, but she had a good observers eye.)
Your point about privilege here is the most significant for me. Moving is so expensive! It takes a lot of cash up front to be able to relocate, even to a “cheaper” place. And then the job/career considerations too. It is insurmountable for so many people.
Someone recently remarked to me how great it is that in the US we’re so free to move around geographically and sure, I guess that’s true, but also that’s only true for people of a certain amount of privilege.
I read a great line somewhere: if progressive people truly wanted to change the US, we would make it more affordable for people of all demographics (immigrants, undocumented folks, LGBTQIA+, union workers, tradespeople, pro-choice, etc.) to move to pricey progressive areas.
Yep! When I see those "hate has no home here" signs in DC I'm like, well neither do people, so if "immigrants are welcome here" build housing people can afford.
It's #2 for me. My closest and most treasured friend group is my high school friends -- we actually used to joke about starting a commune someday. Now we're in our late 30s, and even though a handful went to the same college in the state where we grew up, we're scattered now: two couples still in our hometown(ish), one in New England, one in Maryland, one in West Virginia, a few out on the West Coast, and two of us in NYC. We're also almost all married or in committed relationships with people we met outside this group, and several folks have small kids.
We used to take a vacation together every summer (we maxed out at 21 people in a huge beach house in Virginia Beach in 2008), and we looked forward to that all year. But it's hard now that people have kids, and the last time we pulled it off was in 2017. When someone gets married, most of us show up -- but after this May, there might not be any more weddings, because almost all of the couples in the group who are on that path have already had theirs. We have a group chat (a few of us swap Wordle scores daily, which is a simple but sweet touchpoint), and those of us whose parents are still in our hometown usually get together when we visit for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving.
I *DEEPLY* wish we all lived closer. But with jobs, partners' jobs, aging parents and/or parents who care for kids, and even just geographical preferences (our California friends are not interested in coming back East and I don't really blame them!), it doesn't feel plausible. When I think about what life would feel like if I could walk to all of their houses, it makes me ache.
After living in Seattle for 10 years, I recently moved back to Buffalo – where I haven't lived in over 20 years. But after the last few years of pandemic living, I decided I wanted to be closer to family and friends. As one of my good friends back here in Buffalo said as I was thinking about the move last year, "Sometimes you just need to be close to your people." I'm very fortunate in that my job was already remote – so career wise it was easy. And in the six months I've been back, I've already spent more time with family and friends than I did over the last 10 years combined! No regrets!
For me, it was "my people" but also the landscape — a place that has always made me feel like home. Landscapes are friends too!
Ann Arbor has lots of trees (no surprise), parks and gardens. I will be entombed in our family crypt or composted there (not yet legal in Michigan) someday and that’s fine by me.
Ann Arbor is the best!
I am a big fan of Buffalo, so I get your decision. I am about to leave New Orleans and go back to Ann Arbor. I fully plan to spend several months of the year here, and I do have a nice group of friends and professional contacts. But I have realized that no one here knows my background, no one knew my parents, no one knows what I mean when I say “Maynard, like the street.” Some people want a completely fresh start; I have discovered that I need roots.
I’m from Rochester and have been in Colorado for ~13 years, and while a lot of my friends are semi-permanently back in Rochester and Buffalo I’m having a hard time committing (mentally, for now) to a very real winter again. Being near my family and friends is very tempting, as is being able to afford a house, but I’m very worried my anxious brain wouldn’t cope well with the lack of sun. My girlfriend is also from Southern California and can barely tolerate Denver winters 😂
Oh, I definitely understand that – especially given that Buffalo experienced a supposed once-in-a-generation blizzard this past December (and I lost power for 72 hours because of the storm!). But sadly, another part of my calculus in leaving Seattle and the Pacific Northwest was that the wildfires and wildfire smoke there have been awful the last few years – and will only get worse due to climate change. Though I will still miss summers in the PNW...
Yeah, summer in the PNW is hard to beat. My best friend from high school actually moved from Portland to Denver this year. And while that’s obviously great for me so long as I stay here, I do miss having a reason to visit Oregon a few times a year and having a free place to stay.
Oh hey, another one here originally from western NY (now in PNW) chiming in to say hi :)
Related to #1 (we don't prioritize friendship), I'd call out explicitly: We over-prioritize work above all else. If we're not careful, work friends become our only friends, both out of convenience and because we have no bandwidth to deepen other friendships after a long work day and commute, especially if we work in a toxic environment.
If we're lucky, work friends can become real life friends. If we're not, an entire network goes POOF after a job change and/or move.
You are so right. And it takes effort to turn work friends into actual friends. You have to get together outside of work and you need to be able to talk about things other than work, you know? And do it regularly. If you don’t, then these friendships won’t, as you note, survive when you or they are no longer at the same job. And it seems like some people retire and discover they have no friends. And that would be so lonely.
Yes. This is also very true.
Long time reader, first time commenter. Just want to say how much I appreciate this piece. I live alone, my friends are scattered all over the country, I have very little community here...and it is so difficult. Moved here for my partner, we divorced years ago, still here and trying to make a go of it but...this piece has given me much to think about. Thank you. Last weekend on a whim I attended a reunion / fundraiser / anniversary for my summer camp. (Yeah, a Jewish summer camp, appreciated that recent piece, too). People who I haven't seen since '94 (excluding social media). There was so much love in that room, which is a separate story...but it shined a light on how little of that I have around me. And my friends are probably the ones most likely to offer that, and they aren't here. It's a bummer and a problem and I realize now how seriously I have to consider making a change.
I had a similar experience at a reunion that really clarified a lot of things for me and set a few things in motion that led to my current situation! It's a little thing, but it's not a little thing, you know?
Before going to the reunion, I thought it was a little thing. Maybe even frivolous. After...it's not a little thing at all. I forgot I could feel that way, that noticed, that appreciated. To me that's both painfully sad but also encouraging that it's possible.
This reminds me of one of the episodes of Fleischmann is in trouble. Sometimes it's nice to be around people who really liked you once upon a time — and are still likely to think positively of you.
Yes. I moved out to CA with my partner many years ago and then it didn’t work out after about 3 1/2 years. He drove back to FL, where he was from. I stayed here because… where else would I go?
I’ve always wanted to live with friends, and have been determined to make it happen after living in a multigenerational home with my in-laws. It was a life changing experience for all of us.
I believe one of the biggest barriers is communication (ie boundaries and expectations) and getting over our sense of fierce independence. It’s definitely not easy to learn to live with other adults, but it’s a skill that can be learned.
My dream is buying a farm + school house on a piece of land that can accommodate many of my close friends and their families. It will happen--but there are also lots of legal barriers and zoning rules when it comes to buying homes as a collective. That’s something that needs to change too!
Yes! It's one of those things where, like, I understand why there are laws preventing people from turning a big parcel of farm land into a suburban neighborhood....but also what about collective housing! How do we create the capacity for that to happen?
I desperately want to live in a baugrappen, if only zoning made it possible to build them in the US. I think the demand would be huge if they existed: https://www.larchlab.com/baugruppen/ I lost some relationships in the last few years that were not the healthiest and for as flawed as those relationships were in some ways, in my 30s the intimacy and sheer amount of time that went into those relationships feels impossible to recreate, but living in a community like this would make it so much easier
My friends and I have always talked about The Compound, half joking, but not really. There's definitely a desire among us to live in close proximity in exactly the way you describe. It'll never happen, but it's fun to think about.
I work in academia, and I've decided that however annoying my job gets, I realistically need to stay in my town *because* I have a support network here - lots of friends; networks of people who can help me in a jam; the wisdom of 'who do I call when X breaks?'; not to mention lengthy relationships with plumbers, health care providers, and community activists. I can't imagine trying to rebuild this at 51 in a whole new place. It can be frustrating, and who knows what it means for my career, but I value the network I'm embedded in so much.
I love love love that you made this point, Cate — you've made the friends! The friends are there, with you!
Yes, this. I am truly baffled by people who retire and pick up and move to a sunny place. Well, not baffled by the desire to be warm. But leaving your network behind, I can’t imagine doing that. My relationships are vital to my well-being. And, for me, they need to be in-person.