Uncomplicating Adult Friendships

Hey Beloved, I'm Nakeia

Apple Podcasts | Spotify

“You have to choose friendship.”

In this episode, we will laugh a little as we explore the complexities of adult friendships.

I share my personal friendship experiences, including one that ended. I discuss how friendships evolve and the importance of intentionality in cultivating and maintaining these relationships. I aslo leave you with some practical advice on how to meet new friends as an adult.

If you have had struggles in your friendships, want to deepen existing connections, or redefine friendship in a new season in your life, this episode is for you.

Why We Struggle With Adult Friendships

Adult friendships are something many people are really struggling with, and I think I know some of the reasons why.

We are introduced to friendship in childhood.

We went to school together. We went to our places of worship together. We were friends with our parents’ friends, kids. And we were friends with the neighborhood kids. So friendship was based on proximity. We typically befriended the people we grew up with.

You went outside, you played, and those were your friends. And usually, you called them your best friends until you got into a fight, and you got a new one. Typically, y’all get back to being friends.

Then we grow older.

And as we grow, our relationships should grow with us, but that is not always the case. They don’t always grow with us. And our definitions of friendship don’t grow either.

If you were to look up the word “friend,” it would say someone that you can relate to personally. Someone you share a bond with over interests and values, and beliefs, right? That’s what a friend is. I would say it’s a bit deeper when it’s a friend than just an acquaintance, because you may talk to people, and hang out with people, but that bond is deeper when you call someone a friend or when you choose that person as a friend because the interest, the conversation, the values, the beliefs, all of those things deepen with us as well.

Repairing Broken Friendships

I’ve been fortunate in the friend department. I’ve only had one fallout with someone I called a friend for 20-some years. Something happened between us, and our friendship was severed. But I never spoke ill of the person, never publicly acknowledged that our friendship was broken.

Years after our friendship broke up, when something happened in her life, I reached out to let her know that I was praying for her and that I was sad about it. She apologized for what happened, not just apologized, but made amends. She corrected her mistake. And we’re still in communication now and then. Certainly not the same level of friendship we had in the past, but we were able to get past what happened.

I made a choice to honor my heart and be the person I would need during a difficult circumstance. I also chose to honor the level of repair I was comfortable with. I chose to be a friend to someone who wasn’t always a friend to me.

Things That Can Shift The Friendship Dynamic

I was the first one to get married in my friend group. Because of that, my friendship dynamic changed. There was definitely a period of adjustment. Eventually, my friends got married as well, and they started to understand how being married could inspire reprioritization. They understood why I didn’t have as much time to spend with them. They understood that my living in a different state made me less available to them. And even though we weren’t as close in proximity and we no longer shared our day-to-day lives, we remained friends because that’s what we chose to do.

You have to choose friendship.

How to Identify Your Characteristics For Friendship

1. Identify Your Characteristics For Friendship.

You have to choose who you want to deepen your relationship with. Your choice should be based on certain criteria that I call characteristics for friendship.

Is loyalty a characteristic you want in a friendship? Do you want a friendship that is fun? Do your friends need to be enthusiastic in their support of your work, personal interests, and goals? How about active? Do you want to go places and do things and not just text all the time?

Take a moment to make a list of the characteristics you look for in a friend.

*Gentle Reminder: You need to meet people where they are, literally and figuratively. You need to meet people who are in the same space as you in life because you have a higher chance of deepening your connection with those you have shared interests, capacity, values, and frienship characteristics with. You need the person to come to the table with these characteristics already in tow.

2. Identify your friendship boundaries.

Whether you’re attempting to cultivate new friendships or you just want to deepen the ones you already have, everyone needs to know where everyone stands in the friendship. What do you need to feel supported and safe? What are the guidelines? What are the limits? What’s off limits for you? What is okay for you to talk about or do together?

3. Show up as the friend you want to experience in others.

This is something we don’t talk about enough. I’ll never forget my first year at Christian school, when I was forced to memorize this scripture: A man who has friends must show himself friendly… And at that young age, I thought to myself, “This is good advice.” I always thought about how I needed to be as a friend. It’s not just about what you can get from your friends—it’s also about how you can contribute to the friendship.

Tips For Meeting New Friends

There are a couple of things that you can do to start meeting new people.

You can join a group, like a small group at your church, a social media group, a run club, an alumni group, or a support group.

Create a profile on a friendship app. I hear Bumble is amazing. I had one client who moved from Venezuela to New York, and she found success with Bumble. She decided to go on friend dates every day of the week for a couple of weeks until she met her good friend.

You can engage in things that you are interested in. If you like to dance, go dancing alone. You will eventually meet a friend who likes to dance. If you like to read, join a book club. If you like to cook, take a cooking class. Another thing that you can do is scroll through eventbrite.com to check out local events based on your interests. This is not sponsored. I literally have done this. I use it as a resource for finding events and for listing events of my own.

I really, truly believe that friendships matter. And adult friendships don’t have to be so complicated.

If you are looking for a friend, it’s not too late to find one. Hopefully, these tips will inspire you to get out there and meet new people. But I also invite you to deepen the connections you already have. You may not need a new friend. You may just need to rekindle the relationship you have.

Make sure that you are doing something to contribute to your friendships and that you are allowing your friends to be friends to you.

This episode is loaded with other tips, so be sure to listen and take notes.