Tight schedules and their discrepancy, a lot of cases and obligations, geographical distance from each other – all this turns communication with friends into a duty, which becomes more and more difficult to fulfill every year. So is there friendship in adulthood?
How easy it was in childhood – you approach the child on the playground, you offer: “Let’s be friends!” – and you’re done. Or you meet in the yard once, you meet twice – and now you are already bosom friends. At school and institute, it’s also not difficult: a full audience of peers – you’ll get along with someone. Now what?
Where to look for new friends, especially if you, for example, moved to another country or city, or suddenly realized that you “grew out” of old relationships and you lack support in them? More importantly, where has the joy of hanging out with old friends gone, and why has staying in touch with them become just another item on your to-do list that you put off every now and then?
And this despite the fact that the need for friendship and communication has not gone away, this is what most of us lacked during the lockdowns. Happiness is to accidentally run into a friend on the street, spend an evening with friends in a bar or in a cozy kitchen, talk heart to heart or fool around …
Friends are people whom we, unlike colleagues and relatives, choose ourselves, with whom we share our innermost things and with whom we are not angry for their petty misconduct (and they, in turn, cannot stand our brains because we have a mess at home , – the way, for example, a partner does). Many say that life without friends, which began during the pandemic, has become like black and white, devoid of colors and shades.
But here’s what’s interesting: Even before the pandemic, loneliness levels were about the same as they are now. So, in Australia, 40% of people in nursing homes, no one comes to visit, and every third adult admits that he suffers from social exclusion. Loneliness is so detrimental to health, both physical and mental, that the Australian government spends colossal sums to address this problem.
However, the fact is that even if you are determined to make friends, as an adult it is often not easy: you have to go through something to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable again. It’s good if you are lucky with the team at work: some colleagues can become friends. But, alas, this is not always the case.
Another option for potential friends – parents of classmates or just peers of your children (provided, of course, that you have them): you can strike up a conversation with them on the playground or at the school meeting, look at each other, decide how far along the path you are. So you can “compensate” for the loss of those friends with whom communication was reduced to a minimum when you had children and you were no longer up to noisy parties.
In a word, friends are needed, but maintaining relationships with them is becoming increasingly difficult – even despite the fact that Zoom has appeared and the ability to call up in messengers. Even if your friends are amazing, even if you have a lot in common, every year it becomes more and more difficult to find time to just call, let alone go somewhere together.
Friendship is fading, and it’s extremely sad. But everything is in our hands. No matter how old you are, no matter how many decades separate you from a school desk or a playground, it is never too late to approach another, to someone you like, and shamelessly offer: “Let’s be friends!”