Friendships in your 20s
Get strapped in - friendship is one heck of a rollercoaster.
My best friend from school still lives in our hometown. She has two beautiful sons and is getting married in July - I am one of her bridesmaids.
My best friend from university lives in London with her parents. She is training to be a jewellery maker and is blissfully single - I love hearing her date night stories.
A girl I was good friends with at school lives in our nearest city, well over an hour away. She is training to be a police officer and is engaged to her partner of seven years.
A boy I was good friends with at school has lived in Australia since 2020. He is mostly farming and doing some travelling, and this lifestyle has done wonders for his happiness.
One of my closest friends has a mortgage and a dog with her long-term partner. They opted to travel around New Zealand for a month last year instead of getting married.
I have never been one for large friendship groups. Particularly after Covid, I’ve struggled with socialising in big groups.
I see people posting their friends on their Instagram stories, time spent out and about or at home or on holiday, and I really feel like I’m missing out. Group FaceTimes, late night drives - a ‘girl gang’ like they show on TV.
In reality, I am a homebody who has always had (and preferred) meaningful one-to-one friendships, and I’m not really missing out on anything.
But as I get older I realise those friendships I had in my teens move in different directions. People I used to have everything in common with, I can now barely hold a conversation with.
Am I the problem, or are they? It’s neither.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that people just change and I can’t control their life path for the sake of my friendship with them.
For example, an old friend of mine - who I never thought would be this way - said something horrifically homophobic when I met up with them a few years ago. It broke my heart to realise the person sat in front of me was not the person I’d fallen in love with, and if I were to meet them now I wouldn’t want to know them. I sobbed the whole way home from that meet up, grieving the friendship that I knew could no longer be.
It’s a large pill to swallow, growing up and noticing the people you thought would be around you forever simply won’t be. Even if they are, your friendship won’t be their number one priority - but then again, should it really be?
Adapt to survive
Most people refer to me as the ‘low maintenance’ friend. You may not hear from me all the time and you probably won’t see me regularly, but I will always be there if you need me.
This has been particularly beneficial with my childhood best friend, who is a mother of two. Maintaining our friendship while she navigates motherhood, and soon married life, and I build my career and life with my boyfriend, means we do have to be lax sometimes. It doesn’t mean we love each other any less.
Similarly, my best friend India lives hours away. We are both usually busy at weekends, and I’ve not seen her since February. Of course I would love to see her more, but we text each other daily and I cherish the weekends we have together. Our friendship has not suffered because of the miles between us.
Speaking of miles - I saw one of my closest friends in September for the first time since he moved to Australia in 2020. Who knows when we will see each other again, but thanks to the internet and regular contact I can tell you exactly what is happening in his life, and he could do the same for me. Again, our friendship has not suffered because of our physical distance.
Growth.
I need to confess, this article started as an exploration of female friendships in your 20s, and how I feel like I’m missing out because I don’t have a big ‘girl gang’. Then, as I wrote I began to realise it should be about general friendships. And now, as I’m writing, I’ve realised that yes, I don’t have a big friendship group and my friendships have changed, but I am actually very happy about both of these things.
I’ve lost friends, which has been devastating, but looking back I see we just weren’t right for each other anymore. It doesn’t change the years we had.
The friends I have now, who I’ve known for a long time, are the ones I’ve invested in and they’ve invested in me too.
Five minutes down the road or on the other side of the planet, my most special friendships still rely on that meaningful bond we’ve formed, but we’ve also acknowledged how we’ve grown, and we’ve adapted to still make our relationship work.
I’ll never have my childhood best friend all to myself again, but god do I love days out with her children and being called “Aunty Woph”. I’ll never be able to knock on India’s door like we did at uni, but the quality time we have when we visit one another is that bit more special. I might never again be in the same timezone as my friend in Aus, but hearing the spark in his voice notes makes it all worthwhile.
To conclude…
If you’ve made it this far - thank you and well done. Ironically, I wrote the snippet “friendship is a rollercoaster” before writing this piece, which was equally chaotic.
Now I’d love to hear from you…
How have your friendships changed over the years?
Are you still friends with anyone from your childhood/teen years?
What’s your friendship style?
I’d love to write a piece about making new friends in your 20s, too, so please let me know if you’d like to read that.
I have the same experience my childhood friend said some homophobic things. I was shocked and disappointed but after a while, I came to realize that the difference in our environment and direction inevitably leads to the difference in our perspective and mindset.
My 2 best friends from high school have always been by my side during my lowest points and accepted every part of me. Like you, I also prefer small group of friends where we can feel safe enough to confide to each other everything. We also fall into the "low-maintenance" category. No need for regular update, just once in a while reunion to have insightful conversation and share about our current progress is enough for us to create unbreakable bond. I think that the essence of every good friendship is shared perspective, willingness to listen and accept each other for who they really are, readiness to give support whenever they need.
Thank you for your wonderful article (and a very cute picture of you and your friends 🥰). This makes me want to pick up the phone to call my friends in Australia right way. And yes, I'm really look forward to your post about making friends in our 20s.
I feel like we don’t talk about this enough. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much easier it was to have friends in college but post grad, people start to go in different directions. It’s much harder to “find your people”