Adults and the Friendship Dilemma
How many friends do you have?
That’s a loaded question. Are we counting the lab partner you had for a semester in college general chemistry that you haven’t talked to since? Are we counting the funny guy in your friend group that you never talked to individually? Are we counting your middle school BFF that you shared countless memories with but never visited ever since you left your hometown?
At first glance, we may say that we have many friends simply because we have met so many people throughout our lives. However, how many of their lives have we honestly kept up with? Do we know about where they currently live, what they currently do, or whether they are married or not?
According to a study that investigated 2000 American adults, the average adult has 16 friends. Of those, only 3 are considered as “friends for life”. Additionally, a mere 31% of participants said that they still remained in contact with their friends in college.
These are alarming statistics. How is it that we meet hundreds, if not thousands, of people from infancy and throughout adulthood yet only form 3 lifelong friendships? The most obvious explanation is that we are all so occupied with our lives that we fail to keep up with the lives of others. To make a living, we must dedicate ourselves to our education or careers and sacrifice countless hours either studying or working. Americans are often overworked, and this is shown by the fact that 85.8% of men and 66.5% of women work more than 40 hours a week. Even if we love our jobs, the time spent on working subtracts time that we can spend on other leisure activities, such as catching up with friends. When the 24 hours of a day become a tug-of-war between working, eating, cleaning the house, and sleeping, the last thing we put on our minds is seeking out friends and taking in their problems as well.
No matter how much we emphasize our individual lives, however, friendships are necessary for well-being as humans are innately social animals. Studies have shown that premature death can increase up to 50% for those who experience social isolation and loneliness. Furthermore, there may exist a correlation between loneliness and Alzheimer’s disease.
If isolation is so unhealthy, then what are some measures we can take to expand our friendship bubbles again? To start, we can take up a few hobbies and join similar-minded people in our own communities. Think of the chess club or tennis team you joined in high school. What’s preventing you from doing the same as an adult? Next, since we go to school or work anyways, we can spend time having deeper conversations with the people around us in the hopes of developing closer friendships. If there were people we met in the past who we unfortunately lost contact with, we can try to reach them through mutual connections or through organized reunions. If we still have their contact information or follow their social media, simply sending a quick “Hey!” can go a long way.
So no matter how busy you are, take some time every now and then to check up on the lab partner you had in general chemistry, the funny guy in your friend group, and your middle school BFF that you left behind in your hometown. We often take our friendships for granted that we fail to maintain them, and when there comes a moment where we wish to share our successes or unleash our emotional struggles, we realize that there is, in fact, no one next to us.