Maneuvering Adult Friendships
Navigating adult friendships can frequently feel like you are walking through a minefield blindfolded with sound-canceling earmuffs on. It’s a bit like figuring out how to play Tetris when you don’t even know how to turn on the gaming console, let alone know how to play the actual game.
The difficulties with adult friendships are that they are very complex and don’t come with a user guide of any sort. We often describe adult relationships as being filled with complicated motives, hidden agendas, and mysterious metaphors that most of us are too exhausted to decipher. If you’ve ever experienced any trauma that complicates your trust barometer, then everything changes. Suddenly things are measured differently than “normal” or non-traumatized human brains. I work with complex trauma day in and day out. Therefore I would have to stop and think about interacting with “normal” humans if I wanted to develop that level of friendship at this point in my life.
In adult friendships, there are unspoken rules about weird celebrations things, but not others! As a person whose love language is gifts and words of affirmation, I am always confused about what it’s okay for me to tag someone in a post about what they gave me publicly. I don’t understand; if you gave me flowers, why can’t I tell the entire Facebook world what a fantastic person you are for doing such a great thing?! But apparently, there’s some secret set of written rules somewhere that arbitrarily records these things! However, in that same vein, please know if you say nothing publicly, that too will be wrong. #learnedthehardwaythere
Not everyone is going to be happy about your success in life. Be prepared to lose people along the way! I don’t even share anything about my business with people because I don’t think people can handle the reality of knowing that I own a business. I have watched people smile and pretend to be excited that I have dropped over 150 pounds, while I could tell they were filled with petty anger inside. Guess who got boinked five layers of trust for that move? I’m joking, but not.
It’s essential to evaluate if your circle of friends celebrates the good times, as well as the bad, with you. How supportive are your friends? Here are a few examples that separated some people in my life, mentally speaking: When covid happened, I had several business owners friends. As a business owner, it was a terrifying time to own a business. I made a habit of texting each of them every day as we all worked from home. The ones that reached out to me made an impact on me. The ones that let me text them every day for over 90 days and never reached out? That sent a message as well.
We can always look at how well do you ask your friends for help. Or, more relevantly, how easily do you ask for help? Very recently, my husband and I were both very ill, which was a rarity in and of itself. Neither one of us left the house for over fourteen days. If it hadn’t been for my staff texting me to see if we needed anything, I’m unsure how we would have survived.
Let’s take that just a wee bit deeper because, as adults, many of us have had the experience of relocating, moving away, etc. How skilled are you at asking for help? Do you have a circle of friends that you can and do ask for help from?
These are just a combination of stories that I hear every day from clients, friends, colleagues, peers, neighbors, community members, etc. I’m sure you can see yourself in one of the many examples above. If your relationships are not exceeding your expectations, let’s focus a bit on how to maneuver adult friendships:
Just Do It: Stop talking about it or thinking about it and do it! Specifically if you are a person who gets stuck in your head. Or if you get paralyzed by inaction, do the thing! Text the person and reach out already. What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? You’ve already overthought this to death anyway.
Acknowledge The Awkward: You are an adult texting another adult to develop an adult friendship. You have two choices: continue to feel super awkward and let the uncomfortable continue to grow until it’s huge, or acknowledge it and allow it to dissipate instantaneously. My choice is to encourage you to call it out and take its power away. However, that’s just my style in life.
Let People In: If you have trust issues, you will have to own those and work through those. Regardless you will need to make the conscious decision to let people in. Human beings can bang on the doors all day long. But if you don’t open the gates, they can’t get in. This is such an excellent metaphor for trust, and if you don’t trust people enough to let them in, you are wasting everyone’s time here.
Be Consistent: If I have learned anything from my interactions with people, people crave connection. And they operate best if that connection occurs on a regular and consistent basis. It’s even better if they can predict the interaction because then they can count on it, and it builds trust, and the interaction becomes part of the consistency and the trust foundation.
Have Fun: Set the “goal” of developing a friendship aside. Just focus on having fun. Laugh, enjoy, and allow everything else to flow naturally. The more “fun” you have, the more things will shift with ease. Most adults have a scarcity of fun in their lives anyway. What will you lose if you hang out with another adult and experience an increase in fun?
Hopefully helps you begin to shape your adult friendships. If you find your adult friendships are not forming the way you would like them to, please feel free to reach out and set up an appointment with one of our adult providers. You are read more about our providers here.
