I recently shared, with my 800-odd Facebook “friends,” a link to a New York Times article called “Friends of a Certain Age,” by Alex Williams. I found the piece to be honest and insightful, and I had recently been considering the phenomenon it identifies, namely that we tend to form fewer close friendships as we enter our 30s and 40s. (For context, I’m 33, married, of the middlish class, with a desk job and no kids.)
As we approach this fateful period in our lives, the article posits, “it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions … considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.” Throughout the piece, Williams offers a collection of quotes from psychologists and sociologists, as well as regular folks ranging in years from 32 to 46, all in support of the idea that the soil for friendship is most fertile during a person’s younger years.
When I posted the link on Facebook, I got some strong responses. My friends didn’t seem to agree. “Dude. This article is seriously bleak. I’m completely unwilling to accept such a dim view of socializing as an adult.” Said one I’ve known since elementary school. “You have to leave the rocking chair on your front porch to make friends,” said another I met after grad school. I think it’s natural to balk at the idea that friend-making tapers off at some pre-determined point — in fact, I have made several great friends from my late 20s through today — but the truth is, friendships do change from one period of life to the next. And as Stuart Smalley used to say, that’s OK.
In our younger years — elementary school through college, say — we tend to have a lot in common with the folks we befriend. They are usually from a similar socio-economic situation, the same geographical context, approximately our age (and thus, dealing with similar periods of physical, psychological, and emotional development), and so on. Most importantly, we’re thrown together with them, via schools, on a daily basis. Our classmates share with us more than half of our waking hours throughout the most formative years of our lives. We often become friends with people who live in our neighborhoods, and after spending hours with them in school, we spend hours more with them after school. Sometimes we spend the wee hours together, too, talking wide-eyed in the dark, sharing our fears, hopes, and half-formed adolescent philosophies during sleepovers.
As we grow, we see our friends come into their own, see them win glory on the playground or the sports field, see them embarrassed before rooms full of peers. Vulnerable, confused, elated, we see them as they meet their first romantic interests. When I was in high school, I dated a girl for little other reason than the fact that my best friend was dating someone from the same group of kids and I felt left out. In my freshman year of college, when the girl for whom I harbored a crush told me that she liked me, too, I called that same friend first to share the news. At that time of life, friendship meant something visceral. My parents were always there for me, but a parent’s response was not what I needed, then. Only a friend, at a similar point in life and who knew my back story from the ground level could offer the understanding and the validation I needed at that moment.
In those early years, a friend was more than just someone to talk to — a friend was the person who made you feel less odd, less alone. I can’t speak for all adolescents, but for me, from the time I was 12 all the way through my college years, my life was in constant flux, unbearably sweet one moment and unbearably sad, frustrating, or boring the next. My friends were my saviors. When I was feeling anxious in junior year of college, I’d go to crash on my friend’s tiny dorm couch as an escape from the torment of my own mind (not to mention my strange roommate, who lived entirely off of frozen cheese steaks, Tasty Cakes, and masturbated frequently and without sufficient discretion). In college, my friends’ very proximity normalized my atmosphere. I did not only appreciate my friends — I needed them.
Maybe my experience was unusual. I am an only child, after all. Maybe, in the absence of siblings, I turned to friends to fill a familial connection that others had. I can’t say for sure, but now, as I think about the friends I made in elementary, middle, and high school, as well as college, I wonder if it would be possible to form the same type of friendships now. I don’t need friendships in the same way any more, which I take as a good thing. I hope that most people in their mid-30s don’t require the validation and constant support of friends as I did a decade or two ago.
Today, my wife ably fills the role of confident and best friend. We go to dinner and watch movies together, go for runs and hikes, and talk through our issues (which seem much less dire than they did during my dramatic younger years). My newer friends, ones made in graduate school and on, number fewer and know me a little less deeply than my old ones. We exist at more of a distance from each other, as we were more fully formed, so to speak, when first we met. That is not to say that these newer friends aren’t of great value (one of my grad-school friends officiated my wedding, for example), or that we won’t come to know each other better over time (I read somewhere that five years are required for people to form that deeper sort of friendship bond), but I think it really is hard to create bonds as intimate as those formed in the tumultuous smithy of adolescence.
There are, no doubt, a million reasons why a person might disagree with the premise laid out above. A person still single in their 30s or 40s, or a recently divorced person, or just a very deeply social person — all might maintain that their friendships are the same in number and in kind as always they were. And who am I to argue? I have only my own experiences and observations. But from what I have seen and felt, the nature of friendship is destined to change as we grow older, as is our understanding of time and our hierarchy of priorities.
Friendships are an important factor in a complete and satisfying life at every stage. But to shake your fist at the changing geometry of friendship is as futile as Ahab’s rage against the white whale, which ultimately was his own fate, ineluctable.
As a climber, I find this an interesting concept as we tend to experience many of the “prereq’s” on a regular basis. Climbing inherently meets the three conditions listed: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.”
Perhaps this is part of why many of your friends reacts so strongly to this. Thay live in a world where these conditions exist all the time.
I would agree, but I also see the flip side of this equation: climbers who cling to the social aspects of the climbing scene a bit too long (total judgement call on my part, I’ll admit). In Boulder, at Miguel’s Pizza, at Rifle, and I can only imagine in Yosemite, though sadly I’ve never been — there seems to be a Never Never Land effect. Climbers who never let go of an idealized version of youth in which life is all new projects, fun at the crag with buddies, and campfire sprayfests … even after this reality has grown long in the tooth (read: repetitive and far less fulfilling). In short, the thing you love can become a trap if you are afraid of change. Perhaps this is why many climbers delay the commitments of marriage, kids, and career much longer than than non-climber peers (totally anecdotal — I have no numbers to support this). In some cases, holding on to the same TYPE of and NEED for the friendships of adolescence and college into one’s 30s and 40s might not really be a positive, but rather a case of arrested development. So my point remains the same: friendships, like most things in life, change as we grow older, and that’s natural and OK.
(For context, I’m 35, married, of the middlish class, with a desk job and 3 kids.)
You forgot Hueco, both the old Pete’s and the Rock Ranch.
You’re totally right about climbing becoming a “Trap” for many people, and anecdotally I would agree with your point about friendships changing as you age.
Check out Bowen theory on differentiation of self as to why you “needed” your friends in college: http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/conceptds.html
Really nice. I can’t count the number of people I’ve encountered who fit this pattern:
“People with a poorly differentiated ‘self’ depend so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others that either they quickly adjust what they think, say, and do to please others or they dogmatically proclaim what others should be like and pressure them to conform.”
I agree with the premise of what you are saying – I thought of this subject a lot, having had to move multiple times from one place to another in my mid-thirties, single. I thought about how much of a challange it was to make friends, how much longer it took for those friends to get closer, how much harder it was to meet people one-on-one (in our age group new people you meet come in couples, as if they do not exist separately) and how this relates to the structure of our lives, shaped by the life-cycle that we are in. The best friends I made in the last 5-6 years were from among my climbing partners. Specifically for the reasons that you and todd underlined – that is, the preqs do exist in climbing. All that time you spend alone with one person, in the car, at the crag, on the wall, drinking beer after a long day… But I do not like how you equate this with people being stuck in the climbing social scene, avoiding life’s commitments etc. One can grow older, continue to climb, continue to make climbing friends without being a fixture at Miguels. We change, our friendships change, the way we socialize – with other climbers as well, changes. Myself and my friends, we are pretty well-educated late-30 to early 40 year olds with jobs. I do rejoice the fact that climbing enabled me to meet and get to know people who became real friends for me even when I am in my late thirties. And yes, sure, I need to have friends more than you do because I am single. But the thing is, jobs come and go, and people get divorced. It is always a good idea to have a social network beyond one’s significant other.
Well said. I certainly don’t mean to claim to have all the answers, or to understand the many complex and subtle ways that friendships and lives change over the years. I just wish to comment on a pattern that I have noticed and that, for whatever reason, some people seem to want to deny or fight against. I think your viewpoint is very interesting and appreciate you posting it here. I hope that people read my post and then read the comments, too, so they can see the various perspectives on the topic! Thanks!
Whatup Justin. I’m obviously in the same age category as yourself, living a somewhat similar, semi-nomadic life (LA, Ohio, San Francisco, Boulder). As for friends, I still am good friends with those I have kept in touch with over the years, whether it be via visitations or through social media. One thing I have noticed, is that our age bracket focuses on self and family more than when we were younger. Almost everyone I know is married and has kids. Being a single dude in Boulder turning 35, I guess I’m going through a 1/3-life-crisis if you will, trying to regain that drive and passion to achieve the most I can on a physical level before I get too old to make it a reality. Due to this mentality, I’ve met more people I’d consider ‘acquaintances’ than I’d ever met in my 20′s. The big difference, which you’ve pointed out is the visceral connection that you have with those you meet. Perhaps this is a Boulder phenomenon, but I believe people in our age bracket are simply busier, and somewhat “grounded”, with families. This makes it more difficult to be random and have conversations that question the never-ending reason why we exist (?-$+yes=4-3). Meaningfully ephemeral moments and dialogue becomes somewhat more limited because many have been experienced. We begin talking about the past, like a mid-day soap. Sure it can be engaging, but lesser connective, like our tissue, as we age… bro. It also makes it more difficult to develop meaningful friendships in that people ‘normalize’, while weird-assed people like us are perceived in a different light. Life partners and Marriage definitely play a role as well. You simply spend more time with your partner and less with people that you used to hang with to find that partner.
Oh, and I believe you meant “confidant” instead of “confident” with respect to your partner. I like to edit editors ;-).