???74. Why we outgrow our friendships

Hello and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast.

You're listening as old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here for another episode. Today we're going to discuss something that I think happens quite a bit in our 20s but never really receives the same acknowledgement or attention that it deserves. We hear a lot about breakups, about romantic relationships that end.

But what about our platonic relationships? What about our friendships? What I really want to explore today is that experience of outgrowing your friends, of outgrowing relationships and why it's really natural and really normal and maybe even a step beyond that, even beneficial in some ways to find that your childhood, high school or university best friends are no longer the same people, you're no longer the same person and noticing when it is time to move on and dealing with that experience. I think that our idea of friendship growing up and in our late teens, even early 20s, is often quite unrealistic and highly romanticized.

We see friendships unlike our romantic relationships as these everlasting relationships that are only disrupted by huge falling outs or massive events that either last forever or come to an end in an instant. But as we enter our 20s, we can see that friendships are a lot more nuanced and not always black and white. Like any relationship, they can be emotionally complex and confusing but drifting away from a friend isn't a bad thing, it's actually an entirely natural part of growing up and growing into yourself. You don't have to feel ashamed or like you owe anyone an explanation, it's actually fairly common and I really want to normalize this experience.

I think another lesson we are bound to learn in our 20s is that when it comes to friendships, quality over quantity is always the way. I think when I was in my early years of university, I had this tendency and need to be friends with everyone I met and maintain those relationships even when we both realized we were incompatible. It was exhausting to try and have these special moments, deep conversations and vulnerability with everyone. Even people who I knew would probably never get me but when I began to unpack the root cause of that habit that really I was just terrified of being alone and not constantly being surrounded by people.

I was able to become a lot more selective and really pour my love and appreciation and time into the people and into the friendships that meant the most to me. The result of this was kind of a period of about 12 months or so where I found that my social circle just slowly began to shrink and I naturally drifted away from a lot of these people that I was trying so hard to stay friends with. That was really scary, I felt like I had abandoned these friends and they had abandoned me but as time goes on I think it gives us the hindsight and the wisdom to realize that sometimes friendships need to fizzle and end for you to find new versions of yourself and for you to find new people who will match your energy and your identity. So today I want to break down why we outgrow our friendships especially during this decade of huge personal growth and transformation when we can recognize that a friendship is perhaps feeling a little bit stale or unfulfilling.

The research, the psychology behind this that concludes that this is actually a healthy experience and one that we should come to value and accept but also discussing some of those harder parts of this experience. It's how to end things in a good place, how to process sometimes even the grief for what used to be and finally the value of solitude and how to feel comfortable with being alone as we outgrow certain people in our 20s. I think there's a pretty general fear that as we age we're going to become more isolated and these large networks will disappear so what we do is we maintain relationships with people out of habit and out of fear even when we know that we've outgrown each other. Firstly, I don't think that that's necessarily accurate that you know we'll never have more friends than we have in our 20s but that fear also highlights an important skill that we need to prioritize during this decade which is the ability to enjoy time spent alone and in our own company and learn to walk away from the relationships that don't serve us and let other people do the same.

So let's get into it and discuss the nuances and explanations behind why we outgrow our friendships. I think it goes without saying that friendships are some of the most valuable relationships that we will experience in life and good friends they are even more valuable. They improve our mental and physical health you know a 2017 study found that close friendships are a huge predictor of improved mental health, cognitive functioning and even reduced anxiety and stress levels. You know friendship literally has a psychological capacity to change our bodies and to change our brains for the better but friendship is not always black and white and it's very natural to find that the older we get the more of our friendships we tend to outgrow.

There are many reasons why we find that a friendship that used to be the perfect fit full of special moments and compatibility has suddenly changed and it's no longer right for us in our current period of life. In addition it's a slow realization brought on by distance or change in circumstances where we gradually come to realize that what once was is no longer and we may be holding on just for the sake of nostalgia or even the expectation that it will somehow go back to the way it was. But the thing that makes outgrowing friendships so natural and normal is that it aligns with those changes and moments where we are outgrowing old versions of ourselves and with that the relationships that were part of that former identity. As we grow up as we age we will inevitably shift and change we will take on your hobbies and attitudes, beliefs, jobs we will experience, significant life transitions, meet new people all of these things and more and that person you were five years ago.

Not if that person no longer exists or it's been replaced by something newer and more aligned with who you are in this moment, in this time. I think that's one of the things that keeps life from being boring is knowing that we are constantly shifting into a deeper, different but hopefully more mature version of ourselves and that we can reinvent ourselves and try new things at any time, especially in our 20s when this is not only permissible but highly encouraged by our society. Whilst we're on this journey the people in our life are going through the exact same process and they are changing in their own way and in their own direction and sometimes those changes are not occurring in parallel which leads to a distance forming in our friendships especially when the things that you once bonded over and shared like your uni course or workplace or sports team that you played for, they're no longer strong enough to bring you together and to create those shared experiences and closeness that is the pillar of every friendship. That's part of life, sad and painful as it may be and even if you find that your relationship and that your friendship with someone isn't necessarily over, it may have faded a bit and lost some of that deepness and connection you formerly had and that it's okay, it's a sign of growth, a sign of development, the sign of a new chapter for both of you.

There are some crucial things that can really alter the course of a friendship, most of which are linked to those lifestyle and value changes we were speaking to earlier. The first big one that I've noticed, maybe you've noticed this as well, is distance. Something that becomes so much more commonplace the deeper we get into our 20s is that people move away from the places where you once met and settled. So a friend made this observation to me the other day and I thought it was brilliant that a sign of adulthood is having friends in multiple cities across the world because after we graduate high school and then uni, people are inevitably going to scatter across every country, across the world and you can no longer kind of pop into their house down the street anymore or see them in class and that distance, it changes dynamics because closeness and familiarity are the core pillar of friendship and those things are often supported by things like physical proximity and convenience.

It becomes harder to be part of each other's daily lives, daily routines, daily conversations and you're obviously bound to grow apart a little bit. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to call time of death on the friendship. Some of my best friends, my closest friends are people who I rarely see in person. We all went to uni together in Canberra and then one by one they've moved on to Melbourne, Tasmania, London, Darwin all over the place but the friendships have survived and continued to flourish because we still share so many of the same values and have that unconditional love and support for each other and really enjoy the time that we do spend with each other.

It's not necessarily just distance that causes you to grow apart but other more nuanced factors. One of those is the entrance of serious romantic partners. When we're single, our friendships are our primary relationship, the person we go to for everything, who we share all the good and bad of our life with and in a decade of instability and often a desired separation from our parents and families. We move away from our hometowns, we are really trying to separate our child identity and build an adult identity, our friends become family, those are the ones that we are closest to.

But when we begin dating people, especially more seriously, you make a trade off. We're spending time with your friends to spend time with your partner because you're probably obsessed with each other, you're getting to know everything about them, you're wanting to spend every day in their presence and that's not a bad thing and it's not as if you've abandoned your friends, at least not in most instances. It's just that we only have a number of hours in our weeks and in our days and the entrance of a new primary relationship is going to take up more of that time and more of that time that we previously reserved for friends. I have friends who are absolutely amazing at balancing their romantic partners and their friendships but no matter what, the dynamic is going to shift and with that, sometimes that closeness is also lost.

It doesn't mean that they're a shitty friend or that you're a shitty friend. It's just how life goes as we get older and begin having more serious relationships. We all know what it's like to lose a friend to a partner and it probably won't be the last time and it's not something that they need to be shamed for or need to be made to feel bad for. It's just part of growing up, it's part of enjoying a new period and chapter of life.

This links really perfectly with the other major factor and life change that we observe, which is that our priorities begin to differ and with that, our values, our attitudes and what we enjoy doing. Like I mentioned before, psychology explains that we often become bonded with people through similar shared experiences. These experiences, they create a shared narrative that both people can tap into and it also imitates similarity and interpersonal compatibility because they've been through or are currently experiencing the same things that you are. From that, you have conversation topics, you have people that you mutually know, perhaps gossip that you can share, priorities that are aligned and that is normally the foundation for your relationship.

The example that I always think of is the difference in the dynamic of our friendships in our very early 20s versus our late 20s, mainly due to factors like context. When I was in my early days at UNI, I am not proud to say it, but my days were consumed by partying until 2am, waking up at 11, studying super hard, hanging out with the same people, doing stupid things and then partying again. You know, rinse and repeat. And most of us were in the same boat.

We had just moved out of home, we had this incredible freedom, but also this common purpose to study, to get good grades and to graduate. That discrete period of time brought us closer because we were going through the same thing and we had the same priority. But now, a lot of us have jobs. We can't afford the time and energy to party the same way we did, to drink the way we did, but we also have a lot less free time because most of us have structured lives with 9 to 5 jobs and chores and obligations and partners.

And we also have a different priority. You know, we've graduated, we've moved on. However, there are some people I know who didn't give up that lifestyle or they're still studying whilst, you know, I'm out here working my corporate job and only drinking on weekends. That's fine.

It's just that our priorities are no longer aligned. And further to that, those lessons that we all kind of had, we've taken away different things from those lessons. We've taken away different lessons from those experiences and that's created different values, different attitudes, expectations. And with that, a diverging identity that is no longer singularly centered on our identity is, you know, chaotic university students with the same kind of priorities.

That is a natural part of growing up. It's not something that is anyone's fault. You cannot remain stagnant your whole life just because you're not willing to outgrow people. And it seems like a hard trade off, but there are, you know, it also does come a point where we can't help but change.

And with that, the dynamics of our relationships, of our friendships are going to change as well. You may also have friends who have had kids super early or they have decided to travel the world whilst you've taken maybe a more slow or scenic route. And what you may find as a result is that each week, each month, it gets a little bit harder to find things to talk about. A little bit harder to keep in touch with all that's going on in both of your lives.

And one day you realize, you know, you really don't know each other anymore. And in that moment, you don't need to artificially try and reignite that friendship. Sometimes it's just best to let life run its course to cherish the memories and move on. You never know when they're going to come back into your life.

You never know if it's going to be naturally rekindled and you'll find that your paths cross again. There's a saying that I love and it's that people are in your life for a season, a reason or a lifetime. That phrase is so comforting to me. But sometimes we put people into the wrong category and they put us into the wrong category as well.

You think it's forever that your soul mates and forever bonded and then one of you moves or gets married or decides to travel the world and all these things bring new experiences that you just can't relate to anymore. And you realize that it was just for a season. It was just for a reason, not for a lifetime. And I think all of these previous events or experiences, they relate to what I call the fizzle.