Adapting to Adult Friendship

When I get home at 8 o’clock, I don’t want to talk to anyone. There are those whom are the exception: my mom, someone I may be dating, a homie down to discuss the latest episode of Scandal or American Horror Story. But for the most part, I just want to veg out and disengage with the world. And if this happens five days a week and I take Saturday to decompress and Sunday I get up early and go to Church, followed by a nap, all of a sudden it’s 6:30. The day is gone. “Well, I have to prepare for the workweek.” And then I do it all over again.

How do I uphold friendships? How will I maintain a relationship? Will I make new friends? What happens when you’re at that point where you’re not around the folks you went to college with everyday? They’re scattered across different boroughs, major cities, and Facetime doesn’t cut it. You might not be friends with your coworkers. You can make time friends every once in a while, but will you sustain it?

I’ve been getting ditched lately by friends. I shouldn’t feel mad because I’ve done the same, A LOT, but I still feel some type of way. On the surface, it may be the same old dinner or happy hour or chill session in a fast food parking lot that we’ve gone to one hundred times over, but I had to find out about it on Snapchat. And there I am, on social media in disarray, in between a group photo shoots uptown and a new art excursion across the river; I may have ditched them for these plans. FOMO has feeling me conflicted and social media fans the flames.

I use social media as a cop-out like everyone else. Instagram in particular gives me the illusion that I actually know all the people I follow: where they go to school, their relationship status, the color of the new rug they bought for their apartment. Instagram is controlled and curated but it’s not all fake. The same may go for adult friendships, especially with friends you haven’t met up with in a while. We ask the same questions: How have you been? What’s new? Where are you working now? Did you see that Jan Doe’s pregnant on Facebook? You don’t go too deep unless you feel comfortable. The few friendships I’ve acquired post-graduation have been through local events and social media. It’s usually friends of friends, or friends of friends of exes, but there’s still that connection to adolescence. Trust is given more easily because there is a point of reference; it’s honestly terrifying to step out on faith try to establish ties to someone you have no connection to. That’s why I don’t like my coworkers to be in my business.

To be a friend is to know me, and to know me is to know my heartaches and pitfalls and triumphs and fun secrets. I don’t want to feel forgotten by those whom I’ve entrusted part of myself to. Everything that you place part of yourself into is energy. Energy evolves; it is the constant flow of persistent change. Friendships change as we change. Adapting to adult friendships is to understand that growing, whether it is closer or apart, is still growth. I’m in this weird age of humanity in the midst of the awkward stage of adulthood poised with the task of putting myself first while managing to not forget the needs of those whom I’ve entrusted myself to.  To my infinite impenetrable circle, I miss you. I need to do better; we all can to do better. Likes are not enough.

Take the time to reach out to a friend you were once close to and see which one of three things will happen.

1. You can be ignored. And that’s okay.
2. They can be friendly, but it won’t go any further. Keep them in your friends list. It won’t be awkward if you run into them at Costco. Plus, you could always use more likes and shares just for the hell of it.
3. You might actually be friends again. And maybe, that’s all you’ve wanted.

No one said navigating adult friendships would be easy. It seems as if no part of adulting is ever easy. So I’m going to go blindly into uncertainty; wish me smooth sailings.