When we hear the names Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe, we can probably all agree that this is the most iconic friend group in American pop culture. After all, they were characters on a show entitled “Friends”. Two were siblings, two were high school friends, two were college friends and a few were old roommates. Over the years there have been dozens of adult friendships like these portrayed on TV and in the movies. How many of you held on to grade school or university friends? Some, I’m sure. Even fewer of you probably had a roommate that you just loved so much that you didn’t care that they ate all your food, eavesdropped your every conversation and stole your favorite hoodie but pretended it was theirs all along, and then made you out to be the crazy person for even thinking it was yours in the first place. I think you can read between the lines on that one; Roommates are a sore subject for me. These connections are all seemingly great beginnings for long-term friendships, but how many of these relationships actually transcend our major life events like marriage, children, relocation, divorce, death, etc.?
In my life I have moved a dozen or more times, and with every move, I would experience the loss of a good friend (or two). Especially when I was school age and growing up in a pre-social media era. It’s true what they say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. In the beginning, the intentions were always good. We vowed to keep in touch and said we’d visit often. We’d make a few plans and then almost as quickly as those promises were made, we’d break them. The hour long conversations would stop and the daily text messages (which at the time, came in the form of a letter) would go with weeks in between, until eventually we’d be down to a “Merry Christmas” once a year. Moving around so much as a kid, my goodbye’s got easier and making new friends got harder. Once I became a teenager and entered yet another new school, it was apparent to me that close knit friendships had already been formed by kids who didn’t regularly get uprooted from their hometown. Permeating those friend groups seemed unlikely and scarier than being closed in a coffin with a hundred tarantulas on an episode of Fear Factor. Once I was of working age, I realized that having school friends wasn’t everything. Work was also the first place I realized that everyone had a story, some far more tragic than mine. I am a listener by nature, so some of my greatest friendships came from just lending my ear to a coworker on a bad day. I spent more time with my coworkers than I did at home, so we bonded easily. We would commiserate about work, about our home life, about our partners, kids, pets or siblings. We would dream together, give each other advice and even help each other outside of work. I treated these people like family. Until they weren’t anymore. That’s the thing about friendships. Most seem to be here today, gone tomorrow. I used to beat myself up over losing touch with people until someone shared with me the opening line of a famous poem by Brian A. Chalker; “People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.” When I look back on these relationships, I can actually identify the category each falls into and the “why” our paths seemed destined to cross. In some cases it was me that needed them and in others, they needed me.
Once I began my entrepreneurial journey, it was even harder to make close friends. My industry demands relationship building and retention to survive, but I have found that after working with someone in a client capacity, it’s not all that easy to transition them into the friend zone. After the transaction is over we may see each other out, text or pop over from time to time, but it’s not the same as having someone you can call up for advice at 2 o’clock in the afternoon after you’ve just been fired. Or when you need someone to wait by the phone for you to give them a thumbs up that your blind date is going OK and you’re not tied up in the trunk of some creep’s 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Or when you need an excuse to celebrate something. That friend will gladly go out for a drink with you on a random Wednesday night and toast to finding your lost sunglasses or to buying just about anything on sale or to that lump on your butt cheek that turns out was just an ingrown hair. I have had better luck making friends with other professionals, and not just those in my industry. However, there is a level of sophistication that must be maintained in these relationships. It’s very rare that I feel like I can truly let my hair down, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing to seek out people that I can be my truest self around. I would bet that if we paid closer attention, we’d find that more of us yearn for that authentic human connection. Beyond my working relationships, I always got involved in my children’s school and extracurricular activities. I found that this was a great way to meet people, but if you think that just because your kids have a teacher or a sport in common, you’re going to automatically hit it off with the parents, think again. I’ve learned you need either history, another very close friend in common or to get stuck in an elevator together for an indeterminate amount of time. If you have none of these, it’s likely you will exchange a few pleasantries in passing but it will never amount to anything more. So I picked up a group hobby, joined a club and volunteered for a non-profit. All of which I thought would open the door to some new friendships, but after two years of kickboxing with the same women four times a week, reading a book with some fellow Christian ladies, and working for a common cause with people who shared my love for philanthropy, I was no closer to making a new friend than I was to my dream of owning a villa on the Amalfi Coast.
I am sure that the difficulties I have experienced in making and keeping friendships as an adult all stem back to my childhood. Since I never stayed in one place for too long, I got really good at anticipating the inevitable loss of a friend. And after a while, I stopped letting anyone get close altogether, simply to avoid the pain of ultimately losing them. Presently, I also find that the older I get, the better I know myself and the types of people I best connect with. I can usually tell within the first 5 minutes of meeting someone whether or not there is potential beyond acquaintance. With that I can also instinctively spot someone who’s toxic for me. Thankfully, now I am able to identify the people I want to put my time and energy into and the people that I don’t. I find it’s actually very rare to immediately connect with someone in a deep and meaningful way. Too often we give of ourselves, knowing early on, that we probably shouldn’t waste our time on this person, but we hold onto hope, hope they will prove us wrong. We hope that our gut just made a knee jerk decision because they were a loud chewer, or they said “like” too many times while telling a story or their name was ‘Karen’. But there you are after one lunch together, full knowing you can regurgitate their entire life story back to them, yet they don’t even remember your last name, let alone that you take your coffee black. Stay away from these soul suckers. Hold out for the friend that says “I see you”. The one who gives solid advice but listens intently. The one who can tell a story that will have you in tears and massaging your cheeks from laughing so hard. The one who points out when you have stuff stuck in your teeth or your makeup is too heavy or your breath smells. The friend who you run ideas by, share secrets with, who helps you pick out sexy underwear for a weekend away with the hubs. The one that can pick up that you’re having a bad day from a one word text. Someone who appreciates that you’re the type of person who wants to give them the same level of friendship back in return. That is the kind of friendship I long for. If you’re lucky enough to find this just once in your adult life, I command you, hold on to that person tightly and work hard everyday to keep them close. And if you haven’t found them yet, keep your heart open and chocolate in your bag, because there’s nothing better than a friend, except a friend with chocolate.