Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how friendships and social groups change over time. Some of the closest groups I knew…whether in college, from work, or even just neighborhood friends eventually drifted apart. And I keep wondering… was there a way to prevent it?
It’s not always a big fight or some dramatic event. Sometimes, life just pulls people in different directions. Maybe schedules stopped lining up. Maybe one person started a family while others were still in their ‘let’s go out every weekend’ phase, or some just faded.
But then there are those rare groups that somehow stick together. The ones who, years later, are still making the effort, still showing up for birthdays, still keeping a group chat alive with memes.
What was your experience?
-Did you have a friend group that stuck together for years? What made it work?
-If your group drifted, when did you first notice things changing?
-Was there a specific moment that made you realize, ‘Yeah, this isn’t the same anymore’?
-Do you think technology (group chats, scheduling apps, social media) helped or hurt your group staying together?
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I’m still a young man, so take this with a grain of salt. Most friends are friends of convenience and circumstance. I don’t mean this to be pessimistic, but I do think it is the truth. You were in the right place at the right time, and at the right part of your life. I think this is even more pronounced in group dynamics. I’m sure you can imagine a friend that you never really spent alone time with, and only really knew through the context of another person. Inevitably your circumstances will change, people move, schedules change, shared interests loose their appeal, a disagreement becomes unresolvable etc. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, and a person or a group does not have to fit you forever, just as you don’t have to be the same person your whole life. I think this process acts like a sieve, slowly separating the people who will truly be a part of your life from those born of happenstance.
I had a fairly tight nit group as a youth, that I managed to hold onto for a few years despite moving ~6 hour drive away, and visiting for maybe a week a year. We were all very online basement dwellers for lack of a better term, and we were already spending lots of time on skype and eventually discord together. I can confidently say that group video chats and online games kept us together. However everyone began to move and make new friends, and there was less and less time to play out a full game of civ together. I kept contact with two of the friends, but a betrayal soured the relationship with one.
In highschool i found the bulk of the friends I keep to this day. But if I am honest I can already see the current dynamic dying a slow death. Climbing was a big thing for a bunch of us, but some lost interest after a few years. Others got jobs in the trades that kept them at camp far away for extended periods, or got long term girlfriends and now wives, or had problems with mental health, or took up radical politics that alienated some people. You can’t care enough to make up for someone else’s disinterest.
If I had any advice on how to keep things together, the biggest one is having rituals. Doesn’t have to be big or fancy or even all that often, but you need some shared event. Have people commit to a brunch once a month, or watch the game once a week, or go camping once a year. It really doesn’t matter what it is, just keep that commitment. Should the interest ever wane, do feel free to mix it up or adopt a new ritual. A ritual that has grown stale will only encourage those already on the fence to disengage more.
Group is still mostly together, I’m not really part of it anymore though. I actually visited them once last summer and while I still love them to death, they’re not really "my people," y’know? We knew each other around 15 years.
I moved across the ocean seven years ago and even then, I was already out of there because my ex was part of the group (we were in this group together before we started dating), but it seemed more like they were his friends in the end instead of mine, so I walked out.
Even then, they’re all really bad at keeping in touch with people who are not in their immediate vicinity anyway (within the metro area). Basically it’s adult object permeance; if they don’t see you, you’re not there.
I’ve been apart of so many friendship groups in my life and they’ve all died. I’ve had reunions with two groups. One of them was a 10-15 year gap and there was about 15 or so of us so it was great that so many still wanted to link up after so long. We were friends in childhood and I guess some of us wanted to relive that old friend group. Of course things are never the same, we were children then and adults now.
The other reunion I had was with a high school group, we met up a few times but it just died. I feel bad for the guy who always reached out and tried to organize stuff and keep the group together. The most recent time he reached out to organize something and pretty much got a weak response from everyone. He moved away to another city so now the groups completely dead.
For all the other groups, they pretty much just died and I never heard from them again. Right now I’m part of like 2 groups. I know that neither of them will probably last. People change, priorities change, people move, they find new jobs, they change their life, etc. So many reasons why friendship groups die.
Also I’m really only friends with like 2-3 people in a group, like proper friends. The others are more just the type of person that you’re only friends with because you hangout in the same group.
There are 3 types of friends. Those who are just near you, those who have the same goals, and those who are just there to support you.
As you get older, the first two become a lot less valuable.
So friend groups kinda start to fall apart, once there isn’t constant hanging out, and you realize they aren’t that deep of friends.
It’s different for each friend group, but it mainly becomes a thing, where you realize the only thing keeping yall together was proximity more than anything.
I’ve learned some people don’t want friends. They want a husband/wife, kids and that’s it.
It’s not work, or time – some people don’t want friends. It’s bizarre.
Mutual effort. Anyone telling you it’s dynamics or some social kind of person doesn’t know what it really takes.
Just keep showing up through the good and the bad. Keep putting in effort. Forgive the mistakes, plan time together, and keep putting in the effort.
It’s that simple.
I was part of a pandemic “pod”. We would get together (outside) every weekend. When the pandemic ended we went back to being busy. We still see each other but not on a regular basis.
Sometimes people dating within the friend group and then breaking up makes things really messy.
Also, as you age you can just grow differently. A lot of my closest college friends are still going out to bars every weekend and staying out really late which I am down for every once in a while but definitely not every weekend.
Usually there has so be something pulling them together in the first place such as a planner friend, circumstances like school, projects from work, hobbies people are consistent with.
For some, group chats are the only thing keeping it together at least virtually. Without those, they would fall apart much easier since at least with the group chats, people still WANT to be in contact and show they like each other
I’ve thought about this a lot. I have a group of friends that has been a fundamental part of my life for over 30 years. When I tell people about this, they are amazed. It doesn’t seem common.
I think I’ve come to realize that common interests brought us together and ritual has kept us together.
Ritual is a strange concept. I never thought much about it when I was young. As a much older man I realize the value.
We get together a few times a year to leave the world behind and enjoying our shared interests together. I have recognized the same with family. I didn’t appreciate the things we do every year at a holiday for example until I lost some of those family members. I realized that the value came from getting us all to commit to time together every year at a dedicated time to stitch the years together. In hindsight, It doesn’t matter if it seemed silly at the time (do I REALLY have to wear an ugly sweater?).
What do you like all doing? A fishing trip, a Super Bowl party, a game night. It doesn’t really matter. Ritualize it. If it’s something everyone looks forward to, it will be a glue that keeps you together over time.
My friends from high school are a bunch of screwups. Over the 10 years following graduation, I would visit home with stories of science internships, research, published papers, starting a career, promotions, world travel. They only had stories about drunken brawls, getting fired from bottom-rung jobs, and fighting with their slovenly wives. After a while, they didn’t want to hear much about my success and seemed to resent it. That was when I realized they were no longer my friends.
Friends are generally made by common shared experiences and the feeling we have at sharing that understanding.
As time goes on people will drift away from the common thing that they shared and their life moves to different things.
E.g. high school student -> college student -> working single 20 something -> etc.
I’m 50 and have the same Friday night group doing ttrpg since high school. It’s survived because our common experience that created the friendship continues.
The rest of my friend groups from school and past jobs died out because that common thread stopped keeping us together.
They all showed their true colors when me and my bf broke up (he was in group too) they choose his side, of justifying hitting me. Then he started to date my best friend like 3 days after lmaooo
as an insider and outsider – its communication and also betrayal and a lil bit schedules
friend groups usually have really strong communication dynamics and everyone is tight knit with each other – I have joined some where I became an outsider but was eventually included in ‘goings’ which felt nice because I was included even tho I wasn’t part of the core group
there was another group – where I was the outsider and what caused this group to fall apart at the core was betrayal and toxic communication [I never really got too close with anyone in this when I saw the toxicity]
the one im in currently – im on the inside – communication has to be strong or it will fall apart – the biggest thing is we all have varying schedules so hanging out doesn’t always happen – we have a group chat where we send messages and funny stuff
IMO, people grow over the years and sadly this also means growing apart from the friends they were once close to. If what drew people together to form a group in the first place, whether it be a common interest, goal, or circumstances, could also cause them to drift apart once it’s no longer relevant to most of them, unless they’re determined to make an effort to stay together.