Why are adult friendships so hard to make and maintain?

Loneliness, local communities, and close friends.

Recently, I have been talking a lot about friendships on social media. I had a reel/tiktok that was very popular (ironic) where I talk about being a lil bit lonely as a mum living in London. A lot of people could relate to this whether or not they were a parent or lived in London - it seems to be a very common millennial adult issue. So I wanted to bring it to the newsletter, as this is something very much on my mind at the moment, and, other than in the fertility realm, is the main area in my life that I feel there is a gap between what I want and what I currently have.

Maybe I am particularly drawn to this discourse right now but it feels like the adult friendship/loneliness/local community chat is everywhere. Rowan Ellis, Tiffany Ferguson, and Anne Helen Petersen have all talked about it and Petersen is even writing a book about it, which I can’t wait for whenever it comes out. So clearly I’m not the only one feeling this way.

I feel like my circle of potential friends, companions, allies to pick from for any particular social occasion was a lot bigger in the past - a pandemic and a baby have massively shrunk those circles. Most acquaintances are gone, I work for myself and from home so I don’t really have office friends/colleagues (or even just adults to talk to in person during the day!), so the friendships I am left with are really the ones who survived all that: my close friends 💛 And I love my close friends, but there is a problem - our lives just aren’t as intertwined as they used to be. I miss the school and uni days where you would just be doing life together so there was no need for a catch up. Nowadays everyone lives far away and everyone is on different schedules (daily and life.) Is the solution here moving closer to my friends? If so, which one/s? Proximity is for sure an issue - is the solution really that simple?

The second type of friendship I’m currently trying to cultivate are local friends. If my close friends don’t live near me, I’m going to try and make friends with the people who do! But this is HARD! It is a constant and exhausting process of… putting yourself out there. Which can be intimidating and vulnerable! I’ve also found that proximity isn’t always the answer. Late stage capitalism has truly eroded so much local community. Even if everyone I’ve met and connected with in the last 2 years wanted the same thing as me, everyone’s time is taken up with their money making and caring responsibilities, and it is very rare that the free time we do have will be the same chunk of time. We’re all stuck in our nuclear family little bubbles and wanting to reach out across to each other but feeling trapped.

You hear stories about queering parenting, partnerships, and friendships, I’ve learned about family abolition and communal living, and it all sounds dreamy yet unattainable. Maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for when my toddler is of school age and I meet people at the school gates, but what am I supposed to do until then?

I look at what my parents have, in their late 50s/early 60s, with a huge community of friends around them all living walking distance: friends popping round for tea, spontaneous plans, and always someone around to do something with, and I want what they’ve got. But they’ve lived in the same part of Manchester for over 30 years now. They’ve put in the time, and it was a very different time.

I don’t want to end this on a downer, I’m hashing out the problems in my mind but I am also trying to find my own personal solutions. I’m still opening up, putting myself out there and just being that person regularly reaching out, even if it is emotionally exhausting. I’ve been casting my net wider and have genuinely been having some lovely play dates and hangs with people more local to me. I know in my heart that these kinds of social connections - experiences with my close friends and connecting with new local ones - are important to me in this current stage of life. So I have to treat it like it’s a priority, which might mean a slightly inconvenienced bedtime, or being more tired the next day, or not doing the exact precise thing that I wanted to do with my time. That all seems like a worthy sacrifice at this stage whilst I continue to muddle through and figure this friendship, community shit out.

Would love to hear your thoughts/experiences of close friend catch ups and attempts at making local friends in the comments. How are you feeling about it all? If it’s a focus in your life too, what are you doing to help foster the connections you want?

☀️ I’m going on holiday! - does this really count as project developments? No. But other than a couple of videos coming out in July that I have been working on for a loooooong time there’s not much to report (kind of in theme with last month’s newsletter about taking it slow). And to hopefully contrast with the constant barrage online of people’s work news and successes, my main thing currently is that I am taking time off to go on holiday! Will report back in next month’s newsletter but remember - TAKE 👏🏼 THAT 👏🏼 ANNUAL 👏🏼 LEAVE 👏🏼 (especially if you’re a freelancer/self-employed!)

🐈 boop - this was a gift from me to Dan for his birthday in June, it’s a very good 2 player game! I learned about it from Ash and Gray’s video where they chat about some of their fave 2 player games and I bought this one and one other for him. Took a while for me to hunt down in the UK but this is where I found it in the end (although it is now out of stock so maybe I got the last one). Dan likes to buy himself massive complicated boardgames that take a good while to set up and play. I love playing these with him but often we don’t have the time or mental capacity for them so I wanted to add some games to our collection that were 2 player, a bit quicker to play but still mentally stimulating and boop is just that! Cute kittens + thinky strategy game where you’re always having to think multiple moves ahead. Bonus points is that Rowan loves playing it too! (although with his own set of rules)

Last month it was pie chart time! I posted both my revenue streams and expenses breakdown videos - hope you enjoyed the data and pie charts! 🥧🤓

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We are currently reading The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye* (affiliate link) for the Doing It Book Club over on my Patreon. We’ll probably do our group chat at the end of July and I’ll be sharing the poll to pick a date for that in the discord server soon! Please join us to chat all about the book and what you thought of it!

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