How Many Close Friends Do You Have?
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How many close friends do you have? Do you see your friends on a regular basis, and how often is that?
I've seen a lot in the news and memes lately about friendship –
- the WSJ just had a story about “what sets women's friendships apart and keeps them strong” [gift link]
- there have been soooo many stories about how men don't have friends (PBS, NYT [gift link], Guardian)
- my friends and I are constantly sending each other memes about about how difficult it is to schedule nights out… a good friend just sent a FB reel that started “by the time you're in your 40s, you should have about 2 friends left, who you never have time to see and just send a lot of TikToks.” (I'm assuming I should be flattered that I'm one of the 2 friends?)
In the past, we've discussed friendship tiers (close friend vs. acquaintance), how to make friends as you get older, how to make a friend group, how to choose your friends, friendships and politics, and 10 ways to make time for friends if you work a lot.
For my $.02 – I probably have fewer non-family friends at this moment in my life than I have at almost any other moment. It's hard to schedule get-togethers with the friends who live close, it's hard to schedule calls with friends who live far. My few friend groups and I have started just having repeating calendar events every 8 weeks — same place, same time — and if it's we need to change it then we do, but for the most part it's great just having something booked to schedule around. I'm ok with it as a “season” of life — and assume at some point I'll start having more time for friends, and that I'll either have to shore up old friendships or make new friends.
In the meantime, I'm definitely a pebbler with my friends — the basic idea is that by sending news stories, memes, and small tidbits to friends it's like penguins who leave small pebbles at the feet of their loved ones. (Here's a Today.com story explaining it better.) I've used this technique with mentors over the years to stay on their radar, albeit with more serious news articles, but I have found it a nice, easy way to remind people you exist, you're thinking of them, you have bonds… I feel like it's superior to just sending simple “happy birthday!” texts or the like, at least for me.
Readers, how about you — how many close friends do you have? Do you see your friends on a regular basis, and how often is that?
Stock photo via Stencil.
This is such a hard topic. I moved to a NYC suburb 4 years ago and my kids already at the drop off play date stage (8 and 10 when we moved). It’s definitely hard breaking in as a working mom who doesn’t do PTO volunteering. I do book club, a few group exercise classes, volunteering with local groups. I’ve gotten to the point where I know a lot more people, but not too many invite over for dinner kinda friends. And recently discovered the perils of making friends with your kid’s friends’ parents when my middle school DD went through a horrible friend group break up!!
Your last sentence is so true. For several years my closest mom friend was my daughter’s best friend’s mom. We did so much stuff as a foursome, including taking the girls on vacations. Then they had a huge falling out (in early elementary school, they weren’t even tweens!) After a couple of rough months their friendship mostly recovered but the other mom clearly hasn’t forgiven me and my kid (even though her kid was the instigator, from my perspective) and things are weird and strained with us. Now I would say I have a lot of casual mom friends but no one I’ve met through my kid that I think of as a close friend – partly because of that experience.
agree with this. had a thing when my eldest was small. learned my lesson. he played travel baseball with the same group for years so i spent weekends with the same group of moms and would hang out or chat or eat but tried to keep it pretty casual.
i have two super de dupery close friends from child hood who i speak to and text with almost daily but who do not live in my city. i still live in the city we grew up in so i see both of them a few times a year when they come visit. i have a good friend from college who i keep up with but less than weekly. i have collection of friends from old jobs who i see once or twice a year. i try to avoid being too involved with my kids’ friends’ moms . i play doubles once a week and two of the other women and i periodically have dinner with or without our husbands and the four of us go out a few times a year as well. i think that’s it. would like to have a good friend who lived closer, it’s been a long time.
Interesting. I think of myself as an introvert with too few friends, but actually have life long friends from every school, job and hobby. I slowly introduce them to each other and to selected family and now have a rolling series of events, travel buddies, etc.