74. Outgrowing friendships

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here for another episode. Today, we're going to discuss something that I think happens quite a bit in our twenties, but never really receives the same acknowledgement or attention that it deserves. We hear a lot about breakups, about romantic relationships that end, but what about our platonic relationships, what about our friendships? What I really want to explore today is experience of outgrowing your friends, of outgrowing relationships, and why it's really natural and really normal and maybe even a step beyond that, even beneficial in some ways to find that your childhood, high school, or university best friends are no longer the same people, You're no longer the same person, and noticing when it is time to move on and dealing with that experience. I think that our idea of friendship growing up and in our late teens even early twenties is often quite unrealistic and highly romanticized. We see friendships, unlike our romantic relationships, as these everlasting relationships that are only disrupted by huge falling outs or massive events that either last forever or come to an end in an instant. But as we enter our twenties, we can see that friendships are a lot more nuanced and not always black and white. Like any relationship, they can be emotionally complex and confusing, but drifting away from a friend isn't a bad thing. It's actually an entirely natural part of growing up and growing into yourself. You don't have to feel ashamed or like you owe anyone an explanation. It's actually fairly common, and I really want to normalize this experience. I think another lesson we are bound to learn in our twenties is that when it comes to friendships, quality over quantity is always the way. I think. When I was in my early years of university, I had this tendency and need to be friends with everyone I met and maintain those relationships even when we both realized we were incompatible. It was exhausting to try and have these special moments deep conversations and vulnerability with everyone, even people who I knew would probably never get me. But when I began to unpack the root cause of that habit that really I was just terrified of being alone and not constantly being surrounded by people, I was able, I think, to become a lot more selective and really pour my love and appreciation and time into the people and into the friendships that meant the most to me. The result of this was kind of a period of about twelve months or so where I found that my social circle just slowly began to shrink and I naturally drifted away from a lot of these people that I was trying so hard to stay friends with. And that was really scary. I felt like I'd abandoned these friends and they'd abandoned me. But as when as time goes on, I think it gives us the hindsight and the wisdom to realize that sometimes friendships need to fizzle and end for you to find new versions of yourself and for you to find new people who will match your energy and identity. So today I want to break down why we outgrow our friendships, especially during this decade of huge personal growth and transformation when we can recognize that a friendship is perhaps feeling a little bit stale or unfulfilling. The research the psychology behind this that concludes that this is actually a healthy experience and one that we should come to value and accept, but also discussing some of those harder parts of this experience. You know, how to end things in a good place, how to process sometimes even the grief for what used to be, and finally the value of solitude and how to feel comfortable with being alone as we outgrow certain people in our twenties. I think that's a pretty general fear that as we age, we're going to become more isolated and these large networks will disappear. So what we do is we maintain relationships with people out of habit and out of fear, even when we know that we've outgrown each other. Firstly, I don't think that that's necessarily accurate, that you know, we'll never have more friends than we have in our twenties, But that fear also highlights an important skill that we need to prioritize during this decade, which is the ability to enjoy time spent alone and in our own company and learn to walk away from the relationships that don't serve us and let other people do the same. So let's get into it and discuss the nuances and explanations behind why we grow our friendships. I think it goes without saying that friendships are some of the most valuable relationships that we will experience in life, and good friends they are even more valuable. They improve our mental and physical health. You know. A twenty seventeen study found that close friendships are a huge predictor of improved mental health, cognitive functioning, and even reduced anxiety and stress levels. You know. Friendship literally has a psychological capacity to change our bodies and to change our brains for the better. But friendship is not always black and white, and it's very natural to find that the older we get, the more of our friendships we tend to outgrow. There are many reasons why we find that a friendship that used to be the perfect fit, full of special moments and compatibility, has suddenly changed and it's no longer right for us in our current period of life. Often it's a slow realization brought on by distance or change in circumstances, where we gradually come to realize that what once was is longer, and we may be holding on just for the sake of nostalgia or even the expectation that it will somehow go back to the way it was. But the thing that makes outgrowing friendships so natural and normal is that it aligns with those changes and moments. Or we are outgrowing old versions of ourselves and with that the relationships that were part of that former identity. As we grow up, as we age, we will inevitably shift and change. We will take on new hobbies and attitudes, beliefs, jobs, We will experience significant life transitions, meet new people, all of these things and more, and that person you were five years ago, part of that person no longer exists, or it's been replaced by something newer and more aligned with who you are in this moment, in this time. I think that's one of the things that keeps life from being boring is knowing that we are constantly shifting into a deeper, different, but hopefully more mature version of ourselves, and that we can reinvent ourselves and try new things at any time, especially in our twenties, when this is not only permissible but highly encouraged by our society. Whilst we're on this journey. The people in our life are going through the exact same process, and they are changing in their own way and in their own direction, and sometimes those changes are not occurring in parallel, which leads to a distance forming in our friendships, especially when the things that you once bonded over and shared, like your uni coourse or workplace or sports team that you played for, they're no longer strong enough to bring you together and to create those shared experiences and closeness that is the pillar of every friendship. That's part of life, sad and painful as it may be. And even if you find that your relationship and that your friendship with someone isn't necessarily over, it may have faded a bit and lost some of that deepness and connection you formerly had, and that it's okay. It's a sign of growth, a sign of development, the sign of a new chapter for both of you. There are some crucial things that can really alter the course of a friendship, most of which are linked to those lifestyle and value changes we were speaking too earlier. The first big one that I've noticed, maybe you've noticed this as well, is distance, something that becomes so much more commonplace the deeper we get into our twenties is that people move away from the places where you once met and settled. So a friend made this observation to me the other day, and I thought it was brilliant that a sign of adulthood is having friends in multiple cities across the world, because after we graduate high school and then UNI, people are inevitably going to scatter across every country across the world, and you can knowla kind of no longer kind of you know, pop into their house down the street anymore, or see them in class, and that distance it changes dynamics. Because closeness and familiarity are the core pillar of friendship, and those things are often supported by things like physical proximity and convenience. It becomes harder to be part of each other's daily lives, daily routines, daily conversations, and you're obviously bound to grow apart a little bit. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need, you know, you need to call time of death on the friendship. Some of my best friends, my closest friends, are people who I rarely see in person. You know, we all went to UNI together in Canberra, and then one by one they've moved on to Melbourne, Tasmania, London, Darwin, all over the place. But the friendships have survived and continued to flourish because we still share so many of the same values and have that unconditional love and support for each other and really enjoy the time that we do spend with each other. It's not necessarily just distanced that causes you to grow apart, but other more nuanced factors. One of those is the entrance of serious romantic partners. When we're single, our friendships are our primary relationship, the person we go to for everything, who we share all the good and bad of our life with, and in a decade of instability and often a desired separation from our parents and families, we move away from our hometowns, we are really trying to separate our child identity and build an adult identity. Our friends become family. Those are the ones that we are closest to. But when we begin dating people, especially more seriously, you make a trade off with spending time with your friends to spend time with your partner, because you know you're probably obsessed with each other. You're getting to know everything about them, You're wanting to spend every day in their presence, and that's not a bad thing, and it's not as if you've abandoned your friends, at least not in most instances. It's just that we only have a number of hours in our weeks and in our days, and the entrance of a new primary relationship is going to take up more of that time, and more of that time that we previously reserved for friends. I have friends who are absolutely amazing balancing their romantic partners and their friendships, but no matter what, the dynamic is going to shift, and with that, sometimes that closeness is also lost. It doesn't mean that they're a shitty friend or that you're a shitty friend. It's just how life goes as we get older and begin having more serious relationships. You know, we all know what it's like to lose a friend to a partner, and it probably won't be the last time, and it's not something that they need to be shamed for or need to be made to feel bad for. It's just part of growing up. It's enjoying a new period and chapter of life. This links really perfectly with the other major factor and life change that we observe, which is that our priorities begin to differ and with that our values, our attitudes, and what we enjoy doing. Like I mentioned before, psychology explains that we often become bonded with people through similar shared experiences. These experiences, they create a shared narrative that both people can tap into, and it also imitates similarity and interpersonal compatibility because they've been through or are currently experiencing the same things that you are. And from that you have conversation topics. You have people that you mutually know, perhaps gossip, that you can share, priorities that are aligned, and that is normally the foundation for your relationship. The example that I always think of is the difference in the dynamic of our friendships in our very early twenties versus our late twenties, mainly due to factors like context. When I was in my early days at UNI, I am not proud to say it, but my days were consumed by partying until two am, waking up at eleven, studying super hard, hanging out with the same people doing stupid things, and then partying again, rinse and repeat. And most of us were in the same boat. We had just moved out of home. We had this incredible freedom, but also this common purpose to study, to get good grades and to graduate. That discreete period of time brought us closer because we were going through the same thing and we had the same priority. But now a lot of us have jobs. We can't afford the time and energy to party the same way we did, to drink the way we did. But we also have a lot less free time because most of us have structured lives with nine to five jobs and chores and obligations and partners, and we also have a different priority. You know, we've graduated, we've moved on. However, there are some people I know who didn't give up that lifestyle, or they're still studying whilst you know, I'm out here working my corporate job and only drinking on weekends. That's fine, it's just that our priorities are no longer aligned. And further to that, those lessons that we all kind of had, we've taken away different things from those lessons. We've taken away different lessons from those experiences, and that's created different values, different attitudes, expectations, and with that diverging identity that is no longer singularly centered on our identity, as you know, chaotic university students with the same kind of priorities. That is a natural part of growing up. It's not something that is anyone's fault. You cannot remain stagnant your whole life just because you're not willing to outgrow people. And it seems like a hard trade off, but there are you know, it also does come a point where we can't help but change, and with that, the dynamics of our relationships, of our friendships are going to change as well. You may also have friends who have had kids super early, or they have decided to travel the world whilst you've taken maybe a more slow or scenic route, And what you may find as a result is that each week, each month, it gets a little bit harder to find things to talk about, a little bit harder to keep in touch with all that's going on in both of your lives. And one day you realize, you know, you really don't know each other anymore, and in that moment, you don't need to artificially try and reignite that friendship. Sometimes it's just best to let life run its course, to cherish the memories and move on. You never know when they're going to come back into your life. You never know if it's going to be naturally rekindled, and you'll find that your paths cross again. There's a saying that I love, and it's that people are in your life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. That phrase is so comforting to me. But sometimes we put people into the wrong category, and they put us into the wrong category as well. You think it's forever that your soul mates and forever bonded, and then one of your moves or gets married or decides to travel the world, and all these things bring new experiences that you just can't relate to anymore, and you realize that it was just for a season, it was just for a reason, not for a lifetime. And I think all of these previous events or experiences they relate to what I call the fizzle. It's kind of like a slow burnout of the relationship rather than a relationship break up, which is often violent and a traumatic departure of a friend from our lives due to a big fooling out miscommunication or just all outghosting. So I want to kind of explain that difference a little bit more, the difference between a fizzle and you know when you really need to be like, Okay, this relationship has turned sour, it's turned a little bit toxic. We should probably cut each other off. I think that's different to signs that you're drifting, and it's important to recognize when it might be time to just be honest with yourself about whether that person is a season friend or a reason friend. In my own experiences, these are some of the biggest indicators that a friendship is kind of moving more towards a casual relationship or an acquaintance. Firstly, your friendship is rooted in the past. All you talk about things that have already happened, either from a place of nostalgia or bitterness. You know, if you're unable to move on from talking about certain friends or partners, or people who have hurt you, or your high school days, or recounting the same events over and over again, maybe it's time to realize that your friendship has somewhat lost its spark. Our minds should always be turned to the future, at least that's what I believe. So if you find that you always regress to a previous version of yourself when you're in the presence of someone, it may indicate that the relationship isn't growing at the same pace as you are. Secondly, you find that you don't have much in common anymore. You struggle to find things to talk about. You feel nervous when you make plans with them because you're worried that it will be awkward. Maybe even you plan a list of conversation topics. I've done that before. For sure. You just don't have anything in common. That's entirely normal. We are not frozen in time at the time that we met someone, and our life paths abound to diverge, not always, of course, but you know, when you start to find that you really can't talk the way you used to, that you no longer have those shared experiences and values, maybe it's just best to let both of you move on. The next indicator is a huge one, and I think it's one that we can all relate to. It's when you no longer feel energized or excited around them, or excited to see them. Friendship should leave us feeling excited by life. They should leave us feeling scene and confident, and above all else, energized and enthused. That's a nonnegotiable. That is a complete non negotiable. For me, Yes, there are going to be times when one of you may be struggling. It might not be as exciting as you would like. You're offering more emotional support. That's okay, but you know, the status quo should always be that you feel better leaving an interaction with a friend than before you saw them. But if you're finding that you're leaving a situation feeling really drained, maybe even feeling worse about yourself, that's obviously not a great sign, but it is a sign of something, and that is that you might be outgrowing one another. The final indicator I guess is that the friendship has become one sided. This may not be a sign that you are outgrowing a friend, but maybe that they are outgrowing you. That feeling always sucks. It can be really painful, especially if you're not on the same page. But you don't want to maintain any relationship that is one sided or in which you have to beg someone for their attention and their time. Maybe you're finding that you're always the one making plants whilst they always reschedule or it takes ages for them to get back to you. They never have time to see you. They always seem to prioritize their other friendships. It's a hard pill to swallow that maybe at that stage, you're better off connecting with people who value you for who you are, where you are in life, and what you can bring, rather than trying to dig deeper into a friendship that's kind of gone stale or gone silent. I think that final experience can be really tough, and I'm sorry if you're going through that, and you know, moving on from friends, finding that your relationship has changed, It's not always a pleasant experience or one that comes naturally. So I really want to discuss or what you do next, why this experience can be so hard, and how to embrace your solitude, maybe even your loneliness or whilst you're in between chapters of your life and kind of see it as an opportunity to really reconnect with yourself and maybe make better friends, maybe make friends with people who are more suited to you, all of that in just a second. The realization we are outgrowing friends is not always an enjoyable experience. I feel like I don't even need to say that. It can leave us feeling kind of lonely and also guilty as if we've done something wrong or abandoned someone. It's an emotionally complex realization, but you cannot possibly keep every friend you've ever had. Imagine if you were still best friends with everyone that you've met since childhood, you wouldn't have a room for any new relationships. Sometimes losing one person makes room for someone who is better suited for you and where you are in your life right now. Psychology has a lot to say about the experience of outgrowing someone and perhaps losing a close friend. A lot of the intense emotions they derive from the closeness you once had and how our brain responds to this, and it's very similar to the grief process that follows a death, because our relationships are very valuable in core parts of our identity, so their absence does bring emotional pain. Like I said, moving on from a friendship it involves a similar grief cycle to death because it comes with recognizing that your former friend is no longer part of your life. They can't be called on in an instant, they won't be there for those core moments and milestones in your life, and that you're going to have to move on. When we see someone every day or regularly for a period of time, our neurons become wide around their presence. We enjoy their company, and you know, when we are having a hard day, we call them. Something importance happens there. I'll go to. These repeated experiences, these repeated pleasant experiences. They facilitate nerve growth and can actions between our sign apses, which are the tiny kind of roads that create maps through our brain. And these relationships become integrated into how our brain processes the world and responds to certain events or experiences. So when those relationships begin to fizzle, our brain cannot respond as it has previously, and this causes that sense of confusion and that sense of hurt. As a result, we may find that outgrowing a friendship involves a similar five stage process to grief. Firstly, there's denial, you deny that everything is fine, that you've just misinterpreted some of the signs, that it's just growing pains, everything's all right. And then there's anger at yourself, at them. It may involve lashing out and frustration at the other person, especially if you feel abandoned or wounded by the experience. Next comes bargaining or attempts to reverse the process and bring you back together. By trying to replicate that form of closeness and artificially create reasons to hang out more and create inorganic shared experiences. It might also be things like, oh, you know, if me and this person stay friends, I won't make any new friends. Or I'll pray every day, or I'll be the nicest person ever, like I promise to be kind, I promise to always be there for them just as long as we're still in each other's lives. Of course, that rarely works, if not ever, if a friendship is truly on the way out. You know, I saw this quote the other day that when the universe knows that you two shouldn't be together, that you shouldn't have a relationship, it will create circumstances and situations that will make that apparent to you until you realize. Obviously, like we've said, that's a hard pill to swallow, and realizing that may involve a sense of depression and isolation or even overwhelming sadness because it feels like a loss. It is a loss, but sometimes that's just the way that life goes. You have to go through hard things to enter into a new chapter to see the other side. And after all that has passed. We arrive at a place of acceptance. As you come to terms with reality and understand that life will go on. You will make new friends, you will find other fulfilling connections. From personal experience, I've seen how this process goes and can definitely confirm that it is a real thing. Sometimes, especially with that anger, when we recognize things changing in our relationships, our first instinct can be to lash out and act from a place of rage, anger, or even abandonment. I know that can feel like our most natural response. We don't like feeling abandoned or unseen or rejected, especially by those close to us. But I would really implore you to take some time to step back and consider the situation rationally. Things like distance or significant life changes, they don't always have to mean the end of a friendship. Sometimes it just means change. Don't rush to completely cut someone off, or don't rush to yell at them to be angry at them. See if you can find a way forward and take time to adjust to you and your friends new circumstances. But if you realize that it's just not happening for either of you, that the growth you've both experienced has created too much of a divide. Try and end things kindly from a place of love and from a place of grace, by acknowledging that things are different, and still making time for them even if you would like to for when they do want to see you, even if it's less regularly, but also just letting life take its course without rage, without emotional outbursts, without anger, You never know if things will change and you'll come back together in the future if you just need some time apart, so you don't want to burn any bridges before you have to. And I think the other thing to do is treat you alone time. Your solitude is sacred. I think I spoke about this earlier, but sometimes we can find that we learn a lot in our own company, and that often comes after we realize that we've outgrown people in our life. Maybe we're holding onto those relationships because we don't want to be alone. I think we often have a tendency to feel empty space with social interaction, which can leave us feeling more drained and exhausted. But solitude gives us time to reflect, It gives us time to think about what we want. It can allow us to be more independent and autonomous, to love ourselves. Deeply treating yourself like your own best friend. It's life changing. It's something I've been trying to practice more and I found that it's opened me up to more opportunities and really made me love myself more and be more selective with the friends they do choose to have. If I want to go do something, if I want to go to a new restaurant, go to a movie, visit a beautiful lake, or do a beautiful hike, I can do it by myself and still have an amazing time. And it's made me value the time spent with friends, spent with good friends even more. Take it slow and try to integrate more solitary activities into your daily routine, or push yourself to go to things alone, to go outside your comfort zone, instead of calling on friends that you actually don't enjoy time with that you know you don't have that connection with anymore. I think in those moments where we force ourselves to do things that are scary and not convenient, and especially to do things alone, life really surprises you and you'll see some amazing self development and growth. Finally, I think it goes without saying, but one of the major benefits of outgrowing friends, as hard as it may be, is the opportunity it presents to meet some new, amazing people you haven't yet met. All the people you will love in your life. There will be more souls that touch you deeply, more laughter, more bonding experiences, more adventures, more people out there who will connect deeply with you. So don't let your fear of loneliness hold you back from self discovery and from moving on. It's so much more worthwhile to be alone for a while and to egg space for new relationships that are perhaps more fulfilling, than to hold on to friendships that no longer serve you. I think that's all we have time for today. Thank you so much for tuning in for this episode. I really enjoyed it. It's something I talk a lot about with my friends and even with my parents and people I know that outgrowing friendships is super normal. It doesn't need to come with shame, it doesn't need to come with blame or stigma. It's just part of growing up. And it's so interesting talking to my parents about this, who have been through that experience. Obviously they're a lot older, and really confirm that to me and be like as long as you end things in a place of grace and in a place of love, you never know if someone's going to show up in your life again and you can rekindle that relationship. So it's just a really interesting topic. I think it's something that's super supernatural and super normal. So I hope that if you are in a place right now where maybe you're lonely or you're feeling really down on yourself because you're at this point where you are outgrowing old friendships, that you have some grace and kindness towards yourself and are able to recognize that the only thing it will do is open up new opportunities to spend time alone and to meet new people. So thank you so much for listening, Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode and you feel cool to do so, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now. It really helps the show crow helps it reach new audiences. Maybe share this episode with a friend who needs to hear this. And if you want to hear more about the show, you want firsthand updates, you want to know what's coming next, Things like merch upcoming guests. Please feel free to follow me at that Psychology Podcast on Instagram. It's a great place to connect if you have episode suggestions, I also very much welcome them there. So thank you so much for your time today, thank you for listening, thank you for tuning in, and I will be back next week with another episode.