there is a wonderful article in the
atlantic called it's your friends who
break your heart it's an exploration
into the great pandemic friendship
reckonings friendship fallouts that have
occurred during covid's reign as we all
have called down our social circles to
the bare essentials it also talks about
the nature of friendship as we move into
middle age how necessary friends really
are but how ill-equipped society is set
up to allow us to maintain strong bonds
in the article one quote really struck
me in 2009 dutch sociologist gerald
mullenhorst published a study that
showed we replace half of our social
network over the course of seven years
and according to laura carstensen the
director of the stanford center on
longevity we have two phases when we're
young adults going out with strangers
and being hungover that's the friendship
collecting stage as we move into middle
age we should be in the friendship
enjoying stage deepening the
relationships that we formed in our
youth so friendship endings or as the
article author jennifer senior calls
them little divorces they've been really
at the forefront of my mind lately you
know i had my fair share of great
pandemic friendship reckonings and it
was very timely that my friend scott
derrickson made this tweet about the
seven instances that truly test
friendship coven outstanding so you find
out who your real friends are when you
tell them a hard truth when you achieve
significant career success when you get
depressed when you grow into a better
different person when you fail publicly
and or miserably when you grieve and
when you move i found these to be very
fascinating right i have either been a
part of or witnessed friendship fallouts
for all of these exact reasons mostly
the moving one has been really
applicable to me being a military brat a
lot of my friendships have not stood the
test of geographical time but the most
surprising one was when a friend
achieved significant career success it
really threw the dynamics of a former
friend group like into complete disarray
and it was fascinating from a
psychological perspective to see how
varied everyone's reactions were from
supportive to jealous to self-sabotaging
the friendship and look as we move into
this next stage of life friends
disappear for a myriad of reasons the
seven aforementioned marriage parenthood
politics even when you share the same
politics so i'm here to tell you with
this video that it's very normal for
friendships to fade keeping friendships
is actually way more rare according to
the survey center on american life the
percentage of americans who say they do
not have a single close friend has
quadrupled since 1990 but we know from
studies and from just being human beings
that friendships are essential as we
move on in life because death happens
divorce happens our kids grow up and
leave the nest who are we left with it's
important that we maintain these bonds
but the article and myself would argue
with the right people who pass the tests
of friendship people who nurture us who
invest in us who choose to prioritize us
because that's supposed to be the beauty
of friendship right it's a voluntary
relationship that we opt in on because
lord knows we're not these
people so we better really enjoy each
other in the 1980s the oxford
psychologist michael argyle and monica
henderson wrote a seminal paper titled
the rules of friendship it had six
takeaways which albeit are a little on
the nose i think are worth seeing if
they apply to you so in the most stable
friendships people tend to stand up for
each other in each other's absence trust
and confide in each other support each
other emotionally offer help if it's
required try to make each other happy
and keep each other up to date on
positive life developments and if you've
gone through a great pandemic friendship
reckoning fear not as my therapist the
oracle says there's no such thing as a
bad friend there's just people who are
not your people and conflict is the
information you need to figure that out
i'm anna akana thank you the patrons who
supported today's video and thank you as
always to my father daddysquarespace for
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