Why Do Friendships Fade? Understanding Why Some Friendships Last and Others Don't
Why do friendships fade?
This is a question that’s always somewhere in the background of my mind. How can some friendships stand the test of time, while others slowly fade away into nothingness? Is it simply life taking us in different directions, or are we somehow to blame for the ending of a friendship that once meant so much to us?
This is what I’m going to explore in this article because, if this question has been in the back of my mind, I’m sure it’s been in the back of yours too.
If I look back on all the amazing friends I’ve had over the course of my life so far, I’m always surprised, and sometimes saddened, by how few are still actively in my life now. It’s not necessarily that anything happened between us, they haven’t gone anywhere, they’re simply no longer present in the way they once were, and therefore no longer a real part of my day-to-day life.
So why is it that some friends stick around and some disappear?
I believe there are a few common reasons why some friendships last while others fade, whether it’s circumstance, distance, changing priorities, or simply the fact that two lives have begun to move in different directions.
And sometimes there isn’t one clear-cut reason at all.
But perhaps the more we understand why friendships change, the less we feel the need to punish, blame or shame ourselves when they don’t turn out the way we expected.
Why are friendships often harder as we get older?
When we’re children, making friends is just something we do naturally. There’s nothing complicated about it, we just fall into friendships as smoothly as melting butter. We play with the children on our street, the children we go to school with, and the children of our parents’ friends.
Having shared experiences is a sure-fire way to forge new friendships, which is why school, team activities, university, sports and first jobs are often all the benchmarks for new friendships to develop.
All of my most wonderful friendships have been created from some of my biggest life experiences. It was the person I met in the first week of university who lived in my halls, who is still my best friend today. It was the person I met on the first shift of a part-time desk job who made me laugh till I couldn’t breathe, but who I haven’t seen for nearly a decade. It was the person I sat next to on the first weekend of my Kinesiology training who I’m still in touch with. It was the first gaggle of girls I met when I studied abroad in America, who I’ve lost touch with completely.
Some last, and some fade.
I believe one of the reasons friendships get harder as we get older is that we have fewer new experiences, and therefore fewer opportunities to meet like-minded people. When we’re younger, life opens up for us like a flower, blooming with potential and possibilities of travel, adventures and meeting people.
But when we’re a little older, a little more settled and stable, we don’t have as many new experiences. It might that we’re in a relationship, so we don’t go out as much as we used to. It might be that have a family, so solo travel adventures become less likely. Ot it might be that we’re committed to our job, our home or our routines, so we don’t move around as much.
Friendships can still form, of course, but there’s often less natural opportunity for them to simply happen so easily.
Why do some friendships last while others don’t?
When we’re younger, we’re often on the same trajectory and timeline as our friends. We all go to school at the same age, we take exams at the same time, we look for our first jobs at similar times. Yet, the older we get, the more that timeline bends and stretches differently for each of us.
None of us are meant to have identical lives. We are all meant to flourish and flow in our own beautiful divine order. There is no right or wrong way to live our lives, and we are not in a race. There is no finish line and no perfect set of accomplishments we must achieve.
But what is true, is that the older we get, the more we begin to flow out in different directions, at different speeds.
Some of us launch into careers, some of us fall in love, some of us chase our dreams in distant lands, and some of us stay exactly where we are, just focused on getting by. While we had similar life experiences as children, on the same compact timeline, as adults it’s a completely different thing.
As we live our lives, it can become harder to keep friendships, that were once so strong, connected and together, because life is simply taking us in different directions.
Like the group of girls I met in the first week of my university exchange programme in America, who I’m no longer in touch with. The shared experience we had in common was the foundation of our friendship, but it wasn’t quite a strong enough glue to hold us together once we returned to England and no longer had that experience in common.
I truly believe that we’re meant to have all sorts of experiences and interactions with people, but not all of them are meant to stand the test of time. Some friendships are able to stretch and evolve with us, while others feel more connected to one specific chapter of our lives.
The ones that last, we can cherish, and the ones that don’t, we can still remember fondly.
Is it normal to outgrow friendships?
One of the biggest things that isn’t talked about so often is outgrowing friendships.
As we move through life, we also change as people. None of us stay the same, we are always evolving, learning, growing and becoming different versions of ourselves. And this can be the thing that creates a rift in a friendship that may once have been incredibly strong.
One of the biggest factors in this is our core values, or belief systems, which can develop as we get older into a more solid, definable sense of how we want to live our lives. And often, it’s not something that happens subtly over time, it can be a major event in our lives that rocks our foundation and shows us the world, and ourselves, in a new light.
And once we see things in a different light, it’s very hard to go back.
When we grow spiritually or emotionally, we often want to spend our time with like-minded people who share our beliefs and values. That can mean that we naturally spend less time with people who don’t share this same growth trajectory with us.
It’s not because we are judging them for not seeing the world the same way we do. It’s simply because we may no longer connect with them in quite the same way we once did. If the values, beliefs or way we experience life have shifted significantly, that can naturally change the depth of a friendship.
Sometimes friendships can survive quite happily on a more surface level, and sometimes they can’t. If there’s mutual trust, appreciation, love and non-judgement, a friendship can still thrive despite differences. But when those things are missing, the friendship may begin to fade.
It may also be that, as we grow, we begin to see some friendships more clearly than we did before.
We may notice that the friendship feels one-sided, or that we’re always the one making the effort. We may recognise that we don’t feel able to fully be ourselves, or that something about the relationship no longer feels right.
Sometimes these realisations make a friendship easier to let go of, and sometimes they make it much harder.
Why can letting a friendship go feel so difficult?
While we talk about breaking up in romantic relationships, we often don’t talk about breaking up in platonic friendships. This is why it can feel so hard to know how to let a friendship go if it doesn’t feel right anymore.
We can also have layers of attachment with people, such as shared history and mutual friends in common, as well as deeper emotional ties such as guilt and shame around ending a friendship that, “on paper”, is fine, but no longer feels right in our hearts.
Knowing how to communicate that you don’t want to spend platonic time with someone anymore can feel incredibly awkward, which is why we often let friendships fade rather than saying anything to officially end them. None of us are new to this awkwardness. We’ve all done it, and we’ve all had it done to us.
What’s interesting is that sometimes it can be especially challenging to let people know we don’t wish to spend time with them when we’re also learning how to speak up for ourselves, speak our truth and assert our boundaries.
None of us like to feel rejected, and so we naturally don’t want to make someone else feel rejected either. Add in the mix of emotions that can come with it, whether it’s sadness, guilt or responsibility, and it makes letting go of a friend a very hard thing indeed.
Learning to say “no” is an important lesson for all of us, and it’s especially important when it comes to people. Yet it can also be one of the hardest things. Often no one has done anything wrong. There’s no dramatic falling out or obvious reason for it. There’s simply a feeling that the friendship no longer fits in quite the same way, and that can be a very difficult thing to put into words.
Finding authentic friendships
I used to watch Friends and think that it was normal to have 5 best friends that you spent all your time with, yet the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realised that friendships look different for everyone.
I also think there can be a strange amount of pressure around how many friends we think we should have.
We see big friendship groups, people celebrating birthdays surrounded by dozens of friends on social media, stories of weekends away, photos of dinner tables full of people, and it can be easy to assume that having a smaller circle means something is missing. But having only a few friends is not a reflection of who we are.
You can have a very small circle and feel deeply connected, loved and understood. And equally, you can have a large social circle and still feel incredibly alone. I’m someone with an incredibly small circle, and I have a brother with an incredibly big one, and so I’m always learning how to let go of the need to live the same way someone else does, and live in accordance to what’s important to ourselves.
Neither is better or worse, they are just different.
And what’s important to me is feeling safe with the people I spend time time, feeling seen for who I am, and feeling like I can be my genuine self, without fear of being judged or criticised.
Perhaps the more useful question is not, “how many friends should I have?” but, “do the friendships I have give me the kind of connection I actually need?” and do I feel fulfilled by the friendships I have in my life.
Interestingly, some friendships can survive years of distance because the connection underneath them is still strong while others can be very present in our lives, yet still feel strangely distant. Or it may be that we meet someone for 5 minutes and immediately click with them, but someone who we’ve known for 5 years no longer feel that spark of connection.
When a friendship changes, what is it asking you to understand?
If a friendship starts to fade away, it can often be due to a number of reasons.
While the friendship might have been born from a shared past experience, that experience might no longer be a strong enough glue to keep the friendship alive and thriving now. Time, distance and different life paths can all play their role in the changing of a friendship.
At the same time, while we may be geographically closer than ever, we may be emotionally or spiritually growing apart, which is sometimes simply how life unfolds.
When we start to notice a friendship changing and morphing into something less close and intimate, we can begin to ask ourselves whether it’s something we want to nurture, or something we want to naturally let fade away. There’s no shame in letting friendships drift. We can’t keep everything exactly the same, because life is always changing. But we can choose with intention who we keep close, and where we want to place our time and energy.
It may be that we want to keep our friendship circle broad and wide, which means we have to invest more effort and energy into keeping those friendships strong and healthy. Or it may be that we want to keep our friendship circle small and intimate, because that feels more manageable and natural to us.
Whichever it is, we always have a choice.
And if we notice a friend fading away from us, we can also choose to communicate how it makes us feel. It may be that they’ve noticed the same distance, and feel exactly the same way. Sometimes a friendship needs more care and intention. Sometimes it needs an honest conversation. And sometimes it really is simply reaching the end of a chapter.
I also don’t think every friendship has to last forever in order to have been meaningful. Some people stay with us for decades, while others walk beside us during one particular phase of our life, exactly when they’re needed. They may teach us something, support us through something, or simply make that period of our life richer because they were there, which has definitely been my experience of friendships in my life.
Perhaps the real measure of a friendship isn’t whether it lasted forever, perhaps it’s whether it was real while it was there.
And maybe part of growing older is learning that we don’t have to hold onto every relationship in order to honour what it once meant. We can appreciate the friendship for what it gave us, be honest about what it is now, and make space for the relationships that continue to feel mutual, meaningful and true.
Further Support & Resources
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