One of my best friends came into town about a month ago for a work trip. Only having a night in town, I did what any respectable friend would do–I picked her up, talked her ear off for hours over dinner, and then went out for ice cream.

And it was glorious.

So glorious that we were sad when it was over.
So sad in fact that we decided something.

We’ve spent so much time investing in our friendships that at this point, it actually feels easier to have all of our friends relocate to one central location (ladies, Atlanta is a fantastic place to live) than to try and start over making new friends.

As my friend and I talked, we realized that as we approach 30, it’s harder to make new friends. Not because there aren’t tons and tons of incredible women in the world or because we aren’t open to being kind, but because of these three reasons:

Friends have become family.

We’ve spent so much time investing in our friendships that adding someone new to the mix can sometimes feel foreign.

We’ve figured out how to correct each other in love.
We can go months without seeing each other and pick up where we left off like nothing changed.
We’ve celebrated weddings and babies and mourned the death of those closest to us.

As we get closer to entering a new decade, we have continued to grow closer together instead growing apart.
Distance, time, and foolishness has eliminated the seasonal and proximal people we mistook for friends.

We don’t think we have the time.

The friendships I have took time to cultivate. So. Much. Time.

Time that–if I’m honest–I don’t know if I have to devote to building those type of bonds again. And because I convince myself that I don’t have “that kind of time” I quickly let go of someone at the first sign of foolishness…like my friends and I have been foolish free for the past decade or longer (yeah, right).

We go home to our partners, pets, and sometimes just ourselves and the thought of talking to someone outside of our circle feels like cruel and unusual adulty punishment.

We’ve told ourselves we don’t know where to start.

I went to boarding school for high school. I lived with my closest friends and my worst enemies and sometimes those people were the same (because uh, high school?!). I then graduated and went to a school with 45,000 people but somehow I found my people freshman year. And while the group has gotten a little smaller, those people are still my people.

And in both of those situations, making friends felt like part of my full time job. Every aspect of my life was incredibly social. It was easy to find people who were like me in one of the hundreds of clubs on campus or super different from me in the best ways possible in my roommates.

But now there are no clubs and no roommates (unless you count my husband and my dog) and I’m not fully sure how to find the spaces that will help me make friends.

Sometimes I say “yes” to going out with a friend and while their friends are lovely–I’m constantly reminded that they’re not my people and so the next time an offer is extended I politely decline.

And while all of those reasons are valid, they’re not more important than having people to do life with.

Besides one, all of my closest girlfriends live in different cities from me (and from each other). So for me, making friends is really important because while I rather be under my blankets most days than in really big crowds (who have I become!?), we were never designed to live life alone.

And while I love my husband more than words can express–there is something so beautiful about having a circle of women with whom you can fellowship. Now, I’m not talking about 20 girlfriends (but if you have that many incredible women in your life–you better go ‘head!) but I am committing to do the following in the next few months to be sure I’m not blocking the potential for new beautiful to come into my life.

1. Invite women who I see at the same events to break bread together.
2. Say “yes” to an event I would otherwise say “no” to.
3. Remember that the time is going to pass anyway, I might as well use it finding dope, complicated, creative, loving women to bring into my life.

What are the ways in which you are going to bring new friends into your life? What are some of the reasons that make it hard for you to make new friends? Drop me a comment!

 

There’s magic in our musings (and our tribe),
Nicole