What I Owe My Friends

Lessons I’ve learned about the realities, requirements, and hierarchies of adult friendship

Ever since I stepped one tiny foot into a predominantly white elementary school, I’ve had a particular wisdom drilled into my head: Know who your real friends are. In other words, be wary and be careful—not everyone is your friend.

That wisdom has been valid into adulthood, too, and over the past 30 years or so, I’ve picked up many other lessons from the trial-and-error process of making and maintaining friendships. One of the most important lessons has been that what it takes to nurture a friendship, and even the nature of some of them, will change as the years go by.

In an article in The Atlantic about how friendship changes in adulthood, an interpersonal communication professor shared his observation that what we want from our friendships tends to be the same from childhood to adulthood: “Somebody to talk to, someone to depend on, and someone to enjoy.”

But that’s where the consistency seems to end. “These expectations remain the same,” he said, “But the circumstances under which they’re accomplished change.”

As if navigating friendship expectations versus circumstances wasn’t already difficult enough, I’ve noticed a few things that are making it harder. First, the pervasive individualism in our society and ever-evolving tradwife narratives encourage us to prioritize self-preservation, the nuclear family, and professional success at the expense of our friendships.

On top of that, there’s an increasingly popular phrase that dodges accountability like a punch was thrown, stokes the individualism that our society loves so much, and ruins the nature of community like nothing else: “I don’t owe anyone anything.”

We could argue that humans owe other humans—strangers—basic dignity, courtesy, and kindness. But I’ve noticed this “I don’t owe anyone anything” mindset is also seeping into the way people view and interact with their more intimate relationships, particularly those with friends. Friendship, now that we’re adults, sits at the very bottom of a lot of people’s priority list. That is, until life goes awry and they need a friend.

As is often said in online discourse about adult friendship, “Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager.” Or like the posters that hung in my elementary school classrooms put it: “To have a friend, you have to be a friend.” The problem is that being a good villager or a good friend doesn’t always mean the same thing to everyone.

What does it take to be a good friend? What are reasonable expectations to have of our friends, especially now that we’re adults navigating things like demanding jobs, raising children, financial woes, and aging parents? How much of ourselves and our lives do we owe our friends? What, if anything, do they owe us in return?

It depends on who you ask.

If you’re asking me, friendship as an adult is incredibly important yet outrageously complex, and defining a “good friend” requires some nuance. That’s why it has taken me longer to write this article than any other.

The latest data and reports on friendship are full of contradictions. Because of social media, we’re technically more connected than ever. But it’s a false connection. Seeing people’s lives displayed online makes us feel like we’re keeping up with our friends and interacting with others when, in the real world, people are lonelier than ever.

A recent Harvard study found that my age group (ages 30–44) was the most lonely group (29% were “frequently or always lonely”). However, another study, which surveyed nearly 6,000 American adults about their friendships, found that very few people were actually dissatisfied with the number of friends they have.

Their issues, rather than not having friends (only 4% reported having none), were not feeling emotionally close to their friends and not knowing how to make time for them. As The Atlantic summed up the study’s findings in their article, The Friendship Paradox, “Americans have friends. We just never really see them.”

The unfortunate reality of adult friendship is that most of us want deep, active friendships, but very few of us structure our lives in a way that makes them possible. We all have other demands on our time and different waves of life that we’re journeying through. With limited time to spare, who and what will we choose to spend it with?

We can’t choose our blood family, but friendship is a choice, which places these relationships in territory that can feel more optional and informal. But since friendship is consistently linked with happiness (especially as we get older), it’s crucial to find a way to fit it in.

It’s clear, however, that common relationship hierarchies (romantic relationships above all others) and modern life structures (productivity over connection) aren’t working, and our inability to integrate our friendships into our lives is killing those relationships.

Almost two years ago, I posted a TikTok video about one-sided friendships. I had realized that, in some of my friendship dynamics, I was the friend who was most often reaching out and making plans, and I wondered how much reciprocity was fair to expect from friends who may be wired differently.

The video attracted more comments than I expected, and most people’s opinions fell into one of two categories:

1. Due to their personality type or ADHD (or some other neurodivergence), they struggle with the concept of time, object permanence, remembering to reach out, or initiating things in general. They’re grateful for their friends who are like me and continue to be the ones to reach out, as they often struggle to do so themselves.

2. They’re the friend who is always initiating contact and not getting the same energy back, and they struggle with the same feelings of frustration. They recognize that some circumstances deserve grace, but don’t know how much to give or for how long. They believe that people make time for who and what they want to make time for, and if their friends can respond to emails at work and remember to text their boyfriend back, they can send a simple text to check in on their friends.

Shortly after I posted the video, I decided that I sided with the people in the first category. People are wired differently, and this wiring can influence how effectively they maintain communication with those they care about.

I still believe that this is generally true, but now that I, too, have been diagnosed with ADHD, I have a much harder time accepting the neurodivergence/personality type excuse. I know many people—myself included—who are not neurotypical or extroverted, but still have thriving, active friendships because they value those relationships and choose to prioritize them.

I now agree more with what Chelsea Fagan, who has some of my favorite takes on friendship and community building, expressed in this video.

In another video on the topic, she made other great points about being a villager in order to have a village, including:

“Many of the most fundamental aspects of community building and relationship maintenance are inherently, to some extent, kind of annoying. To do it requires showing up when we don't necessarily want to. Giving energy when we don't have a ton of it to go around. Requires honoring what we commit to. And it means, above all, accepting that we are not the main character. We are simply a character in a much greater story.

While that can feel counterintuitive at first, especially for some Americans, in the end, it actually does make us much happier and stronger as human beings to be part of a strong community. The village is not something that is given to you. It is something that is actively created. And if you are not willing to create it, then you should not expect to have it.”

And that’s what I’ve realized a lot of this friendship stuff comes down to: choices and priorities.

I think, read, and talk about friendship a lot. But no matter how many podcasts I listen to, books I read, or conversations I have about it, I’ve realized that different people often have different approaches to friendship, and the best I can do is pour my effort into those whose priorities and expectations most closely align with mine.

It’s not about who is invited to a birthday party (or a concert, as it usually is in my case). It’s not about who will flake on their friends to hang out with their boyfriend. It’s not about who takes three months to text back or who thinks social media “likes” count as connection. It’s about who is okay with that.

Another aspect of adult friendship that I’ve had to grasp in order to stop getting my feelings hurt so often is the concept of friendship “levels,” which I’ve never been good at.

If I have a friend who’s not a close friend yet, I’m steadily trying to make them a close friend. I haven’t quite grasped the concept of fringe friends or acquaintances, but I’m trying to, because we no longer have Myspace’s Top 8 feature to show us where we stand with people.

I’ve heard countless stories about how the changing seasons of life (weddings, kids, moves, etc.) reveal mismatched friendship levels. For example, Friend A was shocked to find out that she wasn’t invited to be a bridesmaid in Friend B’s wedding because, if Friend A had been the one getting married, she would’ve asked Friend B to be in her wedding party.

But I don’t believe we have to wait for a wedding. The signs are all around us, and it’s not petty to pay attention to them. It’s easy for me to overestimate my role in someone’s life because I tend to take friendship so seriously, but when I know where I stand with friends and where my friends stand in my (often unintentional) hierarchy of friendships, I can match my expectations with the level of closeness I actually have with each one.

I say “actually” because a 2016 study found that only about 50% of perceived friendships are mutual. Around 94% of study participants expected their feelings about a friend to be reciprocated, but only 53% of them actually were. Ouch.

While it’s ego-bruising to realize you’re a fringe friend to someone you once considered a close friend, I ultimately feel grateful after I’ve overcome the initial hurt and shock. There are few things more antithetical to a healthy friendship than mislabeled relationships and misplaced expectations.

Now, I can adjust my expectations based on what the friend can actually offer, rather than what I wish they would offer. Instead of forcing closeness, I’m forced to re-evaluate: Is this the type of friend I want to have? Can I align with the level of friendship they want to give me, or should I let this go?

The hardest part for me to accept has been that, while I may be hurt, no one has (typically) done anything wrong. For some people, friendship is a priority, but I’m not one of the friends they prioritize. They may be an inconsistent friend to me, but someone else’s best friend. Who among us doesn’t have some people we’re much closer to than others? It’s natural.

Research has proven it, showing that our brains seem to limit the number of people who can play a meaningful role in our lives. For most of us, our capacity for simultaneous close friendships is capped at approximately five people.

In a podcast interview, Trevor Noah put it this way: “I almost don’t think there’s such a thing as a bad friend. I think you’re just in a bad friendship. Because they could be a great friend to somebody else, so I wouldn’t even define them as being a good or bad friend. I just go, ‘This is a bad friendship for you.’”

Not all friendships will be reciprocal or equally invested, and friendship approaches tend to vary as much as eye and hair color combinations. Friendship can be complex, but I believe this part is simple: We have to accurately assess the roles we play in our friends’ lives, determine what is acceptable friendship behavior to us, and navigate these relationships accordingly.

Despite how this 2,000+ word essay makes it look, I don’t spend all of my time overthinking about and researching friendship. I have the lessons I’ve learned about friendship tucked into my mind, but I mostly just feel free to enjoy it now.

Like most adults, I have a limited amount of energy, but I choose to spend some of it on my friendships because I cherish the beauty they’ve brought to my life. Cherishing them is why I prioritize them, and prioritizing them is how I plan to keep them. I agreed with Dolly Alderton when she said, “Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”

I once watched an older woman read a poem titled “Keep Your Girlfriends” at a bridal shower. I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear this advice from someone of her generation, but I was. I’d been made to feel like a rebel for giving friendship such a high placement in my life.

The poem stressed what I always knew deep down: My friends, the women who would’ve been at my wedding whether my husband was or not, deserve their place.

I sat on a porch in Waycross, Georgia on a summer day, drinking iced tea and visiting with my Mother. "Don't forget your girlfriends," Mother advised, clinking the ice cubes in her glass. "No matter how much you love your husband, you are still going to need girlfriends. Remember to go places with them now and then; do things with them. And remember that girlfriends are not only friends, but sisters, daughters and other relatives too."

What a funny piece of advice, I thought. Hadn't I just gotten married? Hadn't I just joined the couple-world? I was now a married woman, for goodness sake, not a young girl who needed girlfriends. But I listened to my Mom. I kept contact with my girlfriends and made more each year. As the years tumbled by, one after another, gradually I came to understand that Mom really knew what she was talking about.

Here is what I know about Girlfriends:

Girlfriends bring casseroles and scrub your bathroom when you need help. Girlfriends keep your children and keep your secrets.

Girlfriends give advice when you ask for it. Sometimes you take it, sometimes you don't. Girlfriends don't always tell you that you're right, but they're usually honest. Girlfriends still love you, even when they don't agree with your choices.

Girlfriends laugh with you, and you don't need canned jokes to start the laughter. Girlfriends pull you out of jams.

Girlfriends will give a party for your son or daughter when they get married or have a baby, in whichever order that comes! Girlfriends are there for you, in an instant and when the hard times come. Girlfriends listen when you lose a job or a friend. Girlfriends listen when your children break your heart.

Girlfriends listen when your parents' minds and bodies fail.

Girlfriends cry with you when someone you loved dies.

My daughters, sisters, family, and friends bless my life!

When we began this adventure we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.

Keep your girlfriends.

And keep them I shall. It’s the very least I can do.

The word “owe” feels like it may be too strong to use in reference to friendship, since being a friend to someone shouldn’t feel like a chore or forced obligation. But when I think about the concept of community, there’s a certain amount of reciprocity required. How much is up to each of us to decide.

It’s up to us to recognize patterns of mutual investment or one-sided effort. There’s no one-size-fits-all definition of a “good friend.” What we owe each other in exchange for our friendship is ultimately negotiable.

As for me, I aim to deepen the few instead of trying to engage the many. I’ve learned to prioritize those who prioritize me. Across state lines and differing lifestyles, this never looks the same with every friend. That’s part of what makes these relationships special.

I’m trying to be the type of friend I want to have. I want to model consistency and care. To me, that’s what friendship is about: doing my best to stay connected, even when my best may look different from week to week. I at least owe them that.