You Can't Make True Friends Past A Certain Age
We appreciate being shown a different perspective so if you've made 'real' friends after the age of 25-26, we'd love to feature you in the next newsletter, as an exception to our theory.
Dear Zedites,
Notice the comfort you have around your ‘real’ school or college friends. It’s infectious to the point where you transcend your developed personality, i.e. the personality you have now, as a result of all the tests and hurdles life puts you through, and return to your original personality, i.e. how you behaved in school or college. Concepts like maturity, money, responsibilities and worldly worries fly out the window when you meet your true friends, as all of you bask in the memories of the good old days.
Neither the comfort nor they themselves, are replaceable because you can’t risk them spewing all the sh*t they know about you. It takes time, effort, energy, luck, and a childlike innocence to make friends like them again—that last factor being the reason you can’t make real friends after a certain age.
It’s true (with some exceptions obviously). After a point in your lives, you don’t make friends, you make colleagues… acquaintances if you please.
You don’t go around sharing your deepest, dirtiest secrets with your colleagues but with your true friend—well, more often than not, they’ve been your partner-in-crime while you were living that deep, dirty secret.
The same way you don’t go around talking about work with your true friend because frankly, they couldn’t care less about whether you’re at the lowest position in a startup or the owner of a Fortune 500 company but with your colleague—it’s more than likely you met at work or a networking event.
To make friends like the ones you made when you were younger, you need more than time, you need your childlike innocence back. You need to look beyond an agenda or a common interest to be able to qualify someone as a person you can call at 2 AM; or text them 2 months later picking up where you guys left off in a conversation. Not to forget, you need to be comfortable in your skin to be yourself around them without the risk of judgement.
There will be times when you drift apart—get busy in building your careers, working on your marriage or even attempting the godly task of managing your kids but it’s going to be easy reuniting with them, even after 20 years of radio silence.
True friends are complex creatures but they’re a necessity in everyone’s life. They humble you when you’re flying a little too close to the sun and they uplift you when you’re down in the dumps. They praise you when you’re not looking and thrash your existence in front of you. They might be AWOL for long periods but are the first ones standing by your side in distressing times.
You can’t have that with colleagues or acquaintances. Mind you, we’ve got nothing against them… we’re just talking about irreplaceable existences in your life and those are real friends.
You can make colleagues at any stage in your life but making true friends is governed strictly with a time limit. You'‘ll wake up one day and realize that your opportunity of making a true friend is gone… so seize it while you can.
And for those of you who still believe that getting in touch with your school or college friends is going to be awkward because of how much time passed since you guys spoke to each other, we’re here to remind you, time hasn’t done zilch. It’s going to be 10 minutes of weird glances and greetings followed by wonderful years of a newfound friendship that you wished you hadn’t lost all along.
That’s our 3 minutes for today.
Ciao,
Aamer