Why Do Adult Friendships Feel Like HIGH SCHOOL All Over Again

Welcome back to Chats With Michelle! Today, I’m chatting all things navigating adult friendships. 

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Transcript

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The whole world, I feel like, feels like a big high school, especially because of social media. There's a saying that if you got one good friend, you have plenty. Getting older and navigating friendships and different things like that can be really challenging because what about your friends? I think that's literally all I'm allowed to say due to copyright. Anyways, hey, what's up, you guys? Welcome or welcome back to chats with Michelle where we chat all things, keeping your promises to yourself through navigating adulthood and pursuing purpose. So today I want to chat about adult friendship, navigating adult friendship and what it is that looks like. When you're a kid, it's so easy to make friends. You literally are sitting in a classroom, you're like, hey, do you want to be my best friend? You go play on the playground together, you sit at lunch. It's just so incredibly easy. Middle school is where things get a little bit weird because your body's changing, you're going through puberty, and it gets a little bit clicky. You start noticing brands and all the things like that, right? Name brand, hair, and then all the things, especially nowadays. Oh my goodness. Nowadays, the kids are like it's a lot in middle school, like between the hair, the nails, all the stuff. But then you get to high school, and depending on what high school you get to, it can be a little clicky as well. But for the most part, people usually have their little groups, right? Whatever that pocket or group is for myself personally, I it took me high school was hard for me. It was very, very hard for me because I went to a new school and I just didn't really gel with a lot of people. However, I will say, uh, like by the time I was in my junior year of high school, things got a lot better. I got a lot more involved in different like organizations and things like that. So if there's any advice I would give to you, or you know, if you have a niece, a daughter, you know, young person in your life, whatever, who is in a grade school, is get involved. Getting involved helps you really to connect with people and it just makes things a whole lot better. And I know that was the case for me, definitely. Um, once I got involved in like student government by accident, I just feel like that was honestly the grace of God. But once I got involved in student government and different things like that, I started to make friends and I built relationships and it made high school go a whole lot easier. Now, what typically happens after high school, right? You usually don't talk to the people after high school. I know some people in my life who are literally friends with their high school, are literally still friends with their high school friends to this day. I'm talking about, well, 10, 15 years plus out of high school. And to those people, I think that you are so incredibly blessed and so lucky. I envy you. I envy the people who still have such great relationships with the people that they went to high school with, grade school, even middle school, some people that I know. With that being said, getting older and navigating friendships and different things like that can be really challenging because life is changing for all of us. People are getting married, having kids, possibly getting a divorce, maybe you know, having not having their you know, spouse or whatever like that, when they have kids, just so much is happening. People are moving, different careers, the ups and downs, and all the things, and also just with social media and and the the the rise, I guess you would say, of social media, just people being inauthentic and life kind of feels a little clicky, right? Like even as an adult, the whole world I feel like feels like a big high school, especially because of social media. That's what it feels like. It just feels like a huge high school. You know, there's a saying that if you got one good friend, you have plenty. So to have a few good friends is just such an incredible blessing, but it can be incredibly challenging. And I feel like the first and foremost, the most important thing is having an understanding. And that's something this is something like me. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking with you. We are having a chat, a conversation, if you will, because this is something that I have been having to navigate like every single day of my life. And the biggest lesson that I've learned, and I think that really helps is when you get those solid people. Because I feel like I'm really getting solid people, and I have solid people in my life, but the biggest thing that I've had to learn to do is being able to communicate and having those difficult and hard conversations. I'm gonna okay, I'm gonna snitch on myself. I am a I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a loner. I am a loner. I enjoy being by myself, and sometimes I can disappear. I'm working on I don't like I'm like, I'm thinking if any of my friends are watching this and like girl, I'm gonna show you a line. But I think that most of them would say that I've gotten or I'm getting a whole lot better of of just being a lot more present and engaging. But I think the very first thing that needs to happen is conversation, so of being like, hey, I'm not a and I'll tell you, I'm not a big like talk on the phone kind of gal. However, if it's important to you, we can schedule the time to do so. And I actually have a friend, and now that I'm thinking about that, I haven't talked to her in a couple of weeks, so I'm gonna text her. But um, I have a friend of mine who like we literally have a scheduled date on the calendar where we speak every month. I think it's a couple times a month, where we literally speak and we have that time scheduled and penciled in because that is important to her, and that is like I guess you know, her love language and how she wants to communicate. So I'm like, okay, listen, I'm not an everyday talk on the phone kind of girl, but we can we can schedule this, and most of the time we both make the time to make sure that it happens, and it's been going really good. Like I said, I don't think we had our conversation last week, but I'm gonna go ahead and text her after this. But then the other thing too is just more importantly, is just having those conversations. I think that, you know, that's what it means to be an adult, that's what it means to grow up, and as you're navigating. For me personally, we're not kids anymore, so we don't just have all day and all night to just be talking on the phone. I know some people have those kind of relationships, and I think that's great, honestly. I don't have that kind of relationship in my life, and you know, maybe one day I will. However, for me, it's more so just being able to have those conversations with those people in my life who I really love and I really care about them. Like, hey, I want you to know that this relationship between you and I is important to me, and because it's important to me, I want I want to figure out how we can make an attempt to speak regularly enough, whatever that is. I have a friend of mine who we speak, we talk once a month. And like, and when we talk, and sometimes it could be like every other month sometimes, but when we do chat, my goodness, we'll be on the phone for hours. Or if we do when we meet up, we'll be we'll listen, we will open a business and shut it down because we'll be there all day just chatting it up, talking, catching up, like, okay, girl, like give me the details on this, give me the details on that, and I'll give you details on my life and everything like that. So, more than anything, I think the very most important thing is just having communication and talking to one another about what will work and what that cadence that you want it to be, and and find a balance between it. This is really difficult. Not holding on to offense. I think in true friendship and real friendships, sometimes you are going to possibly offend each other or maybe not even offend each other, but um, like you might hit a nerve with one another, right? Where like you hurt their feelings or things might be miscommu miscommunicated or misunderstood. And I think it's for you and the other party to well, well, let's just talk about you, right? We're just talking about ourselves. I think it's for you to sit and think about okay, well, how important is this relationship or not? One of the things that I've learned in the last few years is being able to communicate, communicate and have conversations because I used to be an avoidant person, like I would never want to have like tough conversations and different things like that. But one of the things I had to learn is like you have to have hard conversations, it just is what it is, it's a part of life, you know. You cannot shy away from saying the hard thing. And um, I've come a very long way, I believe, anyways, when it comes to that. So with that, I also think and believe that it's if a not a rift, but more so if there is an offense that happens, a situation that's uncomfortable, it's sitting and thinking about okay, well, like how important is this relationship to me, right? Because if it's a relationship that you don't really care for and you're like, oh, like this is just my acquaintance, then fine, whatever. But if this is someone that you actually do care about, a relationship that you actually, you know, want to see continue on and flourish, then I think it isn't it is imperative to have the tough conversation. Now, also you have to realize is this person just toxic? You know what I mean? Because if the person is toxic, then it might be a sign for like, okay, I need to move on for this because I don't need this in my life. Because for me, listen, there's enough going on in the world. I don't need a toxic person who's just it's a lot, you know. It's not to say that listen, I am a place and I and I hope to be this way, and that's my goal. Where my friends feel like I can be a safe place and they can talk to me, um, and and vice versa, right? So it's not so much that you can't come and share your problems with me, but if it's just negative and gossiping, girl, I don't got time for that, and we probably don't need to be friends. So, but if it is a person where it's like, you know, this is a relationship that I value, but we just had a moment, I think it's important to talk about it because you can't just like not talk to each other, and then you know, either the relationship will just drift apart or it'll just be awkward. And you keep sweeping things under the rug to a point where you literally cannot walk over the rug. The rug is gonna be looking you dead in your face because of all the things and all the issues that you built up on it. So I think it's important to just have that conversation. Like, hey, like I or you know, and clarify, like, hey, I didn't mean this when I did this, or this was not this was not my intention, or you hurt my feelings, like whatever it is, being able to have that conversation, but also the other person has to be an adult, right? And because if they are going to just take the victim mindset, then like I said, that might be a relationship that you have to reconsider. We know what our good sis Lauren Hill said. I believe it was Lauren Hill, Michelle. Don't embarrass yourself, but I do believe it was her. I'm pretty I'm 95% sure. She talked about reciprocity. This is the biggest lesson I've had to learn in adult friendships because I said that sometimes with these friendships, it's like you overly give of yourself and you do for them, and they're not there for you at all, whatsoever. You have to take a moment and sit back and be like, Hey, yeah, this is not this is not an equally fulfilling relationship. This is not an equally fulfilling friendship, right? If you haven't heard the example of the ATM, right? Of just pretty much like, or that's the bank account, whatever. Anyways, a person can withdraw, withdraw, withdraw. But if you don't ever make any deposits on that account, it's eventually gonna be negative, and then you're gonna be overdraft, and then you're gonna be exhausted. You know, coming back to the just relationship real world perspective of it all, or example, is that like you cannot keep giving and giving and giving and giving of yourself, but this person always has excuses and is not necessarily there for you, it doesn't check on you, and like all things like it has to be a balance, or I'm not even gonna say a balance because life is not necessarily always gonna be balanced, but a juggling act, right? Because there may be some seasons where it's gonna be 80, 20, 70, 30. It's not always gonna be 50, 50. However, it's like I said right at the beginning, having the communication and the conversation also too, but it can't be you just overly being a cheerleader in their life, and they're like somewhere on the bleachers, way in the back, just has a back seat and only gets with you when they need something, like that is not okay. And I think that's why so many people, especially when you talk about friendships and adulthood, are super burnt out because they're just like like you know, there's no reciprocity, people are not genuine. And the last thing that I'll say there is, you know, Michelle, I always gotta tie everything with a bow, but the biggest lesson I'm always saying the biggest lessons, but there's just so many big lessons that I've learned, and one of the bigger ones that I've learned is having an open heart, seriously, because if you have dealt with um friendship heartache breakup, I've been there, listen, and it was hard, it was tough. Listen, it was very, very hard, and I've had become so incredibly guarded, and it took me a long time, a very long time to me for me to be even open to the idea of letting people into my life and to get to know me, and I was just so incredibly guarded. Um, I would say that a little bit at a time, right? Don't just write everyone off. Everybody is not here and out to attack you and are against you and be discerning. So you gotta be observant and see how people move. I'm type of person, if you come in and telling me somebody else's business, I'm like, all right, mental note, I ain't gonna tell you my business because clearly you got loose lips. So yeah, not doing that. So I think it's just being discerning and seeing the way that people move and you know, paying attention, like, all right, you know, this person seems to have integrity and going with that, and just like because I think more importantly, I essentially I think the message here and what I'm saying is that like I know a lot of people be like, Yeah, no, you can't trust anybody, and I just it's just me and Jesus, and you and Jesus is great. However, I think even Jesus would say that he doesn't want you to do life alone, and it's good to have just positive people in your corner or somebody that you can lean on who you can talk to um from time to time. So, with that being said, thanks so much for chatting with me. Listen, if you found this chat valuable, please consider sharing it with someone who may also find this chat valuable. And while you're at it, please be sure to like, comment, and subscribe because listen, we've got so much to chat about. Bye.