Part of growing up naturally involves growing apart from old friends or making new ones. Add in having a baby to that and things speed up… alot
At the age of 17, I was pretty sociable, I had three separate friendship groups and always had someone to talk to or meet with.
The first group consisted of around 20+ people, they would be seen as the “bad” group to outsiders, bad meaning the ones who were actually very fun to be around with at the time due to them making trouble, having parties every weekend, drink & drugs.
The second group was smaller but consisted of around 10 people, these would be seen as the good group. No trouble, just nice caring people who liked the banta but would be very rare to have many police encounters (unlike the first).
The third was an small group of “Inbetweeners”, people I connected and liked who didn’t really fit into either of the other groups.
All in all I had around 40+ people I could genuinely call my friend. 7 years later with 2 kids, I would say I have many more acquaintances and far less real “friends”.
People have different interpretations of what a friend means, for me it’s someone I can trust, rely on, offer mutual support and of course who I can be myself around. Take out just one of those elements, and for me they’re not a real friend.
Why did I “lose” so many friends you may ask?
Lets start at age 19, I have just told all my 500+ friends over social media that me and my beautiful girlfriend are expecting a baby. Floods of likes, comments, messages came in. Fast forward to my daughter being born, I again told everyone on social media, again even more likes, comments, messages! I really thought that so many people really cared! Everyone wanted to meet my lovely baby girl……
At this time I was much closer to group 1 than the others. These are the people I would see weekly and speak to most days. Over the next few months after my daughter was born, people started getting frustrated that I was no longer able to go out clubbing or drinking all the time, they simply couldn’t understand my that I had to put something else before myself. Then the messages slowed down and invites just stopped. They continued their lives without me, and I… I became incredibly lonely. Fortunately I had my partner (who is my absolute best friend) to support me but I felt betrayed almost that they had all just given up with me. People wasn’t bothered about my baby or the shit I was going through on a daily basis, all the attention on social media was fake!
This realisation put me into a dark mental place, I felt like I was going through a weird unspoken break up with a whole group of people. But as time went on, I became clear that I was gaining anything from the majority of people in that group and had I continued in their lifestyle, I don’t know where I’d be today. Lets just say thank fuck I grew up.
I started to become closer to the second group, their caring and determined attitudes helped me create a stronger bond between us. They actually cared about my life without needing to post everything on social media. Over time other friends kind of naturally fell away and I was left with around 5 people who I would consider absolute true friends. What is interesting is that they are all a mix of my old three friendship groups.
I still see people in the other groups and catch up, have a laugh with them but that’s as far as it goes. I’m also a-lot more quiet on social media, I rarely post pictures but when I do it’s more for family than anyone else. I went through all my friends and followers and removed anyone I wouldn’t speak to in person. I got the numbers down to around 100 people, my motto is that if you wouldn’t say hello to them in the street, why would you let them into your life in any other way? I had to be ruthless and doing this this helped alot!
Now days, I have accepted my small circle and understand that it’s better to have a small group of people you can rely on 24/7, than a hundred people who when you really need them are no where to be seen.
My advise to anyone struggling with friendships for whatever reason, take a step back and ask yourself – Can you imagine not speaking to them again? This will help you determine the effort you need to put into making things work but also understand it has to work both ways. But also understand, sometimes the best thing to do is let go, even if it is hard. I have people I had been friends with for most of my life, people I went to nursery with.. as you grow up, sometimes the best thing to do is keep those memorise and move on. This took me a couple of years to get my head round and it can be very sad.
Social media is something which I will write about again as whilst I use then, I do have very mixed views over the platforms and how I have directly seen it change people. It has taken over everyones lives pretty much over night, but the human brain is not designed to use it. 95% of all people I know aged between 15-35 are addicted to social media without realising it. Equivalent to a crack head standing in a dodgy ally way, my generation are constantly looking to get their next rush of dopamine through attention on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc by feeding off every like and comment… Don’t believe me? Next time you go out, take a look around. If there are 5 people waiting for a bus, I bet 4 of them will be looking straight down onto their phones.
Social media does have it’s pros such as connecting with people, staying in contact with friends/family, but moderation like anything else is key to a healthy relationship with it. If your friends are not asking to post online pictures of your children, you have every right to challenge them on that. Do not let you’re innocent child, be the bait for their addition to attention.
Thanks for reading,
James
Lad-Dad Blogs 