It's Important to Have Friends

Reflections in adulthood on being a friend.

The Frontier Psychiatrists is a daily health-themed newsletter. It's written by Owen Scott Muir, M.D., a child and adult psychiatrist. This column isn’t about work; it’s about friends.

When you're a kid, and I have two of them, friends are part of the landscape. You go to school, and you learn things, but most of what you think about is your friendships. Kids have a best friend, often. A lot of energy goes into deciding who your best friend is if you're lucky. When I say if you're lucky, it's because if you have a difficult decision about who your best friend is, it means you have more than one. Friends are a part of the landscape through grade school, high school, and college, because there are people around that you can bump into. Some of them? You're going to like. Some of them are going to like you. If you're difficult, it can be hard to connect with other people. If other people have difficultness difficulties, it can make it hard to connect with you. But having friends is normal. Seeing your friends is normal. You are playing video games, shooting the shit, sports, with your friends — normal. College. Graduate school. When you work with people, the frame changes. Because now, instead of being just co-travelers who ended up at the same school, there is a hierarchy, there are contracts; you can be fired, they can be fired, getting too close can be challenging, and not being close enough can be challenging.

All our feelings about friends in school and our community remain the same as we transition to more complex relationships of adulthood. They are a series of additional structures, employment laws, roles, and expectations, that keep those relationships boundaries and a bit more fraught. When you start dating, which is often from the people in your immediate vicinity, these relationships have different constraints from friendship. Pair bonding, social expectations of monogamy, going steady, getting married, all of these things are subject to more jealousy, more social construct, than friendship. It's not weird to have more than one friend. It is outside the realm of standard to have more than one romantic partner if you live in places that aren't Brooklyn, New York.

But having close relationships at work, having close relationships romantically, and having close friendships are all important. More structured relationships protect us. We have these structures to protect us from strong feelings and bad decisions that can endanger our other goals. The key for me, thinking about this right now, is that close relationships are important. We have them across the lifespan, but we think about them differently across the lifespan also. Many adults don't have close friends. They don't have people they see every day who aren't their family or their coworkers. We have fewer and fewer non-contractual close relationships as time passes— nobody pays you to hang out with your friends. You don't have to take your kids together to school or the doctor with your friends. There's just less structure around it. You can take it for granted.

And that means you do it less. You need additional excuses to hang out with friends as he becomes older and busier and has more contractual relationships. When you have work to do, you have time for hanging out.

Friendship doesn't stop being important. Friends can do remarkable things for you. They have done remarkable things for me. They make our businesses more likely to succeed. They make our romantic relationships more likely to succeed, and they are a source of backup when things get tough. They are a source of love and support and fun when things are good. You need people to invite to your barbecue. You need people to call when you don't know what to do. You need to feel important when someone calls you and asks you what to do. You need people around who need you around.

We need more intention around friendship. Because if he just let it be an assumption, it's easy to let it fall by the wayside. No penalizes you if you don't show up for your friends on the weekend. You are not going to get fired for flaking. But you are going to lose something.

I've written before about the value of being a friend to others to get friends for yourself, and I still think that's important. Today, I'm arguing that having some degree of structure, intention, and effort around building and preserving friendships in adulthood is a vital way people can stay well. Schedule that time to call friends every week. Have you checked in? I have friends who check in on you. Have one, have more than one, and have a group if possible. Be gracious. Offer of yourself. This creates a scaffolding around you, people you can call or who can call you. It's an invisible safety net of love and support. It's not built of contracts. It's not built of employment law. It's emotionally investing—with your love and support—in a way that may support you later.

Friends are important. Don't ignore it. Be intentional. Find people who can use your help, and offer it. Don't expect anything specific back, try not to get too upset if somebody doesn't repay you exactly and kind. Again. It's not a contract. But graciously offering to love and support others is a great way to get love and support for yourself in the future when you might need it. And even if you didn't get that back from anyone in specific, you still helped a lot of people along the way.

The way to get friends? Be a friend. Go to it.

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