I’ve never been a fan of the popular social media hashtag “No New Friends”. I find it absurd that some people would want to maintain the same old circle of friends for the rest of their lives without inviting new personalities and perspectives to the mix. The only thing that remains constant in life is change. If your mindset is fixed, then you’re flowing against the current of the universe and you’ll surely experience some resistance. To an extent I do get it. Making new friends is hard and the older people grow, the more they aim to find meaning and value from their connections. People want to feel like they are getting some reward or benefit from their friendships and when they don’t they tend to move on to the next best alternative. Friendships have become like business partnerships, only valid for the period in which both parties are profitable. Finding genuine connections who want the best for you, whether or not they’re getting anything in return is not easy. Usually, you’ll be surrounded by many so-called friends when you’re doing well for yourself but the moment you break down and experience something traumatic, the number of people who are still willing to stand in your corner significantly reduces. I was having this conversation with my new friend Tiffany last weekend, which actually inspired me to write this piece. 

I really treasure the relationships I have with people in my life. Therapy also made me realize that sisterhood is at the top of the list of values that mean the most to me. I have 3 sisters and I love them all dearly. The bonds I have cultivated with each of them have made me aware of how good sisterhood can be. Having healthy relationships with my sisters, despite our vast differences, taught me how to be a good friend to my girls. I’m now at a point where I want the best out of my female friendships and I’m not settling for less anymore. 

When I was younger, I loved the idea of having many girl friends. I’ve always been a social butterfly and tend to make new friends quite easily. To me, more female pals meant even more sisters. Because my sisters mean the world to me, I always craved for more similar connections. I’m what you’d call a girl’s girl. Life soon taught me that being overly generous and somewhat of a pushover with my friends didn’t necessarily mean that I had a higher advantage. If anything, being overly vulnerable with too many women who didn’t have my best interest at heart has caused me lots of pain and heartbreak. So even though this article is about encouraging you to make new friends in your adulthood, I also have to caution you to use discernment and take your time when nurturing new friendships. I can’t stress enough how therapy has GREATLY HELPED me in following my intuition more when sniffing out fake friends.

As I mentioned earlier, the only constant thing in life is change. The person I was at this time last year is very different from the person I am today. We are constantly evolving and growing. The friends I had in high school are very different in their characters and values from the friends I’m making now. My university friends are also very different from my primary school friends. As we go through various transformations in our lives eg from being single to being married, from university to the work environment or even becoming a mother, we tend to need a different support system around us. Having a community that understands you and on which you can lean on when going through major shifts in your life is crucial for your wellbeing. If one is still stuck in the rut of “no new friends” they will struggle to find the necessary support to help them through their life changes. Let’s be honest, unless your childhood friends are going through or have experienced some of these major life shifts themselves, they will find it really hard to relate to your transformational experiences. It has to be a very intentional friendship that can stand the test of time with the only constant being change. The two parties need to be willing and ready to accept the other as they evolve and become someone new over and over again. That’s why friendship is so beautiful. It’s a personal choice to love someone unconditionally even as they change and metamorphosize into a different version of themselves.

I think I only fully understood this after I moved back home to Kenya after my studies in South Africa. I remember being so excited to move back because I’d think about all my high school girl friends and look forward to rekindling our friendships. What I failed to realize is that time changes all of us. Even though I would see them during the holidays and we’d go out together and have fun, we were very different people from who we were in high school. They had new friends, new lives and new perspectives. I expected us to pick up our friendship from where we left off but my expectations were met with disappointment once I realized that some of us had become incompatible. When I went through a difficult period in 2021, I was taken aback by how many of these old friends deserted me. It somehow felt like a lot of them even got off my misfortunes. Seeing me suffer validated some of their realities, making them feel better about themselves. I remember towards the end of the year when I was going through the thick of things, I really wanted to spend a day with my girls. I think I was subconsciously testing them when I invited a number of them to a lunch at my place. Only one of my girls showed up. I’m a girls’ girl yet my lunch soiree was filled with men. 

I was at a point in my life where I was trying to work out who are my real friends and that event really helped to put a lot into perspective. I started realizing that some of these people only kept me in their lives when I was beneficial to them. Being my friend has a lot of advantages when things are good. I tend to make friends really easily so your network is always going to be on point, I’m from a well-off background so you’ll definitely get to enjoy the nicer things in life and I’m generally a fun person to be around so you’ll never be bored. However, when my problems became more than my benefits, a lot of people walked out of my life. It was heart-wrenching to say the least but I’m very glad I went through that dark period because I realized who was real and who wasn’t. 

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2022 working on becoming a better version of myself for my own good and for the good of those around me. This has involved being more intentional with my friendships. I’ve learned a lot about myself and how the world works in the process. One of the things I had to come to terms with is how much jealousy can ruin or affect friendships. Jealousy is a normal feeling to have. However, I don’t believe in being jealous of your friends. My success should be our success and vice versa. If you’re somehow intimidated by your friend’s success you really need to check yourself. If you ever feel like your friends are jealous of you, you’re probably right and you need to listen to your intuition and check your friendship. I also don’t believe in competition among friends because a lot of the time it’s unhealthy and leads to issues riddled with envy. As you grow older and more successful in your career and life, some of your old friends who may not be doing as well as you may grow feelings of jealousy towards you. This is the point you should cut them off. The more jealousy grows, the more toxic the friendship will become. They will drag you down and limit your growth. Instead, it’s important to make new friends and surround yourself with other successful people who celebrate you and motivate you to be even better. 

Setting boundaries as you grow older and evolve also becomes crucial with older friends. When you were young, you probably both had porous or very few boundaries with each other. Once you grow more into yourself and understand who you are, your boundaries start to form. It’s really important to revisit and set boundaries with your old friends. This can be difficult if some of your new boundaries go against what the both of you used to do together. Open communication is vital in such situations. Both parties need to be willing to listen and communicate their feelings effectively. There are several instances when I heard that some of my old friends had problems with me yet instead of confronting me about it, they went behind my back to gossip about our issues with other people. I honestly don’t get this. Why harbor ill feelings towards our friendship instead of just being open and honest about how you feel? Gossiping about friends is a HUGE NO for me! It’s just not acceptable. There are also other instances where I confronted some of my old friends about things they did that hurt me and instead of taking the feedback, they got defensive and lashed out at me, using my trauma to put me down in the process. So I get it. Healthy communication is hard but it’s possible and vital for long-lasting healthy friendships. The new friends you make in your adulthood usually have similar values and boundaries to you which makes it easier to navigate the friendship.

For my parting shot, I believe it’s important for all of us to keep making new friends in our adulthood because our network is ultimately our net worth. In today’s society, it’s easier to move ahead in your career and general livelihood if you have the right networks to provide you with these advancement opportunities. If you know no one, it’ll be much harder for you to get opportunities to improve your status, even though you may be really good at what you do. So go out there and make new friends, just be sure to use a lot of your discernment and be choosy in picking these special humans who will get to call you their friend.