Growing up, your social circle consists mostly of friends. If asked, you could probably name your best friend without thinking. You had people you talked with daily, spent time with after school and on weekends, shared your secrets with, and with whom you went on a variety of adventures. That trend typically continues into college.
An interesting thing happens in the transition from childhood to adulthood. First, studies suggest that boys tend to have more friends than girls growing up, but in adulthood, women tend to have more friends than men. This matters, because people with more (and closer) friends tend to be happier and healthier than those with fewer friends.
Many factors affect the number of friends you have at different periods of your life. Some of it is just personality, since some people are motivated to develop and maintain friendships, while others are not interested in having large groups of friends, or have anxiety about their interactions with other people.
In addition, changes in relationship status, moving jobs, and relocating can all lead to changes in your network of friends. For example, when going through a breakup, you may find that you lose some friends who were close to your ex or who prefer hanging out with other couples. Moving to a new job might bring you into contact with new people who become friends.
If you find yourself with fewer close friends than you’d like, though, there are some things you can do to deepen your existing friendships. Of course, as with any relationship, becoming closer friends with someone is a two-way street, and both of you will have to want that. But here’s a good place to start:
Put in the time
Having close friends requires an investment of time and effort. You need to talk with them often. You need to find time to spend with them in shared activities. You may plan something to do together.
But, life gets busy. Work can fill up a lot of your available time. You may have family responsibilities that soak up some of those precious discretionary hours. In the short term, it’s easy to steal time away from engaging with friends to address these other needs. However, over the long-term, this practice can erode your friendships, though it may take you a while to see the impact of this change in priorities.
You’ll need to find more opportunities to spend time with friends to enhance those relationships. It may seem forced at first, but you must actually put time on the schedule to call a friend, grab coffee, or go on a walk. Set up a regular engagement rather than letting your friend time be left up to chance. It may help to talk with other people in your life to express the value you put in your friendships to get their support with shifting your schedule to re-prioritize your friendships.
Open up
Time is an important component of good friendships, but depth also requires some emotional investment. Your best friends are ones that also understand the most significant issues in your life. But, they can only know what is going on if you tell them.
That means you need a few people in your life who really know what is going on with you. On a daily basis, there are probably a lot of people you encounter who ask “How are you doing?” For most of those people, the answer is (and probably should be) a perfunctory “Fine.” But, there also need to be a few important people in your life where you can answer that question honestly and share both the real highs and lows in your life.
And that sharing also goes both ways. You want to be there for your friends as well and to enable them to engage with you about hopes, dreams, fears, and disappointments. It can be uncomfortable for some people to share what they’re really feeling, but it’s an important part of taking a friendship past surface-level conversations and activities.
Be there
Deeper friendships go beyond just long discussions and hanging out. Friends are also there for each other to help. Giving your time to someone else creates that sense of security for both of you that there are people who truly have your back.
When you’re busy and you have a limited amount of time for yourself, it can be difficult to motivate yourself to spend time helping a friend with their needs. In the moment, it may feel better to relax, and you do need to prioritize self-care, as well. But, your deepest friendships will sometimes require you to sacrifice some of your precious me time.
As long as you are dealing with a friend who also gives back and doesn’t just take advantage of your willingness to help, the time you give to your friends in need is time well spent.
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