Adult Friendships
why they are a struggle; God's viewpoint; presenting yourself in and showing up for adult friendships
[DISCLAIMER- I’m not a mental health expert. These are my personal gleanings and opinions.]
I am very excited about today’s topic. We are delving into some different aspects of adult friendships- such as why they are suddenly a struggle for many once we are adults, God’s view on the existence of friendship, and how in our different personality quirks we can present ourselves and show up.
For me, this topic is meaningful because I have a lot of friendships I value, but I am still trying here, in middle age, to cultivate that inner circle we all crave to have. You know what I mean?
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH ADULT FRIENDSHIPS?
I love psychology! Learning from psychologists is a total hobby for me! I did not study it in school, but it would not be a very unrealistic career for me if I ever decided to go that route. You see, I eat up learning about what makes people tick or what makes people the way they are. I LOVE looking for all the good in people and noticing all of their strengths and beauty. I love celebrating people for their uniqueness. I love looking at human possibility and growth. One topic, in particular, that has been my more recent fun deep dive, is that of adult friendships.
Do you realize how many adults are actually totally lost and clueless about how to make friends anymore? So many people these days surrender themselves to loneliness when they really don’t need to. Understand this, the grace in childhood is that social structures created friendships for us. We didn’t have to do much work to have friends because of our repeated encounters and shared vulnerability in places like school, youth group, regular church going, or even those first bonds in college life. They are all social bubbles of predictable patterns of shared consistency, vulnerability, and positivity. That’s the magic formula for “frientimacy”.
The difficulty in adulthood is that you often lose those built-in structures. The vulnerability risk escalates a lot. Friendships now require initiation and continued checking in and showing up. These are self-initiated acts of love and investment. It takes work, but it is worth it! I am t-e-l-l-i-n-g you! Some people find it too scary even to admit how much they’d like another person in their lives, and that’ll keep them lonely.
THE “CREATION” OF ADULT FRIENDSHIPS
If there was one whoopsie in the creation account, (not that God makes mistakes) I’d say, it is His almost afterthought of, oh, Adam needs community. I shall make another human for him. Did God plan for Himself and Adam to commune in that garden? Abso-freakin-lutely, HE DID! But… God decided not to keep Adam all to Himself. Instead, He created another person to walk and talk with him as well. Do you think, therefore, we ought to be putting more emphasis on ever building new friendships and working to strengthen them into becoming rich community? I think so! Colossians 1:16b says that God made everything in heaven and earth and that “all were made by Christ for his own use and glory.”
I see that relationship between two people was a completely purposeful act of creation. I believe friendship is meant to be mutually beneficial. Even Christ thinks so! Relationships are stated to be an avenue for his glory. He just said it in Colossians! How does this work? Maybe it is the sharing of empathy, or the mirrors we hold up for one another to figure out who we are, or the growth in sacrificial love, kindness, or the increased capacity for our souls to grow. These are all great gifts!
SHOWING UP IN ADULT FRIENDSHIPS
One topic I studied a lot last year was attachment styles. A quick skim on that, if you aren’t aware of what those are,… there are four styles of attachment that describe how we form bonds with others as adults. It influences the way that we behave and interact with others. These are developed in early childhood based on the connections that we form with our caregivers, but they are also influenced by our personalities and other life experiences. Even in adulthood, depending on your experiences or the growth you are working on, you can switch attachment styles. For some, that is hopeful news! Here are the very basics of each one:
Secure Attachment: This person has a positive outlook about themselves and can establish close relationships with their peers.
Anxious Attachment: This person lives fearful of abandonment and can be more dependent on their peers.
Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment: This person will have mixed feelings about the authentic behavior being displayed to them. They can, at the same time, reject it and crave it.
Fearful-Avoidant Attachment: This person will crave closeness but they struggle themselves to be vulnerable and thus find it difficult to maintain relationships.
There is A LOT more that goes into this, but our attachment style basically affects how we make and keep our friends. So, here is a question. How do we present ourselves and show up in new friendships? Do we present our whole selves all at once, or do we give of ourselves layer-by-layer? The typical advice I’ve heard form experts is that you show up authentically, but build slowly. Honor others by giving them space for their responsibilities and self-growth, but keep showing up in love, acceptance, validation, and a spirit of generosity.
Being self-revealing can be too much for some people. However, it is a necessary river to cross in this journey of forming bonds with others. We can’t stop at initiation. Now we have to keep on showing up, keep on revealing ourselves. Can you do that? Some may be fearful of doing or saying the wrong thing. That is natural. They may be quite afraid of rejection being scared to let others see not just their weaknesses, but even their positive traits such as their affection, their quirk, their honesty, their style of humor, or something they are fearful might drive someone away. It could be anything! It is crazy. The thing we need the most, we fear the most. It is the same in relationships.
Last night, during my connect group, we were discussing Philippians 4:5. “Let everyone see that you are unselfish and considerate in all you do. Remember that the Lord is coming soon.”
I had already spent the late afternoon listening to teachings from Dr. Marisa G Franco. She is a teaching psychologist whose research focuses primarily on platonic friendships, so my brain was already in the thick of this relational space. When I heard this verse read aloud, the Holy Spirit brought a quick connection to my mind. Philippians tells us to be unselfish. The situation I saw playing out in my mind was the example of someone who is healthy enough to be showing up vulnerably and affectionately in a friendship, but say was in an encounter with someone they knew to be a fearful-avoidant. In that case, restraining the level of vulnerability would be an unselfish and loving act. It would mean choosing, in love, to not show up as “big” in order to make the other person able to function and stay in conversation. Or, physically, it could mean taking cues from them how they might feel most comfortable being greeted or comforted. Showing up as less is still an authentic way of showing up if others need it.
I think Christ wants us to stay on the lookout for how to be a source of connection for someone else. And, I think, He is asking us to have the humble ability to know who our whole self is, in Him, but reveal (in our security in Him) the parts that others are needing. We all could do a little more to work in the garden of adult friendships.
The ultimate goal when looking at attachment styles is to be securely attached. As believers, that would entail having a strong sense of self in your identity in Christ. It would also mean that you are able to keep your priorities in order. For example, maintaining that Jesus is your best friend/best provider and keeping Him on top in your heart not making idols out of your friends. Additionally, I’d say it is keeping the open handedness in relationships to understand that friendships will ebb and flow and that is perfectly alright. Many of our assignments in life are relationally oriented, so that should welcome a variety of people into our lives.
I find that if I am off-balance and start putting my friends before Jesus, I can quietly move from secure to anxious. I can worry that the other person doesn’t like me or I can unconsciously hope they’ll meet my needs. For anyone, who by default of your personality or upbringing, might struggle in feeling secure or in the ability to be vulnerable, I jotted down some simple but grounding truths we can all remember, especially in our times of weakness:
The first bottom line rule is just this: Assume people will like you! It is called the Acceptance Prophecy. People are often just mirrors. If you like yourself, they’ll like you. Thank you, Dr. Franco, for this powerful common sense reminder. Genuinely.
And for those who are very freaked out by the intimacy of vulnerability. Find a loving person to take baby steps with. Judge the facts. Stay out of your head and your past experiences. Did they smile? Did they listen in an attuned way? Did they validate or affirm you? Did they come back again? Grab these as confidence points and note down with gratitude when you feel your heart filling up from acceptance that stemmed from your courageous step of sharing something about yourself.
Franco had an interview with author Jen Hatmaker. I think for any attachment style, these are wonderful words to feed your soul as you work on creating intimate friends bonds in adulthood. She said,
“When we predict how we are coming off, it is more negative than the truth. We see this when we first meet people. When strangers interact, they underestimate just how liked they are by the other person—that is called The Liking Gap; we see this when we are vulnerable with someone. We tend to think that people are judging us more than they actually are, and we underestimate how authentically they’re perceiving us—that is called The Beautiful Mess Effect. We see this in affection, when we predict how our affection comes off. We think it comes off more awkwardly than it does, and we underestimate just how much people value it. We also see it with random acts of kindness.”
To me, I am inspired after listening to a few hours of amazing teaching from Dr. Franco as well as doing a quick Scripture study on Jesus’ view of friendship… that is a whole post in itself! But, nevermind. Another time. Anyways, Jesus has got hands down a total love of friendship. Really. (AND… QUICK REMINDER- Jesus said that he laid down His life for His friends! Who are those friends? Whoever wants to take His great big invitation! Let’s not forget that!)
I, personally, am encouraged to keep showing up with all of my heart, soul, mind, affections, generosity, intentionality, empathy and understanding. But I also feel again as if I’ve been given permission to, if certain individuals need it, to live smaller and to give up personal rights of expression to make them also able to grow and experience community. And I would propose that we make art for our phone screens that say assume you are liked! I think it is a spiritual act of service to take leaps into friendship and learn to do the work to let them be beautiful. So, let’s keep at it, sweet friends!
