Friendship Doesn’t Have To Be This Hard

By: Rachel Tuchman, LMHC

“We really should get together.”

How often do we say this or hear it from someone else? And how often do we actually follow through?

I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want to spend time together. Many people genuinely do. It’s not a lack of interest or affection. It’s everything we’ve convinced ourselves that getting together has to involve.

For many people, spending time with the people they care about like friends, siblings, cousins, even extended family, doesn’t feel like a fun, normal part of life anymore. It feels stressful and burdensome.

To be fair, some of that is simply the reality of adulthood. Our schedules are busy, our kids have activities, work is demanding, and coordinating everyone’s schedules is genuinely exhausting. But I also think we’ve added another layer of pressure on top of that. We’ve convinced ourselves that getting together requires hosting, planning, a spotless house, an elaborate meal, a huge crowd, the right pairing of guests, and finding the perfect time for everyone.

But when spending time together starts to feel like a big deal or a major event instead of something that we genuinely enjoy, it’s not so surprising that many of us feel overwhelmed by the effort and end up seeing the people we care about less and less.

I hear people say all the time how they wish they saw the people they care about more often. The reasons they don’t reach out almost always sound the same: “It’s a lot.”

They’re tired after work. The house is a mess. They don’t have the time or energy to cook. They haven’t seen each other in a while, so now it feels awkward. They tell themselves they’ll do it when life settles down or when the kids go to camp. Then camp comes, something else fills the calendar, and before they know it, months have passed. I catch myself thinking this way too sometimes.

We’ve gotten so used to seeing beautifully curated dinners like something in a magazine that we’ve started believing this is what friendship is supposed to look like. I think we unintentionally raised the bar for what counts as spending time together, and in the process, we’ve made friendship feel intimidating and stressful.

What I usually see is that the anxiety almost always comes before getting together, not after. I can’t remember the last time someone told me they regretted spending time with people they genuinely enjoy. What I hear instead is how nice it was to laugh, how much they needed the distraction, how good it felt to reconnect and sit and talk about nothing in particular. 

We spend so much time listening to the voice telling us why it’s too much effort that we forget to pay attention to our own experience, which usually tells us that we feel better after we’ve reconnected with people. I wonder how often we tell ourselves we’re busy when what’s really happening is that anxiety and perfectionism have convinced us that if we can’t do something perfectly, we shouldn’t do it at all. Meanwhile, the people we wanted to spend time with are still waiting, and another opportunity passes us by.

Please internalize this: Meaningful connection rarely requires perfection, even if that little voice (or social media account) convinces you otherwise.

It’s interesting that we have countless books, podcasts, and courses about marriage, parenting, careers, productivity, and even decluttering our homes, but we spend very little time talking about friendship. There is not much in terms of education on this topic. We tend to assume making friends should just happen naturally, even though it doesn’t and it only gets harder to do as we get older and the opportunities dwindle.

As a therapist, I spend a lot of time talking about coping skills, stress management, and self-care, all of which are very important. But healthy friendships are one of the greatest protective factors we have for our mental health. Women in particular often underestimate how much this part of their lives affects them. Friendships give us something that is difficult to find anywhere else.

So much of adulthood is defined by our roles. We spend our days being someone’s spouse, someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s employee, someone’s caregiver. Good friends know us outside of those roles. They remind us who we are when we’re not taking care of everyone else. There is something incredibly grounding about being with people who know your history, your personality, your quirks, and your sense of humor without needing you to be anything other than yourself. Feeling known, having people who check in on us, laughing with someone who has known us for years, feeling like we belong, like we don’t have to put on airs, those things don’t solve every problem, but they certainly make life better. They’re a big part of what keeps us emotionally healthy.

As we move through this time in the Jewish calendar, with the Three Weeks and Tisha B’Av, we naturally spend more time thinking about relationships, unity, and the consequences of becoming disconnected from each other. We hear a lot about repairing fractured relationships (a topic I have a lot of opinions on but that’s for another time), but I also wonder if this is a good time to pay attention to the relationships that haven’t fallen apart but have just been neglected, not because of any drama but because life became busy and friendship became less important on your list.

We don’t need to make friendship feel so complicated. We’ve convinced ourselves that if we can’t do friendship a certain way, then we can’t do it at all. I don’t think that’s true. Inviting someone over while you’re folding laundry is great. A walk around the block is perfect. Sitting outside after the kids are asleep with takeout instead of a beautifully prepared meal is wonderful.

Potluck your Shabbat meal. Have people over for seudah shlishis instead of a full Friday night or Shabbat lunch. Lower the bar for what getting together has to look like and you’ll probably find yourself doing it much more often.

Also, remember that the people who love you aren’t coming to inspect your home or judge your menu (some might, but that’s also a different article). They’re coming because they enjoy being with you. Most of them would rather eat pizza around a messy kitchen table than wait another six months for the “perfect” invitation.

I think a lot of us will someday regret the conversations we never had and the time we didn’t make far more than the meals we never served or the clean-up we avoided. We have taught ourselves to believe that friendship grows through the big moments, but the reality is that most close relationships are built through the little things like consistency, not intensity.

Let’s try to focus less on trying to create the perfect circumstances for get-togethers and more on just inviting your friends for the ordinary and everyday moments that make life full and blessed. 

Rachel Tuchman, LMHC, is a licensed therapist in private practice. She not only treats a variety of mental-health concerns, but also shares psychoeducation via her social media platform, public speaking, and online courses. You can learn more about Rachel’s work at RachelTuchman.com and follow her on Instagram @rachel_tuchman_lmhc.