"How do you find friends as an adult?"
The question may seem naive, a bit hopeless.
However, the problem has become commonplace, to the point of appearing at the top of the basket of requests on Google.
How did we come to this, asking an algorithm for help?
Where does this embarrassment come from, past 30-40 years old, at the idea of approaching a stranger in the evening when a child, a simple exchange of the ball or a look was enough to sympathize?
Why do certain beginnings of a relationship very rarely lead to a friendship?
Read alsoYou don't choose your family, but do you really choose your friends?
Lack of time
As we approach our forties, it is clear that our priorities have changed.
The frivolity of student life has gradually given way to stability, professionally but also emotionally.
“Between 15 and 20 years, we seek to multiply exchanges, contacts, observes Dominique Picard, psychosociologist (1).
With age, we enter an emotional phase where the depth of ties takes precedence.
And the more difficult the conditions of access to friendship, the more this need intensifies.
“It's no longer cronyism, abounds the philosopher Michel Erman (2).
We want a strong bond, a kind of ideal of fusional friendship.
A bit like Michel de Montaigne testified to his friend Étienne de La Boétie: “Because it was him;
because it was me."
Except that behind the fantasy, the reality is implacable.
"Engaging in a very strong friendly relationship, even several at the same time, requires an intellectual investment, sometimes physical and geographical, which one is not necessarily ready to give", explains psychotherapist Anne-Laure Buffet (3) .
Indeed, creating an emotional connection takes time, a lot of time.
Patience estimated on average at more than 200 hours, according to an American study published on March 15, 2018 in
The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
.
On video, the secrets of couples that last
A brake on future projects
Is social laziness waiting for us?
Yes, answers the psychoanalyst Saverio Tomesella.
But it would be “beneficial” to cope with the professional context and its “energy-intensive” metro-work-sleep rhythm, according to the specialist, also author of
These friendships that transform us
(4).
“When we are tired, we naturally refocus on reassuring, usual social interactions,” he underlines.
Namely the existing friends and especially the life partner, the family, even the children.
"Between 30 and 40, we build the foundations of our future life and inevitably, any new interaction frightens us because it upsets this comfort and will be perceived as a slowdown in our project", confirms psychotherapist Anne-Laure Buffet.
Add to that a traumatic event, like a pandemic, and this golden circle grows even stronger, until it becomes impervious to newcomers.
The more difficult the conditions of access to friendship, the more this need intensifies
Dominique Picard, psychosociologist
“Quasi-friendships” in family and at work
Year in and year out, only “quasi-friendships” would remain within reach of those in their thirties and forties.
“During this period of life, we learn to live with the choices that are imposed on us from the outside, reports the philosopher Michel Erman.
Easy, interested friendships are born, like the relationships that we establish with parents of students in exchange for childcare or with the neighborhood.
“As a couple, we give ourselves less the means to go individually to each other, preferring to organize evenings with other couples.
However, if the birth of a friendship is probable between two people, it is less so with four”, nuances the psychosociologist Dominique Picard.
In the office, we also resign ourselves to camaraderie.
“These are still pleasant relationships, but when they are content at the workplace or
afterwork
, they bring us more a moment of relaxation, of relaxation than of friendship.
It's a kind of recreation, where you rarely confide, except to criticize other colleagues or superiors, ”underlines psychotherapist Anne-Laure Buffet.
Friendship is not a lukewarm feeling, it requires concrete commitment
Michel Erman, philosopher
However, no one is immune to a friendly thunderbolt or a "coup of sympathy", recognizes the philosopher Michel Erman.
However, proximity remains difficult in the competitive sector of work, where we are told to hide our vulnerabilities.
“A privileged bond with a colleague cuts us off without wanting it from others,” adds Dominique Picard.
In addition, it is all the more difficult to disengage from a friendship at work when you see the person every day.
Read alsoHow to break up a friendship that has become cumbersome
Scalded friend fears cold shower
Some think they can fulfill their need for sociability on social networks.
By reuniting with childhood friends, for example.
Be careful, the result is often disappointing, warns Michel Erman.
“Some of these relationships revolve a lot around nostalgia: we like to get together, share memories, but in the end, we see each other physically little during the year.
Friendship is not a lukewarm feeling, it requires concrete commitment.
If we are so demanding in this age group, it is also because we know what these relationships can cost us.
Time certainly but also wounds, more or less deep.
“The heartbreaks of friendship exist, and it's like a breakup, sums up the philosopher.
With years and experience, we discover the price of the friendly bond, its fragility, its flaws.
“When the friend betrays us or becomes toxic, we learn from it, adds psychotherapist Anne-Laure Buffet.
Some patients tell me “I gave so much with such that it ate me up” and are afraid to reinvest themselves with someone else.
Read alsoHow to break up a friendship that has become cumbersome
Rediscover your childhood spontaneity
How then to reconnect, to move towards a new peaceful and rich friendly relationship?
The specialists interviewed for this article give us some leads.
Leisure seems to be a context conducive to friendship, provided that they are engaging, specifies the psychosociologist Dominique Picard.
This supposes choosing a sporting, associative, even militant activity, which we really like, and not limiting ourselves to the time slot of the said activity.
“We go before and we stay after the course in order to put all the chances on our side to interact with the other, advises the psychoanalyst Saverio Tomasella.
Finally, according to the philosopher Michel Erman, it would be wrong not to follow the example of children and their freshness, their spontaneous impulse towards others.
"To recognize friendship and let it come to you, you have to trust what you feel," he insists.
It is up to us to identify immediate sympathy, always thinking of forgetting what people will say about us.
(1)
Interpersonal relations and communications
, 4th edition, by Dominique Picard with Edmond Marc, ed.
Dunod, 192 pages, €17.90.(2)
The bond of friendship, a strength of the soul
, by Michel Erman, ed.
Plan, 160 pages, €14.90.
(3)
Friendship
, by Anne-Laure Buffet, published by Eyrolles on April 7.
(4)
These friendships that transform us
, by Saverio Tomasella, ed.
Eyrolles, 128 pages, €14.
