Ada Calhoun: Friendships

Twentysomething friendships involve long, late nights, all-day walks, and hours-long phone conversations. But having friends in your 30s is functionally impossible. There is no good time to see people, no friend equivalent of the candlelit dinner and rose-strewn canopy bed. To stay friends is to make do with the social equivalent of a taco truck and bathroom quickie. As the opposite of a sensualist, I actually prefer this. There’s something both efficient and exciting about having friends woven into the texture of daily life. It feels almost illicit when we manage to steal time together, like we are cheating on our grown-up lives.

“I am definitely guilty of rejoicing when someone cancels,” says Jessica about the effort involved in keeping friendships at this stage of life. “I have so little time for myself — when I'm alone, not with a husband or a kid — that even an extra hour feels like a weight off. That said, when plans are kept and carried through, I'm always glad that they were. It's become too easy to feel like we've maintained a friendship because we can ‘like’ someone's photo or see what they're up to on social media. But I need the in-person catch up.”

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