The life cycle of relationships is a fascinating thing.
(And when I say “relationships” I mean that in the broadest sense: friendships, acquaintances, etc.)
There’s an ebb and flow of the distance between people who share a part of each other’s lives.
If both people are committed to maintaining the relationship, it isn’t that uncommon to go through periods where you grow apart without hard feelings, only to find each other again a little later down the line.
One thing I’m particularly fascinated by lately is what determines the strengths of these bonds.
I am lucky to say that some of the relationships in this life have survived decades through all kinds of challenges:
Whether one of us was dealing with grief, addictions, depressions, living in different locations, etc. None of these seem to have permanently alter the depth of the friendship.
There are also relationships that survive months of not talking. We see each other once a year and we’re as close as we were when seeing each other weekly.
But there are other relationships to which a similar thing, one person going through a depression, one period of reduced contact, was enough to dim the light of the relationship.
What’s the difference?
One factor is —to my surprise— quite math-y. Not the kind of answer you’d imagine to pop up in matters of the heart:
A relationship is a continuous interaction with someone.
When you don’t have a relationship with someone, your interaction has a clear end point:
A stranger asks you for directions on the street.
If they showed gratitude or made a cool joke, that was likely a net positive interaction.
If they smelled like a mixture of alcohol and aged sweat and cursed you for not helping them fast enough, it was likely not such a positive one.
Relationships are different because the interaction never ends.
If your neighbor is unfriendly to you this morning, you’ll see them again.
And if they are friendly every other day, you don’t have a bad relationship with your neighbor. You had one unpleasant interaction.
Your relationship isn’t bad because your relationship is the nature of all the interactions you share in this life combined.
When we share a moment with anyone, every interaction we ever had with them is an ingredient in the vibe soup.
This is more significant than it may seem:
If, say, you’re in your early twenties and you see your friends 5 times a week, then having a bit of an attitude for a few weeks doesn’t damage the relationship much.
If you see your friends 200 times a year, and 15 of those interactions are unpleasant, nearly 90% of your relationship is still positive.
But when you get older, say, mid-thirties, many of your friends will have busy lives and time seems to pass much faster.
If you only see your friends 12 times a year, and 9 of those interactions are unpleasant, then that’s a dramatic shift in your relationship. Now 75% of that time is negative.
Do that for a few years and you’ve completely changed the nature of your relationship. Because the nature of all the interactions you share in this life, combined, is now tilting towards the kind of interaction you wouldn’t want to have.
Of course, we all will go through hard times in life. I doubt anyone can escape that.
And during our hard times, we will be a little less nice to interact with. Even if we want to be kind or give more of our energy, there will be many times when we simply lack the capacity.
What this means is that during the good times, it’s wise to remember the nature of relationships.
To give and nourish and make time where we can. Because we never know what lies ahead, how that will affect the way we show up, and which relationships we might lose along the way because of it.
I believe that one of the main reasons some friendships are so resilient is precisely because of this equation. However it came to be:
Childhood friends you’ve spent thousands of days and nights with.
People you’ve spent the bulk of your time with when you were both at your best.
People you’ve found a dynamic with where you can be at your messiest and somehow still not have it spill over on each other.
People who had such positive experiences with you when they showed up suboptimally that they’d gladly be there for you when you can’t hold it together.
These relationships can withstand plenty of chaos and periods where one of you is not fully showing up as a friend, because the total nature of the combined interactions stays overwhelmingly positive.
But don’t take them for granted, because every interaction does change it. Every moment counts.
That may sound like a heavy responsibility, and in a way, it is: Every moment is everything.
However, it’s also liberating. Because it means that when you notice you haven’t shown up for your friends the way you’d like to, there’s still time to shift that. Every interaction contributes.
You may also take this into account with new relationships.
If you have a habit of traumadumping on the “second-friend date”, that may be the reason none of your new relationships stick, for example: This being 50% of your total interactions now totally changed the nature of your relationship.
Save it for hangout number 12 and you’ll increase your chances of it being no biggie.
This is true of everything. If someone has seen you twice and both times, you were hammered by coincidence, you are now the drunk guy in their mind.
If you then hang out 5 more times sober, they’ll think “I must have just met him at a very hammered time of his life.”
I’m not advocating to only show your best sides to people. Or to consciously try and alter their perception of you by making sure most hangouts are Fun with a capital F.
I’m merely saying:
Friendships get more fickle as you age because hangout frequency is lower.
This lower frequencies in itself is not an issue (unless one person particularly requires a frequencies you can’t commit too). But pay attention to how you show up in them. See what you can give in each moment. Accept that it may not always be what you want to give.
Do what you can, when you can.