A Hole In Our Friendship Circle

Over the years of studying the characteristics and dynamics of friendships, there seem to be certain consistencies of behaviors and attitudes that remain with many individuals on their Life Journey.  Each of us seems to develop patterns early in our lives that we continue into our senior years.

In the early years we seek to understand the meaning of friendships and the value they have to ourselves as well as to the people who are important in our lives such as our parents.  In my case, during childhood a friend was any one who did not actively dislike me.  Fortunately, I grew more selective!

As the years pass, we find ourselves selecting and being selected by individuals as friends for a variety of reasons.  Our criteria for choosing a person as a friend eventually tends to be uniquely personal.  Being basically social animals, the one similarity is that we almost all recognize the need to have friends in our world.  We usually grow to define and recognize the differences between a friend and an acquaintance.

We not only use different criteria in selecting friends as the years pass and our history grows longer and more mature, we find that friends come and go.  Some stay for a short time and are quickly replaced while others may be with us for most of our life.


Like most living things, friendships which are not growing with energy and attention expended on them tend to be in the process of dieing.   

Unfortunately, a friendship may be ignored over time with only an exchange of holiday cards or a birthday email until suddenly the two parties involved realize they have a terminal case in this relationship.  When a friendship reaches the 'life support' stage, it is usually difficult, if not impossible, to return to active life.

While being similar in the behavior of developing a friendship circle, the dynamics of these circles we develop tend to be unique.   For example, some choose one or two people for their friendship group while others may have dozens.  Some may choose only those who can be geographically close; others can build their friendships around the world.  Some rely on similar interests and value systems; some stress diversity of characteristics.

As we age, there seems to be a tendency to reach a maximum number of persons that an individual wants to have in their friendship circle.  At some point, we seem to stop acquiring close friends, stick with the ones we have chosen so far and start building various degrees of acquaintanceship.  It is almost as if we subconsciously recognize that we have reached the limited number of the friendships we want and choose to handle at any one time in this world.

Also, as we age we tend to lose a lot of the situations where it is easier to build friendships such as school and at work.  Many of us may be content with the current number of friends we have.  It successfully complements the increasing interests we and others in our age group grow to have in adult children, grandchildren, health issues, etc.

Few of us stop to reflect on this evolution taking place in our lives since personal growth may not be strongly encouraged in our society and the process happens so slowly over a long period of time.  And, as we age, we are faced with the challenge that as a group we tend to dislike most change, especially any that illness or death may bring to us.  So, we often choose not to think about it.

At some age, we recognize that members of our friendship circle may be dieing.  Unlike the days of our youth, it is usually difficult to replace that friend with another person.   We suddenly discover that there is a hole in our friendship circle and it will remain there for the remainder of our days.  The years pass and the number of places once held by irreplaceable persons such as 'historical friends' become holes which remain empty as friends leave or die.

Some of may discover that our desire to be the ‘last one standing’ with a long life among our friends is no longer a desired goal.   It can get lonely in a hurry as the number of holes in our friendship circle may become more numerous with each passing year .

Those with only one or two friends suddenly grow very dependent on acquaintanceships.  Other recognize the value of investing time and energy into the friendships which are still present as they enhance meaning to what remains of our Life Journey.  

As with all aspects of our personal growth, we retain the power to define and choose what we want with our friendship circle during our Life Journey.  We also retain the power to choose whether we act to nurture or ignore in some form the friendships that we truly value.

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