How to keep old friends
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Recently, I interviewed Nina Badson, who hosts a podcast all about friendship. And I started our interview with, well, it was kind of a setup. We played a game of this or that. So I'll say two options and you say, quick as you can, which is your favorite? Okay. All right. Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate. Running or swimming? Running, but I mean, barely either. Podcast or radio? Podcast. Old friends or new friends? Old friends.

Oh, that's so hard. I love them both so much. And I think both are so important. But I guess for today, we're going to say old friends. But I do want to urge people that you are never too old to make new friends. Never. My mom just had her 80th birthday with tons of women there. And my mom had four new friends at this luncheon with tons of old friends. I mean, if that's not the best example, I don't know what is.

Nina hosts the podcast Dear Nina, Conversations About Friendship, where she gives advice and talks to experts about making friends, keeping friends, and losing friends. And I love that she actually gave me a thoughtful response to this because it was sort of a trick question. There's a lot of value in having new friends. I know this. In this episode, though, we're talking about the old ones.

There's no exact cutoff for when someone becomes an old friend, but Nina says it often happens after a long time or after you've been in the trenches together in some way. It could be a job where you together had a

a really difficult boss, let's say. And you're still friends 10 years later, even though you both have different jobs, having had that experience, or unfortunately it happens that maybe you have cancer at the same time as somebody. You maybe didn't meet that person until you're 30 years old. There's something that makes that person, having gone through that experience, that feels like an old friend. I found that my old friends bring so much richness to my life.

They're the ones that I can do the ridiculous bit with, you know, and deep belly laugh in a way that I haven't since high school or college. In our lows and in our highs, our old friends can remind us who we are. But time can also do a number on relationships. We get busy, lose track of people, forget to text, keep rescheduling. We change and they change and suddenly we don't fit anymore.

So on this episode of Life Kit, how to maintain your longstanding friendships. We'll talk about why some thrive while others fade. How to communicate when you feel like your friend isn't reciprocating your effort or like you don't have as much time to connect anymore. And generally, how to keep the friendship flame burning. ♪

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Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, the backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Why do you think it's important to have old friends? I think that it's important to have friends who have known you through different stages. And it's a good life skill for happiness to be able to maintain friendships. So having old friends...

I guess it's a proof in some way that you have developed those skills. And if you have no old friends, and again, it doesn't have to be all the way from childhood, but if you haven't been able to maintain friendships, it is probably a sign that something is off in your mindset about friendships, that maybe you have some unreasonable expectations. And I don't say this to make people feel terrible if they don't have old friends.

I say it more as an optimistic, this is something you can change. You can have friends who are in your life now, who you make an effort with so that 10 years from now, you can consider that person an old friend. That person will now have known a fuller picture of you and having this skillset to be able to keep the friends you have already, the skillset to be able to deepen connections that are already part of your life and

is really essential. Why do you think that some friendships survive for decades and others fade away? Well, there's two reasons. One is people don't keep score, or they might keep score, but they check themselves on that. And the other one is they've learned to develop a benefit of the doubt that they take very seriously, like they assume the best of their friends. Without those two skills, I think it's very hard to maintain friendships.

Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that can happen, especially with old friends, as you end up in different life circumstances, maybe you move to different places, it gets harder to stay in touch. And one person might feel like they're trying harder than the other is. Is that what you mean by keeping score? Yes, I think that what gets in the way of old friendships is a perceived lack of effort or a perceived...

lack of equality and effort. And I really believe that we just need to redefine what effort looks like because we all have very different skill sets. And

Even with an old friend that we know very well, we're all human and it's still hard not to expect other people to do friendship exactly the way we do or exactly the way it was always done between you and this friend. So if you're an old friend and you used to live in the same apartment building, you didn't have to make a lot of effort. Once someone moves, so now there's been a shift in just reality of the situation, it takes a lot of maturity to realize we have to change how we communicate. It's not going to be as easy. Well, that might be

easier for one person than the other. Maybe one person's really organized and they have no trouble reaching out. They just are the kind of person who can multitask. They're on a walk and they make a phone call and they call you and it's easy to keep up. The other person might not have the same skill set of organization.

But we can't always see that because we're good at it. So I'm just talking about looking for complementary skills. So we each bring different skills to a relationship. And instead of looking for equal skills, if we could look for complementary skills, I think friendships would be maintained a lot easier. Do you think there's ever value in telling a friend, you know, I would really...

I like to be loved or cared for this way. Do you think that's something you can do? Yes, absolutely. I think if it really is an issue, you could say, I love the time we spend together and I don't mind that I make a lot of the plans because it's important to me to see my friends a certain amount of time and

But I would like to know that you really want these invitations. And so every so often, if you could initiate one, and it gives the friend the opportunity to say, oh, I'm so glad you said something. I love that you reach out first because I just can't get myself together to even see on my calendar when I would have a date opening. So I wouldn't even want to reach out because I...

Don't want to say, hey, I miss you and then not offer a date. A conversation can happen then. And you can't have a conversation if you don't bring it up. That said, I don't think you should bring up every friend aggravation because it kind of goes back to assuming the best and knowing that people do friendship differently. It's a little bit hard to define. But if it's something that is consistently bothering you, especially if you're old friends and you're trying to maintain that friendship,

It is worth giving your friend the opportunity to at least explain themselves, even if the behavior is not going to change, to offer you an explanation and then for you to accept that explanation.

All right, takeaway one is that friendships take effort, but the way you invest in relationships and show love might be different from the way your friend does. If you're getting frustrated because a friend isn't showing up the way you'd like, consider what they are doing, how they remember your birthday or send you a text on the day of an important doctor appointment or FaceTime you randomly to check in and consider telling them what else would feel good for you.

Let's talk more about assuming the best intentions. There is a quote I love by a former guest of mine, Ruchi Koval is her name, and she's an educator. She's a relationship coach. And she said, there are people who never disappoint us.

And those people are called acquaintances. And it just hits me every time because an old friend especially is going to have disappointed us at some time. And most importantly, we will have disappointed that person. And so any longstanding friendship, any longstanding friendship,

needs to have forgiveness in it. And even before you get to forgiveness, before you even require forgiveness, just assuming the best in the first place. It requires humility. It really requires humility to assume the best because what that means, assuming the best means, I don't know the whole story. So I'm going to assume there's some information I don't have. Yeah. And that you're not the center of the universe. Right.

Takeaway two, it helps to give your friends the benefit of the doubt and assume the best intentions. If they forget to text you or they disappear for a spell, remember they probably have a lot of other things going on in their life. A lapse in connection doesn't necessarily mean your friendship is over or that they don't care about you anymore. And if they do something that hurts you, understand they probably didn't intend to and talk about it with them when you're ready.

In your opinion, if you only see or talk to an old friend once a year or once every five years, are you still friends? Like, what's the cutoff? Yes, you are still friends, but I really don't advocate for that. Being an adult means making time for your friends because it is important. So it may happen that you only see a friend every 10 years, every five years.

You are still friends if you are maintaining some sort of friendship in between. I mean, you're still friends no matter what, but you are not close friends. If you haven't talked on the phone sometimes in between texts, texting counts, but we need some variety. And part of that variety is seeing each other, even if that's on FaceTime, even if you have to schedule it, which I have to do for sure with long distance friends.

scheduling time to talk is, that's okay. That's easier than hopping on an airplane. If that's all you can manage right now, I would do that. But I would not let five or 10 years go by if you can help it. Yeah, some of my favorite ways, low stakes ways to keep a friendship

when we're both super busy. I like to send voice memos to my friends. And they listen and then they send theirs back. And that works really well because I might try to call them, but they're in a meeting or something and they can't pick up and then we just keep playing phone tag. But when you send the voice memo, I mean, we're podcasters, right? Like, it's...

It comes naturally, but it's like a very intimate thing. You're hearing the person's voice. You're hearing them kind of think as they're speaking. It feels like a conversation. You're just like ping-ponging back and forth.

I'm a voice memo evangelist. I feel I have taught people. I physically taken their phone and shown them where the little microphone is. Takes a little, it's a little bit of a learning curve for some people, but then they realize, yeah, so nice to hear someone's voice and you can do it on your own time. That's great. One thing I find is that

scheduling check-ins with friends who don't live nearby sometimes ends up feeling like work. And when the day comes, neither of us really wants to do it. You know, we're tired. It's like we set up this phone call. But it's kind of, it's heavy too, because if you haven't talked in a while, you're like, oh, we have to talk about everything. What are some options here? When we actually talk on the phone, whether it's scheduled or spontaneous, usually it is scheduled.

It's a lot like exercise. I mean, very few people regret having gone on a walk. Yes, we would love to just sit and watch TV or something. But once you've gone on that walk, I'd say most people come back and they're like, okay, I'm glad I did that. And I think a phone call with a friend is a lot like that. And I totally hear you, especially in that end of day and like, oh my gosh, like you just want to like listen to a podcast maybe or just relax. But once you've connected, you're

you will feel better. And if you do it more often, it won't feel so onerous to have so much to catch up on. I find that what has worked for me with some old friends is to just jump right in to whatever is most important to either of us that day. Like what's on our mind right now

Right now, you know, is there some frustration at work with a colleague or something? Then we'll just talk about that in depth. Or like, are we just about to, you know, get engaged or something? And it's very exciting. And and you want to talk about like how in love you are or you're really into something.

Some new craft that you're working on. You just want to tell them all about it. And then we just take the pressure off to be fully updated on every part of our lives. Because I feel like that allows for connection. It's creating a new memory and putting that person, situating them in your present. Like they're helping you work through or talk through something that's going on right now.

I think that's really wise. And it makes me think of how a memoir is very different than a biography.

A memoir, if you enjoy memoirs, you kind of accept that this is just a slice of a person's story, right? It's not the whole story. You're getting to know something about this person, but you wouldn't presume to know everything that happened in their life. You just are getting this artful vision of this moment in this person's life that they felt worthy of telling. That's what that phone call is like. And I think that's a good idea. It's a good way to do it. Not to have to go through every category. Maybe they don't need to know everything going on at work, let's say.

Like in this phone call and you don't want to talk about it either. Like it sometimes I think it's really valuable to just to share your joy with old friends. No, that's right.

Takeaway three. If you and your friend are in a busy season, there are lots of low stakes ways to stay in touch. Schedule a phone call or video chat. Send each other voice memos. Send some good old snail mail filled with tiny treasures. We have an episode on how to get into letter writing if that's your thing. And when you catch up, consider diving right into whatever's on your mind that day rather than running through a checklist of everything that's happened in your lives since you last spoke. This approach can take some of the pressure off.

How important do you think is in-person connection to old friendships? I think it is important. I, it's, well, it's funny, I guess because I don't live in the city where I grew up or where I went to college.

And a lot of times it requires me to travel or we all travel and meet somewhere. And I do think it's important, even though, I mean, harder than a phone call at the end of the day when you're really busy is getting on an airplane and going somewhere. But it is so completely different and a really important piece of maintaining old friendships is...

is changing the venue, which could literally be the place that you are together, or it could be the mode of communication. So if you're always talking on the phone and texting for a decade, you would want to get on a plane at some point and see that person. But if we're talking about in-town friends...

I think it's really important to get together in person. We need some face-to-face time. Okay, so with an old friend, you likely also have old patterns. And they may have known you when you were different, when you behaved differently, maybe even had different values than you do now. I wonder, how can we give our friends the grace and the space to change?

It is one of the biggest gifts you can give to a friend. And kind of like we were saying before, that if we could give others as much space as we give ourselves, it would go a long way. I think allowing a friend to change is...

in the same category. Sometimes people avoid their old friends when they've changed because they don't want to go back to a certain pattern or they don't want to hear from that friend. Oh, I thought you said you would never be one of those people who does CrossFit, for example. And like you're in this new phase of life and you're trying to put your physical health first, let's say.

Nobody likes to have this reminder of someone who says, well, you always said, or I thought you said, or I thought you believed. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm an adult person. Do I not get to try new things? Maybe you have another old friend that you have ended a friendship with, but you want to reconnect. That can be very threatening to another old friend who is kind of like, oh, wait, why are you bringing this person back? You always said you would never be friends with so-and-so. And we have to allow our friends to reconnect.

change. And we want that. Most of us want to be able to develop and change our minds about things. There's not a lot of hope in the world if we have to keep all the same opinions and interests that we had from the time we were 10 years old, 15, even 20s, even 30s. It's really important to give your friends space to try different ways of living, I think.

How can we talk to our friends about it if they're treating us like an old version of ourselves? I would just be honest and say, it's really hard for me to have made these changes in my life. And I really just want your support. And I bet most good friends would say, I'm so happy for you. I am supporting you. I'm so sorry you think I'm not. And it gives you an opportunity to explain, well, when you said such and such, or when you kind of, I kind of felt like you were rolling your eyes and everything.

Either the friend wasn't doing that and you were assuming the worst because it's something you're self-conscious about or they were and now you've gently called them on it and asked them to stop. I think a lot of problems are solved by bringing it up in a gentle way but with curiosity instead of an accusation. So I'm just curious. Do you find it strange that I'm now doing this new thing? Curious gives the person an out. It allows...

room for everyone to get out of that dynamic that's been going on. Takeaway four, one of the greatest gifts you can give to a friend is allowing them to change. As you and your friends navigate romantic partnerships, career changes, illnesses, financial ups and downs, births, deaths, and shifts in family life, just be there. Love them. Let them be who they are and who they're becoming.

I think the undercurrent of this conversation is this feeling that it's important to fight for our friendships.

And to take them as seriously as we take romantic partnership. 100%. I mean, it's the undercurrent of everything I do. And you can only control so much. But what you can control in a friendship is how much effort you put in and then assuming the best of the people who are important to you. And then I think you got some good ingredients for maintaining those friendships.

All right. Well, Nina, thank you so much for this. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. Okay. Time for a recap. Takeaway one. Friendships take effort, but that effort might look different depending on who you are. Think about the ways your friends do show up and not just how they don't. Takeaway two. Assume your friend has the best intentions. If they forgot to text you or they disappeared for a bit, it's probably not about you, but you can always talk to them about it.

Takeaway three, there are lots of ways to stay in touch in between your in-person meetups. Schedule a phone call or video chat. Send each other voice memos or snail mail. And don't be afraid to jump right in with a deep or in-the-weeds convo. No need for small talk with old friends, right? Finally, takeaway four, allow your friends to change and support them as they go through life's many ups and downs.

For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We have one on how to stay friends after kids come into the picture and another on how to show your friends you appreciate them. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit and you want even more, subscribe to our newsletter friends at npr.org slash life kit newsletter. Also, we love to hear from you. So if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email us at life kit at npr.org.

This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sam Yellow Horse Kessler. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Gharib. Megan Cain is our supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tegel, Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Serino, and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Jimmy Keeley. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.

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