Leah's Share: The Trouble with Friends
Updated: Aug 12
From Leah: Submitting this just in case I haven't yet. I read this article back in the fall of 2025, and I have found myself thinking back to it repeatedly, which is exactly the type of content for this library. The article discusses the evolution of friendships through the stages of adulthood, which is extremely relevant and interesting to me as someone who just got out of University and is now entering a stage of life where I won't see my friends every day. The article discusses the hardships about specifically being a childless woman whose friends have all built families, and how it can be difficult to maintain these relationships. However, it doesn't speak in an entirely doomerist mindset, instead redefining friendships that have "cooled" rather than "ended", which is a unique perspective on the fading of relationships. I really appreciate the amount of insight that the discussion in this article provokes, and the tactful way it is written.
Thanks for sharing. I think this article is good at being honest about a lot of feelings that develop as you interact with friends over long periods of time. At the same time I found its general tone so callous that it felt hard for me to sympathize with the author at times. For example, the way she dicusses her "crisis friends" just felt so uncaring. I wonder if this attitude and attempt at categorizing friends into such reductive types is a self-fulfilling prophecy that would lead someone to being a worse friend than they otherwise could be.