The secret to modern friendship, according to real friends

You may have heard it couldn’t be done: making friends as an adult. Maybe you’ve noticed this in your own life. Perhaps you’ve spent time scouring Google results looking for any advice on how to form new relationships and strengthen the ones you already have. Or you’ve stared at the ceiling in despair wondering why our society is set up to favor romantic relationships over platonic ones. I’m pleased to report that, somehow, my friend Anna Goldfarb and I beat the odds. We achieved the seemingly unachievable and became close in adulthood.

We met at a volunteer event in the fall of 2016 and clicked over our shared profession as freelance journalists. The rest of our lives looked pretty different: Anna is 15 years older than me, she loves a phone call while I prefer texting, and she is a friend of cats (I’m more of a dog person). We didn’t go to college together nor have a friend group in common. Still, we made it a priority to get together weekly to work together. Over the years, our friendship has grown in tandem with our careers. It’s also a relationship that transcends work: We’ve been in book clubs together, bonded over our shared love of Fall Out Boy, and attended Philly house parties.

Combining her talents as a writer and a great friend, Anna has a new book, Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections, which acknowledges how difficult it is to be a friend in a world demanding so much of our attention — and one in which we exist in many competing social groups. Saying “Let’s get together!” is easy. Putting plans into action is another.

It’s a rare experience to hang out with a friend as they’re writing a book about friendship. Your conversations get meta. I asked Anna to put our relationship under a microscope for a conversation about what makes ours successful, as well as advice others can use to deepen their friendships.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

I’m sure you hear this a lot: It’s so hard to make friends in adulthood. But we are a testament to that. We did it. We are not lifelong childhood friends and our friendship is a product of meeting and making time for one another. What do you think helped us?

We had a really clear reason for getting together from the jump: We’re writers, we’re in Philly, we live near each other, and we had flexible schedules so that we could carve out time to see each other. We had a lot of factors setting us up for success. But other than that, our values are aligned. Being a good friend is important to us. I know that you’ve managed to maintain longstanding friendships and I have too. So we both know the value of friendships. But we didn’t set out to become friends. We set out to write together and see where it goes. What I learned writing this book is every friendship needs an “about,” and our “about” was so clear and so compelling from the jump.

What would you say the “about” is in our friendship?

Our “about” is writing together and supporting each other’s work. When I have good work-related news, I call you, and vice-versa.

People might look at us and say, “You guys just wanted to be professional contacts, not real friends.” What would you say to that?

That’s just how humans work. There’s clarity. It’s easy to find time to get together because the reason is so explicit. It’s a lot harder when the reasons aren’t as explicit. That’s why people bail and flake and cancel. We have a reason to continually invest effort in our relationship because the reason is so compelling to us both independently. Our friendship is enduring because we didn’t set out to find a work buddy. There was an opportunity that we both pounced on.

Among people who do similar jobs, it’s so easy to compare and fall victim to envy. Why is that so easy to do and why hasn’t it happened to us?

We both started at the same level: You and I both were hustling. We had an equal dynamic and we’ve been very careful to preserve that equal dynamic. If I came in with an attitude like, “I'm 15 years older, I know what’s going on, listen to me,” and I dominated you, you’d be like, “Buzz off, lady.” But I really tried to keep myself in check. I know we come from different generations but it’s a non-factor because I’m so invested in our teammate relationship. If competitiveness does bubble up, I tell you right away: I’m jealous. That diffuses it. Then I think, what is the jealousy about?

What’s one small fix people could make today to have stronger friendships?

I would say to identify three to five of their closest friends and to tell them, “I love being your friend. I want you around for a long time. I’m not going anywhere.” Just removing the uncertainty because uncertainty creates anxiety. It’s infectious because you model for them how I practice friendship. This is how I talk to my friends. This is how I show my love to my friends. They’re going to show that to the people that they love, too.

A word I’ve been certainly thinking about a lot is reciprocity. I’ve seen people on the internet talking about it a lot, too — this idea of friendships not feeling reciprocal. How do we get to a point where you feel like this person cares about me as much as I care about them?

When I was writing my book, I learned about our friendship tiers,and I did self-reflection on who in my life is most important to me. Who do I come to for advice or camaraderie? And your name came up a lot. That’s where the reciprocity comes in. I see the effort you put in, and part of being a good friend is recognizing that effort. You really make it easy for me so that we can spend time together. It just makes me want to do more for you.

What your book does so well is offer tips on how to make it easy for people to say yes to hanging out. That’s something we’ve done unintentionally: understanding the realities of the other person’s life to make it easy for them. We can get stuck in our own heads like, “Why am I the only one making plans?” or, “Why are they so busy?” when we don’t really think about what could be going on in the other person’s life.

That’s the power of having a strong “about” in the friendship. I know why I make time for our friendship and I know why you make time for our friendship, so it’s easier to honor it. That’s not knowledge I’ve always had. I didn’t put that care into it, that thoughtfulness and that maturity of, “I know you could be doing so many things with your time and it means so much that you prioritize our hangouts.”

One of the things I value about our friendship is the fact that we never flake. If something comes up, we immediately reschedule. It just comes back to that intentionality [and] understanding that this is a relationship that I want to put effort into.

It just makes me feel in control, that I know where my energy should go. I’ve let go of other friendships where the “about” isn’t as strong because there’s not a real reason for me to maintain active relationships with all these friends I’ve collected. An important part of friendship is spending time together in person. It’s not always possible, but I know how important it is to get together in person and to see your face and share things in real time. There’s no substitute for that.

I totally agree. We’ve talked about how hard it is to be truly responsive and present with online friends. If someone says, “I’m having a great day” online, I can’t read their body language. I can’t tell that they might be lying. The basic human stuff of seeing a person and knowing you’re not having a great day, how can I help?

I remember one day we were together and you were having a tough day. I was like, “That’s it, come over. I’m gonna get us some rosé and we’re gonna play Mario Kart.” You can’t do that with an online friend. You can’t have spontaneity and create those memories. I don’t remember anything I’ve texted anyone ever.

You write in the book about the importance of making memories as a way of deepening and adding meaning to a friendship. It was so refreshing to see that written so plainly, that we should try to do cool things with our friends intentionally so we can form these rich memories.

We do it in an appropriate way for our friendship considering we don’t have a social circle in common. Our friendship is such a modern friendship in that it’s so special to us, but we don’t have that larger network to keep it in place. It needs to come from me and you, and we need to find reasons, independent of our other social circles, to keep our ties strong.

I’ve learned so much about being a good friend from you. What is one thing you learned about friendship that totally surprised you or changed the way that you view or approached friendships from writing the book?

I am much more verbal with my love and appreciation with my friends. I did not do that before. I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. But since I wrote this book, I understand there’s this tier of friends that I cherish and admire. I found it much easier to tell them that I love them. It’s a gift that I can give of certainty: Here’s how I feel about you. I don’t want you to ever second guess, “Does Anna value me? Does she value our friendship?” I want you to feel confident that you know that I love you, that I’ll be here for you.