Are We All Just Bad At Being Friends Now?

The last time I sat down and really thought about my girlfriends and what it means to hold friendships in the latter half of my twenties, I remember feeling a kind of irrational optimism. Everything felt… easy. Our friendships had finally grown into something low-maintenance and breathable. No spirals over missed calls, no passive-aggressive overthinking of blue ticks, no dramatic internal monologues. I was fine. (Not the way Ross from Friends said it — actually fine.)

But lately, that optimism has been replaced by something else — something close to a quiet, slightly sad nostalgia. Because if I’m being honest, it feels like all of us, myself absolutely included, have gotten worse at being friends. Not intentionally, not maliciously… just almost accidentally.

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If you’re wondering what triggered this wave of introspection, let me take you straight to the scene of the crime: my WhatsApp. This morning, our iconic girl group chat (the one with a decade of chaos, inside jokes, and unhinged stickers) went into complete meltdown. A friend from the group had gotten engaged, and the news reached us not from her but through a stranger’s Instagram Story. A week earlier, my best friend and I had a ridiculous argument after she moved houses and swore she’d told me — only she hadn’t, because she’s “just bad at texting.” And just last month, a friend quit his job, joined another, and then quit that one on the same day. Something we only found out during a “catch-up” lunch four weeks later.

So yes, I think I’ve finally cracked it. Forget ghosting and group chats — the real strain on adult friendships isn’t distance or drama. It’s the nagging guilt of not “catching up enough.” 

As Ankita Kaul, counsellor and founder of The Unfiltered Ladies, explains: “This guilt is part care and part unrealistic expectation. But the good part? You don’t worry about being a bad friend to someone you don’t value. That tug in your chest is often proof that the bond mattered, and still does.”

And once she said that, something clicked. We don’t actually do things together anymore. No spontaneous chai runs. No pointless night drives. No collectively losing our minds over some new crisis. The everyday glue — the tiny rituals and stupid stories — has dissolved. What we’re left with are highlight reels, forwarded memes, and voice notes that try (and fail) to close the distance of months. The friendship is still alive, yes. But it feels like it’s breathing through a straw.

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Of course, adult life barrels in with a speed none of us were trained for. We’re juggling work, burnout, rent, commuting, mental load — and somewhere along the way, “emotional bandwidth” slipped from corporate jargon into something we say over brunch. So where do we go from here? “The expectation that we should stay as constantly connected as we once were is, frankly, unrealistic,” Kaul reminds us. “Adult friendships aren’t supposed to replicate the all-day conversations of our teens or the spontaneous chaos of our early twenties. What matters now is intention. Adult friendships don’t need constant presence; they need consistent sincerity.”

And if you’re reading this with a pit in your stomach because you’ve let a friendship fade, there are ways to return — gently, quietly, without the pressure of grand gestures.

Start with honesty, not apologies:A simple, transparent message can melt months, even years of silence: “Hey, I’ve missed you. Life got overwhelming, but I still think about you and would love to catch up when you have the space.”

Ask about the small things, not just the milestones: The show they’re watching, how work really feels, whether they’re sleeping well. People reconnect through the everyday details, not the highlight reels.

Keep your expectations soft: You’re not rebuilding the friendship you had at 19 or 23; you’re building a new version that fits who you both are now. Reconnection isn’t grand. It’s gentle, transparent, and rooted in the simple truth: “I still care, and I’m here.”

So yes, maybe we’re all a little bad at being friends right now. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe adult friendship isn’t about constant contact — it’s about choosing, in whatever small ways we can, to show up for each other even when life gets loud. And maybe that choice, made again and again, is enough. At the end of the day, the question isn’t whether we’re bad at being friends. It’s whether we’re willing to be good ones again.

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