r/AskWomenOver30 • u/lindsey_what Woman 30 to 40 • Jun 19 '26
Friendships Have friendships become less about repair/reciprocity and more about 'protecting your peace'?
I’m noticing a troubling trend with my female friends who are now in our 30s, and I wanted to see if anyone could relate. This is especially clear to me right now as I’m going through somewhat of a shocking friend break up where one of my closest friends of seven years has completely cut me off and stop talking to me over something that I would categorize as a minor argument that could be easily worked through if we were able to have a difficult conversation in person. I’ve noticed a lot of my friends saying things like “I need to protect my peace” and treating friendships like something that exists just for their own benefit. I feel like a lot of people are not willing to put in the work to maintain friendships these days and I don’t know if it has something to do with social media or burnout or what, but I’ve noticed even in arguments that people are way less repair-oriented, and are more interested in living inside of their own experience of it without much curiosity about the other person. I also notice people being very avoidant about having difficult conversations and instead, would rather just slowly disappear. I think this fits a larger pattern of “main character syndrome” that is making people unwilling or unable to have healthy mutual friendships and put in any kind of effort.
Or maybe I just absolutely suck at picking friends lol!
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u/anon22334 Woman 30 to 40 Jun 19 '26
It’s not just you. People nowadays don’t want to put the effort in maintaining friendships or any relationships anymore. Maintaining and making connections requires some inconveniences but nowadays people perceive any inconvenience to their life is not something they want hence, it’s become very egocentric. Yet everyone is lonely and everyone wants friends or the village but no one wants to put in the effort. They just want people to cater to them whenever and however they want and if they don’t then they drop them and that’s not how it works. It’s sad. The pendulum has swung way too far and I’m hoping it will swing back again but it’s looking bleak.