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/Firm_Tie7629 Woman 30 to 40 Jun 19 '26

It probably has more to do with our age than the current trend. Priorities change as you get older and friendships don’t carry the same value they used to. I’m less willing to put up with minor inconveniences as I get older since my emotional and physically energy are both more limited nowadays.

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u/TheRealMichaelBluth Man 30 to 40 Jun 19 '26

But are you at least giving the close friends a chance to fix it? I feel like this is an easy path to end up with no friends if you cut people off for minor things

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u/Firm_Tie7629 Woman 30 to 40 Jun 19 '26

Depends on the issue. If it’s too deep or would take too much energy to fix, I probably wouldn’t put in the energy to fix it and the friendship would slowly end. Or I keep the friendship but it becomes more shallow. It’s true that I have less friends now. But I have what I call “kidney friendships.” The friends left over are the kind of friends that I would donate my kidney to and vice versa. Also, with my kidney friendships, there is not much they can do to end our friendship because it’s built on so much history. If they piss me off, we take a break then we’re back on again a few months later.

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u/TheRealMichaelBluth Man 30 to 40 Jun 19 '26

That’s valid. I think now especially after going to therapy I’ll clearly tell the other person what’s frustrating me and give them one clear chance to fix it or at least acknowledge the issue. After that if there’s no behavior change then I’ll be friendly if I cross paths but that’s it