Adult friendships - do they have to be so hard?

How I signed up for a dating app

Making new friends beyond our thirties has been on my mind lately. Why is it so tricky, and do we even need them?

I don't mind being alone. I may come across as extroverted because when I'm with people, I talk as if I'm commentating on a football match and can strike up a conversation with anyone. However, the real me is willing to lie to avoid going out on a Friday night. I would much rather snuggle at home with a book.

I remember living in London and going for dinners alone.

"Table for two?" The waiter would ask me.

"Just for one," I'd say.

"Travelling?" They would assume, as if that was the only valid reason for dining alone.

Just enjoying the best company, I wanted to respond. But punchlines like this only occurred to me once I left the scene.

When I became a mum, there was a different kind of yearning. A desire to connect with people going through the same phase of life; who knew how isolating it is to soothe a screaming newborn or what it meant to sleep in two-hour chunks. In Australia, mothers' groups are prevalent, and I joined one, but weekly meetups didn't feel like enough interaction. I craved more adult connection. When your friends work during the day, and it seems impossible to meet up during evening hours, you are left with other mums.

I decided to take the leap and signed up for a dating app. A dating app for mums to find friends. My history with actual dating apps is almost nonexistent. It was ages ago when I was last single, and I'm a “handwritten love letter, and I want to smell your pheromones” kind of girl. So, even signing up for a mum's dating app felt edgy. How do you pick the right person with whom you might have some connection, or do you just go out with anyone? What are the rules of friendship?

Everyone seemed to have the same bio: powered by caffeine, outdoorsy, love food. Pretty much every single person in the world. So I added "love travelling" to mine. How original! Do I sell myself here, or what's the code? And the bunch of baby photos that mums post instead of their own faces. Nope, swiping left because I don't like your baby's chubby cheeks. Of course I liked everybody. I ended up with an actual date, but other than that, I didn't get past the random conversations on the app about zodiac signs and favourite books. I want to meet up face to face; let's chat in the park. But I only got a list of "Let's catch up" messages and then a ghost town.

"Let's catch up" is an Aussie greeting. It's the same as "How are you going?" You don't answer it, nobody wants to know, it doesn't mean anything most of the time. I learnt the hard way. The Estonian in me doesn't care about the niceties, just the reliability of the words. When you say it, you mean it. I didn't end up "catching up" with mums from the dating app. It was too energy-consuming, so I moved on.

I joined playgroups and baby classes, places where I made more connections than at a networking event. Instead of business cards, we exchanged our labour stories. It was fun, and I met some awesome people, but most connections never went beyond the initial couple of meetings. Just before things could be taken to the next level, people often disappeared. Or they returned to work, and the common ground was gone.

Making new friends in adulthood can be challenging. They are built over time, and time is something we become stingy about when we get older. Seeing a new friend once in a blue moon is like going to the gym once a week and hoping to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. To create and keep friendships, we need to gift them our time. I always find time for people that matter. No excuses will hold. With friends, you don't have to be at your best to see them or worry about cleaning the house before they come over. But how do you do it with new friendships? New relationships feel risky and fragile. You need time to water it, and even a single sentence can make you think "not worth it". I'm the same; I don't want to waste my time on a bad date. I would rather talk to my daughter, who never talks back (just because she doesn't have many words yet). But aren't we missing out on making new friends if we don't take the leap? Do we even need new friends past our thirties? 

I'm too busy, we often say about adult friendships; especially the new ones. I have a family, job and hobbies, the weight of responsibilities. Why would I invest my time and energy into building new relationships? Maybe it's not that we don't have time, maybe it's more that we don't want to give it time. Our priorities have changed. In my early twenties, the number of people I called my friends could have filled a small stadium; a person I had seen once was worth being called a friend. Somehow, I still managed to spend time with most of those people. When we are younger, our list of responsibilities might be shorter, but we have something that most people lose with age. An open mind. The let's go with the flow mentality. Our adventurous side. With age, most people become more set in their own ways, even rigid. We are more careful about letting people in; our close social circle seems fixed. 

What a paradox that the number one killer in the world is not heart disease or cancer but loneliness. Instead of reaching out to a (new) friend, we scroll social media and stare from our screens as strangers live their lives. When I worked as a life coach, I had a client with a terminal illness. She didn't know how much time she had left but wanted to make peace with herself. I have so much regret, she would say. She was an expat living with her partner, and her whole family was overseas. All the friends I have are his. I have nobody supporting me. I'm going to die alone.

One day, she didn't show up for the session anymore. She had left.

We often think that the life we have is set. The job, family, and our beliefs about the world. But you never know when life changes unexpectedly and turns everything on its head. The only constant in life is change. As an expat who has lived in five foreign countries, I know that nothing in life is for certain. Having to constantly adjust to a new environment and create a new circle of trusted friends has enriched my life unexpectedly. It has made me open-minded, empathetic and resilient. It has shaped my character.

When I talk to my expat friends, they all say the same - most of my friends are expats, too, not the locals. Locals already have a circle of friends; they are not interested in new connections. I used to be the same before I lived abroad. But after living in Denmark and London, I was never the same. I returned to Estonia with a new awareness that there is a whole world outside of Estonia. I was fascinated to meet people from various backgrounds and cultures. I became friends with expats living in Estonia, and my social circle expanded. If we don't open our hearts to new people, we are not only missing out on making a new connection but also broadening our horizons, adding freshness and excitement to our lives. 

I've made friends in unusual circumstances, like at a retreat where you don't lead with "What do you do for a living?" but ask them about their deepest fears, aches, and desires of the heart. People like this don't know your history, but you feel safe sharing your deepest secrets. Some connections like this blossom into lasting friendships, but some are never supposed to last longer than the weekend of shared memories. 

Then, there are friends who have built their trust capital over the years. They know the name of your first pet and your family story. Often, these are childhood friends and classmates. You might see them once in a decade, but when you sit down, it feels like time has never passed, only more wrinkles or Botox decorating the face. 

I also have people in my life who show their love through acts of service. They might not be active participants in everyday life, but I can call them when the car breaks down in the middle of the night, and they will show up. 

I have made friends on social media, some of whom I have never met. One of the most unusual ones started as a direct sales message in my inbox. 

And then there are friends that are family. I was six years old when she came into my life. We met at a sand pit, fighting over Barbie's broken head (I didn't break it; she is still convinced that I did). Our flats were opposite to each other; we sat next to each other in school, went through puberty together, survived having other friends on the side and witnessed each other's first heartbreaks. We even shared a small dormitory room at the university. We are now both living on the other side of the world, in Australia. A friendship like this is a rare blessing, a true wealth you can't buy from Amazon. It has remained a constant in my life that has never changed. I have other friends like this with whom I have walked life side by side. They are my family members. 

Still, my heart is open to new people because family is not set; it can always grow. And maybe it's also okay that not all friends will become part of the family. They can still add depth to our lives, even if it lasts just a weekend.

Tell me about your most unusual way of making a new friend. I'm curious. 

I didn’t break her Barbie’s head