Here’s a post from Eric Barker about emotionally-aware friendships, which largely draws from this book from a professor at Oxford. There are any number of good pull quotes and sequences in the book/blog post, and let me hit you with a few of them:
Our data suggest that, on average, you could expect to have one terminal (i.e. unreconciled) relationship breakdown every 2.3 years.
This would seem accurate. I don’t think friendship is static — like I don’t think if you lose one friend, you automatically gain one, or you just lose it with no gain. Oftentimes you lose 1–2 in a year, or they drift away, but in the same year you gain 7. Or you lose 5 and gain 1. Some years are like that too. In the past couple of months, I’ve lost two semi-notable ones: this kid Greg and this kid Mike, who was actually the best man in my wedding (ha, the first one). So I know a bit about it for sure. Besides management, I probably write the most on male friendships.
Now, I don’t think that pull quote is rocket science either, ya know? There are a lot of factors, including but by no means limited to:
- Marriage
- Divorce
- Move for work
- New kids
- Even newer kids
- Political split
