A recent study by the American Association of Psychology (APA) published in the journal Psychology and Aging showed what many of us already suspected: over the years, the parameters of friendship change, specifically: at 30, the quality of friendships counts more than quantity.
This study found that at the age of 20 we interacted with a wide variety of people who enrich our worldview, which has a great influence on our personality and the breadth of our experiences.
- The change is that at 30 years old we are socially exhausted to entertain others and we begin to prefer more quality in our relationships.
- And to materialize the well-being of everything learned.
The two types of relationship at these two points in our lives have a long-term effect: people who have had many friends in their twenties are under 30 years old, but of better quality, and have shown better psychological health at age 50. Isn’t that simply the conclusion that we’ll have fewer friends at 30?It’s just that we have to select the ones that really bring us well-being to keep them by our side.
The importance we place on friendship remains constant throughout life, but at each stage there are different manifestations of this importance.
When we are children, we give more importance to the authority figures around us:parents and teachers. We interact with other children to gradually develop awareness of our own individuality, to apply our emotional, cognitive and social skills through play and school. .
In adolescence, the concept of friendship changed radically. At this stage it will be relations with our peers and not with figures of authority that will determine our character and our formation of the still nascent identity, the process will be more or less problematic as we can identify ourselves or not with teenagers who have an affinity with us.
In this stage, friendship is lived very intensely, which will normalize in young youth, where friendship will play a crucial role in the development of our personality, our habits and interests. Are you approaching 30 years? these relationships will be less numerous and more selective.
When we are 20 years old, our whole world is in a fuss, we are not clear about many things but we act without fear and with a spontaneity that leads us to meet many people, sadness is also lived very intensely and we are at the pole of intimacy instead of the pole of isolation, since they all seem to be very polarized in this sense.
Do we need to meet new people to feed them, without prejudice or expectation?we risk in continuous social contact with people we don’t know because we need it, we have to enjoy our freedom and see what interests us in the world.
In the study mentioned above a very curious fact appeared: if we had few friends at 20, at 50, our health could be significantly affected, living each stage with intensity and attitude is not a popular folklore.
At 20 you have to have a curious attitude, a free mind and an energy to live all the experiences that adapt to this age: going out together, making mistakes, traveling, dancing?And the more people around us, the better, to experiment, not to get rid of it without having lived.
As we get closer to 30, we start to get a little overwhelmed to meet new people all the time, to make plans with people we don’t trust much, or to go out drinking every weekend. We started looking for more calidad. de friendships, many or not. We want to continue experimenting, but with a company that makes more sense to us.
This is determined by our desires, but also by circumstances: most of our friends from the previous decade take different paths, form a family or work elsewhere, so events lead us to have a circle of friends that is usually smaller, but also larger. united and more relaxed, a group that generally has similar vital values and interests.
In this longitudinal study (over the years the same subjects were studied), it was discovered that people who had many friends and social experiences at age 30 who were not satisfactory ended up experiencing anxiety and boredom, which was reflected at age 50. . people, for they seemed more unhappy than those who had lived this stage of life in a more intimate and quiet way.