Here’s a truth that’s going to blow your mind: We’ve all been living a lie about friendship.
I was at my Toastmasters meeting the other night when a guy came up to me and asked, “So you talk about friendship?” When I explained that yes, I talk about friendship, but I also talk about community, structural issues, and how societal messages are making connection harder than it should be, he looked genuinely surprised.
Here’s what I told him: “I don’t think I can tell you to just go out there and make friends without acknowledging that we’ve created a world where that’s actually difficult. You’re not just moving through your own internal resistance – you’re having to work against systems that make connection harder.”
And then I had this conversation with my recent podcast guest, Annmarie Beatty, that completely shifted how I see this whole thing.
The Friendship Skills We Never Actually Learned
Annmarie is a homeschooling mom in Australia, and she shared something that stopped me in my tracks. When people ask her, “But how will your kids socialize?” she literally points to her children having conversations with librarians, engaging with adults of all ages, and making authentic connections based on shared interests.
“They are actually socializing right now,” she told me. “But that’s something my children learned from me because I intentionally created community.”
Meanwhile, she’s watching families who pull their kids out of traditional school struggle because suddenly they realize: Oh wait, I as the adult have to make an effort for my children to make friends?
Let that sit with you for a minute…
We’ve been convinced that proximity equals socialization. That sitting in a classroom with 20 other kids your exact same age somehow teaches you the skills to build meaningful relationships. But here’s what’s actually happening: We’re all walking around without the intentional skills to create connection, and we’re passing this deficit on to the next generation.
The One-in-Two Reality Check
Want to know how well our proximity-based “friendship education” is working? The US Surgeon General just reminded us that over half of all adults are experiencing extreme loneliness. One in two people, Alex. In a world where we’re supposedly more “connected” than ever.
As Annmarie put it: “We’re a generation of the connected, and yet very lonely.”
This isn’t happening because people are broken or antisocial. It’s happening because we never actually learned how to be intentional about connection. We assumed it would just… happen. Like it did when we were kids (or so we thought).
What We Actually Learned in School (Spoiler: It Wasn’t Friendship)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: School doesn’t teach friendship skills. School teaches you how to exist in proximity with people who are exactly like you – same age, often same socioeconomic background, same general life stage.
“It’s quite contrived in many ways,” Annmarie explained. “If you don’t necessarily click initially, you have to create allies. The friendships at school may not be the friendships we truly would seek out if we actually had the opportunity.”
Think about it: When was the last time you had to make friends with someone significantly older or younger than you? When did you learn how to approach someone whose interests, background, or life situation was completely different from yours?
Most of us learned to make “convenience friends” – people who were simply there. And then we wonder why, as adults, we struggle to create authentic connections when we actually have choice and agency.
The Structural Reality: Why It Actually IS Harder Now
Before you start beating yourself up for not having this figured out, let me acknowledge something crucial: Making friends as an adult genuinely is more difficult than it used to be. And it’s not just you.
In the full episode, I dive deep into some of the systemic reasons behind this, but here are the big ones:
The Disappearance of Third Places: These are spaces that aren’t home or work where you can consistently see people without scheduling. Bowling alleys, community centers, neighborhood hangouts – places where you could just show up and expect to see familiar faces. Most of these have disappeared or moved online, where real connection is nearly impossible.
The Decline in Social Trust: In the early 1970s, half of people said they trusted most people as they moved through their day. By 2020? That number dropped to 33%. We’re literally walking around assuming other people don’t want to connect with us.
Physical Isolation: As Annmarie pointed out, “We’ve got these fences around our homes and our yards.” Everyone wants the big backyard with privacy. Nobody sits on their front porch anymore. We’ve designed connection out of our daily lives.
During lockdown, Annmarie’s cousin had to take down her fence for six months while it was being replaced. “She now has this amazing community in her block and area,” Annmarie told me, “because she didn’t have a fence and had no choice but to interact with these people.”
The Skills We Actually Need (And How to Start Learning Them)
So what are the actual skills of intentional friendship that nobody taught us? Based on my conversation with Annmarie, here’s what we’re missing:
Cross-Generational Connection: Homeschooled kids learn to talk to adults, elderly people, teenagers – all ages. Most of us learned to only connect with our exact peer group.
Authentic Interest: Instead of making friends based on proximity, learning to seek out people based on shared interests, values, or simple human curiosity.
Comfort with Discomfort: As Annmarie said, “Not everyone has the skill to communicate or connect.” Learning to push through the awkwardness of initial conversations.
Micro-Moment Awareness: “Those small connections, those micro moments in time, can make such a difference. A smile to someone, an acknowledgement – I see you – can go such a long way.”
The complete episode explores exactly how Annmarie has built intentional community in her life, and the specific mindset shifts that allowed her family to prioritize connection over convenience. If you’re realizing that you might have been relying on proximity instead of actual friendship skills, her perspective could completely change how you approach relationships.
The Story-Making Problem
Here’s something else we never learned: how to stop making up stories about other people.
“I call my children out on it quite a bit,” Annmarie shared. “‘Such and such said this, so they meant all of this.’ And I’m like, ‘Did they say all of that? Or are you just making that up?’”
We’ve gotten so used to creating narratives about people based on tiny interactions (or no interactions at all) that we’ve forgotten how to actually get to know someone. We see someone drive a certain car or hear them playing music too loud and decide we know exactly what kind of person they are.
But what if we approached people with curiosity instead of assumptions? What if we remembered that everyone has their own complex story?
Breaking the Cycle: Rewriting Your Own Rules
Here’s what I want you to understand: You have the power to rewrite your own rules of friendship. You don’t have to keep waiting for connection to just happen through proximity.
Some small ways to start:
- ▪️ Sit on your front porch instead of hiding in your backyard
- ▪️ Make eye contact and say hello when you’re walking through your neighborhood
- ▪️ Strike up conversations with people walking their dogs
- ▪️ Put your phone away when you’re waiting in line and actually look at the people around you
- ▪️ Ask “Can I sit with you?” at a coffee shop instead of automatically choosing an empty table
As Annmarie beautifully put it: “Maybe we could remember a little bit of our childhood and do something. It’s just the adult version of what kids do – ‘Hey, would you like to get a ball? You want to come play with me?’”
The Ripple Effect
This isn’t just about your social life. This is about the world we’re creating.
If you’re a parent, your kids are watching how you navigate relationships. They’re learning whether connection is something that just happens to you or something you actively create. They’re absorbing whether you see other people as potential threats or potential friends.
“Biologically, we need a tribe, a village, a group around us,” Annmarie reminded me. “It’s just how we thrive.”
I share so much more in the full episode about what it means to challenge these deeply ingrained patterns and start building the connection skills we never learned. Annmarie’s insights about creating intentional community – and the specific barriers that make this feel harder than it should – might be exactly what you need to hear to start rewriting your own friendship rules.
Your Turn to Rewrite the Rules
So here’s my question for you: What if you stopped waiting for friendship to happen through proximity and started being intentional about connection?
What if you recognized that the loneliness so many of us feel isn’t a personal failing – it’s a predictable result of systems that don’t support human connection?
And what if you decided that even though it’s not the norm to be intentional about friendship, you’re going to do it anyway?
The path we’re currently on isn’t working. One in two adults are lonely. But we can change this – one conversation, one connection, one rewritten rule at a time.
Ready to learn the friendship skills nobody taught you? [Listen to the complete episode here] and subscribe to Friendship IRL wherever you get your podcasts. Because the conversation about what it really takes to build authentic connection is just getting started.
