What makes a great and enduring friendship
Maintaining friendship often means imagining friends taking on a bigger role in life, including buying a home with a friend or helping to raise their children, according to the author of a reporting series on friendship.
Two young friends sharing a ferris wheel ride at a carnival.
We go through our life in cohorts, made up with some of those most important people in our lives. Our friends guide us through some of the hardest moments and are often around to celebrate some of the best ones as well.
But as we age and transition into adulthood, connecting with friends can be harder, particularly for men. A new reporting series on friendship explores why our friends give us meaning, and how to maintain those relationships over the years.
“If you want to sort of fight against that placing of friendship on the sidelines, it’s something that requires a lot of effort and a lot of intentional thought and buy-in from both of the friends.” — Julie Beck, The Atlantic
Listen: How our friends guide and impact our life.
Guest
Julie Beck is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where she oversees the family section. She is also the creator of “The Friendship Files.”
Beck says people have to be intentional if they want to make and maintain friendship in adulthood.
“If you want to sort of fight against that placing of friendship on the sidelines, it’s something that requires a lot of effort and a lot of intentional thought and buy-in from both of the friends,” says Beck.
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