"It gets harder to keep friends as you get older."
I find that curious. When I was in my 20s we all bounced around, and there were no social networks, so there was no easy way to stay in touch. A lot of people were my best friends for 2 years, and then they were gone and I never heard from them again. Adults make more of an effort to hang onto their friends. My friendships have become more stable with age, and I assume this will remain true till old age starts killing them off.
That was true for me during my 30s, but people have a way of disappearing after they reproduce. I'm 45 now, and my community of friends has collapsed; people are still around, but they don't seem to do very much anymore, and it is therefore difficult to keep in touch with them, as a group.
Keeping up with a few individual friends is still possible, but it's a much lonelier existence.
I've started losing friends to marriage and children. We used to make time to visit each other at least once a year, but then they go and make finding love their #1 priority over their old friendships and disappear off this planet.
It's not impossible to schedule a visit one-on-one, but getting the whole group together for a weekend to pretend we're all still in college just doesn't happen. The peripheral friendships in that college dynamic were what made it truly special instead of merely having a collection of 5 close friends. It was those 5 close friends plus two dozen friendly hangers-on.
I find that curious. When I was in my 20s we all bounced around, and there were no social networks, so there was no easy way to stay in touch. A lot of people were my best friends for 2 years, and then they were gone and I never heard from them again. Adults make more of an effort to hang onto their friends. My friendships have become more stable with age, and I assume this will remain true till old age starts killing them off.