If adult friendships feel harder than they used to, you’re not imagining it. Veronica Lichtenstein, a licensed mental health counselor, explains that friendships in college thrive on three key factors: proximity, shared life stages and available energy. “Dorm life, classes and late-night pizza runs create endless opportunities for connection. But adulthood dismantles this ecosystem,” Lichtenstein says.
Even when we want to connect, our brains work against us. “Our brains prioritize efficiency,” Lichtenstein says. “We subconsciously deprioritize friendships because our cognitive load increases in our 30s.”
The result is emotional drift. It’s a slow, subtle sense of disconnect, even among longtime friends.
“We’re all stretched, just in very different directions. That’s where emotional drift sneaks in: When life pulls us into different lanes and no one says it out loud,” says Zoe Asher, a friendship and connection coach who has shared more than 250 meals with strangers to understand how adult friendship works.
The science behind the struggle
Sometimes, friendships can feel hard to maintain, but building meaningful relationships takes more time than most people realize. Research from the University of Kansas found that it takes approximately 90 hours to move from acquaintance to friend and over 200 hours to develop a close friendship. With the busy schedules that come with adulthood, finding that much time can feel impossible.
Emotional drift often intensifies during major life transitions as our lifestyles and careers diverge from those of our friends. Asher noticed it when her friends began having children while she remained focused on building her business. But life changes aren’t the only culprit. Our communication habits have fundamentally shifted too. We spend so much time on screens, feeling connected to others without actually being connected to them.
What deep connection looks like
Kate Terentieva, an Atlanta-based creative director who developed the conversation game Off the Record, says that in her research, she found that people often didn’t know how to move past small talk to achieve a deeper connection. Instead, many adults fall into a loop of life updates and surface-level questions. Asher recommends skipping generic questions like “How’s work?” or “What have you been up to?” which she describes as “super-sized versions of ‘How are you?’”
Instead, she suggests asking questions that bring you in the present moment of who they are and where they’re at—questions like: “What’s been unexpectedly life-giving lately?” “What’s something you’ve been thinking about a lot recently?” or “What’s one thing that’s bringing you joy or just keeping you sane?”
Asher remembers fearing things would change once her friends started having kids. “And that was true. They did. But what I’ve learned is change doesn’t have to mean ending. It can mean rebirth. A new rhythm. A deeper kind of intentionality.”
She continues that the turning point for her friendships was choosing to have a hard conversation. “It felt risky to name the shift and be honest about what I was feeling. But that one conversation made space for both of us to say, ‘OK, how do we want this friendship to work now?’ And that changed everything.”
Consistency matters too. “Closeness grows through consistency,” says Aerial Cetnar, Ph.D., a licensed therapist and founder of Boulder Therapy & Wellness. “So check in often, even if it’s just a meme or a voice note. Friendship in adulthood isn’t about constant contact but about showing up when it counts.”
Terentieva never set out to become an expert on human connection. As a creative director in the advertising industry, she was simply trying to do her job: understand clients well enough to effectively sell their products.
“And in order to do that successfully, I need to understand what is the core mission, what is the vision, and you can get only so far by asking things directly about their business,” Terentieva says.
So, she began asking more probing questions. Over time, she collected hundreds of them in her phone’s Notes app. Clients began to notice that the questions weren’t just helping them understand the brand better. It was also bringing them together. She was being invited to weddings and personal celebrations.
After noticing how often her questions deepened conversations with clients, Terentieva developed Off the Record, a card game designed to help adults move past small talk and reconnect on a deeper level.
“It’s a tool that helps people create the habit of being able to start with small talk, which is where we’re all comfortable with, and then seamlessly transition into deeper conversation,” she explains. Each card contains two related questions: “The top question starts the conversation, and the bottom question is a follow-up to that same topic.”
What sets Off the Record apart is that it’s meant to be temporary. “The average player will go through about four to five cards before feeling completely comfortable to push the game entirely aside and hold a conversation on their own,” Terentieva says. “And that’s the point. I don’t want people to feel like they have to rely on Off the Record in order to feed the conversation.”
Other popular decks include We’re Not Really Strangers, The And, and Where Should We Begin? by Esther Perel. While each has a slightly different angle (emotional intimacy, storytelling, self-reflection), the goal is the same: to make the deeper conversations feel more accessible.
Rebuilding connection
Reconnection doesn’t require a dramatic reset. Often, it’s just about reaching out with clarity and intention. Lichtenstein recommends sending a low-pressure message about a shared memory without the need to overexplain the lapse in communication. Asher recommends adding a time frame: “Do you have any time for us to grab lunch or (insert activity of choice if they live locally) within the next three weeks?”
But not every friendship will return to what it once was. And that’s OK. “Don’t try to microwave closeness,” Asher says. “Reconnection doesn’t happen in a single coffee date or perfectly timed text. It’s not about a dramatic heart-to-heart. It’s about consistent, small reps that rebuild trust.”
Building and rebuilding friendships in adulthood may not be easy, but it’s worth it. Research consistently shows that strong friendships improve our quality of life and our mental and physical health. They also can reduce stress and increase longevity.
“Most friendships don’t end with a big fight,” Asher says. “They just drift when no one makes the move to adapt. But a friendship that feels distant is often just one honest conversation away from a second wind.”
Photo by Andrii Nekrasov/Shutterstock
