Friendship Admin Is Ruining My Life

This is the thing about friendship in midlife.

It’s not that you don’t have friends.

It’s that having friends now involves admin. Actual admin. The sort of admin that used to be reserved for renewing your car tax or chasing a refund from British Gas.

Because when you’re younger, friendship is basically… proximity and chips.

You’re just… around people. Constantly. There’s always someone. Someone’s always doing something. You can fall into a friendship simply by standing near someone long enough in a pub queue.

Now?

Now it’s like trying to see a friend requires:

• three diary checks

• two childcare arrangements

• someone’s mum being “a bit poorly”

• and a lunar eclipse

  
  

And you still end up meeting in a car park outside Costa because it’s “halfway”.

Halfway where, Susan? Halfway between your house and my will to live?

The Group Chat: a modern horror

Let’s start with the group chat.

The group chat is where friendships go to become a full-time position.

You join one thinking: Oh lovely. A little social connection. A few laughs. A bit of banter.

Cut to you two days later, staring at 186 unread messages, and they’re all:

• “What time are we thinking?”

• “I’m easy.”

• “Same.”

• “Whatever suits.”

• “I can’t do Tuesdays.”

• “Actually I can do Tuesdays.”

• “Oh no, I can’t do Tuesdays now.”

• 
  

And someone has sent a GIF of a dancing llama for reasons unknown.

There’s always one person in the chat who replies instantly to everything, like they’ve been waiting in a chair.

And there’s always one who pops up once every 11 working days with: “Omg babe only just seen this 😘” which is code for “I muted you all in 2022.”

I used to think I wanted more friends. Now I think I want fewer chats.

“We MUST catch up!” (translation: we will not)

Midlife is full of women saying “We must catch up!” in the same tone you say “We must get a new boiler.”

It’s not a plan. It’s a concept. You bump into someone in Tesco, you do that midlife ritual where you both clutch your baskets and say:

“We need to have a proper catch-up!”

And you mean it… in a vague spiritual way.

Then you both go home and immediately forget each other exist until you bump into each other again near the reduced sandwiches in six months. That’s not even unfriendly. That’s just… life.

You don’t lose friends. You lose the infrastructure

This is what nobody tells you.

Most friendships don’t end with a dramatic row where you throw a drink in their face.

They end with:

• “Sorry, I can’t do that date now”

• “No worries!”

• “How about next month?”

• “Yes!”

• and then… silence like the Marie Celeste

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No one’s done anything wrong. It’s just that midlife comes with a lot of things. Work. Kids. Parents. Partners. Hormones. Exhaustion. Your back suddenly being “a bit funny”. And the friendships that survive are the ones that can handle gaps. Because honestly, if a friendship can’t survive a three-week delay in replying, it’s not a friendship.

It’s a hostage situation.

The type of friend you can’t be bothered with anymore

Midlife also makes you much clearer on the friendships you don’t want.

The ones that require:

• a performance

• constant reassurance

• and a “quick call” that lasts 93 minutes and ends with you needing a lie down and two Rennies

Or the friend who is always “so busy” — and you believe them, because their phone never stops going off, even while you’re speaking. You’ll be talking about something genuinely meaningful and they’ll be nodding like one of those dashboard dogs while texting someone called “Stacey Pilates”. You leave thinking: Well. That was lovely. I think. I’m not sure if we talked or if I was background noise while they ran a small business. Being included is nice. Being seen is nicer.

The midlife discovery we’re all pretending we haven’t made

And then comes the discovery that feels illegal to admit:

You quite like being at home.

Not in a sad way. Not in a “I’ve given up” way.

In a “my sofa supports my lower back and nobody asks me questions” way.

You start cancelling plans because:

• your dog looks settled

• your bra is already off

• and you’ve started a programme and you’re “invested now”

And you tell yourself you’ll go next time. And sometimes you do. And — annoyingly — you enjoy it. That’s the worst bit. Because then you can’t even be smug about staying in. You have to admit: sometimes going out is lovely. But not always. And not often. And not on a Tuesday.

A better question than “how many friends have you got?”

So instead of “how many friends have you got”, I think the real midlife question is:

How many friendships do you have that don’t feel like homework?

The ones that don’t need constant maintenance. The ones where you can pick up like no time has passed. The ones where you can say “I can’t talk right now, my brain is tired” and they don’t take it personally. Those friendships are the midlife jackpot.

Because at this age, you don’t need:

• a bigger circle

• a fuller diary

• a friend who expects you to be emotionally available like a customer service line

  
  

You need a few people who feel like a cup of tea. And if your friendship life is small, layered, quiet, a bit “we’ll catch up soon”…

That doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

It just means you’ve stopped confusing busy with close.

And honestly?

That feels like progress.