How to Maintain Strong Friend Groups (Part 2)

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Read time: 5 minutes

Today at a glance:

• Series: Creating stronger friend groups (Part 2)

• Topic: 4 ways to keep your friend group strong

• Devin's Finds: 📰, 📰, 🎞

• Commitments: 🤝

One week ago, I got back from a joint bachelor/bachelorette party with a friend group we’ve had for over 10 years. The trip made me reflect on the importance of these friend groups and challenges of maintaining them over the long run.

That’s why I’m writing a series on how to build stronger friend groups. In part one of the series, I discussed why friend groups often fizzle out. (check it out here in case you missed it).

To bring you up to speed, maintaining a strong friend group dynamic is tough. There are two main dynamics at play:

1. The relationship each member has with the group

2. The relationships you have with each member of the group 

The first takes place when you are all together in person, or when the group chat is buzzing. The second involves the individual relationships you have to others in the group. 

Both are easy to keep up with when the friend group forms, likely because you’re all in the same place—be it a college campus, workplace, or neighborhood. However, as people move away, enter serious relationships, and progress to new life stages, maintaining these bonds becomes much harder.

Although the group might not gather as often, it doesn’t mean you have to lose those strong relationships. It just means the ways you stay connected need to evolve with the group.

This week, I’m reflecting on some strategies our friend group used during this recent trip to strengthen our bonds both to the group and within it.

4 Ways to Keep the Friend Group Dynamic Strong

When we were at the bachelor/bachelorette party, we had about 15 of our 20 friends make it. Even that was a huge accomplishment, and it made me realize how rare it might be to get a group of ~20 people from all over the country together again in the future (outside of weddings).

As we enter our 30s, life is getting busier for everyone. People are settling down, getting married, having kids, and just don’t have as much flexibility as before.

So, I thought about how you can make a friend group still feel like a friend group, even when you see each other less frequently. This trip reminded me of four important ways to do that.

1. Maintain Smaller Group Experiences

Not everything needs to, or should, be done with the entire group. Often, people in groups feel like they aren’t allowed to do something with just part of the group—almost as if we are intentionally excluding others. But that’s usually not the case. With larger friend groups, it’s difficult or even impossible to include everyone.

During our trip, I got to go on a hike with half of our friends, surf with two people, grab meals with smaller groups of 4-5 friends, and engage in many more small group activities. The beauty of each was having different types of meaningful conversations with various subsets of our group.

These smaller experiences are great for deeper conversations that can’t happen with the entire group. It’s important to make time for these experiences during trips, but even more crucial when friends live far apart. As people move away or get busy with life, focus on getting parts of the group together to spend quality time. Don’t postpone getting together because one or two people can’t make it.

2. Create Time and Space for 1:1 Catch-Ups

Most groups lack this part, and it shows in how long they last. If the only time you’re speaking to these people is in group chats, do you genuinely know what's going on with them? You don’t have to be best friends with everyone, but it’s important to make an effort to see what’s really happening in their lives—not just the highlight reel from social media.

This is a reminder that the highlight reel or "big updates" someone shares aren’t necessarily what’s most important to them. A promotion at work might not be as exciting as the new jam band they’ve been playing in and getting a live album up on Spotify and Apple Music (check out the Sketchy Guys!).

On our trip, we did a “speed dating” event (shoutout to Amelia!). Everyone had a few minutes to catch up 1:1 with every other person in the group about anything they liked. I asked my favorite question: “What are you most excited about right now?” This was not to be confused with what OTHERS think is most exciting, which often becomes the big vacation, move, or promotion.

As I asked the question, I saw faces light up about what they were genuinely excited about. I felt closer to everyone as none of the answers could have been figured out through our group chat or the occasional Instagram post. The result was me lighting up as I learned about excitement around a NYC move, friends learning to sail, a long-distance boyfriend moving close by, the highs of wedding planning, building an innovative product, promotions, new jobs, new homes, new surfing routines, and so much more.

These catch-ups are great during gatherings, but they should also happen in between when you may not see the larger friend group as often.

3. Reflect On Happy Memories

Before the trip, one friend collected answers from everyone in the group—where they were born, how they celebrated turning 21, what’s going on in their and their families’ lives right now, moments from childhood, favorite quotes and experiences with the group, and more.

This led to one of my favorite activities from the trip: watching the bride and groom go head-to-head in a game of friend trivia.

It led to reminiscing about group stories from college and past trips, allowing us to learn about important moments in people’s past and present. This helped bring up small moments that aren’t always spoken about, making us feel closer to our friends and the group as a whole.

4. Commitment to Creating New Memories

Even if they aren’t as frequent as they used to be, it’s important to still make time to get the group or parts of it together. There are few things that can replace in-person time with your friends when it comes to deepening relationships.

For us, committing to the next big thing was easy: the bride and groom’s wedding where we’d all be together a few months later. But even after that, we’ll be thinking of ways to put events on the calendar where parts or even the whole group can get together to keep those bonds strong.

No, this doesn’t mean convincing your friend group to do a joint bachelor/bachelorette party. These are just a few of the many ways you can foster better relationships within the groups you’ve formed and want to last.

Devin's Finds:

📰 Life is Short by Paul Graham (6 minute read): This is a great, no-fluff read by Paul Graham that paints a logical yet emotional picture of how short life is and, given that, how to prioritize your time for the things that matter. If you want help with that, consider how often you ask yourself, "Is this how I want to be spending my time?" Whatever comes to mind, you should probably increase its cadence. The less you ask, the more bull$hit seeps into your life, and the less you prioritize things that actually matter—friends, family, experiences. If you have trouble figuring out what should matter more, start asking yourself whether you'll care about it in the future. You'll quickly discern if it's worth spending much (or any) of your time on.

📰 The Tail End by Tim Urban (4 minute read): I probably sound like a broken record recommending this, but this legendary article from Tim Urban rings very true. We don’t often realize how much in-person time we have left with certain people. To help you understand, once you’ve graduated high school, you’ve already spent ~93% of your life’s in-person parent time. Although not as drastic, the same goes for your friend groups. After you move from college or move cities, that time spent together decreases significantly. This means the quality time you do get to spend with them should be much more important.

🎞 A 1 minute TikTok of someone later in life reflecting on the value of spending as much time as you can with your best friend ⬇

@gramps_takes

Spend as Much Time as you can with your Best Friend.

Best of luck building,

Devin