Is it Normal to Lose Friends as You Get Older?

3/13/12
Is it Normal to Lose Friends as You Get Older? - iVillage
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Is it Normal to Lose Friends as You Get Older?
Carol Landau, Ph.D., healthy living expert at iVillage.com, answers your questions about managing your 20s and 30s without getting depressed
CAROL LANDAU PH.D. ON MAR 12, 2012 AT 3:40PM
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Most research focuses on the positive aspects of
friendships -- how we value them and how they can
help with everything from sticking to our exercise
plans to coping with illness. Less has been written
about losing friends, but we know that it hurts to lose
a friend at any age.
Often, friendships change or disappear as we take
different paths and our circumstances change. You
are lucky to have friends left from the “friends forever”
stage of adolescence. As we age, however, we
become more selective about our friends, according
to Stanford University psychologist Laura Carstensen.
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According to her socioemotional selectivity theory,
we gather many friends during adolescence because
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3/13/12
Is it Normal to Lose Friends as You Get Older? - iVillage
we see the world as open and are future-oriented. As
we get older and our sense of time changes, we
naturally invest more time in fewer people. Of course,
sometimes friendships end because they aren t being
honored: A friend is being insensitive, inconsistent or
not listening.
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Changing friendships is one of the challenges women face in the decade after college along with moving to
a new place, looking for work and meeting new people. When these life changes don t go smoothly they
can lead to depression. Learn more about the pitfalls and read this survival guide. To ask questions or get
and lend support, visit our Depression Support message board.
FILED UNDER:
ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION, CAROL LANDAU
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Is it Normal to Lose Friends as You Get Older? - iVillage
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