I’ve been home since May, which means I’ve been out of college for almost six months now. That’s wild to say out loud. What’s wilder is that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually seen my college friends since graduation.
Not because we had some falling out. Not because anyone did anything wrong. Just because I spent my entire summer applying to jobs and apparently forgot that friendships require, like, effort.
For four years, my best friends lived down the hall. We’d spontaneously decide to get dinner at 9pm. Someone would knock on my door to complain about a professor or show me a TikTok or just exist in the same space while we both doom-scrolled. It was easy. Embarrassingly easy, honestly.
Then I moved home and suddenly every interaction required planning. “We should FaceTime soon!” became code for “I’ll text you in three weeks.” The group chat would go silent for days, then someone would send a meme, we’d all react to it, and that would be it. Friendship maintained, I guess?
I was too busy to notice at first. My summer was just an endless cycle of refreshing LinkedIn, editing cover letters, and wondering if I’d permanently ruined my future by not having a job lined up before graduation. Every rejection email felt catastrophic. Every day without an interview felt like proof I’d made some fundamental error.
When I finally got a job offer in August, I called my parents immediately. I texted my brother. I updated my LinkedIn. And then, like six hours later, I remembered I hadn’t told my college roommate. My roommate of three years. One of my favorite humans on the planet. It just… slipped my mind.
That’s when I realized I’d kind of let everything slip.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. Everyone I know is struggling with the same thing—trying to figure out how to maintain college friendships when you’re all scattered and exhausted and trying to convince employers that you’re a “self-starter with strong communication skills.” Adult friendship requires a level of intentionality that no one really warns you about.
The good news is I know my friendships are strong. We have years of history. We’ve seen each other at our worst—and I mean truly unhinged levels of stressed and sleep-deprived. A few months of sparse communication isn’t going to undo that.
But also, I’m not sure optimism is enough? Like, yes, I believe we’ll stay friends. I believe we’ll figure out how to make this work. But believing something and actually doing it are different things, and I’m still figuring out how to do the second part.
We have plans to meet up next month. There’s a Google Doc. There are way too many messages about restaurant options. It’ll be good. I know it’ll be good.
I just wish it didn’t take a calendar invite to see the people I used to see every single day.