The cliques formed over the years tend to fade away as we tackle what life throws at us in adulthood.

In Summary
•There are some structures in our environment that automatically push us into forming friendships.

• But our social circles and lives are constantly on the verge of gradually shrinking to do these life pressures.

Pressures of family, marriage and work tend to shatter cliques that sustained us earlier in life.

The cliques formed over the years tend to fade away as we tackle what life throws at us in adulthood.

And even as sustaining such meaningful relations is important so does creating new ones.

There are some structures in our environment that automatically push us into forming friendships but our social circles and lives are constantly on the verge of gradually shrinking to do these life pressures.

This in turn makes us lose friends and contribute less to our friendships and platonic relationships.

Here are ways to ensure we maintain our friendships in adulthood.

Proactive effort

This basically means increasing contact among your friends.

As a friend who shows proactive effort, you ensure that you are somehow in control of the relationship before it melts down.

Making proactive steps such as inviting friends for dinner after not seeing each other for a few months helps in maintaining friendships.

Intentional plans

Making plans in friendships, especially in adulthood requires intentionality.

Some people will go out of their way to meet up with friends while others will barely initiate such meetings.

The non-initiators come off the wrong way and seem uninterested.

Nonetheless, they should speak out about this trait to their friends who initiate.

Communication is key

This is actually the backbone of any kind of relationship.

Communicating and coming to an understanding with each other as friends and accommodating individual differences and personalities is the key to maintaining friendships in adulthood.

This also applies when there are issues and conflicts in the friendship.

When both parties communicate, they come to an understanding to solve arguments better.

AE News