Do we need therapists because we have no friends?

When I moved to Melbourne some five years ago, I had no friends here. Not one person that I could go, hey want to catch a movie? I did have some family, but I had no people in my own life arena.

My quest to make a friend

Now, I had work. So, you’d think I’d just miraculously make loads of friends in the office – wrong. I had acquaintances, but my work was field based, I never really saw my office peeps enough to see if there was someone in the same life arena that I could click with.

I was looking for one friend y’know, a quality friend that I could talk to about life, the good and the sad. Someone within my local proximity. I have friends scattered in places, but those places weren’t Melbourne.

I’m fairly extroverted, and this isolation was making me sad and chubby (if I’m being honest). So I joined some meetup groups to expand my social circle. I met great people at events, but no real ongoing connections.

I joined a basketball team, but they weren’t very social. They came to play and go home, I couldn’t even get a group chat going.

For nearly a year, I went to work, went to meetups and played basketball… and never made a good friend. Acquaintances, yes, people I’d see at the meetups again. But did I have a friend that I could call and go hey, let’s coffee catch up – no, I did not.

I was an extremely sad time. I felt deeply lonely and isolated.

Making new friends as an adult is difficult for some. It might not be for everyone, but I know I’m not alone in this. Just yesterday, a Facebook post popped up in a group, from a woman aged 23 saying she was “lonely” and “desperately in need of friends to hang out with”. There were 20+ replies of people echoing her sentiments.

Making my first new friend

I remember when connection with Elle* became an actual friendship I was DELIGHTED. I had a friend, a real friend I could talk to, and see in person, outside of my work and family life. A friend who I could learn from and share my stories with. My world brightened up a whole lot.

We need friends not therapists .. maybe?

I was thinking about how common it is now for people to go to therapy or see a psychologist. Could it be because we have less friends we can seek counsel, wisdom and care from?

Friendships help us mediate some of life’s more complex moments. There is of course, always the option for therapy, heck sometimes it should be mandatory. But, are we swinging into therapy settings more often, because we lack social support?

Great therapists make us feel heard, validated and listened to. They provide safe harbour to share what we’re really thinking. If we say something distasteful we know we won’t face instant rejection. We confide in them with the knowing that they will consider us as a whole person, both flawed and feature rich.

Shouldn’t we have a few people in our lives for which that is the case outside of therapy?

If we did, would we feel a little better? If we spent more time with people who really knew us, would that make our hearts and minds a little warmer?

I’ll always advocate for therapy, gaining an emotional self education and unpacking the most problematic features of your life can be necessary for survival. My case here is that social support makes a big difference. You can go to therapy for a year, and if at the end you don’t have someone you could call a friend, your complexities or feelings of loneliness or isolation might reappear.

It used to be simpler back in the day. Back when communities came together on a Sunday for church. Religion aside, communities connected. Back when people didn’t leave their hometown, so your friends from school carried through life. Back when we had children much younger, and in doing so found friendship in the social circles of school runs and play dates.

The way we live has changed. How we communicate has changed and it’s influenced how we build a network of meaningful connections.

So, what does it take to go from a connection to a friend? What’s the anatomy of a friendship?