Friendship Skills Aren’t Just for Kids: The Adult Need for Connection & Repair
By Emily MacNiven, LPC, Founder of The Red Door Therapy & Wellness Solutions
This isn’t a blog about being more social. It’s a reflection for anyone who’s felt the ache of loneliness in a room full of people, who’s struggled to make or maintain adult friendships, or who longs for deeper connection but doesn’t know where to start.
At The Red Door, we believe that friendship is not a bonus in adulthood—it’s a core part of our emotional health. And many of us were never taught how to do it well, especially when our early experiences were shaped by exclusion, inconsistency, or emotional labor.
• 🌀 Discover why adult friendship feels harder than it should—and what’s underneath that
• 🌱 Grow by exploring the repairable nature of connection and what real friendship can look like
• 🔗 Integrate with a reflection on how you show up in friendships and what kind of connection you’re ready for
Read this if…
You feel disconnected, even when you’re around people.
You’ve outgrown old friendships but don’t know how to build new ones.
You want closeness, but your life feels too full—or too guarded.
You’re good at being “the helper,” but struggle to receive support.
🌀 Why Adult Friendship Feels So Hard (and Lonely)
You’ve spent years being the friend others count on — but who holds space for you?
Many high-achieving, emotionally intelligent adults struggle with friendship because the skills we teach kids—sharing, apologizing, taking turns—are rarely revisited in adulthood. And while your life may be full of relationships, very few of them may feel mutual, honest, or safe.
Often, you’re the one who listens. The one who remembers birthdays. The one who makes the plans. And slowly, that kind of one-sided investment begins to hurt.
The truth is: you were never meant to carry connection alone.
And yet, most of us were never taught how to build reciprocal relationships as adults. If your early experiences were shaped by exclusion, inconsistency, or emotional labor, friendship likely became about proving your worth or minimizing your needs—not being fully seen.
Friendship isn’t supposed to feel like another job. It’s supposed to help you exhale.
But for many, friendship has become a posture of holding—like tensing your shoulders without realizing it. You're emotionally bracing all the time, trying to stay attuned to others while ignoring your own ache. Your nervous system holds onto every dropped thread, every unanswered message, every moment you stayed silent to avoid discomfort. It's not just emotional. It's physical. And it’s heavy.
Real friendship—friendship that’s mutual, steady, and safe—offers your body a chance to unclench.
But when you’ve experienced inconsistency, rejection, or loss in close relationships, your body learns to protect itself. You might:
Say “I’m fine” even when you’re not
Keep things surface-level to avoid disappointment
Feel like you have to prove your worth to be included
These are survival strategies—not flaws. But they can quietly starve us of the nourishment we need most: real friendship. The kind built on presence, trust, and reciprocity.
Do you find yourself constantly “checking in” on others but rarely feel checked on?
Do you say yes to coffee or texts but leave feeling more drained than filled?
Have you grown past relationships that don’t nourish you—but don’t know what would?
If so, you’re not alone.
Many high-achieving, emotionally intelligent adults struggle with friendship because the skills we teach kids—sharing, apologizing, taking turns—are rarely revisited in adulthood. And while your life may be full of relationships, very few of them may feel mutual, honest, or safe.
Often, you’re the one who listens. The one who remembers birthdays. The one who makes the plans. And slowly, that kind of one-sided investment begins to hurt.
The truth is: you were never meant to carry connection alone.
Friendship isn’t supposed to feel like another job. It’s supposed to help you exhale.
But when you’ve experienced inconsistency, rejection, or loss in close relationships, your body learns to protect itself. You might:
Say “I’m fine” even when you’re not
Keep things surface-level to avoid disappointment
Feel like you have to prove your worth to be included
These are survival strategies, not flaws. But they can quietly starve us of the nourishment we need most: real friendship. The kind built on presence, trust, and reciprocity.
🌱 What Friendship Repair Looks Like in Adulthood
Repairing your relationship to friendship doesn’t mean having dozens of people on speed dial. It means learning how to:
Let yourself be seen (without the pressure to perform)
Ask for support without apologizing
Say no without guilt
Build connections that feel mutual, not managed
We don’t offer a group specifically for building adult friendships—but many of our clients find that friendship repair happens quietly through the rhythm of our support groups. Week after week, they get to practice being in connection without performance. They learn what it feels like to be accepted without managing others, to show up without fixing, to listen and be listened to. That’s where the groundwork for real friendship begins.
At The Red Door, our adult support groups are designed with this in mind. They’re not just spaces to talk—they’re spaces to practice new ways of connecting:
Showing up without being “on”
Sitting with silence or depth, without rushing to fix
Exploring how it feels to be received, rather than responsible
Your nervous system wasn’t meant to carry connection alone. Group work helps you remember how to be received. It lets your body begin to unlearn hypervigilance and soften into trust.
It’s like moving from walking on eggshells to walking on soft grass—you don’t have to brace for each step. The nervous system recognizes the difference, and with each repeated experience of safety, your shoulders lower, your breath deepens, and connection starts to feel like a place to rest—not another role to perform.
This is the slow, quiet work of relational safety.
You don’t need to be good at friendship to begin rebuilding it. You just need a place where connection feels safe enough to try.
🔗 A Small Step You Can Try Today
Try this reflection:
Think about a moment when a friendship felt nourishing. What made it feel that way?
When have you felt like you had to work too hard to keep a connection alive?
What do you long for in your friendships now—mutuality, depth, ease, playfulness?
Then ask:
What’s one small way I could open the door to that kind of connection this week?
Maybe it’s asking for a walk instead of texting. Maybe it’s being honest when you say, “I miss you.” Maybe it’s noticing how your body feels after you spend time with someone—and letting that matter.
Adult friendship doesn’t have to be perfect. But it does need to be real.
At The Red Door, our support groups give you a space to explore connection without performance—so you can begin to repair what’s been missing, and rebuild what you deserve.
We’d love to welcome you into that kind of space—one where you don’t have to earn your way into belonging.
We don’t offer a group specifically for building adult friendships—but many of our clients find that through support groups, they begin to feel safe enough to connect with others in new ways. They start to notice what real connection feels like in their body—low-pressure, consistent, mutual. That’s the groundwork for adult friendship. That’s what gets practiced in our groups.
We’d love to welcome you into that kind of space—one where you don’t have to earn your way into belonging.
Join a Therapy Group for deeper, sustained relational healing.
Try a Support Group to test the waters with others who get it.