The argument in brief
- The question
- Why do relationships drift apart when we leave them alone, and what does it take to keep them?
- The claim
- Relationships, like all things, need energy to maintain them. Left untended for too long they erode, and we rarely pick them up unchanged years later. Confidence: A personal reflection, framed through a loose analogy with entropy. No studies cited.
- The evidence
- My own observation of how relationships change in mid-life, when family and career take priority.
- An analogy with entropy as the decline from order into disorder, which I use as a picture rather than as physics.
- The best counter
- Some friendships survive long gaps and pick up easily, and some drift is healthy: people change, and letting a relationship fade can be the right choice rather than a failure of effort.
- What would change my mind
- Evidence that close friendships commonly survive years of little contact unchanged, or that the effort put into maintaining them makes little difference to whether they last.
- Open gaps
- 2 gaps. Statements I haven't verified yet. Each is marked in the text.
The question: Why do relationships drift apart when we leave them alone, and what does it take to keep them?Entropy is often referred to as the gradual decline from order into disorder. We can liken it to building a sandcastle, only for time to erode it into piles of sand. Never does the wind blow sand into the shape of a sandcastle.
Not just physical things
An assumption: I’m using entropy as a loose picture, not as physics. The comparison carries the idea that things fall apart unless energy goes in; it doesn’t make relationships obey a physical law.But this erosion is everywhere. We like to think of it as only affecting our physical objects, but it affects non-physical things too. Take relationships for example. Leave them untouched, and over time they can start to erode. Lives diverge, and feelings of distance creep in.
What we fail to recognise is that it can take an enormous amount of energy to maintain these relationships. You have to make the time and be prepared to navigate the highs and the lows.
When the cracks appear
Unverified: It’s common to reach a mid point in life where your relationships take second priority to raising a family and progressing your career.Gap · needs evidence: This is from my own observation; I haven't checked it against research on how friendships change in mid-life. You can no longer spend the evenings chatting or the weekends socialising. Without realising it, years can pass. That’s when you start to notice the cracks.
This distance makes you realise you don’t know what’s going on in each other’s lives. You start to realise that other people have prioritised their own lives the same way you have prioritised yours. You feel like things aren’t as they were. Entropy has eroded the force that was binding the relationships together.
Not everyone realises this though. And our default perspective is often to lay blame on anyone but ourselves. This can result in a feeling that people are less caring and not willing to pick up the phone to chat. You don’t have the energy to take on their problems as much as they don’t have the energy to take on yours.
Where the energy comes from
To counteract this, you require energy. Much like it takes external energy to shape the sand into a sandcastle, relationships take external energy to maintain them.
So where do you get this energy from? Sometimes, it comes from our friends and our family. And in some cases, the energy should come from the very place that entropy is eroding. Without those relationships, it can be hard to find the energy you need.
A competing explanation: Some friendships survive long gaps and pick up easily. And some drift is healthy: people change, and letting a relationship fade can be the right choice rather than a failure of effort.I offer no direct solution, but I wanted to highlight that relationships, like all things in life, require energy to maintain them. We sometimes feel like we can put down friendships and pick them up unchanged years later. Unverified: This is extremely rare.Gap · needs evidence: This is my own impression; I haven't found evidence on how often friendships resume unchanged after years apart.
The only advice I can give is to spot the relationships that are headed for erosion. Be honest about whether those relationships are ones to keep hold of, and if they are, make them a priority. Schedule calls, invite them round, do what you need to keep them going.
The ah-ha moment
Today’s ah-ha moment is that entropy is everywhere. Claim, confidence:a personal reflection; no studies cited: Relationships are no exception. Leave them unmaintained for too long, and they erode away. Don’t be surprised, it’s just a law of nature.
Books behind this essay
Not sources for any claim here. These are books I have finished that shaped how I think about this question. Where I rely on evidence, it is cited in the text.
Thinking in Systems (opens audible.co.uk, external site)
Shaped how I think about things that only hold their shape while something keeps flowing into them.
Four Thousand Weeks (opens audible.co.uk, external site)
Shaped how I think about the limited time we have and choosing honestly which relationships to give it to.
Supercommunicators (opens audible.co.uk, external site)
Shaped how I think about connection as something we keep making, not something we have once.
