Where did they all go? Why women are losing friends

Women are finding it harder to hold on to close friendships as careers, children, relationships, and caregiving consume the time and emotional energy that friendships once relied on.

It has been dubbed the female friendship recession.

It’s not a recognised clinical term, but, said psychologist Elize Thesner, it describes a very real experience beyond online catchphrases and does not mean women have simply become worse at friendship.

Life just happens, a lot.

“Women are often navigating multiple and demanding roles, as partners, mothers, caregivers and professionals. All this while facing heightened expectations to perform each role exceptionally well,” Thesner said.

“The cumulative demands on their time, energy, and emotional capacity can leave little psychological space for the vulnerability, consistency, and emotional availability that meaningful friendships require.”

Pretoria mom and communication professional Marilize Jacobs said South African women are living in this squeeze.

The problem, she said, is not simply poor diary management. Social conditions that once allowed friendships to happen incidentally have changed, leaving women slotting in friends between commitments.

“I do not think we have a time management problem. I think we have a friendship infrastructure problem, and that is actually good news, because infrastructure can be built,” Jacobs said.

“Most catch-ups turn into admin with an hour spent trading updates instead of actually talking.”

‘It’s not a time management problem’

Long working hours and family responsibilities compete with traffic, distance, and security concerns. The days when a friend could arrive, stay for dinner or spend an afternoon running errands have pretty much disappeared.

Thesner said safety added another obstacle, particularly when women were reluctant to drive alone at night to see friends.

Life stages can also accelerate the separation between female friends. Motherhood can change priorities and availability, while women without children may feel excluded when friendships become centred on parenting.

Relationships can absorb time previously spent with friends, while divorce, bereavement and being single among couples can alter social dynamics.

“Midlife can also change how women view relationships,” Thesner said. “There is often greater emphasis on authenticity, emotional depth and reciprocity, with less willingness to maintain relationships that feel one-sided or emotionally draining.”

Technology has made staying in contact easier, but contact is not necessarily intimacy. A stream of WhatsApp messages, likes and comments can maintain awareness of someone’s life without creating the emotional closeness that comes from being heard, trusted and supported.

“You can be digitally connected to many people while psychologically disconnected from almost everyone,” Thesner said. “Someone may appear to be surrounded by hundreds of connections online and appear to be widely valued or ‘loved’, while internally experiencing profound isolation.”

Women can have partners, children, colleagues and busy social lives and still experience a lack of meaningful connection.

“Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Being alone can be a choice; loneliness is an emotional experience,” Thesner said.

Fewer meaningful relationships could contribute to emotional isolation, stress, and rumination, while some people respond by becoming more self-reliant because depending on others feels unsafe or pointless, she said.

A lack of meaningful connection

Losing a female friendship can also carry a grief that society does not always recognise in the same way as it sees divorce or romantic separation.

A friendship can contain years of shared history, private knowledge, companionship and emotional safety, and its disappearance means losing far more than somebody to have coffee with.

“The absence of explanation or closure can make the loss particularly difficult, especially when the significance of the relationship is minimised,” Thesner said. “The attachment, love, care and sense of belonging have been disrupted, and the grief that follows is therefore very real.”

Jacobs said the answer may lie in deliberately rebuilding the structures that modern life has stripped away, whether that means standing lunches, protected time or choosing to show up rather than waiting for spontaneity to return.

Thesner added that damaged friendships could be repaired when both women wanted it.

“Rebuilding requires vulnerability, reciprocity, intentionality, consistency, trust, determination, and a willingness to keep showing up.”