It’s mostly true when they say that as a person gets older, his circle of friends get smaller. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, as people age, their priorities in life change; while young, they want to be acquainted with as many others as possible to widen their social circle. Older folks on the other hand, have their agenda aligned towards strengthening their career or settling down. They don’t make friends as often as they would when they were young.
When older, making friends also takes on a different form in the guise of networking. Networking is a dirty word because it essentially refers to creating and maintaining a professional relationship where two or more parties act as pseudo friends with the purpose of leveraging on each other to further his own benefits. And this is the second reason that while a person’s social circle can indeed grow with age, most friendships aren’t as genuine and virtuous as before.
Friends drift apart when they don’t stay in contact until it reaches a point where you don’t consider them friends any more. Friends are those who make the effort to keep in touch, find out how you’re doing, or even just meet up over a cup of coffee. The rest are just transients who gradually move on with their own lives. Some claim to have tons of friends, but how many would stand by you when you’re down at your lowest? For most, the answer can probably be counted with one hand.