‘Friends’ sold us all a lie

How do you stay connected? Popular culture glorifies your twenties as the best years of your life – but glosses over how lonely they can be, writes Eliza Ketcher

Pop songs and sitcoms romanticise this time of your life as One Big Party (Warner Bros/Getty/The Independent)

Your twenties are the best years of your life. It’s a decade full of fun, friendships and no-string flings, where the hangovers are fleeting and the skin plump and peachy. Any real responsibility is a dot on the horizon, and, while you might not have everything quite figured out just yet, you have a tight-knit circle of impossibly attractive friends who’ll be there for you, even if it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or... well, you get the idea.

At least, that’s what we’ve been told. It’s a nice fantasy, but, as many of us know, your twenties don’t always quite play out like that.

While I didn’t expect to have everything figured out by now – in fact, I’d romanticised my fair share of chaotic hedonism – what I hadn’t anticipated was the pervasive loneliness that would weave through the fabric of my twentysomething years.

Popular culture is so wrapped up in the glory of this decade that it has set an impossibly high bar. Pop songs and sitcoms romanticise this time of your life as One Big Party, but gloss over the crushing isolation that many of us recognise.

I’ve probably had more ready meals in bed, scrolling through my phone, than I’ve had big nights out. Even when I’m out, I can’t suppress the feeling that there might be a more raucous party just around the corner, where everyone is living out the fantasy of their glorious twenties while I’m squandering mine.

I can’t suppress the feeling that there might be a more raucous party just around the corner (iStock/The Independent)

This goes deeper than just fomo (fear of missing out). It’s a decade of turbulence and transition, when you and your friends are accelerating at different speeds. Gone are the uni days where everyone is in the same bubble – if not physically thrown together in the same grotty houseshare, then at least emotionally in the same place and approaching the formative landmarks together.

All of a sudden you’re graduating, making promises to your group that Nothing Needs To Change and You’ll Still See Each Other All the Time. But postgrad life can stir up a surprising change in dynamic, and unless you’re incredibly lucky, you and your friends start to grow in separate directions. For the first time, you don’t have a ready-made circle of friends you can connect with every day, and maintaining your friendships takes significantly more energy than before. Suddenly, it takes four months to meet up for a roast with the people you used to see every day.

According to the Office for National Statistics, young people are three times more likely to be affected by loneliness than older age groups. It’s understandable, with professional and romantic prospects pulling people in different directions, as well as the so-called “boomerang phenomenon” forcing many twentysomethings to move back home with their parents – there are a lot of roadblocks to navigate in order for us to stay connected.

While factors like soaring energy costs and inflation hitting a 40-year high remain out of our control, we must remember what we do have at our disposal. For many of us, our twenties provide our last opportunity to be selfish, with no children to look after, babysitters to arrange, or partners to plead with over whose turn it is to stay at home with the kids. The only needs to be met are our own, and we’re free to behave like children.

Whether it’s frolicking in the dirt at a music festival with old friends, or making new ones over a shared passion for aerial hoop (I’ve done both), there are plenty of ways we can stay connected to those around us when we feel isolated.

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At the start of this year, I was lucky to stumble across a houseshare in Crouch End listed on a Facebook househunting group, and have made a number of new friends in the process. Like many others feeling the pinch of the cost of living crisis, we can’t often afford luxuries like dinners and nights out.

Instead, we invite friends round for dinner, and throw parties as often as we can without getting into too much trouble with the neighbours. It’s a fun and cost-effective way to stay connected with old friends, bring different groups together, and form new, glorious IRL connections.

Of course I succumb to occasional nostalgia for those hedonistic university days of yore, when a study session at the library turns into a bar, turns into a club, turns into chatting up the man behind the fish and chip counter at 5am, with battered sausage in hand and a bag full of overdue dissertation books.

But I also love exactly where I am now, and I cherish the friends who’ve helped me to arrive here. So while my twenties might not always be the non-stop party I was sold – is that really such a bad thing?

Our series – Generation Gap – explores how different generations stay connected. See the rest of the series here