Remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? The ones where you’d read several pages, then you got to decide: turn to page 42 if you open the mysterious door, or turn to page 67 if you take a sharp left and run as fast as you can.
I enjoyed those books, not because of how well written they were or the exciting plot — half of them didn’t have one — but because I loved the feeling I had making my own choice. There was no single way, but many versions of an ending, and I got to choose.
I think friendships should work the same way. Where we get to choose. Not necessarily the outcome, but the direction a friendship may take. Somewhere along the way, we seemed to have developed a narrow view about what adult friendships are supposed to look like. Coffee once a month to “catch up”. A Wednesday morning walk and talk. A group text sent, “sorry, I can’t make book group this month.” An annual birthday text with three exclamation points and a “let’s get together soon”. Not because we don’t love these people, but because we’ve quietly and unconsciously agreed this is what grown-up friendship is now. Low-maintenance. Low-time commitment, and often squeezed into the margins of our lives.
I want to suggest something else. For many of us, several friendships have shifted–people moving away, drifting away, or sadly passing away. At this time in life, people, including myself, are seeking not necessarily more people in our lives, but friendships that are different and more meaningful.
Why We Stopped Choosing Our Own Friendship Adventures
Somewhere between raising kids, our careers, and getting through our forties and fifties–oh and let’s not forget the pandemic, many of us let life define our friendships for us. We defaulted to versions that required little explanation, deep conversations, and minimal time physically present with someone.
I am NOT saying that low-key friendships are wrong. Some relationships are genuinely easy, casual and an occasional connection is fine.
This Isn’t That Kind of Friendship
I have a few friendships now that I’d like to choose my own “plot twist” and change them up. Create time for a deeper conversation, and more spontaneous fun. Sharing an adventure, even a small one, scheduling longer conversations, and spending more quality time in the presence of that person.
If you’re going to choose an adventure with me, these friendships may have have interesting plot twists.
Turn to page 12 if you’re up for spontaneous road trips (or daytime adventures) with surprising food choices and a playlist that suits the mood at that moment. Maybe we go somewhere we’ve never been and do something we’ve never done.
Turn to page 47 if you’d rather sit in comfortable silence, two books open, occasionally reading a good line out loud because it deserves company. Or we sit and write our quietly across the table, breaking the quiet to share the chapter we just finished.
Turn to page 64 if you need a retreat at a spa for several days maximum rest, self-care, and long conversations throughout the day and into the night about the joys and what worries us most at this time in life.
Turn to page 83 if you want the 4pm phone call — the “I just need to say this out loud to someone who won’t flinch and who listens” kind of call.
Here’s the thing when we get to choose-our-own-adventure books — we can’t get it wrong.
Every path loops back to the same ending:
We show up.
We feel more closely connected when we’re together. Maybe I laugh loud–yea probably too loud. Or I cry, sometimes those silent tears when you share something tender.
We ask the real questions instead of the easy ones. We remember what the answer was and that it mattered.
The good news?
We get to rewrite our story. At any age and at any point in the friendship.
How to Choose Your Own Friendship Adventure
If this makes sense to you, and if you’re thinking, yes, I want more of this in my life — here are a few ways to rewrite your friendships adventures.
Name the adventure you actually want. Before you can invite someone into a different kind of friendship, you have to know what you’re inviting them into. Do you want more depth, more spontaneity, or more shared adventures? There’s no wrong answer, but there is a your answer, and it’s worth getting specific about it.
Skip the vague invitation. “We should get together sometime” is the friendship equivalent of a book that never gets past the front cover. Nothing happens. Nobody turns the page. Instead, try something with an actual choice embedded in it: “Turn to page 12 if you want to explore that new hiking trail with me Saturday. Turn to page 47 if you’d rather just sit in my patio with wine and share in conversation.” Give them a couple options, not a foggy suggestion.
Let the friendship be genre-fluid. Maybe this particular friend is your comedy chapter — the one who makes you laugh so hard you cry. Maybe another is your quiet drama chapter— the one you call when things are falling apart. Or another is your adventure chapter–the one you escape with. You don’t need every friendship to do everything. Let each one be the genre it’s actually best at, and don’t expect one person to be your entire bookshelf.
Reread a “favorite book” with new eyes. Sometimes the adventure isn’t finding a new friend — it’s an old friendship you’ve let go flat. Reach out and suggest more. “I miss the version of us that used to talk for hours. Can we get back to that?” is a completely legitimate thing to say in a 50-year-old friendship. Nobody outgrows the right to ask.
Be willing to be the one who initiates. Somebody has to turn to page one. It might as well be you. The vulnerable, slightly terrifying truth about choose-your-own-adventure friendship is that you have to offer the first choice— instead of waiting for someone to intuit that you’re available for more than small talk.
No matter which page someone chooses with me — the road trip, a quiet afternoon on the patio, the late afternoon phone call — the ending is the same. I show up. Fully, imperfectly, honestly. I believe that’s the secret of the choose-your-own-adventure idea: the path can be different, but the loving intention underneath is real.
I invite you to be the friend who contacts someone today with a real invitation rather than a vague “let’s catch up.” Reopen a book you haven’t opened for a long while and ask for something more than chit-chat. The story may have a better ending and be more fun.
