I'm 44 years old and thought I was done making new friends. A new friendship showed me otherwise.

• I thought I was done making friends even though I wasn't seeing my friends that much. 
• When I was 42 I met a woman through work and we became close. 
• Now I realize you can make new friends throughout your life. 

My phone buzzes, and as I click the notification, my mouth draws into a smile. The text comes with a tantalizing invitation to walk in nature and share a lunch. But it's not from a much-loved high school friend or college roommate. Miraculously, it's from a new female friend — one I have made in my 40s.

I thought my friendship circle was a finalized thing. I'm happy to report it isn't. 

Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar famously said that the number of friendships we are able to maintain at once cognitively is 150 — also known as "Dunbar's Number." 

Anyone who has ever set up a group text and tried to arrange dinner with drinks may beg to differ. The older we get and the more responsibilities we acquire, the more difficult it can be to keep on top of our relationships.  

Going out with friends became harder as we grew older

Sometime in my late 30s, trying to make my calendar match with my friends began to feel overwhelming. Social media, with its real-time life updates, gave me the illusion of having caught up with people. The steady stream of invitations was in danger of becoming something I took for granted. It took a global pandemic and multiple national lockdowns to remind me that I needed to double down in my efforts to stay connected not just online but in person.  

My core friendship circle has expanded over the years — first through college, then university, work, and marriage. But it has stayed small and, to my mind, perfectly formed. 

From "Sex and the City" to "Seinfeld" and "Friends," every TV show I had ever fallen in love with featured a small group of 30-somethings – bonded by trauma, triumphs, and coffee. Extras would drift in and out of the main characters' orbit, but the central unit stayed largely unchanged. Surrounded by the same faces from across the decades, I imagined that would be the case for me.

And then along came Emma Semper Hopkins.

We met through work

Emma's business brought us together initially. I interviewed her for a blog I was co-writing with my husband, Christian. We bonded as two women in business, but I liked her kindness best. Emma is ambitious, creative, and curious about the world — all qualities I value in other women. 

We first met in 2020. I was 42 at the time, I only knew how to be friends with someone who has known me forever. Someone who loves my terrible weakness for low-budget shark films and who knows without prompting not to add milk to my tea, ask me to bake a cake or suggest any outing before 11 am. 

I thought it would be exhausting to show a new person who I truly am or, even worse, hide all my twitching neuroses. But, as I discovered, there is a freedom that comes with being a woman in your 40s. The puzzle of who you are and what you value is more resolved. Women, at this age, don't require rescuing or validation — just connection, honesty, and openness.

We are mature enough to know that we can each have competing demands on our time without it being a death blow to the friendship. If something comes up, we simply reschedule and move on. 

She likes who I am now

In long-term friendships, you never get to outgrow the person you were when you first met. No matter how changed and together you might feel decades on, your oldest friends always remember a more broken version of you. If I am sitting drinking hot chocolate from a flask in a country park with Emma, she isn't wondering what happened to bar-hopping Michelle of years ago. It's easier to be who I am right now. 

I first realized Emma had become part of my inner circle when we started walking together. I stopped trying to perform fitness and let myself get out of breath in front of her. She brings tissues because she knows I'll forget them, talks to me about health and nutrition — then feeds me pasta and homemade cake back at her house. We believe in the higher version of each other whilst cherishing who we are today.

If my oldest friendships are home, then my 40s friendship with Emma is the garden that is beginning to flourish.