Who Gets a Seat at Your Table Now? Living With a Smaller Social Circle

My mother had a way of handing you a seat before you even realized you were looking for one, and I’ve been thinking about that gift a great deal lately, because so many of us are living with a smaller social circle than we ever pictured and nobody told us how we’re supposed to feel about it.

Last week I wrote about a house that can be full of everyone who isn’t in it anymore, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the other half of that idea, which is the question of who gets to be in it now.

This week’s post comes with a video too — because some things are easier to say out loud.

What My Mother Knew About Tables

Mom was one of those people you couldn’t help but be drawn to. She made you feel relaxed and safe, as if you were in on a secret, she delighted in anything punny, and I can’t remember her ever making a person feel they had to earn their place. What I remember is how it felt to be near her, which was a bit like being handed a seat before you realized you were looking for one. That was her gift.

I think it’s the same instinct that had me stocking up on goodies the weekend our family came to visit, sure that someone would want one specific thing. I wanted everyone who walked through the door to find something waiting for them, the family from right here in town and the family who traveled in, and for a few days the table was full in every sense of the word. Then the weekend ended, and I started to wonder about the table the rest of the year. If you read the post from a couple of weeks ago about feeling full and empty at the same time, you already know what that house sounded like afterward.

Living With a Smaller Social Circle (It Isn’t a Verdict)

The tables we live with day to day change, and they change without asking our permission. The kids grow up and build tables of their own. The job that used to hand us a whole cast of people every morning ends, or we move on from it, and the cast stays behind. A friend who used to call every week got busy, and then got busier, and now it has been a couple of years and nobody did anything wrong. I’ve seen this in my practice and in our community, and sometimes the person who used to sit across from you is simply gone.

If your phone rarely rings these days, or your calendar has more empty squares than you ever expected, I want you to hear that nothing is wrong with you. A table gets smaller for the same reason a house grows an echo, and the fact that you feel it means you have a great deal of love looking for somewhere to go. You may know the kind of morning I mean, when you notice you’ve gone the whole day without saying a word to anyone except the cashier and the house feels like it’s waiting for something. That doesn’t mean you’re unlovable, or that you did something wrong, or that you’re the only one it’s happening to. It means the people who used to arrive by default have stopped arriving, and the work of choosing who comes next has landed on you without so much as a warning.

What the Research Says About a Smaller Table

There’s a body of research I find oddly comforting here. Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen developed what’s known as socioemotional selectivity theory, which holds that as we become more aware of how much time we have, we put our energy into the relationships that matter most and let the peripheral ones fall away. In one study published in Psychology and Aging, more older adults than younger adults said they were satisfied with the size of their social networks rather than wishing for bigger ones, and that held across three groups of people studied over four decades. A separate study of people aged 18 to 94 found that older participants reported just as many emotionally close people as younger ones, with fewer acquaintances at the edges.

I don’t share that to tell you the ache isn’t real, because it is, and if you want more people at your table, that is a perfectly good thing to want. I share it because it suggests that a table shrinking at the edges is not proof that something has gone wrong at the center. For a lot of us, the seats that fall away are the ones that were only ever there because of a job, a school pickup line or a neighborhood, and the seats that remain are the ones that were chosen.

If you’re not sure whether what you’re feeling is a rough week or something older and bigger, our free reflection Where Are You In Your Becoming? is a good place to land. It’s eight questions, it takes about two minutes, there are no wrong answers, and it points you toward a few things worth reading next. You don’t have to have it figured out to belong here.

A Circle With No Head and No Foot

When I made the ornaments from my mother’s wedding dress, I knotted clusters of five organza strips between two pieces of taffeta, one knot for each of my siblings and me. What I loved about that design, and only really noticed afterward, is that a circle has no head and no foot. Nobody sits at the end, nobody gets the better chair, and nobody is closer to the center than anybody else. There’s a photo of the five of us standing in a circle, and when I look at it now I don’t find myself counting who’s missing, because what I notice is who showed up.

Some of those ornaments went home with my brothers and sisters, some went to our children, and I made sure the very first one stayed with me. I never planned it this way, but that means the circle I made for the five of us has more people in it today than it did when I started. A table, it turns out, can get bigger as well as smaller, and it doesn’t always do either on our schedule.

What Makes a Table Full

That taught me something about tables that I’d love to hand to you. A table doesn’t have to be big to be full, and it doesn’t have to be long. A table is full when the people at it feel what my mother gave to everyone she met, which was a sense of being relaxed, safe and a little bit in on a secret.

A table doesn’t have to be big to be full.

Three Chairs Worth Noticing

Here are the questions I’ve been asking myself, and you don’t have to answer them out loud, though who would know? They come down to three chairs, and you may recognize one of them.

The first is the chair you stopped setting because life got busy. Maybe it belonged to a friend who used to call every week, or a neighbor you used to wave to over the fence, or someone from a job you left. Ask yourself whether you miss them, because sometimes the answer is a surprising yes, and a yes is worth knowing even if you never do a single thing about it.

The second is the chair that’s filled out of habit or obligation, or simply because that person has always sat there. Ask whether that seat actually feeds you. I’m not suggesting you clear anyone out. I’m suggesting that a chair can be occupied and still leave you hungry, and that noticing the difference is useful information about your own life.

The third is the chair you would save for someone if you let yourself, even if it’s someone you haven’t met yet. That one tends to be the hardest to admit to, partly because it feels presumptuous to set a place for a person who hasn’t arrived. I’ve come to think it’s one of the bravest things a table can do.

You Are Allowed to Change Your Seating Chart

I want to be clear about one thing, because I think we’re taught to feel guilty here. You are allowed to change your seating chart. A role that ended doesn’t owe you a friendship, and you don’t owe a seat to a role that ended, and a person who drifted is not a verdict on you. At the same time, a smaller table is not a failure and it is certainly not the final word, because it’s only where you are right now, and where you are is a perfectly good place to start from.

What I’d love for you to take from today is something smaller than a plan. The next time you set out a plate or sit down at your own table, just notice who you’re setting it for and who you wish were there, because that noticing is where every full table begins. Over the next few weeks we’re going to keep pulling up chairs together, and next week in particular I want to talk about the awkward, brave and occasionally funny business of finding new people when life has stopped handing them to us. If you’ve been waiting for permission to even start imagining it, this post about giving yourself permission to start over is a good companion, and if it’s friendships that drifted that you’re thinking about, this one on the friendships that survive a life overhaul and the ones that don’t might feel like company.

And if you’d like a seat among women who understand all of this, there’s one waiting for you in The Thrive Hive, our free Facebook group, where we’re very good at pulling up chairs and very bad at agreeing on who gets the good one. I’d love to hear from you in the comments too. Who is the one person you would save a seat for, and what is it about them that makes you want to?

Questions That Come Up When the Table Gets Smaller

Is it normal to have a smaller social circle after 50?

Yes. Social networks commonly narrow with age, mostly at the edges, as acquaintances connected to work, school or a neighborhood fall away. Research on socioemotional selectivity suggests many people stay satisfied with a smaller circle because the relationships that remain tend to be the closest ones.

Why do friendships fade as we get older?

Often it’s because the thing that held them together changed. A job ended, the kids grew up, someone moved, or life simply got busier, and with no daily reason to connect, the friendship slowly lost its footing. In most cases nobody did anything wrong.

Does a smaller social circle mean I’m lonely?

Not necessarily. A smaller circle describes how many people you have, while loneliness describes how connected you feel, and the two don’t always travel together. If the loneliness is persistent or heavy, though, it’s worth talking with a counselor or your doctor, and there’s no shame in wanting more connection.

Is it okay to let go of a friendship that ended with a role?

Yes. A role that ended doesn’t owe you a friendship, and you don’t owe a seat to a role that ended. You can feel fond of someone and still recognize that the connection was built on a shared circumstance that’s gone.

How do I know who deserves a seat at my table now?

Notice who leaves you feeling relaxed, safe and a little bit in on the secret. Those who make you feel you have to earn your place may deserve a smaller seat, and those who hand you a chair before you knew you needed one are worth keeping close.

What if I want more people at my table?

That’s a completely reasonable thing to want, and it isn’t too late. Next week’s post is all about finding new people when life stops handing them to you, and The Thrive Hive is a free place to start.