Relationships grow strained in a bad economy, especially after you’ve been laid off and you’re now struggling in the job search, or if you’ve seen a large percentage of freelance business fall away.
These relationships right now feel like dangling from the edge of a cliff with your fingers just barely gripping on, and your friend is staring in the other direction with a talk bubble coming up out of their head asking “how come you aren’t there for me like I was for you?”
There isn’t a lot you can do about this… but definitely don’t add any emotions about it to your list of worries that you’re already having right now.
Something has to give.
If it’s between your financial security, keeping a roof over your head, and nurturing relationships… guess which one is going?
If you must offer excuses, turn down invites, or explain things to friends, be polite and keep it short.
Being on an extremely tight budget means you’re going to have to let some things go.
Things like family birthday gifts, supporting friends by showing up for their paid events and such. These must be refused kindly, or trimmed. But don’t let this suck you down into an emotional black hole.
Keeping it positive even if only to yourself means you can circle back to friendships in small ways, as your budget allows.
Good friends will understand.
Toxic friends will fall by the wayside, and that is baggage left behind that will lighten your load.
Your friends and family feel frustrated for you. They want to help and they think that something that worked for them in 2017 will work for you now.
It will not.
The way you handle your money and manage your time right now won’t make sense to everybody.
You don’t owe them a lengthy explanation. You definitely do not owe anyone an apology.
Dollars and hours remain scarce for all of us looking for jobs and paid work opportunities.
Your friends don’t know what it’s like to be juggling paid work on top of suddenly being dragged off for an unexpected interview that involves a 3-day crush of activities where a headhunter is giving you a play-by-play of things you must do immediately… that ends in a stressed out Zoom interview where you’re staring at 15 other candidates as they tell the exact career history as you, and then you don’t get the job…
… and you didn’t really want the job anyway because it only paid $24 an hour to do something that was not the least bit creative or useful to the human race.
…And when you’re done with that you must pivot right back to your writing deadline that you’re still doing for the one precious client you landed this month, and all the other details of your busy life…
…but instead you fall asleep like a dead zombie from the burst of adrenaline-pumped activity that frankly you’re just too old for.
Try not to get too over-explanatory when talking to friends who want to help.
If you network through friends, just vet people really carefully and make sure the job and the team are a good fit.
If it’s not a good fit but you take the job anyway for pay, you’ve got to keep on going behind the scenes and be ready to pivot yet again, maybe soon.
Your friends don’t really understand any of this.
So for now, just let it go.
Maybe, one day if we all survive, we’ll live to tell the same friends about the crazy experience that was job searching and freelance in 2025.
One would hope.
Sending good energy to all those searching.