What to expect from maintaining friends as an adult?

[soos_mite_ah]

Just looking for an adultier adult to help me with this because I'm going through a transition and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate through different relationship dynamics. 

I know when you grow up and leave school that you have to be much more intentional with maintaining your old friends (and even if you're making new ones) because people are living their own lives, moving to different places, schedules don't match up etc. I also know that it's natural and healthy to grow apart and grow back together since it's important to give people space to grow. Most importantly, you need to be able to have these kinds of vulnerable conversations to plan out these relationships and talk about your needs from the connections when it comes to different transitions. 

I'm pretty comfortable with having these conversations with people I have known for years since we have gone through these kinds of phases before. But I have made a few friends in college and while I do enjoy their company and am comfortable with opening up about things, I don't know to what extent I'm planning on keeping in touch with them or to what extent they would want to either since we've known one another for a semester and a half and hung out like once a week or so. I'm definitely planning on having a conversation with them about this and I feel like I would be content with either maintaining contact or going our separate ways.

My question isn't on how to go about these conversations but I will say that I feel like I'm going into somewhat uncharted territory. I'm just wondering what has been y'alls experiences with maintaining friends as an adult, the outcome, challenges that have come up, etc. 

[Flowerfaeiry]

Let it flow. You don’t need to overthink this one. I’m overly practical when it comes to friendships and can take them or leave them for the most part (I have a few close friends). I’ve noticed a lot of people, like coworkers or classmates make empty promises like “we should hang out” etc and I mostly stay quiet during such exclamations because I know it’s often just something people say to fill space/be nice. They don’t mean anything by it it’s just how things go sometimes.

 

I have in the past straight up told a coworker that I didn’t think we would be friends once I quit that job. Her and I got somewhat close at work and went out with other coworkers and even just us two at one time. But I knew that outside of work it just wasn’t a friendship I cared to pursue. But I have also made good friends from coworkers but it wasn’t something that I thought much about. It naturally flowed.