30 things to know before you turn 30 The friendship edition

Every buddy wins with this masterlist

- Urvee Modwel [e-mail]

Look out! Incoming friendship advice. Lots of it. Because friendship, like so much else, seems effortless when you're young, but becomes a complicated beast as you get older. What happens to 3am friends when one buddy has a baby, and the other needs a pep-talk for the next day's hustle? Do old friends hold you back or push you forward? Is it worth holding on to that one guy from school who tells the same campus joke 15 years later?

These are unprecedented times – Sex And The City started off with four friends. The sequel, And Just Like That, ended with three. Even TV friends struggle to hold on to each other. Don't let that be your story. We asked 30 people — from artists to entrepreneurs, from parents to philosophers — to share their hard-won wisdom about navigating friendship after they turned 30.

Here's what they had to say.

Varun Agrawal, 31, lifestyle and luxury Influencer. Friendship's a barter, but it's not an equal exchange every time. You've got to bring time, honesty, vulnerability and the occasional "What a shit world" rant to the table. Give well, and it will come back to steady you in the lows and lift you in the highs.

Arjun Sawhney, 54, founder-director, Gallery Pristine Contemporary. Be good to your mates. Show up, tell the truth, don't flake, buy the drinks sometimes. Friends aren't statues, they evolve, they drift, they surprise you. Don't cling to the version of them you liked best; meet them where they are, not where they were. Say what matters. Laugh hard. Always, always let the rest go.