Friends!
Friends / How many of us have them? / Friends / Ones we can depend on / Friends / How many of us have them? / Friends / Before we go any further, let's be / Friends,” Whodini, Friends
Do you remember the excitement of coming home from school and texting friends to make plans for later that night? Or maybe you’re a little older and you remember jumping on AOL to chat with your best friend who you just saw 30 minutes ago at the bus stop. Or maybe you’re a bit older than that and you remember calling your friend on the landline and the disappointment of your friend’s parent telling you that they are not available. Or worse… you called your friend’s home and got the busy tone. Maybe your core memories with friends involve concerts, video games, biking around the neighborhood, hoops at the park, kicking it around the mall, studying at the library or simply just hanging together. Regardless of how many friends you had as a kid, making friends as an adult (especially in a post-COVID world) might be more of a challenge.
As an adult, it seems like life often gets in the way of friendships. You’re burnt out at work and can’t fathom meeting up with more people later. Friends get married, get new jobs, expand their families, move away, or just become too busy. Relationships grow distant. Doom scrolling occupies more and more of your free time. Instead of talking to your friends daily, you follow each other on social media, text each other on your birthdays and maybe send a screenshot of a random memory from long ago.
If you’re having a hard time making or maintaining friendships, you’re not alone in that experience - recent studies show that more people are feeling lonely. Per a special advisory by the US Surgeon General,
“...the amount of time respondents engaged with friends socially in-person decreased from 2003 (60-minutes/day, 30-hours/month) to 2020 (20-minutes/day, 10-hours/month).64 This represents a decrease of 20 hours per month spent engaging with friends. This decline is starkest for young people ages 15 to 24. For this age group, time spent in-person with friends has reduced by nearly 70% over almost two decades, from roughly 150 minutes per day in 2003 to 40 minutes per day in 2020.”
Like the classic Whodini song says “Friends, how many of us have them?” And what can we do about friendships?
Friendships are important! They enhance our lives through silly daily occurrences like having a group text where you can share links, photos of bread you made, and dank memes. Friends also can help you commemorate and celebrate important occasions or provide support during hard times. They are your place to belong. Meaningful social connection improves our health, impacts our workplace satisfaction and overall feelings of well-being. Making friends in 2024 doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be intentional.
Genuine introspection can be a great starting point when considering making friends - would you be friends with you if you met you? I’m not encouraging you to find ways to be fake in order to make friends. Rather, this perspective provides an assessment of your interpersonal skills. Do you listen when a person talks? Are you the one side of one-sided conversations? Do you ask questions to learn about others? Do you share information about yourself in an appropriate and relevant manner? Do you leave you messages on “read?” Do you text back in a reasonable timeframe? Most of us have encountered people who dominate conversations or disregard your text for weeks before responding with a laughing emoji. We typically don’t feel respected or valued in these relationships.
One of the best ways to work on a friendship with a person is to be a good friend. If you’re upset about people not calling or texting, instead of wallowing, be the person who calls and texts. If you want someone to listen to you, be a friend who listens well. If you don't like spending Saturdays alone and not being invited to do things, be the person that invites your friends to hang out. If you want someone to care about you, be the friend who cares about yours. Tell your friends that you care about them. Remember birthdays and milestones (reminders on your phone are an excellent and fool proof way btw). If you want friends that you can depend on, be a friend that they can depend on. So as you begin your journey of friendship, attune to your social skills too. It’s easy to judge other people for being bad friends, it’s much more difficult to develop the self-awareness of your own impersonal skills that might need strengthening.
Make making friends as fun as possible so that it doesn’t feel like a chore. Find local community events that align with your interest and show up! Check for local meetup groups, charities, non-profits or special interest groups that resonate with you. Introduce yourself to your neighbors. Join a Facebook group, an online workshop, a Co-Op gaming session, or a Discord channel, etc.
And don't abandon current friendships. Call your friends and catch up. Even if you’re remote working - schedule social meets with your colleagues. You can begin building connections from your local building, street, city or county. If your schedule is extremely busy, don’t disregard the power of social media and digital interactions to act as a surrogate for real life connection.
I would be remiss to not share some of the great suggestions made by the U.S. Surgeon General on how to fight the loneliness epidemic. These include:
Understand the power of social connection and the consequences of social disconnection on your relationships, health, and well-being.
Invest time in nurturing your relationships through consistent, frequent, and high-quality engagement with others.
Minimize distraction during conversations to increase the quality of time you spend with others.
Seek out opportunities to serve and support others. Try helping your family, friends, and community members or participating in community service.
Be responsive and supportive and practice gratitude. Reflect the core values of connection in how you approach others through the actions you take and conversations you have.
Actively engage with people of different backgrounds and experiences to expand your understanding of and relationships with others.
Participate in social and community groups such as fitness, religious, hobby, professional, and community service organizations to foster a sense of belonging, meaning, and purpose.
Reduce practices that lead to feelings of disconnection from others.
Seek help during times of struggle with loneliness or isolation by reaching out to a family member, friend, counselor, health care provider, or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Be open with your health care provider about significant social changes in your life.
Make time for civic engagement. This could include being a positive and constructive participant in political discourse or gatherings (e.g., town halls, school board meetings, local government hearings).
Interested in taking a deeper dive in therapy to kick off your new year? Follow the link below to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation!
AI Disclaimer: This post is original and written by Kevin Boyd of Future Full of Hope, PLLC. No AI tool was leveraged in the development of this post
