Do your friends even know you?
Friendship is easily overlooked as something we should strive to build and nurture. It sits behind in society’s ranking of important things — marriage, family, children, and work.
But how come 60% of adults say they feel lonely? Loneliness has greater affects on our health too with a repercussion of it being ‘as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day’. So, what is the deal? Is it harder to make friends than before? Are we too busy to make and maintain friends? Has technology drew us further by making us believe connection is liking our friend’s instagram story?
First, why should we have friends? (Identifying this part is important to keep the endurance going in your friendship journey)
Having friends is similar to having hobbies in that you gravitate towards friends to activate joy, self-discovery, and relief from the everyday. Those that are in long-term relationships have better relationships when each partner has their own friends to spend time with and share hardships with. Michelle Obama calls her squad her kitchen table. It is telling and very admirable to see how Michelle talks about ‘collecting and keeping friends’ from the different evolutions of her life. It is a tough ask for any one of us to think we can only rely on ourselves, our partner, our job, or our family to see all the parts of ourselves and to support us during tough grey transitional times. The key is to have relational diversity.
How do you make friends as an adult? We’re either stuck at our desks, working from home, or studying for our exams.
This is a huge obstacle in making friends these days. It’s already been said a bunch of times that the US lacks third spaces. College was such a highlight for people because it was the last time one could regularly see someone walking to class at the exact time and spontaneously ask their classmate to go to an event with them. These built in social events took the planning and overthinking out of socializing. You wouldn’t need to ‘plan’ when to socialize, opportunities would be littered throughout your day!
But now, we are graduated and have different schedules to attend to. I won’t lie this is hard! But, back to the ‘why’ of this all, if you want it enough, you have to be optimistic and take action to design opportunities to meet new people.
So, some beginning experiments to take:
- Make friends with people at work and get introduced to their network and ask about places where they like to go and go together! (This is tricky, but it can work out if you set boundaries early)
- If you live in an apt, get to know your neighbors. You live in the same building, so you live in the same area. This can be a good convo starter, like, “Have you tried X?” or “We should get coffee at X sometime if you haven’t gone before!” (I personally have done this and have met one of my absolute closest friend when I moved to Atlanta in 2022. You miss all shots you don’t take)
- Join a group activity based hobby/organization on the weekends. This can be fitness classes, volunteering, pottery, writing, drawing, reading, etc. You can even start your own gathering w/ friends over an activity!
It’s better to keep the friends you have than to go searching for new ones. A few notes on maintaining your friendships.
I think we’ve lost sight of what it means to be a friend in order to have a friend. When you’re building a new friendship, it is important to keep the routine of making plans to see each other next or texting your friends fun memes, send voice notes, send them a book recc you think they’d like, or CALL THEM. Its important to keep the momentum, only if you’re vibing though! Just like you wouldn’t brush your teeth once a day and think you have good dental hygiene, don’t reach out to a friend you’d care to lose once every 2 weeks (especially not if you’re only reaching out when you need something) and think you are nurturing or maintaining the friendship.
So, with the friends you have where you’ve hung out for a month or more, have you relied on them for anything? Because the point of friendship is to build in support systems. Have you asked to be supported by your friend?
This can look like:
- Asking them where they went to file their taxes and if they can help you understand how to file your own
- A ride to and from the airport
- How to ask for a promotion at work because it makes you really nervous and you don’t even know where to start
- You feel overwhelmed and haven’t slept well and you just wanna tell someone
I have a strong hunch that a lot of people filter a lot of what is really happening in their lives and psyche from their friends. And its in good intention, people don’t want to burden or bring down the mood when hanging with their friends. Unfortunately, its not a good enough reason. Frankly, it is selfish to act to not give your friends the honor and opportunity to show up for you. Let them choose how to respond instead of responding for them. It is uncomfortable to do any of those things listed above because it is a vulnerable ask. You have the chance to be rejected. But, you might also have a chance to deepen your friendship and foster invaluable trust in your friendship. And the currency of trust extends farther than what you might see at the moment because, when you need someone to depend on for life’s big or small feats, you’ll feel so cared for and wanted by having these memories of times when you asked for a friend for a favor and they followed through with it.
But be a friend and start asking for those favors and see what happens for yourself.
Do you feel seen by your friendships?
Back to the title of the article, how much do you allow your friends to see you? Is it only in the good? Only in the bad? We all have nuanced experiences that shape us and as much as it is essential to acknowledge those for ourselves, we can’t stop there. This is because we are human and we need connection. How unifying would it feel to meet someone and they also went through the same thing we have or they are going through that thing and this is how they are navigating it. We are moved by stories and it’s a beautiful thing to share those with people.
Test those experiments out!
I’m Katie Hoang and I like writing about things I am moved by and I think would move others. I am a UX designer and am very inspired by the patterns I draw from how things work, how things are made, and how it translates to the real people that interact with them.
