Last week, the blog was all about the difficulties of making and maintaining friendships as an adult. This week, I wanted to concentrate on some specifics about how to improve our current friendships, and how to build new ones. Friendships evolve and change over time, and I often talk to clients about how we have different levels of friends. If we imagine these levels like a ringed target and a bullseye center, we can see how we have space for a small number of people whom we can trust with everything. Each level beyond makes room for more people, who are also a little more distant from us than the ones in the previous level. This is actually a form of boundary setting. This concept of levels of friendships allows us to enjoy people as they are and maintain differing levels of healthy connection with a variety of individuals. The problem for a lot of people in adulthood, though certainly not everyone, is that many of their connections and friends across all levels have withered to some degree, and many people don’t know how to strengthen the friendships that remain or make new ones.
Dr. Marisa Franco, who wrote the book, Platonic, that I referenced last week, suggests that we start by taking initiative. Blog referencing is a bit informal, so as I talk about the steps she recommends, know that I’m paraphrasing her work throughout these next few paragraphs. Adult friendships don’t tend to happen without effort and putting oneself out there again and again. It is through the effort of meeting people, and then following up with them that we have a chance to make friendships. The idea of waiting for the universe to send friends our way is akin to waiting a long time for a train that’s not coming. Initiative can look like asking someone from work to get coffee, checking out a new club/group/organization that is appealing in some way, and it can also be reaching out to old acquaintances with whom we’ve lost contact. The initiative needs to continue after the initial contact by checking in again and again. Some people will still tend to shy away from reaching out because they assume that they are unlikeable. I can say with certainty and without self-pity that there are some people who don’t like me, but I also know that others do. It turns out that there are studies that show people tend to underestimate how much others like them. Not only that, if people enter situations with an assumption that they will be liked, they tend to behave in a more warm and friendly way. As you take the initiative, go ahead and assume that people will like you when you show up.
Dr. Franco’s next step is expressing vulnerability. All my guys out there, did you just get a cold shiver up your spine? Sometimes we’re really not good at this. Our feelings are neither good, nor bad; they just are. In fact, our feelings/emotions are the most honest things about us because we simply feel what we feel. Trying to lock our feelings up doesn’t make them go away, and without some way of expressing them they will tend to come out as angry explosions. Here’s the thing, though, vulnerability isn’t just constantly sharing our feelings, it is being authentic and real. According to Brene Brown (who is just amazing; go check out her work), “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.” Being vulnerable means allowing those who have earned our trust to see what is real in us without hiding. Let’s make sure not to confuse vulnerability with oversharing, though. Not everyone has earned the right to our deepest secrets, and oversharing with people we’ve just met can be a type of defense mechanism. By oversharing, we can cloud a person’s initial impression of who we are. Close friends who later find out our secrets have the context of knowing us on a deeper level, so waiting an appropriate amount of time for some disclosures allows them to still see us, not just the secret. Just like with most things in life, vulnerability involves balance.
Dr. Franco’s third step is being authentic–as in our real selves. Does this mean being fully raw and uncensored with people? Not exactly. Sometimes cruelty is hidden behind a mask of, “I was just being honest.” Authenticity happens when we feel safe. When we’re safe we don’t need to be defensive and we can be our true selves. The strange reality is that sometimes we don’t even feel safe acknowledging our real feelings to ourselves either. We tell ourselves that we don’t care, or that hurts don’t bother us, but that doesn’t change the truth. Dr. Sue Johnson is a researcher who is fond of pointing out that we aren’t lizards, which means that we all feel emotions. This means that we still feel, even when we don’t want to acknowledge the feeling. This chapter of Dr. Franco’s book is pretty complicated, but the short version is: 1. We have to be safe in order to be authentic. 2. We need to be honest with ourselves before we can be honest with others. 3. It also turns out that research actually suggests that our most authentic selves are our most kind selves. A lack of safety leads to inauthenticity, which is linked to depression and low self-esteem. People who don’t feel good about themselves are more likely to treat others poorly, or they might just do outwardly kind things for the wrong reasons (like just avoiding rejection), and this just leads to resentment. Being authentic requires the bravery to acknowledge and embrace emotions that we might consider uncomfortable. Then we can embrace safety from others while adding to their safety as well. At that point, we can be our most true selves, which also tends to be our kindest selves too. Like I said, complicated, but the safer you feel, the kinder you tend to be.
The next step might surprise some people because it is about finding harmony in anger. Many of us think of anger as destructive, and rightly so because we’ve all witnessed damaging things that people have done while angry. However, anger is just a feeling. Anger can motivate us to make changes, though. It is up to us to decide whether we use that motivation to meet our unmet needs or to lash out at others. When we aren’t clear about our boundaries and concerns with those that we have relationships with (romantic, family, or friendships), we become resentful towards them when those boundaries are crossed. Many of us might realize this when it comes to our romantic relationships, but our culture has trivialized friendships to the point that they might not seem important enough to appropriately enforce our boundaries. Unfortunately, this often leads to these friendships falling apart. Conflict is inevitable in relationships, but conflict is also an opportunity for both parties to get their needs met. However, we can really only do this when we think of our anger as a signal of something that we need and work together with the other person instead of just trying to win an argument.
Step five is about generosity. True generosity happens when we give without expecting anything in return. This isn’t about giving of ourselves until we have nothing left. That just leads to burnout, and again, resentment. We know that we’ve reached the level of a truly deep friendship when we stop keeping score. We can be generous with our friends and still say no when necessary. This is another example of boundary setting. A nice quote that Dr. Franco shared in this chapter is attributed to Prentis Hemphill, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Still, being supportive and available when our friends are truly in need is a way that we can be a good friend. Generosity isn’t black or white. If we give out of a sense of obligation, we burn out, and if we give too little, we can’t grow our relationships.
The final recommendation from Dr. Franco is to give affection. She defines affection as how we make people feel valued and loved through complements, warm greetings, encouragement, praise, or appreciation. This can be especially hard for men. Often we resort to busting each other’s…let’s say chops…instead of saying nice things to each other. These things are usually said in fun and can even feel, amongst close friends, like a form of affection. Affection is tough because we can worry about coming across as weird or awkward, but when someone shows caring to another, a sense of safety is formed. As long as we’re not crossing anyone else’s boundaries with our affection, it makes them feel closer to us.
Am I over the five minute mark with this blog? I fear I am. I just couldn’t help myself. Consider checking out Dr. Franco’s book or Billy Baker’s book, We Need to Hang Out. Friendships may not be given their due within our society, but having close friends has value, and I hope that has been made abundantly clear. I want to challenge all of us, and yes, I do mean me too, to put in the work necessary to make and keep close friends.