How to Build and Maintain Friendships as an Adult
Isolation Kills, So I'm Sharing My Best Practices for Friendship
I never expected the post on my 25th Stanford Reunion to resonate so much, but many people have been telling me they felt exactly the same way, so I get the sense that many of us could use more community.
It makes sense because many of us are still probably working from home alone. Others are knee deep in parenting young kids and have almost zero freedom in the evenings and weekends, unless you want to lug your kids around. Still others of us live in super expensive, ambitious places like the SF Bay Area where I swear, most of my close friends had moved away because they want more education, a job, or to buy a house. And of course lots of people in expensive places work long hours which also decreases their bandwidth to socialize outside of work.
One friend I met at Reunion shared that his friends were moving away faster than he could replace them, and he wanted to increase his Friendship Replacement Rate.
That got me thinking about my own life, how I build and maintain friendships. I’ll admit it’s been a struggle since I’ve been working from home, solo for 17 years (no boss, co-workers or team!) Pre-kids I rented a few co-working spaces but now I’m trying to cut back on work it doesn’t make as much sense to work more to socialize. Also, close friends move away and Bay Area traffic makes it hard to meet up with those in distant areas.
With all that being said, let’s move onto my strategies to increase my Friendship Replacement Rate. (And this is important because prolonged isolation is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.)
First, Evaluate for the Friendship Triangle
Several years ago, I read Shasta Nelson’s Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness and it changed the way I thought about friendships.
She said that healthy, deep friendships need 3 things: vulnerability, positivity and regular contact. If there’s no vulnerability, it’s a superficial relationship. If there’s no positivity, it’s a dumping ground which will leave you drained. If you miss regular contact, it’s just a nice friend you see every once in a while.
Ever since then I’ve tried to be more mindful of the types of friendships I cultivate. After all, as the saying goes, we are the product of the 5 people we spend the most time with.
I think my closest friends and I are aligned in our values and life direction. Even when my friends complain, they still seem like they are smiling and are positive. I enjoy being around them and I feel energized and inspired by them.
Now, where do I meet these people?
Join Affinity Groups
Since I’m an extrovert, it’s very important for me to regularly be in large groups of people. Currently I have church and a home group from church. In the past I’ve been in and hosted moms’ groups and women’s bible studies.
I’m also aiming to get more involved with my college’s alumni groups so I can meet new people and be exposed to interesting ideas.
Aside from affinity groups, the other ways I’ve met people are neighbors, parents of my kids’ friends, my husband’s co-workers, and friends of friends.
I’m also trying to reconnect more with old friends but it’s tough because most of them are not local.
So, how do I maintain these friendships?
Schedule Standing Meetups
In an ideal world I’d have a built in structure for spending time with friends, like living in a dorm, taking classes together, or seeing them at work.
Since none of those things exist for me currently, I try to schedule standing hangouts. For example, I have two friends I pray with every other Sunday evening and we text each other updates in between.
I have several people I enjoy hiking with so we now have standing dates, or if their schedule is too unpredictable, we schedule immediately after our last meetup.
Weekends are typically reserved for family.
This strategy is quite simple but for me if I don’t do schedule people in regular slots, it’s out of sight, out of mind.
Text and (Gasp!) Call
I dictate texts a lot.
After reading a piece on voice messages reigniting a friendship, I want to explore sending voice messages more, but only on platforms where we can listen to messages at 2x ;)
A while back I was lamenting to a friend that I didn’t see my mom enough because she lives just a little too far away and my friend said, “But you can call her, right?” and I said, “Call! I totally forgot about that…”
After Reunion I heard people were scheduling group Zooms so I want to do that more (phone calls are tough because my evenings are busy with kids, so it’s more efficient to schedule group calls.)
And I’m also experimenting with shorter phone calls. A piece in the New York Times said 8-minute calls were effective, but I find 30-minute ones to be better (I used to not call people unless I had an hour.)
IRL: Walks, Food, Vacations
My favorite way to meet up with people is for walks and hikes. I love movement so why not multitask and do it with a friend? Plus, if I am meeting a friend, it ensure I will actually exercise instead of getting distracted by my to-dos.
If we’re meeting another couple without kids, we usually go to a restaurant but if kids are involved, we may host dinner (takeout pizza plus salad) which is super easy.
One of the best things we’ve done is vacation with people. These families need to be closely matched, where both my husband and I can connect with the other couple, and our kids also can play with the other kids. You also have to be on relatively the same budget and have similar interests. We’ve done this at least 5 times, and it’s been awesome. It’s like a built-in kids club that travels with you, and all-inclusives are the best because everything is prepaid so you don’t have to worry about cooking or splitting the tab.
In writing this post I see I’ve actually built in a lot of practices for friendship. I have to be super proactive because my only regular place to meet people is church, which is small, so everything else requires effort on my part.
But it’s worth it.
What are your best practices for meeting people and sustaining friendships?
Read more…
Lessons from My 25th Stanford Reunion
How do you Know Who Your True Friends Are? (According to a 9-Year Old)
This post is sponsored by BrightStory, a boutique college admissions company headed by Stanford graduate, professional journalist and “coach of admission coaches” Alice Chen, who’s also the creator of Happy Asian Woman.
"Affinity groups" is a great way to put it. I'm volunteering this weekend at the Texas Book Festival and if I make new friends from that experience, it's A-OK with me. :-D
I think one important way to sustain friendships is by taking initiatives ourselves, to establish contact and reach out to our friends.
Many adults are so consumed by their work and careers, such that they don't have much time for such meet-ups and to reconnect with old friends. Therefore, instead of expecting our friends to initiate contact or plan a get-together event, we ourselves should try to take the initiative do so.
That being said, we should only do so if we genuinely do feel like reconnecting with our friends....and only if those friends in return do genuinely want to meet up and spend time with us. If there's no reciprocation from our friends in terms of genuine interest and eagerness, then we shouldn't continue to pursue such meet-ups and events.