Be Deliberate About Spending Time With Friends
Strengthen Social Connections - Part 1
Trigger Warning: This post discusses suicide.
We readily accept that a regular exercise is required to maintain a healthy body, but for some reason we assume that our relationships will maintain themselves. Research shows that that’s not true: in the words of the US Surgeon General, “we should all be thinking as much about social fitness as we do about physical fitness.”
The key is being deliberate with your friendships and making an effort to nurture your relationships through consistent, frequent, and high-quality connections. Starting with your core.
Work on Your Core Friendships
I try to keep in touch with a small group of “core” friends every two to three weeks. I value and gain a lot of satisfaction from their deep, decades-long friendships.
Unfortunately, most live out of town, so I rely on occasional calls, memes, or funny pictures to stay connected.
According to Finding Flow, you should aim for at least five of these core friends as “when someone claims to have five or more friends with whom they can discuss important problems, they are 60 per cent more likely to say that they are ‘very happy.’”
Nurture Casual Relationships Too
Of course, not all friendships are as deeply woven as those close, lifelong friends who form the core. Some are more casual—they come and go and will never be as deep, but they’re important all the same. These casual friendships add texture and richness to the overall fabric of life and the more of these threads you weave in, the more colourful and resilient the tapestry becomes.
Casual friendships can take many forms. For me, it’s the occasional coffee catch-up at a local café with neighbourhood friends—a good excuse to get out of the house. And on the first Thursday of every month (today!), a crowd of Island Bay Dads (A Wisdom of Dads? A Banter of Dads?) get together at the local pub to hang out and build community. We mostly talk stuff and nonsense, but we’ve recently lost a couple of our group to suicide, so it’s also been a chance to talk about mental and emotional well-being in ways that men seldom do.
Do Activities With Friends
Sitting around and talking and laughing with friends is one of the best things in life, but I reckon it’s even better if you do stuff together like hiking, going to gigs, or travelling. Those “doing stuff” memories are more, well, memorable, and pay dividends again and again as you reminisce:
“Man, remember that time we climbed Tapuae-o-Uenuku and there were over 100 river crossings? Remember that roller derby in Austin when they had that pillow fight? Remember when we saw the Chemical Brothers and people were sweating so much that it was condensing on the ceiling and dripping back down on us? Remember when Zac flew in and surprised us with beers at Siberia Hut? Remember when Jane sang the Cadbury Flake ad in the disused nun’s convent in Guatemala?”
It is even better if you can tie in time with friends with one of your hobbies or your exercise goals.
Next week, some ideas about hospitality…