Tom cruise and his wingman. An example of some of the best friendship has to offer.
We all know those great friendship movies. 2 or more friends going to Vegas, or traveling to some amazing place while experiencing some of the ‘best’ friendship has to offer. Friendships come in all sizes and colors. But they share the same building blocks.
I designed simple charts to visualize the concepts of friendships and connections, how they overlap and how they may change over time. The chart above highlights the role of technology (chatter) in the maintenance of modern friendships.
Click here to open the full PDF versions of the schemas.
Maybe friendships are like waves: sometimes intense, when your surfing high, sometimes almost nonexistent and sometimes the wave is waded out into the deepness of the vast ocean. Friendships come and go, not to say that there may be friends that last a lifetime. Friendships are subject to the constant change of us, as persons.
There is a vague difference between a friend and a connection. A colleague can be a connection but isn’t, of course, necessarily a friend. There is a weird period or a vague line between a connection and friendship. When do you define someone as a friend and when is someone just a connection?
We may have had a friend, or some friends during our periods at primary, secondary school or at college or at university. Those places and times can be a great environment to meet and establish new friendships and connections. The factors that trigger that are for example:
Spending time together on a regular base
Challenged to work together (on homework, tasks, in the classroom, …), even during more difficult times like examens
Student accommodations can be a hotbed for friendships, because you meet people randomly (random times), but still on a regular base. The randomness and context of the situations may lead to new friends.
While schools are a great environment to build friendships, in the adulthood world it can be both easier and more difficult to meet new friends.
Time needs to be invested from both sides. Initiatives should be taken from both sides.
Being authentic is important, although there are limits to. Sharing too much can be misused or come off as wrong. Every friendship and situation is different. Trust is important and can be created by being vulnerable. You have to assess the situation yourself. Sharing certain values and beliefs is a good thing. If you have nothing connecting you both (anymore) with each other, the friendship will die.
It can be of great value if you understand what you are looking for in a friendship. Understanding your own needs, expectations and desires are important. It comes in handy if you know yourself, so you know what you are looking for in friendships and relations in general. Because friendships are a form of relations. But don’t worry if you’re figuring it all out. Experimenting and failing is part of the lifelong learning process. Daring to fail is part of the process. And as you will change, it is possible that you once had everything figured out in your friendship life, but now you have to figure it out all over again. Duration, intensity and frequency of your friendships are things to think about.
Attachment styles
There are many types of attachment styles. It can be of great value to know what your attachment style(s) are. I can highly recommend the book ‘Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends by Marisa G. Franco’ if you want to dive deeper into the topic at hand. You are probably never one or the other but a combination of multiple attachment styles. Depending on the situation you are in. I am a generally more avoidant type of person. I recognize myself most in the behavior of that attachment style. I am considering writing a whole article about the attachment styles.
What do I personally want out of friendships? (at the time of writing the article)
Let’s brainstorm a bit for myself. I am not a person who needs a whole group of friends. I prefer smaller circles. It took me time to figure that out. I need a lot of personal space. As a more introverted type of person it gives me energy to be by myself. I call them my ‘head space’ moments. I get energy from those moments. It costs me energy to be around people. That’s why I like smaller circles. I often times prefer one-on-one conversations above groups. I don’t like fixed reoccurring meetings on fixed dates and times on an intense weekly basis. I totally hate that. I prefer occasional, but still, upfront planned meetings (I know that must sound contradictory) on a not to intense scale. Once every month is often times more than fine. Things I like doing with a friend are for example a hike, drinking a cup of coffee for a talk or have a drink at the local pub. I don’t need much more than those very few simple things from a friendship. Because of my attachment style, I will naturally not build all to close connections with others. I must force and remind myself to keep working on that. That’s why it’s important to know yourself. A friend must align with some of my interests or values and must find peace in my more ‘independent’ lifestyle..
I have the natural feeling of labeling every friend with a certain ‘thing’. Like that person for doing specifically that activity, and often only that one activity, and another for that other specific activity. I learned that it has to do with my character/ personality type and my attachment style(s). (more of that in another article).
The situation for you will be different and it’s up to you to figure out what you want to get out from friendships and your social life.
There must be something crucially said about time. Working adults often don’t have much free time left. Especially once you’ve got kids and a girlfriend all demanding effort and time. A huge ‘time investment’ will be made into your relationship, and inevitably the friendships will pay a price for that. Friendships are never the same with or without partners. You must do your best to keep a balance. Even in romantic relationships, friendships are important to maintain.
Where/ how are friendships established?
I know people that are natural talents in this field. I know someone and when he goes to a bar, in no time he has already made connections with half of the tent. Depending on your personality type and attachment style you will have to do either a lot of effort to almost none. Hobbies are the best potential match because they are reoccurring. But you are not limited to that alone. You can meet people everywhere. As long as you are putting the effort to bring yourself to a social environment setting, you are taking enough initiative, and given enough time, new friendships could potentially be established. Friends could be found in hobbies, classes, events, apps and many other activities.
potential places for connections based on occasional and reoccurring meeting times
I made a more in-depth article "Concrete ways to meet new people: (5+1) concrete examples I personally tried out" as follow-up of this section. Click here to view it.
Deepness of friendships – reaching the deep connection point in the triangle
Tom cruise in Top gun with his wingman in top gun. An example of friendship in the highest hierarchy of the triangle.
The hard part is getting into the deepness with a friendship. We are looking for that friend to go to Vegas with, as I was talking about in the beginning of this article. I acknowledge and assure you that that is the most difficult part to reach. As you can see in my made chart below there are different layers of friendship. I’ve called them the ‘Deepness triangle of friendships’.
There are many factors at play here. They all must match. Reaching that deepness of friendship takes trust, time, authenticity, vulnerability, dare power, good click, initiative, conflict healing, matching expectations of a friendship and all the other building blocks of friendship I was talking about earlier.
I must be honest in saying that I haven’t reached that kind of friendship. My attachment style has kept me far away from reaching that point. I don’ know if that’s something I miss or not. I am still figuring that out. We are complicated beings. Our lives are not a matter of black and white.
I think what could trigger to get into that real deep friendship is, once you have a decent friendship, doing some activities outside of each other’s comfort zone. Like travelling together and do some crazy stuff. Those ‘high’ moments of the friendship will be limited but they make the friendship reach that higher point. In the end the moments will come in waves, just like the friendships you build, which is fine.
Triangle of the deepness of friendship connections.
The end of a friendship
Friendships may eventually die. Only very view friends will last a lifetime. And that’s perfectly fine. Letting go when your values aren’t aligned anymore, or when there is a conflict that couldn’t be healed or any other kind of thing may mean the end of a friendship. It is recommended to talk the conflict out, even giving it some time, but that may not always work. Often times friendship are just ‘ghosted’. There is no real goodbye but the friendship has just bled out and people don’t contact each other anymore. People are living ‘their own lives’. People don’t always say to each other ‘this was it, this is the end of our friendship’. It could be and it can be good, but it often doesn’t always go like that.