As part of my new Era of Growth, I’ve been attempting to be more sociable and to get out of my house more. This allows me to nurture current friendships and start making new ones. It also allows me to have experiences that are just beyond the house and the office. While I’m not a huge fan of eating out in the economic circumstances these days, there are ways around that too.

But I digress. Back to friendships. We all have different ways of maintaining friendships or navigating friends. Some people like a small and close-knit group, others are ok with just one, some others none, and then others love huge groups of people around them. Then there are those that love to sit down and talk over a nice meal, others love to go to clubs and bars, others love travelling together, others love places where the same shared hobby is happening. And so on.

The shape of friendships

These things sometimes take a while to uncover. When I was younger I loved groups where we were always out doing something together, something was always happening and there was alot of fun.

But – these larger groups as I’ve discovered even in my adult years, had tons of underlying hidden dynamics where people hide their own preferences and filter their characters to fit in with the group. This meant that people can appear to be not what they seem and honesty wasn’t something that was highly important to keep the group going, so to speak.

There were also mini cliques and infighting. This led me to realise I didn’t like huge groups of friends. I prefer small, more intimate groups.

The season of friendships

Friendships have their ebbs and flows. And sometimes a really good friend may be dealing with something in their lives that may take their time and focus away from your friendship. It could be a week, a month or more. You could go some years without talking, because they moved away or had a kid or something. You may or may not speak again after.

For other friendships, you may have gotten along because you were in the same major as students or you were colleagues. And once that period is over, you no longer talk. That happens because you actually did not have much in common except for the place you worked/studied at. And that’s just how it is. A companion that made your life better when you were there.

For certain friendships, it worked during a particular time in your life, perhaps you were into running at one point, and you were part of a running group. Maybe you had a group of friends where you went to get supper with weekly. Then perhaps, your relationship those things changed – you no longer liked running, suppers were making you put on unnecesary weight. And you decided to step away from those groups for awhile. It was nothing to do with them – it’s just your relationship with the thing that tied you together changed. You may or may not rejoin the friendship group. That’s ok.

The Flavour of friendships

Which comes to my very last point and reflection – there are different types of friendships for different things. Some of these friends may not be the “ideal” type of friend you have in your mind. You may have very different personalities and interests in life, maybe you come from very different backgrounds.

Personally, there are 4 things that make me want to be friends with someone – good character, similar values, are fun/have a sense of humour and we have a good time together.

And I have different friends/friendship groups that fulfil this for me. One is a group of ex-colleagues where we sometimes run together, travel together, Second, another ex-colleague or two with the same interests that are different from the first group. Third, different people who are also fans of DBSK and related Korean pop culture elements. Fourth, yet another group of ex colleagues from years ago where we travel together. Then, there are cousins, long-time friends living in other countries.

Are all of them the same type of people and do we do the same things together? No. Some like the group stuff, some I’m more interested in travelling with, for others we meet to do a specific thing together.

I’m closer to some than others and there are some I wouldn’t hang out with 1 on 1 unless we are in a group, but we always have a good time and I find myself learning and knowing about different things, from their perspective.

Friendships as adults

Sometimes, when I find myself placing too much of expectations on a friendship, I ask myself what am I actually expecting and what am I comparing friendships to? The Hollywood version of a BFF that is there holding your hand through everything in life? Have I been comparing and expecting a version of friendships that actually don’t quite exist all the time?

Most likely.

Do I want BFFs who are there all the time right beside me? Not really. I’m someone who needs my space. But I do want someone who is there for me when I need abit of help and abit of emotional support when I am going through something, or need to bounce ideas off someone.

I will never be a part of a huge group, but I do enjoy smaller groups and 1 on 1s. That is how friendship is for me at this point in my life.