Friendships impart flavour to life. A life spent without initiation, fostering and maintaining friendship is like eating a bland dish, it may provide you with nutrition (you will be living a life) but it won’t be fun at all.
Fun aside, friendships make a huge part of the kind of person we grow into. They also become the people we learn to rely on and feel the most comfortable around. Sometimes, when we feel certain barriers or hurdles with the other relationships in our life, or feel there are some boundaries that cannot be crossed, we can always talk to our friends and seek their advice. No matter what, we always know our friends have our back and that we can fall back on them. Friends are an important necessity for a person’s holistic growth.
Given how important friendships can be to us, it only makes sense that we all strive to enrich our friendships and harbour a desire to strengthen these friendships to have them around for a long time. So how do we do that? What can we do to makes the friendships we value stick around for longer? It might seem like a daunting task, but in reality, it is the little things that add value to your friendships. But what exactly are these small things? Read on to find out.
1. Ask tough questions.
There might be questions you might be hesitant to ask or topics you might be putting off on bringing up because you may think you don’t have enough time to get into it. Ask those questions! Don’t hesitate!
Many times, friends grow apart slowly losing touch and not because of a conflict or a misunderstanding, you slowly drift apart because you both gradually stop confiding in each other maybe because you start feeling too busy or get overwhelmed with everyday life. It is understandable, it can be hard to prioritize conversation and keeping up with everyone when there are so many things that demand our attention and so many responsibilities to fulfil in our daily life. But this is precisely what causes a steady erosion in the bond you have grown over time, the emotional intimacy starts to weaken when there is not enough nurturing for the friendship from either side that can affect even the strongest of friendships. Yes, there are certain friendships where “distance makes the heart grow fonder”, and spending time apart does nothing to weaken your bond and when you finally reconnect it seems like nothing has changed. But such friendships are rare, and such friendships also exist in the first place because they already are strong, and not all friendships will come out stronger after straying apart if they are not built on a strong foundation in the first place. So put in the effort to keep in touch, again it doesn’t have to be something big like a 2-hour call that involves a heart to heart, a text conversation that goes beyond small talk to actually ask about their well-being and what are they up to is also enough to keep in touch and show them you care.
2. Nostalgia serves to make friendships feel even more intimate.
Nostalgia always invokes heartache in a good way, reminiscing about the good times in the past always makes us wistful. If it has been a while since you have caught up with your friend and now don’t know how to start a conversation, just ask about something that is about a memory you have shared in the past. It will cause them to be reminded about that memory and the feeling from that time as well, it will feel like just it was then.
Think of a memory that makes you laugh or memory you think back fondly, and email or text it to your friend.
There are not many things that uplift one’s spirits or cheer up their mood other than an unexpected laugh that invokes a sense of nostalgia and reminds you of the connections you felt and shared at a better time in life. When two friends have a good friendship in the past but have may have grown disconnected due to one of the many reasons, it feels even better to think about the good ol’ days, relive the happy moments and moments of friendship that made you feel like you belong. And the amount of time it might take to send such a message is not enough to put you off such a small task that has such a positive payoff. It is also a good way to let your friend know that you are thinking of them, even if you haven’t been in touch for a while it hasn’t changed the feelings of affection you have for them and the time spent by you two together. It will also be like a nice break in the monotony of everyday life to look back on a time that was more memorable and made us happy, and awe in the fact that happiness can bleed through time in retrospect as well.
3. Let yourself be vulnerable around them.
It might be hard, but letting yourself be vulnerable around your friend is the best way to communicate to them that you trust them. Conversations that talk about uncomfortable or difficult topics may be ones that we often put off because subconsciously being vulnerable or laying out our thoughts is not exactly something we look forward to, or we convince ourselves that there is not enough time to talk about something that bothers us in the hectic schedules we have, but that is all the more reason to push through and get done with it. Reveal something about yourself that has been on your mind but you have been afraid to speak out or something that you need to talk through but have not had the opportunity or the right person to talk about it to, and let yourself feel vulnerable about it.
Talking to your friend will not only strengthen your friendship and let them know you trust them to have them trust you back, but will also help you organise your thoughts. And who knows, they might even point out a few things you may have not thought of before and provide you with insights that you are able to come only because they can provide more ‘objective’ opinions because they are not as close to the matter as we are and are less likely to let emotions overwhelm their perception.
4. Be mindful of the special occasions in their life.
Again, it is a small thing, but it would mean a lot to them. You don’t even have to do something elaborate, the simple fact that you care enough to remember will mean a lot to them more times than you might think.
Find out dates that’s important to them—be it their birthday, or maybe their anniversary, or even the date of a difficult achievement in their lives, or even more sombre milestones like a parent’s death—and note them down in your calendar so at the very least you can wish, greet or express you solidarity when they need it.
We live in the digital world, and almost every social media caters to birthdays. And it is true, birthdays are special days in one’s life, and for some, it is the guiding light to get through another year. For others, it is the one day they get pampered and get to feel special. So by all means, do wish your friends on their birthdays. But what makes the difference between an ‘acquaintance friend and a ‘friend’ friend is knowing other days that a social media app does not send you a notification to remind you. For some, there are other occasions and days that may be just as or even more important than their birthdays. Maybe a close friend of yours who shared a beautiful bond with their grandmother get sad on the day she passed away, make it a point to do something to comfort them that day. Maybe a friend finds more joy in celebrating their fathers’ birthday than their own because of the bond they share with them and the respect they have for them, a simple message from you wishing their father will not only make them happy but show them you care for their happiness beyond the simple familiarity of a friendship.
5. Take the initiative to catch up!
Try and plan the next time you can see each other in person! And if meeting up in person is not possible, at least try to plan a catch-up session so you both can set some time aside to finally come up to date with each other.
Yes, life gets busy, but it never gets so busy that we can’t meet up and spend a few hours in the company of the people we value. It is just a few hours, we can surely make time. And if meeting physically in person is too taxing, especially if you both live far away and meeting in person would involve travelling long distances and you don’t really have time for a vacation in the near future, then setting up a video call or even a voice call is a good way to spend time with your friend. It can be very easy to lose touch, and if we keep relying upon the other person to make efforts, it is unfair to them and to you as well. After all, the friendship involves both of you, so take some time and effort, it will do wonders for the bond you both share.
6. Make it a point to express your gratitude.
We all have something to be grateful for, especially to our friends! Our friends deserve our gratitude for simply being in our lives, for being the support that they are, and for cherishing us as their friends. But friends often go out of their way to help us sometimes. And if it is something small, something that may not have been a hassle to them, still deserves our gratitude for the consideration towards us. Maybe your friends dropped you home after an outing, maybe they helped you and taught you how to change the tire of your car, maybe they listened to you rant about how stressful work has been lately. Small things, but when you express your thankfulness, not only will they appreciate it, but it would make you happy too.
If you want to go a step further, and make your gratitude more tangible, write them a thank you note. It will be a sweet surprise in today’s digital age, and in the future too, when they randomly come across it, it will bring a smile to their face!
7. Take advantage of the mailing system!
Speaking of tangible ways to express your feelings towards your friends, use the actual mailing system to send them care packages! Send them hot chocolate or soups when they are sick, send them snacks and movies when they are down, or even a book they have been meaning to read but haven’t gotten around to read yet. It will be a nice reminder for them that someone cares for them a lot, and their feelings of affection towards you will grow too!
8. Pay attention to what they have to say!
Drawing their attention to the fact that you pay attention to what they say is a wonderful way to communicate to them that you care about them and what they have to say, and as a bonus, it also makes them feel heard and worthy of being listened to. So the next time you talk to them, try to recall at least one detail from your last conversation, and try to follow up and ask about it. For example, you may recall them being stressed about a specific meeting or presentation when you last talked to them a few weeks ago. When you call them this week, as them about how it went. Or if they mentioned trying out a new recipe they came across the last time you talked to them, try to ask them how that dish turned out the next time you talk to them. It will not only give you closure as to how did that meeting or dish actually turn out but will also make them feel that you are actually invested in their life as well, building a sense of intimacy that will make your friendship even more robust.
