Creating and growing healthy friendships

As we venture into another semester, you might be facing the need to make new friends. You may be new to campus, there may have been a change in your social group or you might be seeking to expand beyond your group for some novelty and growth. You’ve done this before, so it should be easy to make new friends. But why does it feel so hard?

True, you have done this before, but it may have been quite some time since you have had to make so many new friends. Some of us have had many of the same friends since we were young (try 5 or 6 years old) and, even if we have made new friends since then, we have had a stable sense of who they might be and how to do it in our past contexts. You are now, likely, starting brand new, in a new place, with new expectations, and maybe new hopes, and new pressures. How many of us have heard that you “make your best friends in college”? This puts an intense focus on these four-ish years to find, deepen, and solidify your friend group with the vision that they will be members of your wedding party (whenever that may happen… more on this next week).

If we can look to history to teach us anything, we can trust that our friendships do change over time. People may come and go in our lives for many reasons. Sometimes we outgrow relationships, we are hurt and the damage is irreparable, and sometimes life simply takes us away from a friendship. If we can keep a few things in mind, this journey we call life may not be destined for loneliness:

Begin to examine and define what you are seeking in a friendship. Be honest to yourself about the qualities you need from a friendship, the kind of values that you might hold and what needs a friendship may serve to meet in your life.

Be willing to set healthy boundaries. You are different than every person around you and you will need to establish boundaries. Healthy friendships are not all-consuming, they honor the differences in friends and the allow for respectful feedback to be offered when a line has been crossed.

Move your friendship offline. Our brains cannot keep up with technology and we feel a deeper connection when spending meaningful, offline time together. Put away the phone, have a conversation about ANYTHING and be focused on the other person when you are together.

Venture to be vulnerable. We may be afraid to share anything deeper than our thoughts about the weather when starting a friendship but eventually you will need to take a leap to share a little more to connect on a deeper level.

Make the first move. Your friend (perhaps bestie) may be somewhat hesitant to make the first move. Ask someone something about themselves or to have lunch. Make a friendly comment. Seek information about them that is related to something they have said.

Be curious. Consider the other person to be a treasure trove of information about them. The more you might learn, the better you can relate to what they have shared.

You can grow your social skills and social network with a little practice. Consider the activities sponsored by the Libraries or CSLE to meet new people!