5 Things you need to know about adult friendships, no one is talking about!

This week I was struggling to find something to connect with, I have been thinking a lot in a lot of different directions and then while going to pick my mom up from her college where she teaches, I decided to put on a podcast and see what new I can listen to. I ended up listening to Mel robbins’ latest podcast on Friendship. The podcast ended in 50 minutes but got me to a place where I thought for hours about it. I have attached a link to the podcast in the bottom, I’d encourage you to listen to it.

Marshall Eriksen in 'How I met your mother' said, “Lilly,Family is not a right, its a privilege and I always saw it as a right because I have a good one” . There are moments when we feel that we love and are proud of our family, and there are times when we hate them and feel trapped. It's true, and you know it. When we started going to schools or pre school we got introduced to the fact that there is something called FRIENDS, and from there we got to know that these are the people we can handpick on the basis of literally anything like:

- you love ice cream - you are my best friend

-you like to smoke - yeah bro we are friends

- you like to travel - aw, you are my travel friend - we have the same bracelet - we are bracelet buddies

And this list may literally go on for pages, if you pay a lot of attention you will get seriously amazed (and a little shocked) as to how quickly we make friends. If you are living with a bunch of friends in an apartment or in a hostel it is easy to say “friends are the family we choose” and while our growth in life is seriously dependent on the values we get from our family it seriously depends on the friends we have as well. But this blog is not exactly about values and life and growth, this one is about why in our adulthood (which I'd say when you have a 9 to 5 or a hustle of your own) it gets so difficult to keep up with our friends and specially make new ones. Give it a read and tell me what all things crawled in your head while you read through this. Here is the list of things we are talking about today: - Definition of friendship 1) Their life is so much fun and they intentionally don't invite me 2) Every friendship has a life, the sooner we accept it the better 3) Realizing “I need more friends” and doing nothing about it 4) Asking for help make the friendship stronger 5) Make friends out of their character not their belongings -Bonus point- Reversal of “Hunt for friends” Definition of friendship: While everyone has sort of the same definition for “Family”, the beauty of friendship is that for every single person the definition of friendship is different. While for someone friends are family and for some they are second home or extended family. Some says they are the escape from life and some say they make their time worth it.

I read this quote from Buddha in a hostel while I was backpacking in Sikkim, India-

“Good friends are like stars, you don't always see them but you know they are there”

I resonate with that a lot, most of the friends who are very close to me are the ones who does not need to constantly show up in my life, i don't have to constantly make plans to reaffirm myself and them that I am still friends with them, We don't necessarily have to call each other, sometime for months and its absolutely fine and that's just the beauty of it, isn't it? But while most of us have at least one name pop up in our head and we get to a place where we think that yeah i have not called him/her in weeks. (Names are popping in my head while I am writing this). If you feel bad you have not been in touch with that dear one, you are not alone, we all feel the same way. Even the ones you are thinking about, feel the same.

While we have a lot of friends, why is it that we sometimes feel lonely, left out or disliked and Feel FOMO (a word I recently learned) . Let's start digging: 1) Their life is so much fun and they intentionally don't invite me: This point was inspired in me by the podcast I mentioned listening to sometime ago. Mel Robbins beautifully explained "how we keep telling ourselves that our friends life is a party and we might not be needed".

If you are a person who is doing good or decent enough in your life, you must be working at least 5-11 hours a day, in a 5 day week where you need saturday just to lay low and binge and sunday just to feel a lil lonely and not call anyone and expect everyone to call you. Well if your week is like this how do you expect your friends life to be any different if they have a job and family, they are probably in the same ocean, but just in a different boat.

Why not make a change? Why not call a friend and not keep your brain and emotions in a place of loneliness and sadness. Why not call them and say "let's catch up" even if you are not able to, this week. I am pretty sure you will be able to in the coming time. So, “ don't swirl in the toilet of comparison '' flush your negative thinking, and go find out what's actually going on in their life. TBH now that I know and I have deeply internalized how fake the life of social media is, I seriously dont compare my life with my friend's “life of a party” , it's insane to believe we know about someone’s life just by a 10 second video.

2) Every friendship has a life, the sooner we accept it the better: A lot of times we keep living in the past, looking back on the memories of how awesome life was in college/high school. How all we used to do was party together, do crazy stuff together and how life is now. Well, if you keep looking in the past for how awesome it was, how will you make your present good enough, and your present will soon be your recent past. If that past is not good enough you are going to make your coming future sad (you might want to read that again). Think about it.

Coming to the point, We need to accept that friendships come with a validity . I loved how Mel explained it.

Friends for a Reason:

If you work in a company, you have a lot of reasons to be friends with someone in your office, Reasos like - because they are really nice, because they are knowledgeable, maybe because they help with the promotion or just because you need someone to hangout with at work.

Now for some reason you switch companies, no matter how close the people were, no matter how much you liked them, they will drift away with time because you guys dont work together, I don't feel there is anything wrong with it. They will always fall in the list of friends but they will potentially become people on social media you actually know and just send cool memes to.

Friends for a Season :

I remember, when I was in college I had such close friends, we laughed together, we cried together, got drunk together pushed each other to do better,and did all the crazy things any college friends do, we all swore to be friends forever. few I still miss and don't call, few I still call but we don't meet because we are seriously far and live in different states/countries, and few we still get to meet but are not as involved as we were. While everyone is not Chandler and Ross OR Ted and Marshall , those friends came in your life to make that season of your life wonderful and then we all moved on to the different paths we paved for ourselves. Clinging to how beautiful life “was” in your past is not going to make your life beautiful in the present. Friends for a lifetime:

There are some friends who join our boat in the ocean of loneliness I talked about above and become a part of our life forever, everyone has at least one name that popped up in their heads, it can be the name now you call girlfriend/boyfriend OR wife/husband. These are the people who literally do not demand much, even if they do it doesnt feel like a demand. They stick by us forever, even if they know us for a couple of years, they know a hell lot more about our life than anyone else. They Keep those dark drunk or lonely secrets buried in their chest forever.

If there is no name popped up in your head. Trust me it's fine, it's not the end, they are still finding you just as you are. You just have not met them yet. Let's talk about how to get closer to the new friends we are looking for.

3) Realizing “I need more friends” and doing nothing about it:

A lot of times I hear myself and my friends telling me “dude, I need more friends in town, I get seriously bored” . No matter where you are living, this line crosses your head at least once.

No matter how “independent” we are, we cannot deny the fact that we are social animals who need people around to survive and for our mental and physical well-being. But, when I am posed with this question by myself or a friend, I ask them what can you do about it, and they mostly say “I don't know” . I've even heard some of them saying “I downloaded an app called “I need a friend” “ (it's a made up name) .

Here are the tips that work for me, always and literally everywhere: - Go out there, no one's gonna ring your doorbell and say “I know how you feel, let's become best friends forever”. Now that you know, thats never happening, what you can do is, look inside ,find an interest and go out there. if you like traveling, go out there, if you like to workout, go to a gym and take those earpods off and when people look at you don't behave like brock lesnar and behave like a decent person and smile, a smile can move mountains.

TIP: Smile is contagious, our body is designed to revert to a smile with a smile, unless you creep it out. A smiling person seems more approachable than a person who looks all serious and a big shot. What we do is we talk about how much fun we can be, but we never try to go out there in a social setting. Leave your phone in your car or put it in silent mode in your pocket and just be there to talk to people. ***I used to workout at my home gym. Recently I felt I needed to find some new social settings. I pushed myself to join a gym and it's great to meet new people, even sharing a smile and saying hi to people in the morning is fun, try it. - keep a tab on your self talk, if you are already at a state where you have insecurities about yourself and your character, you can never get to make people find a friend in you , try telling yourself “I am a good person, and people like me here” no matter how cliche it sounds, it works like a miracle (don't judge something without trying). Being honest with yourself is essential. If you are not able to say this to yourself,ask yourself why, and a chain of thoughts will follow, and a "WHY" can take you anywhere and everywhere. People will automatically like you if you go to a social space with the attitude that you're likable.

- Do not try to bond over gossip , I have written a blog on why gossip is something you might want to stay away, but just know you can never build a bond with something negative. It's practically not possible, you may end up finding a gossip buddy, but you will eventually find yourself saying “She/he gossip too much, I sometimes can't take it”.

4) Asking for help make the friendship stronger :

Research and Studies show that asking for help is something that gets you closer to people, a display of vulnerability doesn't make you look weak it makes you look authentic. That's a general thing. But how many times does this happen with us that we know people and especially friends from whom we can seek help, and we just feel that “i don't wanna bother them” , “what will he think of me” again we jump in the toilet of negative thoughts.

You will be amazed to find out the lengths people and your friends will go to help you. The help you seeking does not have to be always an emotional help, it can be literally anything. If you are at a place trying new things, asking for help doesn't make you look silly. It makes you like a person who is trying to be better. I used this tool a lot, I ask people for help in badminton games, gym, solo travels, my job, literally everywhere and it has helped me a lot in my personal and professional growth. If you are not worried about the judgments, it works literally everywhere. Those conversations become so meaningful, you get to learn so much.

A quote by Charles Cooley, this is very close to my heart :

“I am not what i think i am , I am not what you think I am , I am what I think you think I am”

The idea is, Stop trying to impress people, if you cannot kill that impulse to impress them, at least seek control on it. Be natural, the real you will always shine more than the polished and “trying so hard to impress” you. So, stop with that negative talk, life's so short, if you are struggling with something,ask for herlp, if you feel lonely, call a friend, dont wait to be invited to a party, go fucking throw one. Ask all your busy friends to come, and trust me if you coordinate it well enough you’ll have a great time. 5) Make friends out of their character not their belongings: - they do not have to like and enjoy everything you do and vice versa

We humans have a natural tendency to plan and find patterns in things, because of that nature, we tend to profile people a lot, and see who will fit best in the profile of your friendlist. This profile you have created is highly dictated by what kind of people you were friends with in the past, it's like we create a job description of friend we need. We have silly descriptions like: must be from the same city, must be a smoker, must be a party person , if he dont like dogs we cannot be friends, if he dont like FRIENDS (tv show) sorry bro you are out.. I have literally seen people doing that, to be honest I have seen myself do that a lot too. At the same time, if we find a person cool enough (which means “better than us”) we just get ready to bypass all these profiling parameters.

I am not saying only meaningful conversations make friends, I am saying silly things help make friends faster. Till the time you are looking for someone to fit the profile, you will always feel like, “ah.. this is such a bogus place” no matter if you are living in New york or Bangalore. So the task is, throw those profile parameters out of the window, go out there, be vulnerable, make meaningless jokes, laugh with people, you never know who might end up being the part of your life and add to that list of “lifelong friends”. The friends you have and the friends you choose do not have to be someone who finds everything you do interesting, but should have respect towards what you do, I believe it's crucial for your success that your success and your struggle is equally respected by your friends. For example, my friends, most of them don't put mental health on their top priority, always feel that they are in complete control of what they are doing and what they are feeling. As much as they respect how important emotional well being is for me, I respect the fact that it's not on the priority list for them. They do not push me down by saying “this is a complete waste of time” or i dont say to them “you guys are nuts and have no idea how screwed you will be if you do not follow what I am saying”. There is absolutely no reason to feel that way, so flexibility in your expectations are very important. To read about how to expect smartly read here.

Conclusion is, while everyone is hustling to leave a mark before they depart from this world, if you are in your 20s , 30s, even 50s, go out there, call those friends you do not call just because it's been too long. If you are in touch, drop them a message and remind them how precious their friendship is to you and how much you love them. Don't let the most unreasonable thought of “He/she could have also called me” stop you. You are one call away from a friend who is feeling the exact same way you are. Take charge, break those walls down which are standing on a foundation of insecurities and the wall that is one call away from falling apart. ****Reversal of “Hunt for friends” : While I talked about how to find your existing friends and make new, It is crucial that you do not drown in the thought of “I need more friends” and keep kicking yourself with anxiety and get to a place where you feel even more sad. Don't find friends to complete your life , find friends to be a part of your life. To get someone to enjoy your company you first need to start enjoying your own company. Feel comfortable going to those malls alone, in those food festivals alone, go watch a movie if you feel like, lack of friends should never stop you from doing the things you like and more importantly experimenting with things you might enjoy.

Give yourself a good company, and that is a foundation of how you become a good company for others.

#BeAwesomeBeYou

Here is the Link to the Podcast I mentioned in the beginning.