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A good friendship can have incredible benefits on mental and physical health throughout your life. It can influence everything from your weight to your self-confidence, and even your ability to cope with trauma. But as busy adults, it can feel challenging to maintain solid friendships or even be a good friend.
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Adulthood presents a unique set of friendship challenges that we don’t have while we’re in school. “When we’re in school, there’s almost a built-in source of friends,” Dr. Jessy Warner-Cohen, PhD, a clinical psychologist tells Woman’s Day. “The first challenge we face is leaving school, whether that’s high school, college, or grad school. You go from having a unified group of people who all have shared goals, to not having that system in place.”
And to add to the pressure, research shows that we lose friends as we age. “The average person hasn’t made a single new friend in the last five years,” psychologist Dr. Marisa G. Franco, PhD, tells Woman’s Day. “The positive side of this is that as we age, people become happier in the friendships they do maintain. There’s a pruning process where people get rid of those that they’re ambivalent about.”
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As with any relationship, communication is key in cultivating a good friendship.
TOM WERNER
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Here are five ways to foster the friendships that truly matter to you.
Focus on communication.
“Just like in a romantic relationship, you need to make sure you talk and compromise,” Warner-Cohen says. “You shouldn’t just tell someone, ‘I’m canceling on dinner you,’ without explaining that you’re doing it because of a work deadline. It makes a big difference. People hold friends responsible for their actions. Make sure you’re giving people the information they need to make their choices and react appropriately.”
In other words, don’t assume your friends can read your mind. Explain what’s going on so they can understand what’s happening in your life.
Emphasize kindness over charisma.
Being kind and showing positive emotions to others is what helps create new friendships, and maintain old ones.
“There’s a theory in psychology called the reciprocity of liking effect,” Franco explains. “Basically, it says that the secret to being likeable is liking other people. People think that being charismatic or intelligent will get people to like them. But it’s actually way more about how you treat them. Qualities like kindness, empathy, and loyalty, and how you show up for people, is what really counts.”
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Show up at difficult times.
Real friends are present, even during challenging situations.
It’s not just telling someone that "things will get better."
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“Oftentimes as friends, we don’t like to see people we care about in distress. But hard times happen to everyone,” Warner-Cohen says. “Recognizing that sometimes someone just wants you to be with them, and understanding the difficulty of the situation can really go a long way. It’s not just telling someone that ‘things will get better.’ It’s really showing up for them, letting them know that you hear what they’re saying and that you’re truly here for them.”