Emotionally intelligent friendships are the bedrock of a fulfilling social life. Discover the six secrets to cultivating such relationships, where empathy meets understanding, and emotional acuity becomes the cornerstone of lasting bonds.
Study:
People with more friends had a 50% greater chance of survival
- Having no friends or not being involved in community activities will dramatically affect how long you live
- One factor in how well the COVID vaccine helps you may actually be how many friends you have
- That loneliness really does have adverse consequences for your immune system
Make Your Best Friend Better
Help them become a better climber on the mountain of life. When they ascend, so do you. And if they fall, it’s more likely you will too.
- When either of you improves, you both do. It’s a virtuous cycle.
The Dunbar Number
The average person sends Christmas cards to 154 people
- Most people have about 5 friends they contact weekly, roughly 15 they talk to monthly, approximately 50 they hear from every six months, and 150 they reach out to annually.
- If you don’t take care of those relationships, they’re gonna go away. Friendship is fragile. So how do we stop the losses?
Budget Appropriately
On average, we spend 3.5 hours a day on social interaction.
- Your closest 5 people get 40% of that
- The other 10 people in the group of 15 get the next 20%.
- 135 people in a bigger circle each get less than 20 minutes a month – about 37 seconds a day.
Stay In Touch
You’re going to lose a friend about every 2 years
- Be deliberate and stay in touch
- Reach out to the friends you want to maintain, let them know they matter
- Social media only slows the decline of friendships
- We need face-to-face contact
How To Party
The more the merrier
- Ditch small talk
- Open up and get meaningful
- Students who spend less time alone and more meaningful conversation time have higher wellbeing
- Similarly, adults who spend more time in meaningful conversations have higher life satisfaction
How to make emotionally intelligent friendships:
Stay in touch: Friendship is not an arena where you want to play hard to get.
- Gratitude: If we’re more kind to strangers than to friends, we are definitely doing something wrong
- Quality > Quantity: Share emotional experiences
- Budget appropriately: Time is limited. Allocate it wisely
- How to party: Eat. Laugh. Reminisce. The more the merrier
- Make your best friend better: Make yourself better and help make them better
Gratitude
A little gratitude can go a long way in maintaining relationships
- Say you’re sorry when you mess up and don’t let grievances build
- Dunbar’s Number gets all the hype, but quantity doesn’t matter as much as quality
- So how do we up the closeness?
Quality > Quantity
Quality relationships are built by quality interactions
- It is doubleplusungood wrongthink to neglect face-to-face time
- Be vulnerable
- Ask for advice
- Share what you’re going through, emotionally
- Make plans to hop on a car or plane to see those that matter
