Sydney, Dec 17 (The Conversation) As we resume our social lives after the lifting of strict COVID restrictions, it’s time for many of us to think about our friends.
In recent research I have found that friendship networks were declining during the Covid lockdown in Australia.
Some have reduced their networks, focusing only on the most important family and friends. Some friends left out due to a lack of recreational and community activities and were confined to digital interactions.
Now that we’re starting to reconnect, the obvious question is, how can we get our old friends back? We might even be asking ourselves – which friends do we want back?
Which friends do we want?
There’s no one answer here – different people want different things from friends.
In the data I calculated from the 2015–16 Australian Social Attitudes Survey, support from close friends in Australia is largely as follows:
Mainly, having a confidant who provides emotional support and has fun and good times together, as well as offers a variety of help and advice when needed. These results vary by background and life stage.
Women are more likely to have confidants who provide emotional support in the form of close friends. Men are more likely to have friends who provide fun, good times, help and advice – or even no regular support.
Younger people are more likely to have a friend’s confidant, emotional support, fun and good times. Older people over the age of 56 are slightly more likely to seek help and advice, and more likely to lack a close supportive friend.
These results are indicative of what different people get from close friendships, but can say nothing about what they want or need.
Close confidant women considered friends may have reduced emotional loneliness, which is defined as the absence of close attachments to others who provide strong emotional support.
However, despite this, they may also feel a sense of social loneliness, or a lack of quality with friends, or a sense of belonging.
Conversely, male camaraderie built around fun, activities, and mutual help may reduce social loneliness, but may not reduce emotional loneliness.
Emerging evidence suggests that emotional loneliness has a more negative effect on a person’s personality than social loneliness, so it is important for everyone to have someone they can talk to with emotional support.
Yet we need different perspectives and goals to suit different friendship needs.
overcome social loneliness
The first way to reduce social loneliness is to reach out to people we already know, now that we can.
We can message old friends, organize get-togethers, or start new conversations and activities with daily contacts including coworkers, fellow students, regulars at a local club or cafe, or even neighbors.
While online options abound for connecting, it is important to avoid activities that exacerbate loneliness, such as passive scrolling, unwanted broadcasts, or the escapist substitution of digital communities for physical ones.
To overcome emotional loneliness, the focus should be on deepening existing relationships.
Spending high quality, meaningful time with a few good quality friends (or even a single one) is essential.
This might mean apologizing in a thoughtful and respectful way to compensate for the damage you’ve done or said.
Online contact and videoconferencing can help maintain intimate partner and family ties, as was the case during the lockdown. This is especially helpful for older people and expatriates, but not as helpful for young people already fed up with online social media connections.
Some may require the help of a professional psychologist, counselor or support group to overcome the increased social anxiety especially after the COVID lockdown.
This kind of support can reduce emotional loneliness by helping us process social situations in a more positive way and be more realistic (and less concerned) about our friendship choices.
ending a bad or ‘bad’ friendship
Reflecting on our friendships, we can decide to end any friendships that have particularly deteriorated.
We must be especially careful in ending long-term friendships. Quality relationships take time and naturally involve ups and downs – especially in a pandemic. Wherever possible, we should look to renegotiate rather than end them.
Take the time, and talk to a friend. Since listening is the key to friendship, perhaps ask yourself – have you heard everything they were trying to say?
The Conversation Unity Ekta
Unity
.