Category Archives: Relationships

What You Should Know About Friendship

Friendships, Life Education

When you only become friends with like-minded individuals, you risk becoming narrow-minded and trapping each other in the preconceived notions and judgments everyone shares.  If you expand your mind and your social network, you can be exposed to more ideas that challenge you, and you can learn to be tolerant of others instead of judgmental.  (Don’t Be Yourself)

The more activities you have in common, the more likely you will be friends.  Note I did not say the more you have in common, I said the more activities you have in common: it is in the time spent together that friendship is made, not in the amount of similarities you have–the similarities just increases the potential for friendship, it doesn’t build the friendship in reality.  (Getting Comfortable With a Friend)

“As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other” – Why is it Hard to Make Friends Over 30? NY Times

Time alone is necessary, but not sufficient, for friendship.  Vulnerability is absolutely necessary for friendship to exist.  If you are not your genuine self, then you can’t consider someone your friend because that person is only friends with the act you put on, not your true self.  And if you don’t believe the other person is genuine, then you can’t trust that person and be friends with what you believe to be just a character or act the other person puts on for you.  Also, people in general don’t like being lied to, much less friends.

Money will be a problem.  If you are lucky, you will have friends who make more than you, friends who make the same, and friend who make less.  Some activities cost more than others, so some people will be excluded as a result.  This is just part of life.  (Birthdays and Wealth Distribution)

Not all friendships will last forever.  Do your best to preserve the ones you want to, but move on and let go when need be. (Friendship: Drifting Apart)

All friendships will be different: everyone is different, and your experiences with each friend will be different.  There is no detailed formula for friendship, nor is there a detailed model for friendship, only tips, guidelines, and descriptions of friendship.  Also, a Friendship Contract is impossible because it cannot fully capture all possible outcomes and circumstances.  If enforced, it would limit interactions to pre-defined acceptable behavior, resulting in repetition, which from the Nature of Your Own Identity we know means no identity is formed, where identity in this case refers to the identity of the relationship.  Furthermore, contracts are for business, not personal. (A Time and Place for Business vs Personal).  In fact, it is in how you go above and beyond the social contract that you demonstrate personalized friendship, which is the most sentimentally valuable.  It is one thing to say Happy Birthday because it’s someone’s birthday, it is another thing to, on a normal day, spend time and money to give a gift just to make that person happier.

People become friends for a variety of different reasons, some are activity, location, occupation, mutual friend: the why and how can make for an interesting story, but doesn’t need to–the friendship makes the friendship, not the start.

Unfairness is a fundamental part of friendship.  You will like some people more than others: that is normal, and you must respect that in order to be honest and genuine in your interactions.  (What I Learned About Friendship In 2013).  There is also no need to feel bad about prioritizing friends: it’s just a part of living in an imperfect world with constraints; no need to get depressed from trade-off decisions.

Selfishness is an unfortunate part of friendship: everyone needs and wants to get something out of it. If you get nothing out of a friendship, then it might be time to find friends that are a better fit for you.  However, there is also something I call charitable friendships: someone wants to give, and you just happen to be someone they can give to; that person doesn’t care what they get back.

Tips on Friendship

  • Be consistent – Don’t be a fair-weather friend.  It will confuse other people about whether you are actually their friend, which leads to suspicion and distrust, all of which will ruin or end the friendship unless you fix the problem.
    • Fake friends reveal themselves in how much or how little they care about you.  The mainstream definition of “friend” is just someone you hang out and have fun with.   However, there is a deeper kind of friend, and that is the kind that you care about, and who cares about you.  This is a much more exclusive list both because getting this level of friendship is difficult to achieve, and because you have a limited amount of time, and you can’t care about everyone equally.
  • Focus – If you could only pick 3 people to be your friends, who would those 3 people be?  If you have trouble deciding who to be excluded, then all the people you had difficulty deciding about are your friends.  If you easily picked less than 3, then those are your friends.  To make more: How to Make Friends
  • Take Initiative – Be the one to take action and contact those you want to stay in contact with, don’t be passive or wait for the other person to make the first move.
    • Gary Blauman – How I Met Your Mother Season 9 Episode 21 – “You will be shocked when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever.  That’s why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it. ” – Ted

More on Friendship and Social Skills

To find out when more Life Education Curriculum is released, subscribe on the side! Follow on Twitter, on Facebook, on Google+, on Tumblr.  Please share your comments to this post below.

Identity and Conversation Manipulation

Conversation, Identity, Thoughts On Life

I was recently asked about rivalry between Berkeley and Stanford.  The question was: are Berkeley students passionate about school pride.  Followed by, are you passionate about school pride.

Now there’s two answers to this question that jumped into my brain, and here’s how I worked through them:

Answer with the Truth: there are people who care about the rivalry, and there are people who don’t care.  I am someone who doesn’t care.  Conversation ends.

Answer with a Lie: Very passionate.  Of course I care, *Make conversation interesting by over-exaggerating school pride*

I answered with the truth, because the context of the question was “Stanford students are cool as a cucumber, whereas Berkeley students are dumb for spending frivolous energy on trivial pursuits,” and if I made the conversation interesting, I would attach to my identity the accusation that I am someone who frivolously pursue trivial things like over-exaggerating school pride.

I remain convinced that, for this particular instance, I made the right decision.  However, I cannot help but be bothered by the loss of potential for fun, because the rest of the conversation was not as engaging or fun as it could have been if we played around with school pride.

Thoughts?

The hypocrisy within this whole situation is that everyone spends frivolous energy on trivial pursuits sometimes: that’s what having fun is.  All work and no play is not the way to go.  As such, why hide the “truth,” which is that I am someone who frivolously pursues trivial things, sometimes?  From what I know about human nature, and perception, and how people for identities of others, I know that the imprint of this interaction on overall identity will take more work to erode than if I wait for another opportunity to demonstrate fun.  At the same time, I suppose it is fair to look at it from the alternative point of view, which is that I am strongly signaling that I am no fun.  Seems like a lose lose situation.

How to Make Friends

Friendships

Step 1 of 4. You just met and you don’t know anything about each other.

Step 2. You start getting to know things about each other from other people, from your own observations and judgements, from conversations.  If someone doesn’t shake your hand, you might think they are impolite, or they don’t like you, or they are a germaphobe who never shakes anyone’s hand.  Which one is true?  Your mind will probably guess one and convince you that you’re right, but to find out the truth, only time will tell. Few of your initial impressions of the person are likely to be accurate because you don’t know the person well enough to know what certain things mean to that person.  If you decide to ask directly for an explanation too early in the relationship, they might be shy about telling the truth–being vulnerable and honest is scary–so they might lie to cover up the truth, or they deflect the question with a joke or a change of subject.

Being able to judge someone based on what you see only works if it’s true that the person is behaving in a way that is representative of who that person is.  This is not always true because people’s moods change, and that mood change results in different behavior: If I’m tired, I’ll be slow and quiet; if I’m excited I’ll be loud and active; if I’m having a normal day I’ll be responsive but reserved.  Who I am as a whole changes every day, but pieces of who I am as a person will stay with me as I change over time, and the only way to learn who I am as a person over time is to watch and observe me over time.

Step 3. You build common ground.  This could mean you realize that you both like similar things or have similar backgrounds and experiences, or, if you have nothing in common prior to meeting, you can create common ground by spending time together and experiencing life together.  This part requires a lot of patience, because it takes many hours to learn enough about the other person that you can easily filter what to say and how to say it, based on what you know about the other person and yourself, and what you hope to achieve out of this relationship.  This part takes weeks, and in my experience it usually takes months. The trick is to stay with it, and ask questions: have people explain their actions so you know the truth, and you can refine the accuracy of your judgments of that person.  If they don’t know you well, they’ll give you superficial answers.  If you’ve know each other for several weeks, they might share with you a more detailed answer, but still not the truth because they want to hide it.  Few people go around wearing their heart on their sleeve, telling the absolute core truth.  For most people, you will only get that when there’s a need, when there’s a problem, challenge, or struggle.  Be there to help, and you will complete your quest and unlock the friendship achievement.

The common ground between every two people is different: no two people are identical, or else they would be the same person.  What this means is that your friendship with each person will be slightly different–different personalities will bring out different sides of your own identity.  This is normal–you don’t have to act the same way to everyone, and you’re not being disingenuous by doing so.

Step 4. Both sides make the choice to be friends. Who you run into is influenced by your life decisions, but ultimately it is out of your control.  If you went to the event an hour early you would have had an entirely different experience and met entirely different people, and given them entirely different impressions of you.  Of all the people you meet, however, you choose which ones become your friend, and at the end of the day, the choice must be mutual: if neither person considers the other a friend, they aren’t friends; if one person considers the other a friend, but the feeling is not shared, then the friendship is in limbo.  With time, one of them could change their mind and accept the friendship, or one of them could change their mind and abandon the friendship.  Only if both people say yes is it real friendship.

What You Should Know About Friendship

Resources

1. How to Meet People

  • Google for activities, hobbies, events that you’re interested in, or just go to one for fun to meet people.  www.meetup.com
  • Next time a friend invites you to something, say yes.
  • Go outside for any reason at all, maybe you need some bread and milk <–funny video

2. Get to know the person

  • My articles on: Conversation and Communication

3. Build common ground with the person (this common ground IS your relationship with that person.  This is where it happens.)  I plan to release an app for this, subscribe to hear news.

4. With time, effort, and honest emotions, the common ground grows, and the relationship grows, and if you’re lucky and it works out, the relationship becomes a friendship.

More articles on Friendship:

To find out when more Life Education Curriculum is released, subscribe on the side! Follow on Twitter, on Facebook, on Google+, on Tumblr.  Please share your comments to this post below.