making new friends

Yesterday's guest post by Debba Hauppert of Girlfriendology.com was the first in a weeklong series of posts in celebration of The Month of Friendship.

Today's post is from Shasta Nelson, life coach and founder of GirlFriendCircles.com, the only online community that matches new friends offline by connecting circles of women in local areas. Shasta blogs weekly about women's friendships at GirlFriendCircles.com/Blog and is hosting friendship events in Chicago, San Francisco and L.A this month. If her name sounds familiar, it may be because she was a guest on the CBS Morning Show yesterday!

Here's Shasta's story:

When I moved to San Francisco, I had an amazing circle of friends spread across the country but soon realized that as much as I loved Facebook and my Iphone-I certainly didn't want all my relationships to be limited to them. I reached a point where I wanted to make new memories with friends, rather than the reporting of life or re-living of the past that we tend to do with "those we used to be close to."

I needed present friends. I needed local friends. I needed new friends.

Normalize New Friends

Those are hard words to say though, for some reason. We have this stigma that to admit needing friends might somehow be misinterpreted as saying "No one likes me" or "I have no friends." It taps into all our insecurities, fears and any shame we have over any relationship that didn't last forever.

 

In fact, most friendships don't last forever. Reported in September's MORE magazine, Sally Koslow says that "the average person now replaces half her friends every seven years." At first I gasped when I read that, and then I nodded in recognition.

 

The truth is that there are multiple times in our lives when we need to expand our circle of friends! Tons of times! Whether it's a move, a break-up/divorce, a realization that all your friends have kids/are single/moved away, a change in jobs or decision to work from home, a life-changing experience, a new hobby, a shift in life focus when our kids move out or we retire.... The list could go on-and-on! None of those reasons are a judgment against us! They are simply stages of life that remind us that while a couple of our friendships might prevail through differences, the truth is that we all need to be constantly replenishing our circle of friends to ensure it's meaningful for who we are now.

Need New Friends

There have been numerous reports linking a circle of supportive friends to lowering stress levels, increasing happiness, prevention of diseases, faster recovery rates for healing and greater chance of reaching life goals. Add to that the reports that relationships improve your odds of survival by 50 percent, and we have a serious reminder that our friendships are not a nice-to-have, but a necessity!

 

The research published in July in the journal PLoS Medicine, compared low social connectedness to have the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, to being an alcoholic, as more harmful than not exercising and twice as harmful as obesity!

 

I'm not a big fan of telling people how many friends they need. We're all different, but studies seem to suggest people are happiest with somewhere between 5-10 meaningful friendships. And other reports show that half of us have less than 2 people we'd call real friends. There seems to be some discrepancy between our experience and our ideal?

 

Note that there is a difference between how many people you're friendly with versus how many people you call a friend. Huge difference. It's common to assume we have lots of friends, but when we examine it we realize we simply know a lot of friendly people through work and school. An easy test for me is to ask myself "How many people would I feel comfortable asking for a ride to the airport?" or "Who is in my life that I could text last-minute to see if they were available to hang out without it feeling weird?" Easy things-we're not even talking about taking care of your kids when they're sick!

Invite New Friends

Recognizing who is in our circle and acknowledging if, and when, we need to invite more meaningful friendships into our lives is part of taking care of our wellbeing.

 

I'll be the first to admit, it was often more tempting to call an established friend and tell her about my need to go shopping than it was to call up a potential friend to see if she wanted to go shopping. In the beginning it was less meaningful to talk to a new friend than to call someone who already knew me, but I held the truth that, like dating, I simply had to put the consistent time into my new relationships to create those bonds.

 

It didn't "just happen." Friendships don't just show up. Fun people might. But turning them into friendships simply is an investment we have to make.

 

And now, every Tuesday night, I have girls' night with the same four women in San Francisco. I know who to call for a ride to the airport and who to text for a last-minute get together!

 

So, now, my passion is helping foster that process for everyone else! Do it for your health & happiness!

 

On Wednesday, The Friendship Doctor (Irene) will be posting my thoughts here, with cross-posts on the blogs of other members of The Friendship Circle too.

 

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The Friendship Circle (a network of five organizations committed to celebrating the power of female friendships) is partnering in September for a Month of Friendship. Visit these Friendship Circle websites daily in September for more inspiration and information:

• The Friendship Blog – by psychologist, professor of psychiatry, and author, Dr. Irene S. Levine (The Friendship Doctor), author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving A Breakup with Your Best Friend. Follow Irene on Twitter.
• GirlfriendCelebrations – premier source of girls night ideas on the web. Founded by friends Dawn Williams Bertuca and Tina VanZant Bishop. Girlfriend Celebrations on Facebook and Twitter
• GirlFriendCircles.com - only online community that matches new friends offline by connecting circles of women in local areas, by Shasta Nelson. On Facebook and Twitter.
• Girlfriendology.com - online community for women based on inspiration, appreciation and celebration of female friendship. Created by Debba Haupert. On Facebook and Twitter.
• MWF Seeking BFF - chronicles the author’s search for a new best friend after moving to a new city for love, by Rachel Bertsche.

QUESTION

Hi Irene,

I wanted to ask you about travel friendships. I just returned home to the UK after a gap year in Australia. While abroad I made lots of new friends, but became very close with one of them in particular as we ended up traveling together for several months.

 

I would love your advice on how to make the transition from traveling with someone (navigating a foreign country together and sharing things on a daily basis) to being "long-distance" friends once one or both of you have returned home to your respective lives and countries.

Thanks,
Maggie

 

ANSWER

Hi Maggie,

One of the joys of traveling is making new friends. When I saw your question, I immediately thought of my friend and colleague, whom I knew could provide you with a better response than me ☺. Ellen Perlman is an experienced traveler and accomplished travel writer who blogs at www.BoldlyGoSolo.com.

 

This is Ellen's sage advice:

The best advice for maintaining a long-distance friends is to do your utmost to reach out to your friend by email, phone, Facebook - however you choose - to tell her news about yourself, ask her how she's doing, tell her that you heard or did something that reminded you of your time together, or just to check in.

 

The good news is you were lucky to find a special person to share what is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime, months-long travel adventure. The less good, but not bad news, is that, as you suspect, it can be tough to maintain the closeness and intensity of that in-person relationship over time. But it doesn't mean you have to give up on keeping your friend close, as best you can, and accepting that the friendship is likely to change somewhat.

 

I've experienced a similar friendship transition many times. For instance, when I was in my early 30's, I met someone at Club Med in the Caribbean who I clicked with. She and I and several others formed a "gang" that had dinner together every night and talked and laughed. A lot. When the week was over, we all flew off in different directions, but Nicole and I kept in touch. The adventure was just beginning. I visited her in Montreal for a weekend and she came to see me in Washington, DC. Within a year or so, she had moved to Budapest. Score! Of course I found a way to visit her there and she showed me all around. I'm not sure I ever would have gone to Budapest if I hadn't known someone there.

The last time we got together was in Charlottesville, Virginia, at her uncle's house for a Christmas dinner. I'm not sure what happened after that. Maybe we both got too busy, or found romantic relationships or simply found it too difficult to keep up a long-distance friendship. Or perhaps, after a few years of seeing someone for only a weekend or two a year, the friendship just faded. Not in a bad way. Not due to anger or based on any discussion about what to do next. It just faded.

On the other hand, I spent a year as a university student in England several decades ago and I'm still in touch with my friend Lindsay, who I met that year. I was close with all the girls on my dorm hall but didn't manage to stay in touch with the others for more than a few years. But Lindsay and I met up and traveled together in Thailand and Hawaii, among other places. We visited each other either in the U.S. or in England a few times. I just got an email from her the other day. It amazes me that we're still in touch. And likely will indulge our mutual love of travel together again some day again, by choosing some exotic vacation destination to meet up in. It doesn't matter how many years pass before seeing each other again. We just pick up where we left off.

 

So have hope that you can make the friendship last and be the one to reach out to her even if it feels like you're making more of the effort. But don't panic over the thought that maybe you can't make it last. Nothing can take away the fun times you've already had.

 

Follow Ellen on Boldly Go Solo~

Warm regards, Irene & Ellen

 

 

When Amanda Blain, now 29, graduated and moved from Toronto to Ottawa, Canada, she began working in a series of male-dominated technical IT careers. Although she considers herself outgoing, she found it difficult to find and make new friends with each new situation or life change. So three years ago, she decided to tackle the problem head-on---for herself and other women. She created a new start-up, Girlfriend Social, to harness the power of the internet to help women make new girlfriends. Since its official launch about one year ago, more than 1800 women have signed up for the site from all over Canada, the USA, the UK and even Australia.

 

"I saw a need for a place where women could go and connect, and knew that I had the ability to create it," says Blain, who has a background in web design and internet marketing. Women pair up with new friends based on the information they post. "With a few simple clicks, you can match with other women in your local area who have kids the same age as yours or who love the twilight book series as much as you do," she says. After women connect online, Girlfriend Social creates opportunities for them to meet face-to-face in safe, friendly event settings that are designed to bridge the connection from online to the real world.

 

According to Blain, the primary target audience for the new social media site is women who fall in the "M3" category. They include women who have Moved, Married, or are Mothers---but the site attracts women of all different backgrounds and situations who, for whatever reason, feel like they want to have more friends or want to find a new best gal pal. The sponsored monthly events held so far have included pub nights, dog walks, scrapbooking get-togethers, bowling nights, rock climbing, movie nights, and a lobster dinner. "This makes meeting several people at once easier and more relaxed if you're a little shy," she says.

 

"Although there are many social networks online, most are designed to deal with business networking, dating, or connecting with people you already know," says Blain. "There are very few sites that connect new friends or that are for trying out new hobbies." Use of the site is free, with the costs underwritten by event and webpage sponsors. Blain recently moved to southern California from Canada and is working on expanding the site to major cities in the U.S.

 

P.S. In addition to GirlfriendSocial.com, several other social media sites that encourage and facilitate platonic friendships among women include GirlfriendCelebrations.com, Girlfriendology.com, GirlfriendCircles.com, GirlfriendsCafe.com and SocialJane.com. Each site has different features.

 

Caveat: Always check out any site on the internet before you sign up and be cautious in providing personal information to people whom you don't know.

QUESTION:

Dear Irene:

I recently experienced a broken friendship with someone that was my closest friend at the time. We both have 3-year-old boys who were best buddies and attended part-time preschool together. However, I began distancing myself as she was quite needy, manipulative of family, and superficial, though I did help her out quite a bit when her second child was born a year ago (neither of us have family nearby).

 

At the time I began distancing myself, she began a new friendship with another woman who seems to be more her type - and someone I never connected with. Since the end of my friendship, I have attempted to find more female friends without success. I have one young son and another child on the way, so my pool of potential friendships is limited right now to women in similar situations: stay-at-home moms with young children.

In newer relationships, I find many women to be very similar to her: manipulative, talking about each other, out for themselves, interested only in relationships in which they gain something, superficial, materialistic, complaining about husbands all the time, etc. I really do not engage in these behaviors. I believe they are destructive, though I understand that in many instances they work to keep these women connected to each other.

 

I believe the other factor in this conundrum is that I have a doctorate, a factor I wonder if others are intimidated by. Many of the women I meet seem to fit the stereotype of majoring in their MRS in college, or have never gone to college. I tend to stay on the edge of things rather than join a group as my values are completely different. I have attempted to reach out in several instances to make new friendships but there was always a little red flag raised in the back of my mind about the person, so I would back
off, trusting my gut.

 

It truly feels as if I have never left junior high or high school. I fear that this is the norm in female friendships, and that finding a friend who holds my same values/ideals of friendship will be the exception, which is quite discouraging. Is my observation accurate? I have had a few women tell me "yes." My experience in graduate school was approximately the same, but the women in graduate school were very competitive and had completely different motives for their behavior. I thought once I completed graduate school I would enter a world in which individuals were mature, respectful, caring, etc. but perhaps this is too high of an expectation?

 

Any input you can provide is greatly appreciated. 

Signed,
Chris

 

ANSWER:

 

Hi Chris,

Compared to almost every other stage of a woman's life, except perhaps--old age, being a stay-at-home mom with young children is one of the most challenging times for making new female friends. Realistically, your opportunities for meeting new people are likely to be limited and having a little one with another one on the way, you must be busy and exhausted. Yet, your note makes it obvious that you really would like to connect with another woman in an intimate way.

 

Here are a few simple suggestions for a complicatd problem:

 

Stop thinking all or none. Admittedly, it's hard to find any one person to meet all your friendship needs. Instead, can you patch together a few different friendships? For example, a phone friend (perhaps someone you know from the past); a mom-friend, so you can have playdates for your kids; an academic friend (perhaps someone who is interested in the field of your doctorate)?

 

Find new places to look for friends. Since you are somewhat homebound, can online friends fill some of your needs, either people you meet in social communities or people you know that don't happen to live close enough to get together? See my post on the trend towards moms logging on for companionship and advice. Can you have your husband or another relative babysit a night a week while you take a continuing education course in your community, work on a political campaign, or join a community group?

 

Try to be more open about the people you do meet. You may be stereotyping the people around you and not giving them or yourself enough time to know one another. One difference between an acquaintance and a friend is often the length of time two people know each other. It takes time for people to get to know one another, and to feel comfortable enough to share intimacies with one another. Could you be crossing women off your dance card without giving them a chance? Women who seem shallow at first may have more depth to them when you get to know them better.

 

I hope this gives you some food for thought. Congratulations on your pregnancy! What an exciting time for you and your family. Thanks for reading my blog and taking the time to write.

Best,
Irene

It’s so easy to make resolutions and so hard to keep them. Every year, women resolve to lose weight, reduce stress, work smarter, and improve their relationships with family and friends.

I thought a little more specificity might help clarify my Friendship Resolutions (and yours) and make them more concrete and achievable. Here goes:

1) Get real

Don’t expect all of your friendships to last forever

2) Don’t settle for one BFF

Surround yourself with a number of synergistic relationships

3) Get rid of toxic friendships

If a friendship consistently drains you, brings you down, makes you nervous, or makes you angry, it is not worth keeping.

4) Don’t be a toxic friend

Don’t be too needy. Listen as much as you talk. Don’t expect any one friend to fulfill all your needs.

5) Reach back

There is no substitute for shared history. With the internet and low-cost cell phone calls, there’s no reason to not reconnect with significant friends from your past.

6) Prepare for your future

Continually work at making new friends. As we grow and mature, we need to replenish our stock to keep our friendships fresh and vital.

7) Don’t be threatened by the internet

Virtual friendships on MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn don’t undermine friendships. Rather, they can enhance old friendships and create new ones.

8) Just do it

There is no substitute for setting aside time for your friendships and the payoff is worthwhile. Don’t just talk about getting together. Mark you calendar.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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If you’ve been living under a rock like me and haven’t signed on or even heard about it yet, Second Life (SL) is a 3-D virtual world that has enticed more than 7 million members from around the globe since it was created in late 2006...