How To Make Friends Part One

How to make friends: Part 1, why it’s tricky This is a two-parter podcast and blog post about how to make friends. We realise at Meg-John & Justin we often follow a similar structure whatever we’re talking about which goes something like this: This stuff is really hard because wider culture gives us all the wrong messages about it and neoliberal capitalism likes us to individualise all our struggles and think there’s something wrong with us So finding it super tough is 100% understandable and normal and don’t give yourself a hard time Here’s how you might do this thing in a different way to normative culture which could work better Here’s some things to watch out for And by the way remember that it’s super hard and understandable that you don’t find it easy or get it ‘right’ all the time. Go gently with yourself So this podcast goes something like… Part 1 Making friends is really hard because there’s no script for it, representations of friendships make it look like it should be really easy, most of us have very little time to nurture friendships because of work (#capitalism), and we’re taught to prioritise other kinds of relationships (romantic and family) So finding making friends super tough is 100% understandable and normal and don’t give yourself a hard time Part 2 Here’s some ways we could make and develop friendships by tuning into what we’re looking for from friend relationships, and cultivating connections to intentionally and consensually develop them into friendships And by the way remember that it’s super hard and understandable that you don’t find it easy or get it ‘right’ all the time. Go gently with yourself In part 1 we reflected how young and old people are often expected to be able to be friends with everyone of the same age as them - we just put them together and expect them to get on. For adults there’s hardly any script for making and maintaining friendships. We’re meant to prioritise romantic and family relationships over friendships. There’s a sense that friendships should just happen and not require any work which is a problem because they’re not that easy for most people, and not that consensual if we just ‘do’ friendship without ever reflecting on it. There’s also ableism and neurotypical privilege involved in the expectation that everybody will find it easy to engage in social situations, automatically know how to develop friendships, etc. Where wider culture does represent friendship it is in a very idealised way. TV shows from Friends to the Big Bang Theory are based on close, tight friendship groups where people have lots of fun and joy and hang out together. Movies often depict besties and buddies who have easy, close relationships. All this presents a model of what friendships should look like which doesn’t suit everyone (some people prefer multiple one to one friendships to a group, or non-hierarchical friendships, for example), and it continues to make it look like friendship is easy when actually it’s just as complex as any other kind of relationship - with the added challenge of there not being much of script of how to do it: making friends, maintaining friendships, and ending friendships. Everything can be harder still when you have fewer friends to start with - for example if friendship is an area you find difficult, if you’ve just moved where you’re living or working, or if you’ve recently lost some friendships. When it feels like potential friendships are scarce, and/or when you feel low in confidence and scared of rejection, the whole area can become more loaded and fraught. So how can we go about making friends in this tough territory? More on that in Part 2.