Plan Ongoing Activities to Make Deeper Connections With Friends
FIND EPISODE #14 ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY, OR ANYWHERE YOU LIKE TO LISTEN TO PODCASTS! You can also listen below.
Episode #14 is a follow up and a twist to episode 13 with Michelle Platt a few weeks ago on making friends in a new city or new stage of life. Like all friendship discussions, there are some similar themes of being the one willing to make the effort and going out of your comfort zone, but I went to some next steps in episode 14.
The most essential point in this episode is about creating opportunities to see the same people on a regular basis. It takes a lot of repeated time together to get more familiar and really feel close. I think it’s why pickle ball and paddle ball leagues are getting so popular as one example.
The anonymous letter today is from a woman who has lived in her new city for 15 years. She has made plenty of friends over the years and has people to do occasional outings with, but she doesn’t feel like she has a set community or what she refers to as a clustering of friends.
I also discuss how keeping expectations in check might also be the key to feeling happier with the friendships we already have.
Meet Jessica Smock
My guest for this episode was Jessica Smock, one of the co-creators of The HerStories Project website along with Stephanie Sprenger. Jessica and Stephanie first hired me in 2014 to become their friendship advice columnist!
I need to take a moment here to say that I owe Jessica and Stephanie SO MUCH! They helped me move from writing about parenting to writing about friendship, a topic I’ve been passionate about for decades. My first advice column was published on their site in September 2014.
Jessica lives in Buffalo, New York, so we suffer similar winters from afar. She’s a former teacher and researcher and current co-editor of The HerStories Project, which is way more than a website. It’s a writing and publishing community for midlife women. Since 2014, Jessica and Stephanie have published women’s personal essays in five anthologies. Their newest anthology is called— The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink.
Here’s the letter Jessica and I answered:
Dear Nina,
Over the 15 years I’ve lived in my city (a fairly large American city), I’ve felt a longing for a better community of friends. I have some nice individual friendships in town and some very close ones with people who live out of town, but it becomes abundantly clear when I’m headed back home after visits to family with tons of relatives and friends around that I’m pretty sad to come back to a place without family and without a solid community of friends. I’m married with young kids and have made a few mom friends through the kids’ schools.
I don’t feel I have a lack of friends, but that hasn’t really amounted into a full community or clustering of friends. I also belong to a synagogue, but I’m not super active and haven’t found my niche there. I worked at a company for 10 years and had a really great community there that saw me through getting married and having babies, but since I’ve left that job, had my kids, and started a new job I haven’t really found something similar. I don’t know if I need more friends or a community of friends or what will fill the void for me. It just seems like a daunting task to build genuine, meaningful connections with people as an adult.
Any advice? Signed, Ivy* (Not my real name)
Some Notes From My Conversation With Jessica
I think we can agree Ivy has done all the necessary steps when making new friends. She’s been in her city for 15 years. She knows how to connect with people and make friends. She has friends. This is less about making friends and more about making a community. I like how she called it a cluster of friends.
Jessica said from the get go that she can relate to missing the comfort of a group of friends, the group dynamic of common stories and a shared language. She reflected on how moving to a place where many people were raised and stayed as adults can be a challenge. She’s been in Buffalo for ten years and still refers to herself as a “new person.” I shared how in the Twin Cities we call ourselves “transplants” when we’re not from here and how people who move here struggle too. If the chemistry is good, this is a great jumping off point to plan ongoing get togethers.
Some Ideas We Brought Up:
— Pop up events so it’s not a big commitment at first. Examples: pop up book club to discuss just one book; cooking club to make one type of dish; a one-time pickle ball lesson. This way if the chemistry isn’t great, you can try it again with different people.
— Train for a 5K or sign up for another type of activity, but one where people do not know each other yet. A shared goal can really bring people together.
–Jessica prefers the idea of an activity with more meetings built-in since repeated encounters to allows for time to deepen relationships.
—We talked a lot about how accepting the fact that you need to be the planner is a major first step. People love to be included and invited.
–I talked about the 18 challah classes I hosted five years ago. Here’s a piece I wrote about it for On Being.
Comment From a Listener!
About three years ago, I found myself alone since my two closest friends had moved away. We all were transplants to Minneapolis 30 years ago as were the new friends. Our families became “holiday families” and our children loved the connection. It was hard when they moved. Even though plenty of people are friendly, it can feel lonely and difficult.
About the same time that my friends moved, I noticed on Facebook that many women my age played Mahjong and I thought this may be a good way to socialize with other women. I asked on Facebook if anyone was also looking to learn and if anyone was willing to teach a group of us. Through the FB feed, a woman wrote in, “Once you learn, let me know and you can join our pick-up group of players.”
So I learned to play and reached out to the woman who offered the opportunity of a pick-up game. Little did I know that two of the women from the new mahjong group, also transplants, would become my dear friends! The friendship happened organically and it is still growing, but I am so grateful for my little group of friends. We play Mahjong, we have lunch, go for walks, and spend holidays together with our spouses and our kids when they are in town. I have known these two women peripherally for 20 years, but I never thought we would be more than acquaintances. I am so grateful for my two new girlfriends, who I dearly love, enjoy being with and can’t wait to see how our friendship develops over the next few years.
This whole experience taught me to be open to all opportunities and try something three times before making a decision. I also learned that our lives evolve and people change, don’t make judgements about others until you actually know them on a deeper level since they may be a whole different kind of person than what you perceived in passing.
See! There may be people out there who never seemed like your type of person, but years later you bond for reasons you didn’t expect.
My aunt Barbara King wrote me a beautiful note about making deeper friendships.
Moving to Kansas City from Chicago 50 years ago, I sought to create friendships. I was often hasty in my choices. Looking back, I was trying to find people to fill the image I had of what a friendship looked like. Many attempts ended because I was forcing the friendship. The lasting friendships evolved over time and none of them went from a few enjoyable encounters directly to BFF. My enduring relationships today are the result of me working on me, my quirks, my hidden agenda, my becoming authentically me and offering you, my friend, the same gift of introspection and growth. Too often I’ve wanted the other person to be “perfect” and yet I allowed myself to be flawed.
Some of my most treasured relationships morphed from shared life circumstances into something deeper such as shared admiration for our growth through painful life events. Some friendships that I thought were close seemed to end, sometimes abruptly, over hurt feelings on one or both sides. Some of these relationships came to life again in altered form, one of acceptance of what is, who we both are, and a kindness towards our similarities as well as a mutual respect towards our differences.
These renewed friendships are my most cherished because they signify huge growth within me. I’ve discovered that many observations I have about others are, in fact, simply my perceptions and not facts. The key to my finding more joy in life is directly proportionate to my ability to let go of expectations. Some days I do better than others.
The theme of both of these comments is that you might find deeper friendship in places you didn’t expect with people you didn’t expect. Perhaps it’s someone you already know or “the type” of person you used to be sure you didn’t like based on preconceived notions. That could be a different age or totally different social circle.
Expectations
Jessica pointed out that it’s so important to keep expectations in check. The time we have now is more limited. “It’s okay that your friendship groups aren’t quite as intense and all consuming as they were in your 20s. There’s another chapter for friendships coming around the corner.”
Jessica also talked about accepting that long distance friendships still have their place. Having people out there who know us well is essential, even if they don’t live in town.
BETTER FRIENDSHIP GOAL OF THE WEEK
For anyone else who feels similarly to Ivy, the goal this week is start something that involves several friends at once. Perhaps this will be with acquaintances or using some of Michelle’s points from last week’s episode, it can start as a Facebook post. Either way, it will be for local people. It might be something as simple as a group text, but it might be an actual one time event like the pop up book club idea. I like something along these lines that isn’t a year-long commitment, but it simply gets the ball rolling. Be the facilitator of the next stage of friendship. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.
ASK ME AN ANONYMOUS FRIENDSHIP ADVICE QUESTION ANY TIME!
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