Why do we age, we lose friends

Website published a remarkable article that examines the issue from different angles.

Friendship - is voluntary. And this is its weakness h3> Friendship - it's a unique relationship, because, unlike the relationship with relatives, we choose with whom we deal. And unlike other voluntary relationships like romantic relationships and marriage, friendship is no formal structure. You can not for a month not to see or talk with your partner, but you can with your friends.

Yet study after study confirms that friends are very important to the happiness of man. And because friendship changes over time, and the requirements vary person to your friends.

I have heard talk of the close friends of people of different ages: a teenager 14 years old and approaching its centenary. There are descriptions of three close friends: with whom you can talk on whom you depend and with whom you feel good. The descriptions do not change throughout life, but life's circumstances vary, which manifest these qualities.

William Ravlins, a professor at Ohio State University

blockquote> The voluntary nature of friendship makes it vulnerable to life's circumstances. Growing up, people do not prioritize in favor of friendship: family and work out in the first place. And if before you could just run to the next entrance to call Kohl walk, now negotiate with him, "somehow carve out a couple of hours" to meet and have a beer once a month.

The friendship perfectly that people remain friends just because they want it, because they have chosen each other. , but it prevents to maintain friendship for a long time, because it is voluntary, you can stop to meet with no regrets and commitments.

How to change friendships h3> The childhood friends - it's the other guys who are fun to play. Teens no longer reveal their feelings, supporting each other. But in adolescence friends still only examine and test yourself and others, learn what it means "loved one." Friendship helps them in this.

In his youth, friendships stronger: all your friends go to one school or live nearby. Over time, when you leave the schools, change jobs or place of residence, connections weaken. Moving to another city for study at university may be the first experience of parting with friends.

Unlike our partners, work and family, in front of friends we have obligations. It will be sad to move, leaving them, but we will do it. This is one of the characteristics of friendship.

How friendship fades into the background h3> When people reach adulthood, they have a lot of urgent matters, more important than meeting with friends. It is much easier to postpone or cancel the meeting other than the game with a child or an important business meeting.

The sad truth is that this friendship helped you in youth understand who you really are, and now that you are grown up, you have no time for those people who helped you make important decisions in life
But the most significant event pushes friendship to the background - is, of course, the wedding. There is some irony in the wedding invite all friends from both sides, it is such a large-scale meeting of friends. And dramatic farewell.

An interesting series of interviews about friendship, the Americans have taken the average age in 1994. Judgments about the "real" friendship were imbued with irony. It turned out that the majority of respondents rarely time out to spend with close friends.

Friends who lived very close to each other, pointed out that it is important to schedule a time to meet, to find a place in your schedule. Many also mentioned that they speak more about what you need to meet, and seldom actually

How to make friends is changing the way h3> Throughout life, people give birth and keep friends in different ways. There are independent people - they make friends everywhere, wherever they were, and they have more good friends than to really close friends.

Other plants a couple of best friends and come together with them for several years. It is fraught with some danger, because if a person loses one of his best friends, this is a real disaster.

A safer way of making friends includes both types: a person has a few close friends, but he continues to make new.

In adulthood, new friends are likely to be not just the people with whom you are communicating. For example, they can be your colleagues or parents of your child's friends. Adults are constantly limited in time, it is much easier to make friends, if there is no reason to spend time together. As a result, the ability to make friends just can atrophy.

But the years pass, you are not so much to do, and the friendship regains its value. You retirement, children have grown up and no longer require attention. You have plenty of time remains that there is no place to spend if you lost all your friends.

At the end of the life of the priorities of the newly displaced, people prefer to do things that bring pleasure, including a chat with close friends and family.

Some people manage to maintain friendships throughout life, at least a solid part of it. But what affects the way you will be able to go through with all the fuss and concerns of middle-aged and celebrate the silver wedding of friendship?

What helps to keep the friendship h3> Hold whether people together in the process of growing up or move away from each other, depending on how much they have done to keep the relationship. During the long investigation Ledbetter found out that the more months best friends spent together in 1983, the more likely that they will still be close in 2002. This means that The more you put into friendships, the longer you keep the relationship
Other research has shown that people need to feel that they receive from the friendship as much invested in it, and how much they give back to others, it depends on how much the friendship will last.

Have you ever noticed how annoying chatter of two best friends? Years of "their" jokes, stories and events make such communication incomprehensible to others. But this special language - part of what makes the friendship continues.

In a study of the best friends of the future of their relationship could predict by how well they are playing in guessing words, when one talks about the word, without naming him, and the other has to guess what the word.

Such communication skills and total mutual help friends successfully go through the change of life circumstances that can destroy relationships. True friends do not necessarily communicate often enough to do it at least sometimes.

Do not touch the memories h3> In adulthood, we accumulate a lot of friends from different areas: from the different works from different cities - people who have never even heard of each other. At this time, the friendship can be divided into three categories: active, in sleep mode, and in the memories.

Active friendship - this is where you often meet at any time can call and talk to that person, get emotional discharge and support. You know a lot about a person's life, and it does not seem strange. Frozen friendship, or friendship in sleep mode - is when you practically do not communicate with the person, but think of him as a friend. If you happen to meet, for example, you arrive in the city where the person lives, you are sure to encounter, and will long to speak from the heart. Friendship in the memories - this is when you do not communicate with the person, but remember about it. At the time, communicating with them was very close and friendship has given you a lot. So you occasionally remember about him and still considered him a friend. Social networks allow you to keep "friends in the memories" in sight. This is the effect of "a friend from summer camp." How close to you may be in the camp, you do not get to keep a friendship when you arrive home and starts school.

You are in the summer camp and you are in school - are two different people, and try to stay in touch on the Internet will only spoil the magical summer memories and great friendships.

The circumstances and politeness - the main enemies of friendship h3> Friendship is very sensitive to the circumstances. Think of all the things that we have to do: work, care for children and elderly parents ... Friends also can take care of themselves, so we can exclude them from a busy schedule.

When youth is replaced by the maturity of the main reasons for the termination of friendship - it is life circumstances and courtesy.

Study Emily Langan, professor of social interactions Wheaton College, showed that adults feel that there should be more polite with your friends
Adults understand that friends have their own business and they can not demand from them a lot of time and attention to the person. Unfortunately, this is happening on both sides, and people begin to drift apart, even if you do not want it. Simply because of their politeness.

But what makes a fragile friendship, and makes it flexible. Members of one of the surveys often thought that the relationship was not interrupted, even if there was a long period when the friends do not communicate.

This is a very optimistic outlook. You will not think that you have a normal relationship with their parents, if a few months have not heard anything about them. But with friends it works: You can think of your friends, even if you did not talk for six months.

Yes, sadly, that we stop relying on friends when they grow up, but it gives us the opportunity to know a different kind of relationship based on understanding the limits of adulthood. Such relations are far from perfect, but they are real.

In the end, the friendship - a relationship without any obligations. You yourself have decided to associate themselves with a man just to be together.



via lifehacker.ru/2015/11/12/friendship/