The friend zone
Out of practice in the pal-production department? Whether you want to master maintaining already-tight bonds or forge brand new ones that’ll bolster your wellbeing, consider this your guide to futureproofing your friendships
The Golden Girls were on to something when they said (well, sang), ‘Thank you for being a friend.’ For all the attention romantic relationships and family ties garner, friendship is the unsung hero of a fulfilling life. In fact, as you age, friendships become a stronger predictor of your health and happiness than family relationships, according to research by Michigan State University associate professor and social psychologist William Chopik. Friendships influence your wellbeing so much, another of Dr Chopik’s studies found, that when friends are a source of strain, people report more chronic illnesses. But when a squad is supportive, you tend to be happier. ‘Friendships are relationships of choice,’ says Dr Chopik. ‘You have a friend because you want to spend time with them… whereas with family, you may have less flexibility.’ Not only do you decide who you spend your free time with, but you also choose how you spend it. And unlike divvying up household chores or suffering through small talk at a family obligation, catching up with your uni pals over a laugh-filled meal reduces stress, says Dr Chopik.
During the peak of the Covid pandemic, the oft-overlooked importance of friendship came to the forefront, as did the emphasis on choice. Who was worth your FaceTime? ‘There’s informal evidence to suggest that lockdown made people re-evaluate their friendships,’ says Robin Dunbar, emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University. ‘People didn’t [sustain] some of those less-close friendships and, as a result, they were inexorably weakened.’ The connections you most likely cut: your 50 or so ‘party friends’, says Professor Dunbar. Because social gatherings were few and far between until 2022, you didn’t see these friends (who get only a reasonable amount of your time anyway) as often. But, he adds, dynamics change in the best of times – old pals drop to the outer layers of your circle as new ones rise in rank.
3.5 The number of hours you have to spend per week to create a close friendship with someone, says Professor Dunbar
Researchers theorise that this tendency to prune superficial relationships in favour of meaningful connections only increases as we age, because the less time you have on earth, the more you want to spend with the people who make you happy – plain and simple. Circle of (friendship) life. Yet despite the positive impact of a solid network on our long-term wellbeing, having one often falls to the wayside in favour of external obligations, such as career goals and caregi
