Adult friendships Part #3 finding your people
The ever popular THEY say that you are the reflection of the five people you spend the most time with; your five closest friends. It would seem obvious that you want to have five pretty incredible people around you. If you don’t have friends, or if you are the smartest, most interesting, talented, motivated, etc, of your group maybe it’s time to get new friends. A friend is someone who inspires you and loves you for who you are and where you are at right now. They are someone who is loyal to you, even when you aren’t around.
When thinking about making a new friend, one must think about building a foundation. Do you want to find this person and have the groundwork all be gossip and complaining? Or do you want to build a relationship from common interests and chemistry? Being very intentional in finding and making a friend is work. This is a person you want to be able to be vulnerable with and someone with whom you want to support and have fun. Of course some friendships are happy accidents and those are a blessing as much as the ones you pursue with purpose.
As we learned in Parts 1 &2. of the Adult Friendship series of blogs, we first recognize that we want to connect with others and how important friends are as we go through life and grow and change as adults. We also learned that we need to know who we are as a friend and what kind of friend/person we want to attract or befriend; and what kind of person we do not want to attract or be attracted to.
Where do we find these people? Where is your next friend hiding out?
Making friends at work is kind of an organic process. You are surrounded by people doing similar work with similar interests, so it would seem. Some of my best friends I made at work and then we were no longer co-workers and made efforts to keep in touch. Making friends at work can be tricky though. If your entire relationship is built on complaining about management, or built in a highly stressful environment your attraction to each other may be built on negativity. All you may bring to the friendship is grumbling and agreements about how bad things are. Sometimes work friendships are just that. You are friends AT work and enjoy working together but you don’t take it outside of work. If you constantly talk about work when you are away from it or you bring too much personal to work with your friend then maybe it isn’t the best thing. If one of you is in leadership it can get even trickier.
Finding your new friend might take real effort. You know they are out there. Go get them. There are no tried and true, works for everyone methods out there, but there are some good ideas.
1)Go to a place that you love. A place that speaks to you; a place you love the feeling of: bookstore, coffee shop, gym, yoga class, etc. and go often. If you like the place for how it makes you feel then others who have that in common will do the same. You may start to notice the same person or people each time you go AND there they are, your new friend.
2)Church or any other organized spiritual place. There are small groups to join and book or Bible studies to join.
3) This is my favorite (I admire other women who do this). Look up local classes or events in your area and go. Alone. You will meet others doing the same.
4) Classes and clubs of any kind. If you love to read, join a local bookclub. If you want to pursue art, join a monthly painting group. If you want to learn photography, audit a college course. If you want to learn to cook, go to a local restaurant’s class. Want to do more yoga, find a small studio and go to some classes.
Your people are out there and you will find them. Your kindred spirit is searching for you too.
Few recommendations: www.chicasabroad.com (women’s travel group); Broads who Brunch Book Club Facebook group; Jagged Edge Yoga Billings, MT; Sacred Grounds Healing and Art Studio Billings, MT; Billings Public Library