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Saying Goodbye to BFFs?
As we move through life, our social circle evolves with us. We go from recess buddies to study group partners, from late-night partiers to early-morning joggers, and from happy-go-lucky teens to more responsible adults. However, as we navigate our way through adulthood, it’s inevitable that some friendships will evolve or even fade away altogether. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build lasting and fulfilling connections with others.
Meeting New People
As you move into adulthood, it can become more difficult to make new friends as we no longer have classes or extracurriculars to introduce us to new people. But there are many ways to meet new people outside of work or family gatherings. Consider joining a club or organization that aligns with your interests or volunteering your time for a cause you’re passionate about. Attend local events, like live music or cultural festivals, and strike up a conversation with someone. Even simple actions like smiling and saying hello to someone you see every day can help foster a connection.
Nurturing Existing Friendships
As our lives become more hectic, it can be easy to lose touch with people we once felt close to. To maintain and strengthen friendships with those who have been in your life for years, it’s important to make a conscious effort. Check in with your friends regularly, whether that’s sending them a text message to see how they’re doing or scheduling monthly hangouts. Prioritizing time spent with your friends sets the stage for strengthened relationships.
Appreciating Differences
As kids, it can be easy to only be friends with people who are similar to us. But as we get older, developing friendships with people of a differing background, beliefs or lifestyle can actually be very rewarding. Sharing experiences and learning from one another can challenge you in new ways and also create broader conversations representing live perspectives. Moreover, it can help shed light into events or perspectives you usually cannot see for yourself.
Ditch the Labels
Being an adult can mean getting a job or beginning a career can reshape your social network. With new job responsibilities, it often can be hard staying up past midnight partying, creating singular groups within people only permissible to situation audience. One must understand the importance of boundaries in all friendships early and not uneccessarily differentiate between “work friends” or “squad”. Your life outside of work could seem relatively boring for almost the whole week which often trends to placing unquestioning importance on office buddies or their existence into the weaving of our life outside of work. This might not fall into the “Beyond BFFs” category but the sooner you can eliminate choices or barriers that does nothing but emphasizes limiting you to experiencing differences or growth.
Invest in Yourself
As the COVID pandemic has shown us, taking care of our own health and life can prevent manifold virus spread or make systemic changes in our own social network. Moreover, having alone time can be therapeutic, it amplifies love or just happiness rather than making it a functioning fabric point of having healthy relationships. Self-care can refer to spending time to yourself to improve your current skills or picking up hobbies that might interest your growth forever more. Benefit from the window of freedom denoted to avoid rush hour traffic and indulge, nourish them with physical exercise, and attend sober evenings of wellbeing forums.
Beyond BFFs just denotes creating strong meaningful connections and friendships adhering to various sets of growth that were unimaginable with changing age or shifts in your sensibilities. Inviting adults to respect you from your religious beliefs to your favorite sports teams ultimately divides us into groups of “acceptable” and “unheard of”. Safe spaces to feel free in society are the connection aimed by “Beyond BFFs”. And, hey? You got life ahead, make some mint adult friendships!
