#266 Friendships and Social Circles

We explore what healthy friendships look like and why social circles matter for happiness, mental health, and the long game of life. We get practical about choosing relationships that feel safe and supportive, while also learning how to show up better for others. 

• Friendships as a key part of well-being and life satisfaction 
• Recognising different friends for different seasons of life 
• A simple prompt to reach out and reconnect 
• Everyday human connection beyond close friends 
• Research on social support, depression risk, and longevity 
• Signs of high-quality friendship like trust, safety, and time 
• Checking your own habits and practising clear communication 
• The value of acquaintances and weak ties 
• Easy ways to start small talk and connect with strangers 
• Perfectionism and judgement as a barrier to closeness 
• Loneliness trends before and after the pandemic 
• Why friendships still matter when you are partnered 

Tune in weekly to Wellbeing Wednesday with Gurjeet Gill on The Universal Radio Network, 97.9 FM in Edmonton, or globally at www.theuniversalradio.com

IG: @theuniversalradio

Transcript

elcome And Today’s Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey everyone, welcome to the Universal Radio Networks Podcast. This is Grigit, and in today's episode, we're discussing friendships and social circles. We're talking about why friendships are important, how to be a good friend, what traits you should look for in a friend, but also keeping in mind that the people we surround ourselves with are just a single piece of who we are, and there's different friends for different reasons at different stages in our life. So we're gonna talk about everything under the umbrella of friendships and social connections today. Hey everyone, it is a beautiful well-being Wednesday. My name is Guruji and I am your lovely host. I'm excited to have you here with me on the Universal Radio Station as we kind of talk about the topic for today. So I realize I come into every show knowing exactly what we're gonna talk about, and you guys are kind of left in the blank about it. Is that something that we want to change? Does it matter? Do we wanna maybe know a week beforehand? It's entirely up to you. If you have any input at all, feel free to DM us on Instagram at the Universal Radio. We also have a phone number, but I'll be honest, I don't know the number off the top of my head. And that is fully on me, but I am more than happy to admit my mistakes and my flaws because I have been reading this really cool book. It's about perfectionism. Now, today's episode is not about perfectionism. We talked about perfectionism. We actually had uh amazing psychologists from Deutsches, but again, I'm reading this book on perfectionism and it talks about how with perfectionism, it like making a mistake is the end of all time, and that in order to do something, you have to do it right. If I'm gonna go on air and I'm gonna talk, I have to know every single detail about the topic that I'm gonna talk about. I have to know in advance what my talking points are gonna be, and that can add a lot of pressure, and it makes these shows not as fun for me. It makes it very like a pressure-filled environment, and that's pressure that's put on by no one else other than me. I want to come out and do a good job every day, and I want to give my best. But sometimes giving my best and what I think my best is can be a little bit not great for me. Because if I'm giving 100% all the time to everything in my life, eventually I'm not gonna be able to mentally or physically give 100%. I'm gonna be aiming for 100%, but my my reality, my situation has become such that I can only give 30% because I'm tired, I'm burnt out, I've overcommitted myself, I've put too much pressure on myself. So now I'm expecting myself to perform at 100%, but realistically only putting myself in a position to perform at 30. And the gap, the 70% gap between those two, is gonna cause a lot of emotional distress. And I'm just not about that. So that is my long-winded spiel to justify why I don't know our phone number off the top of my head. So I will fix that for next episode. So today's show is actually about healthy friendships and social circles. And funny enough, I have a story related to that perfectionism piece that I've worked on with myself and my friendships and social circles. So if we get around to it, I'll talk about that. But I really want to talk about friendships and social circles because as springtime is here and near, we're gonna go into summertime very soon. And there's one thing summers are really good at that is being overfilled, jam-packed, overcommitted, and high off the fact that the sun is setting at 11 p.m. So I want to talk about friendships and social circles to see if we can identify heading into the spring, heading into summer, what our most important relationships are and what our healthiest friendships and social circles are. Because after all, we talked about healthy relationships not too long ago. Stay tuned for all your friendship talks. One thing I've noticed is that I'll feel like a lot of what I've talked about has been so relationships focused, and I kind of like it mostly because it seems to be what's easiest for me to talk about, just in terms of what I feel like I know a lot about. But if you're feeling kind of burned out on the relationship stuff and you want to get into the more technical stuff, we absolutely can. Just have your thoughts be heard. DM us on Instagram at the Universal Radio. So we almost skipped our journaling prompt of the week, and that just can't happen. Usually I cover that, so I'm sorry for the inconsistency, but I kind of have just like a simple, straightforward one, and it's less of a journaling prompt, more of an action. I just want you to reach out to a friend. Just maybe it doesn't have to be your best friend, it could be a friend that you recently met at an event, and you're like, oh man, they would be so cool. Like, I should like I want to hang out with them. I got a friend crush. Message that person. Maybe message the friend who you haven't talked to in a really long time. Maybe message the friend that you've grown apart from, but they were important to you at one point, and that is significant in its own way. It doesn't have to be always immediately important. It can be a friendship that was the right place at the right time for you. Friends serve so many different purposes in our lives, and one simple treat that exists is that humans rely on connection. It's it's just biological. We cannot live on this world as islands without others. And there's entire cultures and communities and nations that do rely heavily on that human connection piece, more so than most countries do, especially being in the West where independence is kind of touted as the highest form of like self-efficacy. Relationships are kind of respected less. It's a lot of, you know, you gotta hustle, leave your friends behind. If your network isn't talking about this, you gotta get a new network. And viewing friendships as networks rather than the connections that they are that bring meaning to our world. You can feel connect to everyone you come across in your day, and that's okay. In fact, that's normal. I have a connection with my grocery store clerk, I have a connection with I lost my credit card today, actually. And I called the gas station where I think I dropped it, and I felt a connection with this person because they were so nice to go out into the cold and look for my credit card. But that's not the same connection I had as when I saw my niece and nephew today, who are near and dear to my heart. It's I feel connected to both these groups of people, but different kinds of connections. I think it's important to respect and honor the fact that every human being I come across in my day is having their own day, and I can try and make theirs a little bit better, and they can try and make mine a little bit better. Did someone let me into traffic when things are backed up and I really didn't have any right to get in that lane? Yeah, they did. And guess what? I love you, stranger. Thank you. You made my day so much easier, and it probably was such a minor inconvenience to them to let me in, but they took a huge stress off my back. This is what I'm talking about. This is not necessarily friendships, but just the human connections that we have with everyone in the world around us. Now, I might be getting maybe a little bit too hippy-dippy peace and love for my own liking here, but I I don't know, man. I just think the connections that we have with people are the most beautiful things at the end of the day. And people talk about it all the time. Like on the deathbed, you wish that you had talked to your family more, your friends more. You never wish you had worked more. Now, some people might think it gets exhausting to be connected to everyone all the time. And honestly, yeah, probably. But that's again the nature of those relationships being different. The reason why I think it's so important to feel connected to the human beings around us is one, it makes us more aware of our surroundings and our effect on others. We don't always have to give consideration to our effect on others, but we do have to at least be aware of it and recognize, oh, I'm running really late and I really need to butt in line to go to the washroom so I can get to work on time because I stopped for a coffee. Do I recognize that this is gonna inconvenience the other people waiting in line? Yes. Do I feel like it's really urgent? Also, yes. So you go up and you ask the person in the front, hey, please, I'm in a rush. Can I go in front of you? And they're like, Yeah, it's whatever, man, go for it. It's an inconvenience to other people, and that's fine, that's fair. But you went up to this person, you asked nicely, you made a connection with them, and they obliged. People who have friends and close confidants in their lives are more satisfied with their lives overall, and they're less likely to suffer from depression. This was from a study in 2020 done in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Um, it's also really important to recognize that people with friends live longer. They're less likely to die from all causes of death, including heart problems and chronic diseases. And it's likely because you're happier, you're healthier. I'm just extrapolating off the data because we don't actually know for sure. But feeling connected to our community, the people around us, means we're living happier, healthier lives. It means we have a safety net for when things go south in our lives, for times when we're not able to work, when we're feeling down and out, when we need a little bit of support. One of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen from my friendship circles was how many of my friends brought food whenever I grieved. So it could be grief of a family member, grief of a pet, grief of a friend, just the way my friends showed up for me through that process to make sure I took care of myself, to make sure that I continue to do the things that I love, like go out, get food, work out, move my body. All those things made a really big difference. And there's a good chance that if I didn't have friends supporting me in that way, the dark parts of my life would be so much darker. And that's true for us all. We know that people who are low in social connections because of isolation, loneliness, or poor quality relationships face an increased risk of premature death. And it's true, like our childhood relationships and family connections, they do shape how we model relationships in the future. So if somebody doesn't have a healthy parent-child relationship, doesn't have a healthy upbringing, and unhealthy relationships are modeled for them all the time, and unhealthy friendships are modeled for them all the time, it can be really challenging to know what a healthy friendship looks like. So going back to our relationships podcast where we talk about what are good and bad qualities of relationships, so that honesty, trust, respect, and communication, those pieces are so key for healthy relationships and also key for what make a good friend. There are a lot of qualities that make good friends, but one thing to note is that high-quality friendships provide the ones that what provide like that good social support, that good companionship, significantly predict well-being and protect against mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. And those benefits persist across the lifespan. It's not just limited to childhood or young adulthood. And it's important to note that without that, there is a risk of dying prematurely. Of course, there's always compounding factors. It's never just your existence of like, or you're having good quality friendships is a predictor of your health. There's so many things at play, but it's nice to know that it does have a positive effect. When we're looking at what makes a good friend, you want to have someone who you can trust and rely on. How do you feel around this person? Do you feel emotionally in physical space? Space. Do you feel emotionally and physically safe around them? Do you trust them that they won't hurt you, that they won't speak ill of you, that they have your best interest at heart? These are all qualities of a good friend. Do you feel like you trust them with being yourself? Do you feel like you trust them and trust them enough to share your true opinions and your honest feelings? Do they make time for you? Or are you feeling like you're kind of pushed aside? Because prioritizing each other, even at all stages of our busy lives, like you can have children, you can have a marriage, you can have a relationship, you can have three full-time jobs. I do not care. You still have to make time for the people in your life. You cannot and should not push your relationships to the side for the sake of money, for the sake of careers, because think about the long game, okay? Don't think about the short term, don't think about the prestige. Think about the long game, all right? Think about the deathbed confessional. Are you gonna be sad that you didn't work more? Are you gonna be sad that you didn't get to hang out with your high school buddies one more time? Are you gonna be sad you didn't hang out with your friend from that one weird English class you took that trauma bonded you together for the rest of your lives? Those are the relationships that matter, and those are the ones that we think about and that are gonna hurt us in the sense that if we don't cherish them and respect them, they they will go away. Relationships are like plants, you gotta make sure that they get their sun, they get their good soil, and they get their water. It's important to also kind of check in with yourself. How do you feel around this friend? Do you feel good? Because if you feel exhausted hanging out with them, if you feel uneasy, if you feel stressed, if you feel on edge or wary, there's a chance it might not be as deep and as good of a quality of friendship as you think. Because again, we want to be comfortable around our friends and we want to trust them that they will create a space for us to be comfortable and for us to be ourselves. These are all really good indicators of good quality friendships. I'm really curious, what do you look for in a friend? I find that there is like a common string of just like kindness and like elder sister and energy amongst all of my friends. And I think it's beautiful. I'm an eldest sister myself, eldest daughter actually. And all of my friends happen to kind of be eldest daughters. So just a theme I've noticed amongst my good quality friends. I'm not saying eldest daughters are the best quality friends, but hey, I'm just speaking from my own experience. Now we can't realistically expect other people to always put in the work of being good friends. Sometimes we gotta look inwards and recognize how can I be a better friend? How can I be more supportive to the people in my life? And truth be told, I feel like not a lot of people do this. Okay, I feel like not a lot of people do self-reflection and recognize what I am giving to the people in my life. It's I find always about what I can get out of this relationship? What can I get out of this network? What can I get out of this connection? And that's okay, honestly, as long as you're not being rude or mean or mean to yourself about it. I think it's okay to view some connections with people as that, but ultimately we still have close loved ones, all of us do, who we can think about maybe putting more into that relationship. Maybe we realize there are some relationships we've put a lot of effort into that we're not necessarily getting the same connection back. And I find a big one as we get older is time prioritization. Is this a friend that whenever they're back during Christmas holidays and summer holidays from university, are they reaching out to you or are you always reaching out to them? Is the work, the mental work done in the relationship, more on you or more on that? Is it equal? Is it shared? Is it communicated whether someone's feeling too tired to do that mental work? All of these things are considerations for how you can be a good friend. Do you feel tired and sluggish and you find yourself dropping plans? Communicate that to your friends. Let them know, guys, I have been just super done after work all of these days. I don't have it in me to go out this weekend. Um, I'll probably be able to join two weekends from now. That's healthy communication. You're not forcing your friends to do a guessing game of why is this person suddenly ghosting us? Why are they suddenly flaking on plans? You're being upfront about it. So think about what you can do to be a good friend. Some things that I look for in a good friend is is this person willing to emotionally support me? Now I'm gonna list some traits that I find are in good friends, and you don't have to necessarily agree with them, they don't have to be your main, but you should also think about it. What are the qualities of a good friend and how can you be those things? So I always look for good emotional support, and so whenever friends seem upset or they're quiet or they're different compared to their usual, I'll try and like approach them privately, be like, hey, I just noticed that things were a little off today. How are things? How are you? And just give them an option to talk. So that's something I value, and it's something I want to provide for my friends. I also really appreciate when my friends can be relied on and can follow through on things. And this is something I've had to learn, okay? I have a big reputation amongst my friends for always being late and always flaking. As I say this, I'm literally recording this after flaking on other friends' plans. So, oops. Sorry about that, guys. You're gonna listen to me talk about the fact that I flaked and then talk about how I'm trying to be a better friend about it. Now, I talked in the beginning about how all these connections in our lives all have different purposes, different meanings, different levels of importance in our lives. But one thing I absolutely love in this world is an acquaintance. Okay. I love my little acquaintances of people who I've had like a two-minute conversation with every three months, the person that I email back and forth with at work in other agencies, but never have actually met. I love my acquaintances and I was never thriving more in my acquaintanceships than when I was at university, okay? Because I would walk around on campus and I would run into people that I knew from different classes, different clubs, just friends of friends who I've met once because we both happened to be sitting at the same table. Like those people were my bread and butter. I loved walking around campus, running into a friendly phase of being like, How are you? How are your classes going? How are your exams going? What's new with you? And even if it was someone who I've had one conversation with, it was just so fun and exciting to talk to these people. And when COVID hit, it really sucked to not see my acquaintances anymore. Suddenly, the world was telling you that you could only have about six or seven friends around you who you could keep in touch with and keep contact with and keep in your household. And now suddenly your acquaintances weren't important anymore. So these connections with acquaintances, that work friend that you bump into, the pet store employee who remembers your dog, they're shockingly important to your life. So there is this researcher named Sandstrom who's done research on acquaintances and found that people who have more weak tie interactions, aka acquaintances, are happier than those who have fewer. And that people tend to be happier on days when they have more than their average run ins with acquaintances. We learn surprising things when we have these kind of unplanned encounters and conversations. Conversations with random people. And that is a benefit that a lot of people tend to underestimate. I know a lot of people hate small talk, and a lot of people don't like talking to strangers because it can be exhausting, it can be scary, and it can be uncomfortable if it's not something you're comfortable with. However, just like everything in this life, the more you practice it, the better you're gonna get. Have you seen those rejection therapy uh TikToks or Instagram reels where people are just like, hey, can I have that for free? Like, just strike up a conversation. Try something like that. Look at the person in front of you in line or behind you in line and be like, isn't the weather amazing? Isn't today just wonderful? Look at the person behind you the grocery line and be like, I really like those Tostitos chips. I get them pretty often. I usually have them with this salsa. What do you usually eat them with? And some people are really put off by that. I cannot lie, as a person who loves making small talk and talking to strangers, not everyone is open or receptive to it, and that's okay. Meet people where they're at. If someone's not open to that conversation, don't force it because there are gonna be days where someone tries to talk to you and you're not really in the mood, and you want them to respect that. But just keep in mind acquaintances are important, okay? I still think about how hard COVID was for me with not being able to see just those weak tie interactions, and I would just talk the ear off at my poor grocery store clerk. And that's why I think about acquaintances and grocery store clerks all the time because there's this really friendly guy who pushes all the carts at my nearest grocery store, and I say hello to him and good afternoon and good evening to him all the time. Again, talking acquaintances and random people and strangers is maybe not the easiest thing to do. So that researcher I mentioned, Sandstrom, they have some tips on how to connect with strangers. First of all, just tap into your curiosity. Some people call it curiosity, I call it being nosy of just I want to know what's going on with everyone around me. How are you? What's new with you? What have you recently learned? What was the last tough, annoying thing that you went through? Tell me about it. I want to hear all of it because I genuinely am just curious to know what's been going on. Ask someone what they've been reading. Ask someone if they like reading. Ask someone if they even think about reading, and if they did, how long ago it was? Did they enjoy reading in high school back when it was forced reading? Or ask them why they're wearing a certain logo on their shirt? Oh, that's a really cool shirt. Where did you get it from? Oh, I got it from volunteering for this organization. Oh, okay, cool. Tell me more about that. Do you volunteer a lot? What other organizations have you volunteered at? Which one did you like the most? Which one did you like the least? What made that a bad experience for you? What would you warn people about if they want to get into volunteering? What would you recommend people do if they want to get into volunteering? Like the list goes on and on and on and on. And if you're talking to me, oh, it goes on and on and on forever. Literally last night I asked a friend if they were listening and they said honestly, no, I'm sorry. And I said, that's okay. So, and then I continue to tell my story, even though they said they weren't listening. Because for me, I was just kind of like in a yappy, silly mood. And that's not an exact example of like tapping into your curiosity, but it's the one that comes up in my mind because it happened recently. Another tip is to always comment on a shared situation. That's why people talk about the weather all the time. Okay, it's not because there's nothing else to talk about, it's because it's the easiest inroad into a conversation. Talk about the weather. And let me tell you why people talk about the weather. It's because you're experiencing the same thing. It doesn't matter whether you're inside, outside, or whether you have a job or don't have a job. It doesn't matter how old you are, what your background is. Everybody is experiencing the same weather. Some people talk about how cold it is and how they love the cold and they love skiing and snowboarding. And some people talk about how they hate the cold and they love warm weather and they're so excited for summers. What are they most excited about this summer? Oh, it's their niece's wedding. Boom, bam, entire conversation to be had about this. The weather is great because you're always in the same situation. If you're in the same place at the same time as another person, that is something you'll always have in common. Or are you in a coffee shop and you're at one of those big tables that's shared? But in order to sit at that table, you have to sit directly next to someone. You can't leave like that courtesy empty seat. Well, just be like, hey, do you mind if I sit next to you? Oh, okay, thanks. What are you working on? Oh, you're actually working remotely and you really have to focus. That's okay. I was just wondering, could you watch my stuff while I went up and ordered? Boom, bam, easy acquaintanceship created. And you know what? It's never always gonna be that easy. And it's easy for me to talk about it while I'm not actually in front of a person having to talk to them in public because it is scary, all right? But practice gets us everywhere. I know I said we would talk about the loneliness loneliness epidemic, but I just yammered on and on about acquaintances because I think they're so important, all right? And I want everyone to get rid of their social anxiety, and of course there's steps to be taken in that. But if you feel like maybe you're not on the full spectrum of social anxiety, but you're just a little bit uneasy about talking to strangers, let this be your sign to just go for it. Talk to a stranger. This kind of cycles back to that perfectionism thing that I was reading about in my book. And on a side note, I'd really like to start doing kind of like a book club segment where I read books and I kind of summarize like the main teachings from those chapter chapters in these shows. Because I think just breaking up the segments would be kind of nice. Uh, what do you think? Let me know on Instagram at the Universal Radio. I do think a book club segment would be really interesting because this perfectionism book has just got me thinking about so many different aspects, both my personal journey with private therapy, my formal education, and also my casual learning throughout the course of this well-being Wednesday and conversations with psychologists and people I've interviewed. It's a lot of really interesting stuff. So when I think about perfectionism, one way it impacted me was it made me quite judgmental of others. I held myself to such a high performance standard that if other people were to make mistakes or not perform to that same standard, I thought it wasn't okay. And it made it really difficult for me to have good friendships. It was really easy for me to drop people, to stop putting effort in because I felt like they just weren't at a high enough standard. And that heightened standard might have been what's gotten me here so far in my life, but it's also negatively impacted my relationships. And ultimately I realized that being a gunner and just like going forward in school and in work isn't gonna be as satisfying as being able to hang out with my friends and eat pizza on Monday, or be able to go to a beautiful Galantine's with all my beautiful friends and eat good food and just yap about our lives. That's the kind of stuff that I realize is more important to me. Another really important thing to think about is the fact that the loneliness epidemic has been like a significant trend even before the pandemic. So, this is something I was interested in hearing because I kind of felt it. There was a significant downward trend of social contact before the pandemic, which is kind of unexpected. And what's remarkable is that when people think about getting back to normal after COVID, it's not gonna be enough because things were not so hot back then either. And COVID-19 just kind of made the loneliness epidemic even more extreme, even like the gap even bigger between humans and social connection. I think the loneliness epidemic would be a really interesting topic to deep dive into. What do you guys think? Frankly, one of the things that I hear most about friendship is that it should be prioritized even when you have a romantic relationship or romantic relationships. I'm not here to judge. Because ultimately, having friendships outside of your romantic relationships is what keeps you grounded. It gives you opportunity to grow and be an individual outside of your relationship. As I hope, well, this is a life lesson that's taught to all of us the hard way, but neglecting your friendships when you're in a romantic relationship can really, really backfire when that romantic relationship ends. Because you'll be in a very vulnerable spot, very hurt, very raw to the world, and you'll look around and the people that you want around you, your friends, your confidants have all kind of distanced themselves or grown apart because that relationship wasn't nurtured the same way you were nurturing the romantic relationship. Another interesting like relationship between friendships and romantic relationships is that a lot of people say their partner is their best friend, and that's what makes a healthy relationship. And I can see it, man. Having that anchor, that person that offers you support, laughter, companionship, consistency, reliability, those skills and those qualities are all things that you want in a friend and a romantic relationship. And it's so cool how there's so much overlap in that. It's not unusual for romantic relationships to even start with friendships, and that is vital in and of itself. Sometimes a solid friendship creates a really strong foundation of trust, understanding, respect, healthy communication, and it can grow into a really beautiful romantic relationship. However, that may not always be the case. Sometimes people start off as a romantic relationship, and that friendship and that companionship is learned and earned throughout the way. And also sometimes there are circumstances in romantic relationships that change. And without a solid foundation of friendship, things can get very different. We physically change. Our romantic desires for each other change. There can be health issues, children, aging parents, money, financial stress. There's so many things that happen that can leak in a romantic relationship. But in a friendship, having those things happen means you're going to support your friend more. It means your friend is going to support you more. So having that internal balance in your relationship and in your connection, having that foundation of friendship is so, so important. So if this is something that is kind of weighing on your mind and you're thinking, my partner, my romantic partner is my best friend. Think about how do you show up as a friend in your romantic relationship? What do you need from your romantic partner that you would want from a friend? Do you make time for each other? Do you share jokes? Do you share small experiences? Do you support them in a way that you would support a friend? Do they support you the way that they would support a friend? It's an important thing to consider. And relationships can be complicated. So give yourself some grace, all right? If you have any input, any ideas for future topics, books I should read, because we might be starting a book club soon. DM me on at on Instagram at the Universal Radio. That is all for wellbeing Wednesday today, folks. But I hope that your week is amazing and beautiful. And you text your friend, okay? Make sure you text your friend because that was a journaling prompt at the beginning. Have a wonderful evening, everybody. See you next week.