In the past I have written about the magic friendship five, which is the number of close friends I personally seem to need to meet my needs for social connection. Any less and I will feel unsatisfied and lonely and any more and I will start feeling overwhelmed and stressed and like a bad friend because I start dropping the ball on people. This week I wanted to talk about another Friendship 5.
After reading Rhaina Cohen’s book; Other significant others, I became interested in a concept she mentioned about the 3 T’s of connection. This pertains to Lisa Diamond’s attachment theory that all relationships require Time, Togetherness and Touch. Although I believe most people will interpret these to be basics of a romantic relationship, I felt, as did Rhaina Cohen, that the principles applied to platonic connections too. Building on that further, I thought I would also include Truth and Trust.
Truth and trust, obviously seem to go hand in hand, as it would seem unlikely that you would have trust without truth, and if you had truth there would seem to be no reason for trust to be lacking. But the human mind is much more complex than this. We can distrust someone honest. Just because their words are true, does not mean that their intentions are pure. Similarly, just because you know someone has a habit of lying, doesn’t mean you inherently distrust them or their affection for you.
Let’s start with Time. This one speaks to me so much because quality time is my biggest love language. However, time isn’t just time. Frequent time together where someone is distracted and not giving you their full attention is not as satisfying as an hour a month with a different friend who really spends that time connecting with you in equal parts sharing and listening. A friend you have known for a month might be closer to you than a friend you have known for a decade because of the amount of time and effort they put into your connection. However, as I was explaining to my son when one of his work friends recently left the job, it is easy to become friends with someone when the time together is mutually convenient such as at school or work, however it is much harder to maintain those connections when the convenience factor is removed and you actually have to make time for the friendship, which essentially means, for him, for example, giving up an afternoon of gaming to see his friend. Whereas when they worked together neither was giving up anything to foster the connection. Similarly, time does not have to be in person. I maintain a close friendship with my penpal in Texas who I have never met, and one of my closest friends I only see in person maybe 4 times a year, but speak to almost everyday in a constant conversation online. So there are many ways to give and receive quality time to a friend, but without time to build a connection, then time to maintain it, friendships fade and fizzle, or never flame to begin with.
Trust is next on the list because I feel it is the next most important thing in a friendship. You don’t have to entirely trust your friend, however you do have to trust that they like you in the same measure, and that you can depend on them, confide in them or count on them. It might not be deep. Perhaps you just know you can count on them for a good night out, and that if they say they will be there, then they will be. It might be with a different friend that you know you can trust them to keep your secrets and not judge you and another still who you know would be there for you if your car broke down at 2am and you needed help. The point is that all friendships do require a certain level of trust, and similarly to other connections, if the trust is broken, it can be challenging to repair. That can be true if you heard they said something mean about you behind your back, lied to your face, stole from you or worse. Any breaches of trust can break friendships and it takes time, and truth, to fix.
Which brings us nicely to our third factor; truth. We all need someone with whom we can be true. Our true authentic selves, unfiltered thoughts, and unedited photos. Someone who knows the truth behind the smiles on the insta reel and someone who knows we hate that person we just politely interacted with. We also need people we trust to be true with us. Often, the fastest connections I form are the ones with whom I am true straight away or the ones who are true with me. Many people find this oversharing, overwhelming…. But when you meet your true people, you speak the same language. You aren’t interested in small talk about the weather, you really want to share the details of your inner thoughts and feelings and hear all about theirs too. My last point about truth is that I know some friends that do habitually lie. I know both because I have seen them do it with my own eyes and ears, because they have told me they have done it or because they have lied to me. This doesn’t automatically make me distrustful. Because often I understand their motivations for the lies, which have usually got nothing to do with dishonest intentions and much more to do with protecting ego or telling white lies for an easier life. In a weird way, knowing someone is a bit of a liar is a truth in itself…
Next is touch. This is where I tend to lose people, and once upon a time I might have agreed with you, that there wasn’t a place for touch in friendship, but it is simply not true. To allow someone to touch you is a means of expressing comforting affection, which does indeed foster connection. I remember the first friend I had who liked to hug and kiss on the cheek hello and goodbye and how warm and friendly and welcoming that felt. I hadn’t been a hugger before, and instantly I knew I was going to steal this from her and start practicing it in my own life. I had always imagined touch in friendship would feel forced and awkward, but actually it felt very natural, as humans are wired for affectionate touch. It also allowed me the freedom to move to a friend who was in tears, to embrace them, rather than stiffly pass the tissues, or pull a friend into a warm embrace in celebration of happy news. It allowed me to reach across the table and hold the hand of a dear friend expressing her life troubles as a way to say I was physically there to provide comfort and support. It allowed me to lay my head on the shoulder of another friend as I shared my own woes. It allowed me to flirtatiously smack the behind of a friend who was bantering and being cheeky and hold the hand of another in a scary movie. It allowed me the freedom to experience touch that wasn’t sexual or associated with the pressures to then become sexual. It was just another way to connect and show care and affection. I would not like to lose touch in my friendships again, even in these small innocent ways. These moments are meaningful. These acts of touch aren’t just meaningful to me either. Recently at a lunch catch up with a dear friend I haven’t seen all year in person, we quickly got chatting and she stopped me and said “you normally hug and kiss me hello, and you didn’t today?” So I immediately stood from the table to do so. Just yesterday after I left my hair salon my hairdresser followed me to the car and said “how rude you didn’t hug me goodbye?” It matters. It is a love language in of itself and doing it says as much as not doing it, clearly.
Lastly we have togetherness. This, I feel, pertains to that 6th love language we hear about, regarding inclusivity and language. Saying “I thought we could do this” or “this made me think of us..” Referencing your friendship as a pairing, as something important worth mentioning, and worth spending time building. But togetherness is really the byproduct of all the other 4 elements of friendship. It really refers to the connection itself. It is something you work on, over time, with people you trust and can be true with, who share moments of touch. If a friendship is lacking in any one of these areas you might find there is not as much closeness or feelings of togetherness as other friendships encompassing all the other 4 things. It is about feeling like a solid unit, trusting that your friendship is true, wanting to spend time sharing and connecting and provide physical, emotional and mental support for each other.
So there you have it. My five T’s of friendship. Can you think of anymore? Head over to facebook and let me know. The only rule is that they have to start with T!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
