How to Strengthen Your Friendships

The Mayo Clinic (2015) makes a simple case for keeping good friends around: they're good for your health. A real friend sticks with you through the easy stretches and the rough ones. They show up to celebrate the birthdays and promotions, and they sit with you when something falls apart. They push back loneliness. They offer company on the days you want it and space on the days you don't. The old Whodini song "Friends" asked how many of us have them, and the honest answer is that just about everyone needs them in some form.

Friends do more than fill a calendar. They shape who you are and who you're becoming. They act as sounding boards, mentors, keepers of your secrets, and occasional guides when you're lost. A good one can last the length of your life, and sometimes a friend turns out to be gentler and more supportive than family. That's not an accident. People are social by nature, wired to want connection, and that sense of being tied to another person is part of what makes someone feel whole. It feeds mental and physical health both. It lifts self-esteem. It tells you that you belong somewhere, and belonging is part of how a person grows up.

So if the friendships matter, the practical question is how to keep them strong. A few things help.

Check in. Reaching out now and then shows a friend that you're invested, that their life and their well-being actually register with you. Losing touch is easy, and it gets easier with age as work, marriage, and kids swallow your hours. But most of your friends will still be there if you lose the job or the marriage ends, so carve a little time out of the chaos to ask how they're doing. One more thing: call them. Skip the texts, the Facebook messages, the tweets and emails for a minute, and use the phone the old way.

Accept invitations. Nothing kills a friendship faster than a steady stream of "I can't make it." Keep canceling and your friends will stop asking. Even on the nights you'd rather stay home, go anyway, at least some of the time. Go for their sake if not your own, because they want you there. Next time it's dinner or a movie, say yes. And do the inviting yourself once in a while. A few hours out might brighten the whole day.

Make traditions. Invent your own occasions. Mark birthdays and the anniversary of the day you became friends. Turn the holidays into something that belongs just to your group: dress up for a night out, throw an ugly-sweater party at Christmas, do an all-girls or all-boys thing on Valentine's Day. Rituals that only your crew practices make the bond harder to break.

Be honest, even when it's uncomfortable. Telling a close friend they hurt you is one of the harder conversations there is, and it's also one you can't skip. Bottle the feelings up and they don't disappear; they build until you blow up at your friend or at someone who had nothing to do with it. Conflict happens between friends. Hurt feelings happen. What does real damage is letting unresolved resentment sit and grow. Keep the lines open, say the true thing, forgive what came before. A friend who knows you'll give it to them straight will respect you for it. One who suspects you'll lie starts to pull away.

Forgive. Don't carry grudges around, because everybody slips up eventually, you included. You'd want your friends to let you off the hook when you mess up, so extend the same thing back. They're not perfect, and neither are you. Some wrongs feel impossible to forgive, but with a little effort it's doable. Forgive even if you've decided never to speak to that person again, because hauling that resentment around only weighs you down. It won't touch your friend, who has most likely moved on. Let it go for your own sake. If you do decide to stay friends, forgiveness is what rebuilds the thing and makes it sturdier than before.

- Dr. R. Y. Langham