Dear Reader,
After talking with a friend of mine, I suddenly remembered some statistic I heard years ago that friendships lasting 7 years or more will be friendships for life. After researching and trying to find where the statistic came from, it seems that I slightly misinterpreted the idea. Of the articles about the subject, the Huffington Post says that friendships have a high rate of decay which occurs around 7 years of friendship and Live Science cites the same research that talks about a person's circle of friends being replaced every 7 years.
These ideas seem slightly pessimistic to me, so I want to tell you that being friends for 7 years or more is really a blessing, rather than dwelling on how friendships don't last. Another article that popped up during the search for this 7-year statistic was an article about nurturing the friendships that already exist. The friendships that I have had for a long time are so great because we have seen each other grow and even if we are not doing everything together because life has pulled us in different directions, we can get together to chat and express how we are doing in life. In other words, our relationships have been nourished through our personal efforts.
This "7-year rule" makes me think about my best friends from High School. Within our close-knit group, I have been friends with all of them for 7 years and to this day we still talk a couple of times a month. Three of them I have known for even longer, having been friends for 8, 9 and 10 years respectively. We have joked about being stuck with each other. It is a great relationship to have!
I mention these friends because of something that I believe contributes to our long-lasting friendship. At least once we speculated about our future, including where our friendship would be in 20 years (we were 17 or 18 at the time). We happily dreamed up a fantasy world where we lived on the same block where our children would play together and we would still be best of friends. I even remember that my house was going to be white. This fantasy future, while not very probable, subconsciously gave us the idea that we would be friends for a long time, with no definite end. With that mentality, we probably forced our brains into thinking of ways to keep up our good friendship. We nourish it, whether consciously or sub-consciously.
7 Years is a long time. I want to hear from you! Who are your closest friends? How long have you been friends? Who have you been friends with the longest? Comment below or send me an email. I love hearing your stories!
After talking with a friend of mine, I suddenly remembered some statistic I heard years ago that friendships lasting 7 years or more will be friendships for life. After researching and trying to find where the statistic came from, it seems that I slightly misinterpreted the idea. Of the articles about the subject, the Huffington Post says that friendships have a high rate of decay which occurs around 7 years of friendship and Live Science cites the same research that talks about a person's circle of friends being replaced every 7 years.
These ideas seem slightly pessimistic to me, so I want to tell you that being friends for 7 years or more is really a blessing, rather than dwelling on how friendships don't last. Another article that popped up during the search for this 7-year statistic was an article about nurturing the friendships that already exist. The friendships that I have had for a long time are so great because we have seen each other grow and even if we are not doing everything together because life has pulled us in different directions, we can get together to chat and express how we are doing in life. In other words, our relationships have been nourished through our personal efforts.
This "7-year rule" makes me think about my best friends from High School. Within our close-knit group, I have been friends with all of them for 7 years and to this day we still talk a couple of times a month. Three of them I have known for even longer, having been friends for 8, 9 and 10 years respectively. We have joked about being stuck with each other. It is a great relationship to have!
I mention these friends because of something that I believe contributes to our long-lasting friendship. At least once we speculated about our future, including where our friendship would be in 20 years (we were 17 or 18 at the time). We happily dreamed up a fantasy world where we lived on the same block where our children would play together and we would still be best of friends. I even remember that my house was going to be white. This fantasy future, while not very probable, subconsciously gave us the idea that we would be friends for a long time, with no definite end. With that mentality, we probably forced our brains into thinking of ways to keep up our good friendship. We nourish it, whether consciously or sub-consciously.
7 Years is a long time. I want to hear from you! Who are your closest friends? How long have you been friends? Who have you been friends with the longest? Comment below or send me an email. I love hearing your stories!
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