I can’t believe my firstborn is in college! I know, it’s already second semester but it took me a while to face this reality 😊.
The whole experience was a whirlwind of emotions: packing, driving, setting up his dorm, and finally, the tearful goodbye. He’s feeling the feels too, but mostly excitement about all the friends he will make and clubs he will join.
This reminded me of something that helped me navigate new environments: Find and do the things you love, and you’ll find people who love them too.
It worked for me! I love swing dancing, and that’s how I met my husband.
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But building friendships can be challenging, especially for these kids who started high school from home in the middle of COVID. Even more challenging, my son was undergoing chemo treatments freshman year, it was incredibly isolating.
So, it is not surprising that we are in the midst of a friendship recession.
In 1990, 50% of Americans reported having six close friends. Today, that number has plummeted to 25%. Less than a quarter of us have even six close friends!
So, what can we do to combat this friendship recession?
- Take my mom’s advice: Do the things you love! By default, you will have found people with built-in commonalities and a shared interest. That’s a great point of connection to build from.
- Join industry groups: This is a different point of commonality but professionally we can build friendship just as we do personally. Some of my longest friendships started from a working relationship and morphed.
- Find your community: This could be religious, parenting, extreme sports, based on shared experiences like loss, you name it, there is a group for it.
Want another option, consider something like the Connected Leader Club. We literally build the course to enable true connection and the community is only people that have that shared course experience and interest in building connections. Check out the more section for more details and a special offer.
I would love to hear your thoughts on navigating the friendship recession!