Marisa G. Franco's Blog, page 4

Why It’s So Hard to Grieve Friend Breakups

You are sad about the end of a friendship. You tell someone. They wonder why you’re so upset. It’s just a friend. This is a common experience for people undergoing friendship breakups. People don’t see your grief as legitimate. It gets isolating, and when others view our grief as illegitimate, we begin to feel that way about our grief too. Why am I taking this so hard? What’s wrong with me? This process explains why it’s so hard to grieve friend breakups.

Friendship breakups are so hard because we don’t get the same permission to process grief around a friendship. We struggle to reconcile how we feel toward the loss with how society says we should feel. We grieve in community; others acknowledge the weight of our loss and it helps us heal. But when they don’t- we develop disenfranchised grief that lingers.

Here’s how to work through disenfranchised grief:

View Your Pain as Legitimate

Seeing friendships as less valuable can impact both the support we receive while we grieve (or lack thereof) and how we process our own grief. Studies find that suppression and not opening up, especially about our grief, can lead to isolation, distress, and fatigue. To avoid suppressing our pain, it’s important to recognize our loss and validate our feelings. We must acknowledge our friendship endings as significant and process them as such.

Share Your Grief with Someone You Can Trust

Although society may delegitimize our grief, we can discern who to express ourselves to and find support from people who understand that friendship loss, too, can be devastating. A study found that while grieving, social support was associated with better quality of life, so opening up can help us process. Everyone might not be understanding, but by being vulnerable about our grief, we are unlearning the hierarchy of relationships and validating the significance of our loss.

 

Find the Offering in Your Grief

 

When we can make meaning out of our grief, its pain softens. Although it is important to acknowledge your sadness, you can do this while also being optimistic about what this breakup offers you: perhaps new knowledge about what you need from friends or more time to make new ones, or an appreciation that your grief is a constellation prize for the love you had the opportunity to experience with your friend.

Losing a friend is all the more devastating when the loss is not fully understood or validated by others, but once we acknowledge the influence of friendship on our lives, we create space to fully feel the grief that comes when friendships end.

For more on friendship, pre-order my book (debuts September 6th, 2022): Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make–and Keep–Friends. 

This article was developed with Teara Jamison, a psychology graduate from Princeton University. 

The post Why It’s So Hard to Grieve Friend Breakups appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.

Get Off the Relationship Treadmill

Singlehood, for many, may not feel like a centered space, particularly on Valentine’s Day. That’s because our culture sees singlehood as a means to an end, a bump on the road to a relationship, a state of incompleteness. When single, we often feel pressure to grasp for something more. It can be hard, then, to appreciate what being single offers. So, instead, we skitter on the relationship treadmill.

Being on the relationship treadmill means you’re consumed by romance and frantically seeking or focusing on a romantic partner(ship). When on it, you aren’t present with or grateful for being single, and your life feels lacking. A study from the U.K. found that the average young adult spends 10 hours a week on dating apps (imagine if we spent that time on an actual treadmill! The gains!), suggesting that many single folks hustle on the treadmill.

The relationship treadmill means single people often engage in what researchers call “compulsive use of dating applications.” It’s akin to dating app addiction: using dating apps not intentionally but compulsively and being unable to quit or reduce time spent on them. The more we compulsively use dating apps, another study finds, the more likely we are to neglect other important things in our lives like work, school, and our other relationships.

Getting off the relationship treadmill means settling into singlehood, finding peace within it. We can do this whether we want a relationship eventually or not. When off the treadmill, we see a relationship as something that might add to an already fulfilling life, rather than as something to compensate for a lacking one.

Here are practical tips for getting off the relationship treadmill:1. Ask yourself what being single offers you and pursue its offerings:

Maybe being single allows you to travel more than if you had to consider a partner’s schedule, or pursue hobbies and interests. It can also be a mindset: delighting in the ways you choose all the home décor, or sleep or wake up at any time. Identify the offering and if applicable, pursue it.

2. Cultivate friendships:

People say they’re worried single people will be alone forever. But being single does not mean being alone. For single people, friendship is a great offering. Studies find that single people have more friends and spend more time with them; singlehood can be a friendship jackpot.

In fact, one study found that while married people tended to be slightly happier than single people, a very social single person is actually happier than the average married person. We all need connection in our lives, but there are many ways to find it. Some of us opt for a spouse, and others for friendship and either, this study suggests, can be fulfilling.

3. Use dating apps with intention or not at all:

It’s possible to get off the relationship treadmill and still date. It just means dating from a centered place, rather than to compensate for loneliness, depression, or emptiness. This looks like being fine alone if you don’t find someone who adds to your life meaningfully. It also means setting boundaries with people you’re dating if they treat you poorly because you prioritize your own peace over finding a partner (and will only settle for a partner who adds to your peace).

A treadmill has a single track, so if you’re off it, you’re cultivating many life tracks—hobbies, friends, family—while dating. In contrast, when you’re on the treadmill, your romantic status is disproportionally impacting the track of your self-worth.

Conflating our self-worth with the status of our romantic relationship is called relationship contingent self-esteem, and it is related to more negative emotions and social anxiety, and less general self-esteem, but it is also related to slightly more satisfaction and commitment to our romantic relationship. When people are high in it, they experience no more positive emotion when things go right in their romantic relationship, but more negative emotion when things go wrong.

To get off the relationship treadmill, when you can’t date in a centered, self-loving, grounded way, then you don’t date. When you feel a desire to compulsively join a dating site, ask yourself what emotions you’re soothing through the app. Acknowledge and feel them, until they pass. Recognize that, given you’re in a vulnerable place, when online dating, you’re seeking a short-term high at the cost of your long-term well-being, since you’re not in the right place to enter a loving, stable, partnership.

Couples on the Relationship Treadmill

Plot twist: If you are partnered, you can still be on the relationship treadmill. If you focus on your romantic partnership and neglect friends, interests, and your identity outside of the relationship, you’re on the relationship treadmill. This phenomenon is on the rise. One study found that between 1980 and 2000, couples became less likely to engage in activities outside their coupledom, like visiting friends or going out.

What’s so bad about that? You might wonder. According to science, making one person your everything harms ourselves and our relationship. People are more resilient to negative events within their romantic relationship when they have friends (particularly for women who tend to have stronger friendships), one study found. Another study titled “the importance of a few good friends” found that when we get into conflict with a spouse, we experience more harmful patterns of stress hormone secretion, but only if we don’t have good friends outside the marriage.

Getting off the relationship treadmill means living a balanced life. It’s a life where the search for or presence of a romantic partner doesn’t eclipse all life’s other beauties, like friendship. Many of us were raised to look for someone to be “our everything.” Perhaps, instead, we can look at a romantic partner as a significant but singular tile in our larger mosaic of happiness.

Note: This article also appears on my blog for Psychology Today.

The post Get Off the Relationship Treadmill appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.

Can We Value Our Friends Too Much?

Friendship makes us who we are. Its impact on our lives is profound and it can enhance so many aspects of our lives: from our mental to our physical health to our sense of who we are. With friendship contributing so much to our lives, can we value our friends too much?

With all these benefits, is it possible to value friendship too much?

As a friendship expert, I’d love to say no. But that’s not the whole truth. Sometimes we may come to value friendships so much that our self-esteem depends on what happens in our friendships. The problem, then, isn’t that we value our friendships per se. It’s that the value we place on our friendships eclipses the value we place on ourselves.

It’s when we can’t sleep after hearing back from a friend. Our day is haunted by fears that our friends just plain old don’t like us. When we can’t tolerate a friend telling us how we disappointed them. Or when we never reach out to friends because we’d be too devastated if they turned us down.

What is friendship contingent self-esteem?

If these fears are true for us, we may have- what researchers call “friendship contingent self-esteem,” which is linked to depression. It’s normal for our relationships to influence our sense of self-worth, but if our self-worth is too tied to our friendships, then we and our friendships may suffer.

So what should we do if we’re high in friendship contingent self-esteem?

If we sense we’re high in friendship contingent self-esteem, we should be a friend to ourselves! Spending time feeling our feelings, journaling, and offering ourselves self-compassion (which involves acknowledging our feelings- I feel sad, validating them-it’s ok to feel sad, and recognizing everyone feels like we do sometimes-everyone feels sad like me sometimes) are all ways to shore up our sense of self so it’s not so dependent on what happens in our friendships.

So can we value our friends too much? If we let them determine our self-esteem, then yes. As with any other part of our life, our self-esteem should not be largely determined by one thing. We can acknowledge the importance of friendships and still carve a space to feel secure and at ease with ourselves. With self-compassion and security, we have the resources to navigate our friendships in healthier ways.

Note:

This article was written with Kuteara Jamison, who has her bachelor’s in psychology from Princeton University.

This article is cross-posted on my Psychology Today blog.

The post Can We Value Our Friends Too Much? appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.

5 Ways to Make Friends When Working Remotely

Working from home has its advantages, but a sense of community is not one of them. Still, we should try to make friends when working remotely because feeling connected at work is necessary for our fulfillment in our jobs and lives. Research finds, for example, that people with friends at work are more satisfied with and perform better at their jobs. Lonely employees, in contrast, are less productive and more likely to leave their jobs.

So what does it take to make friends at work? Here are some tips:

1. Schedule an informal meeting just to chat

You can’t build a friendship if you only ever talk about work. One study found that while people feel closer the more time they spent together, this wasn’t true at work. In fact, the more time people spent together at work, the less close they felt. This is likely because when we only focus on work, we don’t reveal anything about ourselves. If you want to make friends at work stop talking about work.

2. Make informal meetings consistent

Friendship is not built from one interaction; it grows gradually.  According to the mere exposure effect, we unconsciously like those we are more exposed to. Scheduling an informal chat is great, but this chat needs to repeat for a friendship to develop. The best way to do this is to put a standing meeting on your calendars ,  perhaps once a week or once a month, depending on preference.

3. Share more of yourself

Now that you stopped talking about work, start sharing stories. According to a meta-analysis (which combines data from multiple studies), people like people who disclose about themselves. Another study found that when people answered a series of intimate question, they felt closer afterward. Use interesting questions to make friends when working remotely. Some good options are: What do you do for fun? What were you like in high school? What is something you unlearned recently? What’s on your bucket list? When’s the last time you were fascinated?

4. Express praise

We often think likable people are funny or smart or charismatic, but the secret to being likable is actually to like people. According to the theory of inferred attraction, people like people who they think like them. Co-workers will be more likely to want to be your friend if you show them you like them, by doing things like greeting them warmly, speaking highly of them, and celebrating their success.

5. Repot friendships

“Repotting,” according to Ryan Hubbard, founder of the Kitestring Project, means varying the settings in which you interact. The more friends repot, according to one study, the deeper the friendships. That means if you only ever interact at work, it’ll be hard to strengthen your bond. Instead, go to the museum, or happy hour, or have your co-worker over for dinner. You can even ask remote colleagues who live in your area to co-work with you. Repotting will elevate the friendship from work bae to full-fledged bud.

Note: This article is cross-posted on Psychology Today blog.

 

The post 5 Ways to Make Friends When Working Remotely appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.

You Can Stop Forcing Yourself to Socialize

With pandemic restrictions lifting, many of us have plummeted into socializing. This was everything I missed when we were locked down, we might tell ourselves or I should hang out as much as I can because you never know when things might close down again. And yet, as we pressure ourselves to socialize, we might also feel utterly exhausted. Read on for why you can stop forcing yourself to socialize.

Why You Can Stop Forcing Yourself to Socialize

Social connection is essential for our health and well-being. Loneliness, in contrast, poisons our bodies at the same rate as smoking 15 cigarettes a day does, studies find. But that doesn’t mean we need to be socializing all the time. We can figure out the balance of socializing and alone time that works best for us. And balance might be the best option, according to a recently published study in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The study examined the link between rates of socializing and well-being across 129,228 people in 29 European countries. When isolated people began to socialize more, they experienced a boon in their well-being, the results found. However, compared to people who socialized at moderate amounts, people who socialized at high amounts experienced diminishing returns in benefits. Socializing all the time wasn’t much better than socializing sometimes, in other words, for their well-being. These results applied, whether someone was extroverted or introverted. On the other hand, socializing at high amounts did not detract from well-being at all, so for those of us who prefer surrounding ourselves with people all day—go for it!

But for the rest of us, even as the pandemic has led us to recognize just how precious spending time with others is,  we need not drink from the connection water hose. Let go of the guilt, the pressure, to socialize. Slow down and pay attention to the rate of socializing that feels best for you. It’s o.k. to turn down that happy hour for some me-time.

Note: This article is cross-posted on my Psychology Today blog.

The post You Can Stop Forcing Yourself to Socialize appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.

Are You A Friendship Perfectionist?

Kana is one of my best friends. We’re so compatible that I always thought our friendship was perfect: we’d always be in sync, and in agreement. We’d always bring out the best versions of each other. I was applying what I call “the illusion of perfection” to our friendship. I was being a friendship perfectionist.

It was easy to maintain the illusion of perfection when we saw each other every now and then. Kana lives in Chicago, and I live in D.C. But then in 2018, we traveled to the Philippines together. Ten days on trains, jet-lagged, in the heat, and eventually we spatted.

We always had this amazing friendship and the disagreement made me wonder if the friendship was as amazing as I thought. One crack in an otherwise perfect friendship and I struggled to not plummet the significance of the entire friendship. I was approaching our friendship with perfectionism, assuming that when one thing is wrong, the friendship is wrong. I had to learn to bring nuance to our friendship, to let go of the illusion of perfection.

The ability to face and work through conflict with Kana has made us closer than ever—much closer than when we pretended conflict could never exist between us. In friendship, I realized, you can love someone, feel close to them, and they can make you feel so seen. But there’ll also be times of mismatch, where you’re pebbles grinding one another’s gears. At these times, it’s important to remember that perfectionism is incompatible with intimacy.

How to Stop Being a Friendship Perfectionist

True intimacy comes from surviving and working through difficult moments rather than pretending they’ll never happen. Psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner distinguishes between two types of safety in relationships, “the flaccid safety of permanent coziness,” maintained by ignoring anger and conflict and pretending problems don’t exist and the “dynamic safety whose robustness is established via… risk-taking and its resolution—the never-ending cycle of breakdown and repair, separation and reunion.” Dynamic safety, Golder suggests, invites trust and fosters true intimacy.

Letting go of friendship perfectionism means realizing intimacy that isn’t perfect is all the more amazing because it’s real.

Note: This article is cross-posted on my Psychology Today blog.

The post Are You A Friendship Perfectionist? appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.

How to Get Your Friends To Like You More

How to Get Your Friends To Like You More

In the popular book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie lists six ways to make people like you: Show genuine interest, smile, remember a person’s name, be a good listener, talk in terms of the other person’s interest, and make the other person feel important. These tips imply that to be likable, we must show people we like them.

Researchers have explored this idea about liking—termed “reciprocity of liking” or “inferred attraction”— scientifically. An early study conducted in 1959, involved people taking a personality quiz and then being placed in a discussion group. At the group’s start, they were told that certain people in the group were predicted to like them, based on personality quiz results. When participants were asked who in the group they’d like to form a two-person team with, people chose those they were made to believe liked them. A more recent study found that when people interacted with a stranger, they liked the stranger more when they thought the stranger like them.

One caveat here is that our likability isn’t just a product of our behavior. How others perceive us is influenced by racial and gender biases galore. Women feel pressure to sacrifice themselves to become likable: to not stand up for themselves, or avoid having strong opinions. Being more loving is a pathway to being likable that doesn’t require us to abandon ourselves, and it even benefits us.

Here are five ways you can be a more likable a.k.a. loving friend:

Tell Your Friends You’re Excited to See Them

When a friend asks you to hang out, don’t just say when you’re available, tell them “I’d love to see you! I’m so happy you reached out.” It’s vulnerable for new friends to initiate plans. Allay their fears by imparting how happy you are to hear from them.

Compliment Friends 

When is a good time to tell your friends how great they are? ALWAYS is a good time. If your friend looks great, or improved their life, or said something insightful, tell them you noticed and you’re proud.   

Reach Out When a Friend is Going Through Difficult Times

Offering friends support in difficult times is the ultimate sign of caring. It not only shows you are thinking of them, but also that you care enough to check-in. If a friend is going through a divorce, grieving a death, or facing a health crisis, check in so they know they’re not alone.

Celebrate Friends’ Wins

One study found that people celebrating our good news is even more important for our relationship satisfaction than them supporting us through our bad news.  When a friend is experiencing success—a promotion, retirement, or birth—don’t just let the moment pass. Savor it by taking them out to lunch, sending a card, or calling them to express how excited you are.

Consider Your Impact

Many of us don’t think about what we do to make others feel valued. We think much more about whether others make us feel valued. Why hasn’t our friend reached out, complimented our haircut, or invited us to the last group hang? We need to flip these questions on ourselves: am I making other people feel included, valued, and loved?

Note:  This article is cross-posted on my Psychology Today blog.

The post How to Get Your Friends To Like You More appeared first on Dr. Marisa G. Franco.