Friendships Don't Just Happen!: The Guide to Creating a Meaningful Circle of GirlFriends

by Shasta Nelson

However, how we actually use the word "friend" most frequently is in reference to anyone we feel linked to,

There are a thousand shades of relationship between an acquaintance and a long-term best friend.

The importance of recognizing the vast spectrum of friendship nuances not only guides us to better articulate what our personal needs are right now, but also helps us recognize that to experience the bond the Sex and the City women share might require us to start by just being friendly with a stranger.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF FRIENDSHIPS?

The strength of our friendship isn't as dependent on how much we like each other, but more on how much time we spend together developing ou...

consistency is regular time spent together, and intimacy is sharing that extends to a broad range of subjects and increases in vulnerability.

Contact Friends

In this category there is little expectation that we would remember the name of their spouse or even know if they have kids, and we certainly aren't expected to send them birthday cards or invite them over for dinner.

These aren't the friends we think to call when we're hurting or lonely. In fact we'd probably never call without a specific purpose or question in mind,

They serve fundamental purposes in our lives. For one thing, they give us a sense of belonging in the context in which we know them.

We might look forward to an annual convention because we have a Contact Friend or two who will be there, saving us from being among all strangers.

We are happy that a Contact Friend volunteers at the same place we do because she makes our participation more fun.

We're appreciative to have a Contact Friend in our weekly art class because we have a friend to chat with every Tuesday night while waiting for the teacher.

These friends offer us a sense of safety and support in various settings.

These friends may be able to get our résumé into the hands of someone they know, or they may be willing to re-tweet our upcoming seminar to all their contacts.

Intimate these topics are not; helpful they most definitely can be.

All friendships start in this category. And it's safe to say that the vast majority of them will stay in this Circle.

Common Friends

We are increasing either our consistency or our intimacy with these women, getting to know them better largely in the area we have in common. The difference between women in the Common Friends Circle and the Contact Circle is that we spend time with these women in more intentional and personal ways, developing a friendship that feels more substantial.

To illustrate: if we saw the same woman in our yoga class consistently enough that we regularly made small talk in the locker room after class we would be Contact Friends. Showing up at class is more fun because we see someone familiar there with whom we can whine about how hard certain poses are to master and share where we bought our flattering yoga pants. For that person to develop into a Common Friend our connection would advance from engaging in locker room chitchat to the two of us drinking smoothies or tea for an hour after class on occasion.

We can find these Common Friends in moms groups, at work, at choir rehearsal, or in a club. We know these individuals well within the area we have in common. In other words, we may see them more frequently than our Contact Friends, or our conversations may feel more personal and consequential. They are definitely more than just the person we gravitate toward; they are also people we feel connected with and close to.

we like the other person, rather how much time we spend with them and whether our relationship centers more ...

some women I admire tons. I think of Teri who's the spouse of my husband's best friend. I think of Peggy, the wife of a couple that we try to eat dinner with at least every other month. I would trust either of these women with any burden I felt and I so enjoy our time together whenever it occurs. But they show up in this Circle because I don't have a relationship with them outside of my husband. When I spend time with them, it's as couples. I know I could call them if needed and they'd be there for me instantly, but we haven't practiced being friends outside of the structure—our current way of being together—that brought us together in the first place.

In this category, no matter what the area of commonality, the bond is formed over something we share. We connect because we have found common ground.

The Common Friends Circle is a super important Circle in our lives. When we say we want new friends, we are often looking for someone who is "like me," so finding s...

Our conversations may be deep, honest, and intimate, but our friendship will stay in the Common Friends Circle, either if the topics we discuss are limited primarily to the common interest we share or if our ways of being together are inconsistent enough to not quite feel as close to our Common Friends as we do with our friends on the Right Side of the Continuum.

Friendships don't have to be all or nothing. It's not BFF or bust. Friends who matter to us in one particular life area are just as important and can feed us in that area, probably more than our best friend could. No one person will share all of our interests and go through the same life stages simultaneously with us. At different times, different women help us meet different needs. That's no small gift. We hold gratitude in our hearts for each of them.

RIGHT-SIDE FRIENDS

I'll return to the middle Circle—Confirmed Friends—in a minute. First I want to discuss the two circles on the Right Side of the Continuum. When we cross over to the Right Side, these friendships must have both strong consistency and strong intimacy. On the Left Side, those two factors were limited in our Contact Circle, or only one out of the two was present in our Common Circle. So, jum...

Community ...

We spend consistent time together growing the intimacy of our relationship. When we become Community Friends we have crossed the lines of our original relationship boundaries with a gym buddy, a book club partner, or a work colleague. We now share our lives beyond our initial shared common interest. When we enter into Community Friends territory, we have crossed the lines of our original relationship boundaries so that now it feels normal to invite them to a ran...

This is an incredibly meaningful category of friends. These women help us feel rooted, they care about the things we do, and have journeyed through a bit of life with us. They are invited to our big ...

I see this Circle as the place where our tribe collects—where we are introducing friends to each other at our parties, expanding our social time together in new ways, and staying up to ...

This group is bigger than our closest confidantes, but doesn't include friends who are limited to only specific areas of our lives.

Friends eventually move into this Circle when we have regularly spent time with them beyond the area we have in common.

Maybe a friend of a friend has been a Common Friend for the last year, the mutual friend being our bond. If we start building our own one-on-one friendship with her, we might stop thinking of her as "so-and-so's friend" and more like a friend of ours—making her possibly a Community Friend now.

As we broaden our ways of being together we are ensuring that we have other things connecting us even if the original commonality changes.

I see it happen frequently in churches when someone stops attending and then feels hurt if no one ever follows up with her. But if the church friends were only Common Friends, where they only had weekend services in common, then it's not surprising that when one stops attending those services, their friendships dissipate.

If we step outside of the one structure—a scheduled time, place, or interest—that brought us together then we are risking those relationships. If we can broaden those Common Friendships before the change occurs, we'll have a foundation on which to continue and grow our relationship outside of church.

This is an intentional step I will start taking when I recognize that someone is in the common friend or contact friend zone.

But I reserve the last circle for the women with whom I am committed to nurturing a very consistent, meaningful friendship—it's a commitment I simply cannot make to more than three to five women at a time.

Committed Friends

The Committed Circle on the far Right of the Continuum is reserved for the friends with whom we regularly share our feelings and for whom we have a mutual commitment to be present, no matter what.

Wow. I only have this with Sarah. Te no matter what piece is hard to come by. I wonder how many of these Sarah feels that she has.

The Committed Circle is our BFF Circle,

a cluster of consistent women who are committed to us no matter what life changes bring. They don't all have to know each other, but they undoubtedly hear us talk about each other, and those who are local will definitely meet up at some of our special events.

The term Committed is purposeful. These are the friends we intentionally make room for in our life on a regular basis.

These are the women whose birthdays we plan around, whose relationships we know about, and whose dreams we hold close. And they do the same for us.

They could switch jobs, get married, change interests, move away, or the kids could all grow up, but we would still be in each other's lives. Regularly.

Having women friends in this Circle requires that we have developed patterns of spending time together, have shared extensively about our life, and would want to introduce important people to each other—all actions that take intention and time.

This sounds like a blueprint.

When we ache for belonging, it's typically this group that w...