Are friendships important or are they merely optional?

Friendships are something that everyone needs no matter how independent you think you may be. People with no friends are more likely to suffer from a premature death. This study was found in a study of more than 308,000 people where the risk factor was found to be even greater than the risk of smoking 20 cigarettes a day.

While we all know friends are important, here are some truths about friendship that you may be able to relate to.

Friendships or no friends?

1.You don’t need a best friend

 It’s not important to have best friends. Relationship expert Esther Perez says that you don’t need just one best friend to reap the benefits of a life long connection. “Today we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning and continuity… is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?”

2.If you can’t spend a lot of time on a friendship it’s still ok

Master life coach Nicole Whiting says that we don’t have to define what amount of time, energy and intention is required for each friendship. Each relationship is unique.

With life taking so much of our time and energy, we cannot expect a friendship that requires all our time.

3.Social media friends are still friends

It’s ok to have friends that exist only within the digital world. There are a lot of incredible people out there that you may be able to only access online and there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as you feel, supported, seen and validated, social media is also an option.

4.Friends don’t need to be forever friends

People can drift in and out of your life at some phases of your life and that’s perfectly ok. It doesn’t mean that just because someone has been with you for a long time, they have to be with you forever.

“If you find a friendship changing or dissolving, remember, nothing has necessarily gone ‘wrong’. Life and people are moving in different directions, ebbing and flowing, and this is part of being human, even if it may feel painful and confusing.”

To sum it all up, friendship should never be optional for anyone but it doesn’t matter what kind of friendship you have as long as you have some kind of good emotional bond, it is better than social isolation.

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