Why can distance create intimacy in friendship?

I was thinking about my goals friendship It was about getting closer – if the relationship wasn’t working at the maximum IntimateSomething is wrong. But I have come to believe that friendship is not intimate. It is about finding the distance we feel closest to each other, or the optimal level of intimacy.

For example, I didn’t travel well with some of my close friends, so I don’t. There are a variety of styles. I like to leave the beaten path and they might prefer the resort route. Avoiding shared travel will make your connections the most healthy boundary.

Friendship doesn’t have to be everything, but it can exist in grey. This allows us to try to adjust the environment of friendship instead of deciding to “expand” someone. You can try to see each other each month instead of weekly, staying friends, but being each other’s best friends, or spending more time in a group setting rather than one-on-one. Some friends call me “low-dose friends.” We thrive in a small amount, it’s fine. Ironically, these adjustments can make us feel more connected to others.

There were also friendships that suffered from a lack of reciprocity. But when I retreated, those friends eventually reached out to me. It’s not that they don’t go back and forth, but that we had different timelines at how often we felt impulses. Perhaps I’m now realising that they didn’t want a connection at all, but rather wanted a different level of connection than what I did.

the study I’ll find it The more we customize our relationship, the more we become, for example, annoyed a friend about a surprise parking ticket and to cry with us after the funeral, the greater our happiness will be. By hoping one person will do it, we can hurt our friendship. It can guide us to expect something from friends they cannot give. Instead of assuming that our friends withhold or reject us, we can meet that need elsewhere. When we do so, we feel light and our friends run away from the pressure cooker of our expectations.

We lose half of our friends every seven years, research show. It is hard to wonder if we will lose less if we approach our relationship with more nuances. Instead of ending a friendship that feels tense, you may simply shift to a new stage.

The next time you feel that friendship is chronically organized rather than just one-sided, do you feel that it’s the best place?

As Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote,

“The longest absence is less dangerous to love than the terrible ordeal of constant melee.”

Reflection Question:

Are there any needs that are not met by intimate friendship? Even if you sacrifice the intimacy you might have imagined for friendship, can you shift that expectation to another friend who is in a better place to meet your needs?