How to nurture and maintain new and old friendships
And other kinds of relationships
In the last newsletter, I talked about how to make new friends. In this issue, I’m going further to talk about how to maintain and other relationships
You’ve built your friendship or are building it and you want to nurture it or maintain it, the pillars of my theory of friendship can also help with maintaining and nurturing friendships.
Based on reflections of what has worked for me in building and maintaining friendships, the pillars that are most relevant in the building and nurturing phase are vulnerability and commitment. The shared experiences, values and interests pillar and the repeated exposure pillar set the stage for building the friendship, then vulnerability and commitment layer on that to help you nurture and build friendships.
Before I go into all the details, the one sentence summary on how to nurture and maintain friendships and other relationships is to:
be helpful, be kind, be the type of friend you want to have.
Do things together, often
Shared experiences means doing things together and spending more time with each other. Go on a trip together, take a course together, cook/bake together. This also ties into repeated exposure because the more you do things together, the frequency of meeting increases.
Repeated exposure can be virtual but physical connection could be especially important in the building phase of the relationship.
A very recent example is with people who I started building a friendship with while I was still in Nigeria, and once I moved the budding friendships kind of died because the relationship hadn’t gotten to the point where, while I was trying to figure out my life, settle and deal with all the changes that came with moving, I could maintain those relationships. I’m still friendly with many of them and I count them as my Tier 3 or Tier 4 friends but I think that if we had had time to deepen those relationships some of them would have become Tier 2 or even Tier 1 (what are these Tiers)
As for people I had a solid relationship with, even if I went weeks without talking to them—because I didn’t have the bandwidth to—there was no tension.
Repeated exposure creates opportunities for vulnerability
Be vulnerable
Vulnerability part which tends to be the hardest part because you’re opening yourself up which has two possibilities. The possibility of hurt or the possibility of love. It’s a risk where you have to gauge if you’re willing to take it with the person.
Vulnerability means allowing yourself to be shown up for.
People focus on being the one showing up for others, which is great but for your friendships to really have substance, you should allow people to show up for you. This means sharing whatever is burdening you, whatever challenges you’re facing. Asking for help can be difficult especially in personal situations, but if you don’t give people the opportunity to show up for you especially when they don’t know you’re going through something, for one, you cannot hold them responsible for not showing up for you (nobody is a mind reader).
Secondly, because you’re not giving them opportunities to show up for you, they may question their priority/placement in your life. I find it very difficult to understand why you call someone a close/best friend and can’t share your burdens with them.
This doesn’t equate to sharing your issues with everyone. If you feel like you’re not sure you want to trust that person with an issue, that’s fine. But one of my personal rules in life is to not operate based on fear because most times we make bad decisions when afraid. Yes, there’s a place for discernment, there’s a place for being aware but discernment and suspicion/paranoia are not the same.
Give people the chance to show up for you.
Show up
For the last pillar which is commitment, this is your turn to show up for people.
I’ve written and spoken about how to support your people through challenging and difficult situations.
But that’s not the only way to show up for your friends. It is important to show up on ordinary days and on happy days too.
Sometimes, it becomes easy to take our friends for granted. Especially when we’ve known them for years. And nothing kills any kind of relationship faster than see finish.
Check in with them. Buy them I saw this and thought you’d like this gifts.
Leverage technology.
Send them funny memes and TikToks you think they’d like. Send them things that will help in their growth, if they express an issue to you or something new they’d like to try, do whatever you can to help.
Save important events like their birthdays, kids’ birthdays, certification exams, career related events in your calendar so you can follow up with them. I’ve always used Google Calendar and tasks to keep track of what I need to follow up on with whom, even with my oldest friends.
But recently, I created a Notion document to include details, especially for the newer people I’m meeting. I note where I met them, highlight of what we talked about (e.g. if there’s anything we have in common), I also note anything I want to check in with them on (e.g. if they mentioned they’re job hunting, I send them links or ask how it’s going) and any other relevant detail.
When you can show up for them physically, DO THAT. It’s one of the most amazing ways to show up for someone because it makes them feel loved.
Recap
Do things together. Go out of your way to set things up and do them with your friends.
Create a frequency to the activities you do together. For example, going to dinner once a month, visiting each other every two weeks etc. Allow time for spontaneous meeting
Allow yourself to be shown up for. Ask for help when you need it. Share your needs.
Help them, show up for them and check in with them.
Finally, if you are a person of faith, you can pray about all these things. Who to spend more time with, what kind of gift to get them, what things you can do with them. Pray for them too. Pray to find friends, pray to keep them, pray for wisdom on what to do to build and manage your relationships, pray for wisdom to discern when it’s time to let go of those relationships as well.
P.S: You can also listen to a version of this essay on my podcast.
P.S.S: Happy Easter. Jesus loves you