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Healthy friendships are what everyone should be striving for when creating new friend connections. Healthy friendships help you develop a sense of belonging, make you feel valued, and reduce feelings of isolation. They also give you comfort in knowing that someone who loves and accepts you will be there to be by your side through the ups and downs of life.
It is important to develop an idea of the key characteristics that you deem important for creating and maintaining a healthy friendship. This is because it allows you to know what to focus on when making new friends and allows you to assess the health of your current friendships and spot any that might have become unhealthy. The ideas of what makes a healthy friendship might be culture-specific and may vary from individual to individual, so make sure you find a definition of healthy friendship that works for you. Here are 9 things we think are important characteristics of a healthy friendship to help you get started.
9 Key Ingredients Of A Healthy Friendship
1. There Is Effective Communication In Your Friendship
Having good communication is literally one of the most important things you can have in any of your relationships. It is one of the absolute key ingredients to having a healthy friendship.
In a healthy friendship you are able to share ideas, communicate openly and freely and resolve misunderstandings and issues through discussion (rather than sweeping them under the rug). More importantly, friends that have good communication are able to actively listen to each other. This means that they are able to listen to each other with intent, they pay attention to what the other person has to say and they listen with the goal being to understand rather than to respond.
Good communication allows you and your friend to foster understanding, minimise conflict and make you and your friend feel valued. Good communication is literally so important in building and maintaining a strong and healthy relationship with your friend.
“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or friendship, is conversation.” – Oscar Wilde
2. You Can Trust And Rely On Each Other
Another really important ingredient to a healthy friendship is that you trust each other. Trust is a key foundation to any strong friendship because, without it, you are basically just acquaintances. Trust opens the door to having confidence in being able to confide in one another, being comfortable showing vulnerability around each other, and being able to rely on each other in times of struggle.
Building trust takes time and work. It requires you both to be honest and open with each other. This helps you build a proper understanding of each other and become a solid support network. It also requires you to be reliable and consistent with your words and actions so that you can depend on each other to act/or speak in a certain way. This consistency provides stability in the friendship on a day-to-day basis and helps you better rely on each other.
3. There Are Boundaries Present and You Respect Each Other’s Personal Space
Boundaries are an important part of all relationships- including friendships. In a healthy friendship, you feel comfortable setting boundaries with your friend and you and your friend respect these boundaries once they are set. Healthy friendship boundaries help you and your friend navigate the friendship and build a relationship full of trust and respect.
A healthy friendship also involves having a healthy balance between time spent together and allowing each other to have some personal space. Rather than being overly dependent on each other, you and your friend are able to give each other the space you need for your own self-care and personal growth. This also means being comfortable with giving each other space to develop friendships with other people.
4. You Are There To Celebrate And Support Each Other
A key difference between a healthy friendship and an unhealthy friendship is that in a healthy friendship, you are able to genuinely celebrate each other. This means celebrating each other’s achievements and successes without being jealous or envious of them. This allows you to be able to share the happiness and joy that comes into each of your lives and it can create a beautiful bond between you.
Healthy friendships are also full of support, support that is present through the good times and the bad. You are each other’s cheerleaders when you are striving towards goals and you are there supporting them through important events but you are also a shoulder to cry on and a supportive ear to listen as well. You understand how to best support each other through many of the different situations life throws at you, and you make a conscious effort to show up for each other and be there for each other when needed.
5. You Feel Comfortable Being Yourselves With Each Other And You Accept Each Other
Another big part of healthy friendships is that you are able to be true to yourselves and be accepted for it. In a healthy friendship, you should feel comfortable being the genuine version of yourself around your friend because you know that they embrace and love who you are as a person. This means that you can share your passions and interests without fear of judgment.
You also create a safe space where you both can act and speak in a way that is true to you and allow yourselves to be genuine in each moment. For example, if you are having a bad day and are just feeling flat, you don’t feel like you have to hide those feelings and can simply be in whatever state you need to be around your friend and know that they will accept you. When you reach this stage of your friendship, you know you share a close bond.
“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected” – Charles Lamb
6. You Show Each Other Forgiveness and Understanding
There will be times in every friendship when one person makes a mistake and/or hurts the other person (conflicts and misunderstandings are basically inevitable in life). However, it is how you deal with these that make a friendship healthy. In a healthy friendship, you talk things through, take responsibility for your actions, apologise when you are wrong, and try see things from the other person’s perspective. You also forgive and do your best to learn from your mistakes and do better so that you can continue strengthening your friendship and make it a long-lasting one.
Friends in healthy friendships do not let conflict and misunderstandings tear them apart. Rather, these friends choose to understand, find resolutions and forgive so that they can grow stronger through the challenges they face.
7. There Is Balance In Your Friendship
Having balance in your friendship is essential. That is not to say that you need to keep a tally or a record of all the things your friend owes you or all the favours you do for them. It just means that one person should not be the only one benefitting from the friendship. In a healthy friendship, you give and take on the principle of need and this creates a sense of unity in the friendship. This does need to show some level of balance, i.e. you should not be doing all the giving or all the taking, however, it doesn’t need to be perfectly balanced all the time. This is because throughout life there will be times when you need to take more from your friend than you can give in return and vice versa (but the key is that it balances out over time).
Similarly, both you and your friend should have space to grow and shine in your friendship. One friend should not be dominating the friendship. Your friendship should be about both of you, not just focus on one of you. This means that you both should be able to make decisions, set boundaries, share opinions, be listened to, and be celebrated.
8. There Is Joy And Laughter Present In Your Relationship
Are you happy when you are around your friend? Do they make you laugh? Can you be silly and joke around together? This could be a sign that you share a healthy friendship with them.
The reason that laughter and happiness are important for a healthy friendship is that it shows that you enjoy being around each other. A sign of an unhealthy friendship is that your friend drains your energy, and you generally don’t enjoy being in their presence. So if you are able to be light-hearted, goofy, and make jokes with your friend it shows you have a level of comfort and closeness with your friend. Being this way helps you be a source of joy and positivity in each other’s lives. This is because it helps you foster happy memories that you can reflect on together throughout life. These happy memories can help strengthen your bond and keep you feeling good about the friendship.
9. You Are Able To Grow And Change Together
A big sign of a healthy friendship is being able to withstand the test of time together. Nobody stays completely the same as they go through life- including your friends. In a healthy friendship, you are able to embrace this growth and change and evolve together. You and your friend allow yourselves to have room for your own personal development and are supportive of each other through each unique journey of growth. That might mean learning how to adapt to each of the various stages of life the both of you go through and finding new ways to be supportive and stay connected through these times. However, you are comfortable doing this because you do know that this friendship is worth the effort.
Now you know the important characteristics to grow and maintain in your friendships so that your support network can be full of healthy friendships. Friendship is a beautiful thing that can add so much joy and meaning to the way you live life. So be sure to cherish your healthy friendships and nurture the meaningful connections you create.
