Eric Barker is back with another episode, [1] offering us psychological insight and analytics into friendship. He summarizes some fascinating research, including the work by Robin Dunbar, making his entire article well worth a visit. That said, here are Barker’s take-aways on how to make and sustain emotionally intelligent friendships:
- Stay in touch: Friendship is not an arena where you want to play hard to get. What are you, a carnival prize?
- Gratitude: If we’re more kind to strangers than to friends, we are definitely doing something wrong.
- Quality > Quantity: Share emotional experiences. That’s the secret to those friendships where you can just pick up where you left off.
- Budget appropriately: Time is limited. Allocate it wisely. And this is yet another reason to ditch the jerks in your life.
- How to party: Eat. Laugh. Reminisce. Avoid small talk. The more the merrier. (And maybe a bit of booze.)
- Make your best friend better: You influence each other more than you know. Make yourself better and help make them better, because, in the end, those two are the same thing.
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