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Maintenance Strategies for Friends

Most friendships are built on a foundation of shared activities and self-disclosure. To maintain your friendships, strive to keep this foundation solid by regularly doing things with your friends, and making time to talk.

Sharing Activities Through sharing activities, friends structure their schedules to enjoy hobbies, interests, and leisure activities together. But even more important than the actual sharing of activities is the perception that each friend is willing to make time for the other. Scholar William Rawlins notes that even friends who don’t spend much time together can still maintain a satisfying connection as long as each perceives the other as “being there” when needed (Rawlins, 1994).

Of course, most of us have several friends, but only finite amounts of time available to devote to each one. Consequently, we are often put in positions where we have to choose between time and activities shared with one friend versus another. Unfortunately, given the significance that sharing time and activities together plays in defining friendships, your decisions regarding with whom you invest your time will often be perceived by friends as communicating depth of loyalty (Baxter et al., 1997). In cases where you choose one friend over another, the friend not chosen may view your decision as disloyal. To avert this, draw on your interpersonal communication skills. Express gratitude for the friend’s offer, assure him or her that you very much value the relationship, and make concrete plans for getting together another time.

Self-Disclosure A second strategy for friendship maintenance is self-disclosure. All friendships are created and maintained through the discussion of thoughts, feelings, and daily life events (Dainton et al., 2003). To foster disclosure with your friends, routinely make time just to talk—encouraging them to share their thoughts and feelings about various issues, whether online or face-to-face. Equally important, avoid betraying friends—that is, sharing with others personal information friends have disclosed to you.

But as with romantic and family relationships, balance openness in self-disclosure with protection (Dainton et al., 2003). Over time, most friends learn that communication about certain issues, topics, or even people is best avoided to protect the relationship and preclude conflict. As a result, friends negotiate communicative boundaries that allow their time together and communication shared to remain positive. Such boundaries can be perfectly healthy as long as both friends agree on them and the issues being avoided aren’t central to the survival of the friendship. For example, several years ago a male friend of mine began dating a partner who I thought treated him badly. His boyfriend, whom I’ll call “Mike,” had a very negative outlook, constantly complained about my friend, and belittled him and their relationship in public. I thought Mike’s communication was unethical and borderline abusive. But whenever I expressed my concern, my buddy grew defensive. Mike just had an “edge” to his personality, my friend said, and I “didn’t know the real Mike.” After several such arguments, we agreed that, for the sake of our friendship, the topic of Mike was off-limits. We both respected this agreement—thereby protecting our friendship—until my friend broke up with Mike. After that, we opened the topic once more to free and detailed discussion.