A friend is a person we know, like and trust. Life-long friendships can grow between parents and children, siblings, cousins, neighbours, school classmates, colleagues or online acquaintances. Friends play a significant role in our social lives and contribute enormously to our mental health, building a sense of belonging. Whether you’re all around a table chit-chatting or helping each other move to a new home, you will feel comfortable and safe among friends because that’s what they do: they relieve stress and reduce anxiety.
Frankly speaking, it bugs me when I hear “How could I ever be friends with this person? We’ve nothing in common.” As if being similar was a necessary condition to bonding. Not even twins are so identical: one will play football whereas the other will prefer watching it – still, they will share the ball, the TV and whatever they have to live in harmony. I believe it’s human nature to CHOOSE people we connect better with, although it doesn’t mean we couldn’t learn to relate to others who aren’t so like-minded. As a matter of fact, building bridges is extremely beneficial for both sides: it promotes understanding, raises confidence, increases curiosity and brings a lot of joy to life. At school we were encouraged to BREAK DOWN BARRIERS. When and why did we stop doing that?
I like to think that the more you widen your circle of friends, the happier you get. For that reason, I brag about my handful of varied friends because I learn valuable bits from each one of them.
I’m no specialist in relationships, but there is an evident misconception that good friends never argue. I believe it’s quite the opposite. It’s not always easy to find common ground about controversial [or sometimes trivial] issues, especially in such a polarized world. But when you find someone who’s willing to push aside controversy for the friendship’s sake, you’d better get hold of them and make them last. If somewhere along the way, however, judgment happens to speak louder to a point where disrespect takes over, then it’ll be time to loosen up. In the main, I can say I’m a much better friend to the ones I’ve had CONFLICTS with. Thinking of my long-time friendships, we’ve fallen out [over stuff that seemed relevant], but we’ve soon settled the matter and become closer.
I’m not the disputatious kind of person so, if the argument doesn’t affect someone who’s really worth the trouble, what I tend to do is back off. After all, RECONCILING has 100% to do with people’s desire to keep up the connection and if there’s no interest in making your point anymore, why bother? But then I was told:“Spare no effort to make yourself understood”. And this statement has stuck in my head in a way that it’s changed my approach to most hostile responses.
After realizing the number of friends I’ve lost for no apparent reason, I understand I could have done more than just retreating. If only I had explained myself better, the person at the other end of the rope wouldn’t have moved further away. Maybe we would have made concessions and compromised. Who knows.
It’s just as important to bear in mind that by no means making yourself understood corresponds to TAKING THE BLAME for the dispute or the loss of a friend [that’s a too heavy load to carry]. Neither does it aim at maintaining a destructive one: stretching a toxic friendship is mentally draining and overwhelming. The whole idea behind the statement is that people do say harsh things when they’re angry and rising to the bait is without a doubt a bad decision.
What to do then? When confronted by a friend, we want to stand our ground as much as we want to keep things under control. The BIFF METHOD [described in depth by Bill Eddy in his book BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns] teaches quick and effective responses which necessarily answer the questions below:
- Is it brief?
- Is it informative?
- Is it friendly?
- Is it firm?
- Does it contain any advice?
- Does it contain any admonishments?
- Does it contain any apologies?
- How do you think the other person will respond?
- Is there anything you would take out, add or change?
Ideally, the answer to the first 4 questions should be YES. The answer to the next 3 [the triple A’s] should be NO. The last two are only for pondering.
They all seem intuitive and self-explanatory, but they aren’t. By being brief, you show that you don’t want the conflict to keep going and escalate. You want to solve the problem and end the conversation, reducing the chances of misunderstandings. By being informative, you show the facts and focus on the accurate statement you want to make [not the inaccurate statement they’ve made – abstain from personal attacks!]. By being friendly, you calm down the person who’s listening and, in return, you’re more likely to get a friendly response. By being firm, you leave emotions behind and communicate that further discussion is no longer welcome.
Moreover, if you haven’t been asked for advice, don’t give it. Teaching someone how to deal with a problem in a high conflict situation triggers a defensive and offensive response. It goes without saying, but reproaching someone [like a parent does to their kid] brings out the worst in people and definitely doesn’t do the job. According to Eddy, apologizing should also be also avoided, because difficult people are too worried about ‘blame’ and will tend to use your apologies to prove or validate their opinions, even unconsciously.
After answering all those questions, ask yourself: how do you think the other person will react? If anything, change or add whatever you consider important in the resolution of the problem.
I’ve been trying to put these little pieces of advice into action for some time now and, to my surprise, it’s not so hard as I had imagined. Mostly, I have done my best not to let things go, but to show people I care [even when I’m fed up to my back teeth]. I’ve communicated more [stopped assuming what others want or expect] and started putting it bluntly: You don’t look OK. Have I said or done anything to let you down? / You sound irritable. Please let me know if I’m making you feel this way. I’ve also followed my gut when I got that bad feeling that something was wrong… 90% of those times my guess was right.
Relationships aren’t always sunshine and roses, but they have the power to do us THE WORLD OF GOOD. Arguing will inevitably happen from time to time, but a friend will show up for the big, important and difficult moments. And that’s what truly matters. Quoting Tennessee Williams, “Life is partly what we make it, and partly what is made by the friends we choose”.
Do you have many friends? How often do you interact with them? Are you open to meeting people out of your social circle? Which friends have you decided to keep and why? How do you deal with conflict? Do you regret pushing someone away?
See y’all soon!
