Friendship helps us learn more about ourselves.

Psychologies: They say: “With a friend, joy is twice as much, sadness is half as much,” is that true?

Margarita Zhamkochyan, social psychologist: This is not the result of a study, but an everyday observation. We know from experience that when we share our sorrows, we feel relief: we share the trouble for two. But with joy, everything is not so simple. Sharing grief is so deep in history that it is impossible to say when it appeared.

Studies of the social behavior of animals have found that a herd—elephants, for example—experiences empathy, grief over loss. It is our evolutionary heritage that every culture obliges us to share in grief. And it is easier to walk the path of sympathy than the path of shared joy.

There is not even such a word – “joy”. Only now the development of society has led us to pay attention to joy. But many complain that loved ones are not ready to rejoice with us, something is added to this involuntarily: envy, jealousy …

What is the reason for this new need for shared joy?

I think it is connected with the fact that we have extended our period of youth: now it is believed that we are young people until the age of 35! Accordingly, we prolong friendship – a necessary way of coexistence in youth, we want its various manifestations. Joy becomes our driving force, and then we suddenly notice that sometimes in joy there is no one to rely on. Although we are not alone in sorrow.

Why is it easy for some to form intimate relationships while others find it difficult?

There is no single reason for this. Firstly, we already have a different need for communication. According to Jung, there are two types of extraction of vital energy: an extrovert draws it from a variety of contacts, and if he is deprived of such a variety, he begins to get annoyed, and then fade away.

It is well known that those who are highly extroverted should not be taken on long and closed expeditions. You invite someone as the soul of the company, who is always ready to have fun, sing songs, but if you limit his communication to five interlocutors for several months, a metamorphosis will occur to him: depression and irritability will appear.

And an introvert doesn’t have that need for variety. There is another: in two or three friends, but proven over the years, whom he can trust as himself, and no matter how often they communicate, they remain for the rest of his life. And he draws a variety of information, which serves as a source of energy, in a variety of states: an introvert is sensitive to them and recognizes them well, distinguishing one from the other.

And extroverts are less interested in the nuances of states, they don’t know themselves well and get bored alone. Secondly, there is a kind of performing art, that is, the realization of a need. It happens that I have a high need for communication, but I am timid, shy, I experience tension when they turn to me, I do not read others well. And this is alarming, and I don’t understand what is wrong with me.

Can this anxiety be reduced?

Can. My colleagues and I conducted special trainings on communication techniques, friendly equal communication. And once the participants mastered these techniques, something curious happened: not only did their communication prowess increase, but the need for communication decreased, and she became more selective. There is a balance: the need is approaching the implementation.

The result is confidence in communication. And those who are used to establishing deep relationships experience difficulties in a large team: there cannot be many deep connections. In this case, you can train the techniques of social activity, work with the audience. Having mastered the skills of living in society, we learn to separate our personal space, which we do not allow to be invaded, and social.

How important is openness to intimacy?

Openness is a condition of close relationships. After all, this is how friendship is realized: we read what happens to the other, and share what happens to us. This does not mean that there are no problems here: many have a fear that I will extend my hand, but they will not extend it to me in return, or, worse, they will put a stone in it. The main fear of the participants of the communication training: I will open up, while others will not. But if I am afraid to open up, a full-fledged friendship will not work: I will move away from my feelings, and a feeling of a barrier will appear.

This is a common experience. How does a barrier to expressing feelings arise?

Such a barrier appears if our feelings were ignored in childhood. And this does not always happen in some dysfunctional families. It happens that parents are closed, unkind. Or too focused on success, on the right way. Because sometimes it is enough that the mother hugs, hugs the child to herself: physical contact is very significant for acceptance at a deep level.

But if this is not the case – for example, for adults, the feelings of a child are not important, but what is required to do is important – we grow up well-bred, but with the conviction that the feelings of others, but not ours, matter, and we move away from our own feelings. Friendship is almost the only refuge, because we are attuned to the other and give each other a feeling of understanding and acceptance.

What makes dependent relationships different?

One of the hallmarks of a dependent relationship is that you are always focused on someone else’s story. What is just typical for those who are detached from their feelings: to live with the problems of others so that their own do not get sick. This is a common type of female anesthesia: other people’s fates and events are interesting and exciting, cause admiration and sympathy. In this way you transfer your emotional center to another.

It’s natural to give in in a friendship, but if you give in all the time, it’s a reason to wonder if there is a dependent relationship here. Do not rush to break off such relationships: maybe they suit you and everyone gets what they want. First ask yourself if this is what you want. The second sign of addiction is when you react with resentment. Behind the resentment is always the Inner Child, vulnerable and dependent. So if you are often and painfully offended, then it makes sense to pay close attention to him and take care of him.

Sometimes we like someone at first, and then we see that he is not what we thought …

I propose to look at this not as a delusion, but as a change. After all, we are growing and changing. And when you are no longer satisfied with a relationship that seemed good, tell yourself: “Something has changed.” Then you can think about what to do. Take the relationship to the next level or end it. It is worth remembering how many childhood friends we no longer have anything in common! The most typical example of relationship breakdown is when one of your friends becomes the boss. Relations immediately change, and you feel it, but you attribute it to the fact that the other did not stand the test of power.

However, friendship is a horizontal relationship, no matter what positions you hold, as long as you are not boss and subordinate in relation to each other. And as soon as you occupy different vertical positions, friendship becomes difficult, resentment and misunderstanding arise.

But if I think that I am not appreciated, belittled, my feelings are ignored, I considered the other good, and he is not good, this is an unproductive position. Productive – think about change. If you assume that a friend has suddenly deteriorated, all that remains is to get more and more offended, and in the end you will quarrel. However, a quarrel is also a way to disperse. Or reconsider the relationship. Or clarify them.

And without a quarrel, you can disperse?

Most of the time, that’s what happens! We gradually have less need for someone, the distance increases. Communication is perceived at the physical level: attraction, divergence, distance… But it also happens that contacts stop, but friendship does not. And twenty years later, we pick up where we left off the last time, and keep the feeling that we can turn to a friend at any moment. A quarrel leads to the fact that communication stops. Although reconciliation is possible after quarrels.

How much do we need friendship?

Friendship is an absolutely necessary social interaction at that age stage when there is a search for one’s own identity. Friendship is needed to answer the question of who I am. At 10–13 years old, we look at another and compare ourselves with him: how am I different? I am a good student, I study better than others. I am a great friend – I have more friends than anyone else. At the age of 14-15, we look at each other and look for what we have in common – this is how we begin to be friends: we love the same thing, we suffer from the same thing.

After 16 years, a period begins when we look at another and see him himself, and not our resemblance. And a deep, mature friendship arises, and love too: when we see another in another and do not make claims to him, why he is not like me, thinks and feels differently. At this time, the search for identity as a whole is completed. However, now the youthful period stretches up to 25 years, or even up to thirty. Accordingly, the need for friendship lasts longer.

But after thirty, we have the following age-related challenges: we begin to look for the meaning of life, our purpose. And no one will tell you this – neither a friend, nor mom and dad. This is the path to your own awakening.