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When you listen to your friends talk about wild celebrations with colleagues, do you often envy them and consider yourself a loser? Don’t: Just because you didn’t make friends at work doesn’t mean anything. And certainly does not characterize you as a specialist and a person.
Being friends with one of your colleagues is great: research shows that such relationships affect the degree of our job satisfaction. So, one in five of the 195 Americans who took part in the study said that he had not just a friend in the team, but a best friend, and these same 600% of the subjects were the most involved and dedicated to work.
Does this mean that if you failed to make friends with any of your colleagues, you should sound the alarm? Not at all. Making friends as an adult isn’t easy anyway, and just because you’re surrounded by co-workers for nine hours a day doesn’t mean you have to become bosom buddies.
“Coming to a new place, you should not build high expectations and count on the deep relationship between you and your colleagues,” says clinical psychologist Tanisha Ranger. “If this doesn’t happen, you may experience deep disappointment and decide that you are the problem.”
It is especially difficult for people with social anxiety to come to terms with this: it seems that all colleagues are “friends forever”.
Therefore, it is useful to check with reality: is it really so?
According to the psychotherapist Esther Perel, in most cases, if one of the colleagues leaves, such friendship breaks off (and there is nothing wrong with that, by the way). “Many of the relationships we enter into are due to circumstances, and if circumstances change, then the relationship is over. This does not always happen, but quite often, ”the expert notes.
The heavy burden of friendship
And yet from the outside it may seem that those who are friends with other colleagues are real lucky ones. This is not always and not always the case. A study in an insurance company showed that people who have many friends in the team, on average, are rated higher than other colleagues, but they themselves are more likely to say that maintaining social ties completely deprives them of strength.
So don’t be jealous of others: you don’t know what this friendship really stands for and how it feels from the inside.
It is much more important to focus on your values. If you also want to be friends at work, but have not been able to yet, it’s okay to be sad about this, but it’s worth remembering that relationships do not arise on their own and require investment.
“You can admire two colleagues who are close friends, forgetting that they have been working together for many years, and you only joined the company a few months ago. Friendship takes time,” says psychotherapist Shannon Garcia.
She also believes that it is absolutely normal not to strive at all to make friends at work. It is reminiscent of a study by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, which found that we can maintain, on average, five maximally close connections at the same time. “Perhaps you already have your “great five”,” the therapist suggests.
Is friendship with colleagues the key to success?
The good news is that even if you are not close friends with anyone in the team, you can still be a pleasant employee to work with. “To succeed, it’s enough to be friendly with everyone without exception,” says Mary Ebbagey, an expert in leadership development and skills.
“Opportunities for professional and career development do not arise in a vacuum — they are born in interaction with other people, and we all want to work with those who are easy to work with. So try to be open and friendly — this is the main thing. It should be comfortable to work with you — and opportunities will not be long in coming, ”the expert emphasizes.
Whatever one may say, reputation is important
And if colleagues consider you an unfriendly and withdrawn employee, then they may not turn to you with a request or offer that could turn into new prospects for you.
Friendship at work in the age of covid
Now, during the pandemic, many have felt the lack of friends among colleagues especially acutely. Garcia admits that this is what her social anxiety clients complain about the most. “Remote work and social distancing have complicated the process of working interactions,” she explains. — We practically do not meet face to face, which means that it becomes more and more difficult to make friends. This is a given that needs to be accepted.”
“Of course, virtual collaboration requires incomparably more effort: you will no longer run into colleagues at the cooler, as before, and you will not chat in the smoking room,” Ebbagey adds. She believes that in order to show a colleague her friendliness and location, it is enough to write in a personal letter and message how you liked his or her idea.
“Of course, it’s nice when there is someone to joke with, laugh with, exchange meaningful glances or fresh memes, but at work you don’t have to be friends — just interact,” sums up Ranger. “So be polite, smile, help if you need it, and, as they say in American films, just do your job.”