Science tells us why we grow up struggling to find true friends

Better alone than bad company That famous saying we borrow every time he knocks on the door goes lonely. A precious ally, if we know how to welcome him, and a bad companion when it comes to moments of despair. The truth is, loneliness makes you shine, but you live we need friendsWho stayed with us despite everything. Those with whom you share the joys and sorrows of successes and failures.

But friendship is like love, it needs reciprocity, listening and, above all, what we no longer have. Because we are always busy with a thousand things, because we wander between work and personal commitments, between home and family and children. And popular dinners and snacks with friends are less frequent postponed for months.

Perhaps this long introduction is enough to explain why It seems hard to have friends. But to this is also added the objective difficulty of creating new relationships, especially now that we are getting older.

We know a lot of people, it’s true, because we accompany them to work, we meet them at the gym or outside of school. Months go by and sometimes years go by, but with these people we just can’t do that. To make a true friend. Is this our problem? No, this is a very common position among adults to confirm. I know.

through research health and wellness research Made byIverson Institute for Health Innovation Research Melbourne, we find it more difficult to trust people we don’t know. That is why, often and willingly, we tend not to open up to others, but to remain in that circle of friends with whom we had close relationships during childhood.

This is beautiful of course. Because not everyone knows how to maintain friendship despite geographical distances and the passage of time. However, according to research, we tend to maintain only these friendships. Energy saving and feeling safe. With old friends we have less chance to exist Judge, refusal, betrayal, or criticism.

In this sense, old friends become our comfort zone that we do not want to leave. This is only one of the reasons why it is so difficult to open up to the new, because as we expected, the problem is also lack of time.

As we know, any relationship with any entity requires time, patience and participation. For people to find each other, get to know each other and trust that they need to be together. Science has also tried to determine this time. According to a study published in Journal of social and personal relationsAt least they will serve 300 hours The ability to consider this person a true friend.

Not much, considering it’s just over 12 days old and we spend more time watching TV and TV series than socializing.

So it is up to us to make the decision, but it seems clear to us that we have the desire and the desire to cultivate new relationships that we must find the time to do so. You may not need to spend a lot of time with someone, but we can start He no longer postpones an aperitif and an extra phone call during lunchtime. This is really a big step forward..