I think one of the best (and rarest) feelings in the world is knowing you’re doing something that feels right. I really really respect people who are good at listening to their gut instincts, who are in tune with what feels right and chart their actions accordingly. ​ True resonance between the right people has its own language. It’s incredibly effortless, a warm glow of energy they give you. Some people you can’t help but love. You can’t resist being a moth drawn to a flame. Something in you just knows: these are my people, this is my person. ​ “If you get close to what you love, who you are is revealed to you, and it expands” – Ethan Hawke ​ A lot of my friends are ‘free’ in ways that I am not and therefore they inspire me to grow and change.

And social media is playing a role, allowing them to distantly observe people they once truly felt connected to, which opens up the gap between their wishes for those friendships and the more anemic reality ​ our lives are not as easily separated into pots that can be placed on separate burners. Extinguishing friendship has consequences for every other aspect of life. ​ As anyone who’s taken time out of the workforce to be a full-time caregiver knows, it’s not always easy to switch a burner back on after it’s been extinguished for a long time. ​ We’re more interested in resilience. You can’t stay truly connected without some level of misunderstanding or conflict, so the real Big Friendship goal is just to stay in it. Instead of pretending we won’t be challenged, we want the ability to bounce back and heal our inevitable wounds. ​ “Friendships don’t have the hallmarks,” Langan says. “They don’t have the milestones.” So it’s up to the people in the friendship to create them. ​ Langan says that another key to staying attached is to find verbal and nonverbal ways to tell each other you plan to be there in the future. ​ Usually the only way through it is to acknowledge it’s happening. And yes, it’s hard. ​ No one human can meet your every single emotional need.

This has been so exciting for me because (reason). Thanks for letting me share. What’s important about that to you? Likes don’t count, you can’t respond to them. The triangle of friendship is consistency, vulnerability, and connection, with the latter being the base. I’m going to continue to mingle. It was lovely to meet you/y’all! “Hi, I’m [Jasdev]! Mind if I join you?” Suffixing clothing compliments by asking where they got it from. We all want to be both seen and supported—in love, friendships, and work.

That was a day I felt our friendship leveled-up, because I knew I could trust her to give me honest feedback on any subject. "Truth is Kindness" ​ all forms of lying --including while lies meant to spare feelings-- are associated with less satisfying relationships ​ I slide into dishonesty more often than I’d like. It’s easy and it’s comfortable.

Of course, there are downsides to each model of relationship. People whose friendships primarily consist of sporadic deep dives probably feel a higher degree of loneliness day-to-day during dry spells in-between the deep dive nourishment. (If you’re in an intimate romantic relationship, this can be okay because you tend to share minutia/quick hits with your spouse so don’t need to lean on friends as much for this.) People whose friendships primarily consist of regular quick check-ins and texts and workday lunches probably feel some lack of depth with some of their so-called “close friends.” They realize that after years of “how was your day?” conversations and staying up to speed on the real time relationship drama or work battles that will someday be easily forgotten — they realize that they’ve never explored life’s deeper questions with their friend.

Before Linkedin, contact books, address books, or the personal CRM, David Rockefeller had 200,000 index cards.

“Your tribe has the context about you & your life — and can remind you, when you need it, of who you are, and who you can be.”