People with a lot of friends and a big support system -- how do they do it? (Question about sister)
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Anonymous
This. Someone in my world passed away and about 200 people joined one of the Zoom memorials. Everyone thought they were the special person. He made a lot of people feel special. He also hurt some by making them feel special and then kind of moving on to the next group. At the funeral, I saw he had a deep need to be liked. He didn’t get a lot of art created, and I wonder if he was happy with his choice to focus more on connecting with hundreds of people versus doing something else. I have a small core group. They would be supportive if I needed it. I don’t have hundreds of people or anything, though. If I did, I would be exhausted. I also felt a little envious but I felt less envious when person after person mentioned his need to be liked. It made me sad because it seemed like a lot to be saddled with. Overall, I guess we just don’t know. We can see something from the outside and think it looks great but maybe there is a downside we don’t always see? |
Anonymous
| Read The Charisma Myth. It could help a lot. |
Anonymous
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So, my mom is one of those people with a big support group. Here are the things that have contibuted to it.
1) She's lived in the same area for decades. 2) She became an expert on child development through her career and became a sounding board for many families about things with their children, now grown. So while she is not really an extrovert, she has had emotuonally deep interactions with many people over the years. 3) She has a couple of friends who are coordinators. One has organized meal trains, and one has become an errand runner, driver to medical appointments, etc. 4) My mom had to learn to ask for help. She is a longtime church member, and that probsbly is also a factor, but I don't think it's a major factor, other than it happened to be the way she met the coordinator friends. She lives in the Midwest, but I live in the DMV. Our neighborhood (loosely speaking, not just immediate neighbors) is fairly tight, and I've been both a participant and a recipient of meal trains for new babies or families dealing with surgeries or hospitalizations. A lot of times, we didn't really know each other, but there is a mechanism to request the meal train, and people do. |
Anonymous
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NP. I too have a need to be liked. I reach out to people, family, friends, acquaintances, neighbours. I get in touch, I ask them about their lives, then I update them about my life, I try to organize meet ups, meeting up for coffee, etc.
For some reason I find it difficult to attract people other than on a superficial level. It feels very one-sided lot of the time. I typically initiate contact with people first. If I don't, I hardly hear from thrm. People are busy, or indifferent (at least that is my own perception). I have a good old friend who is the same as me. She is very invested in friendships with people and she is the typical social butterfly. She's been like this since we were kids. She has a big circle of friends and she gets invited to meet ups, parties, etc. We're both early 50s. Why does it work better for her than for me? |
Anonymous
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They are probably very good at keeping up relationships and keeping in touch. Some people just have a knack for it.
They may be naturally outgoing and charismatic. Some of it is having a close friend or two who is a coordinator - say, spreads the word that so-and-so needs this, and rallies a group. |
Anonymous
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They are shallow relationships
Those relationships work well for "meal trains". Not much else. |
Anonymous
I have a good friend who is a Unitarian for this exact reason. |
Anonymous
Agree with you both but will add that sometimes it requires opening up about the little things too. I have found that my networks were strengthened when I offered up a little vulnerability instead of always putting on a happy front. It's ok to let your friends know that you are having a bad day, or plans you were looking forward to fell through. Give your social network the opportunity to lift you up even when it's not something as serious as a surgery or family death etc. That's the way the deepest connections are formed. |
Anonymous
| Simple. She gives to other people so she receives in return. Those relationships are cultivated over time with lots of little daily interactions. Checking in on friends via text. Chatting with neighbors at the mailbox. Posting and responding to posts on social media. Inviting friends for dinner. Volunteering to be the room parent in your child’s class. Volunteering to drive the carpool. Being the troop leader. Managing the little league team. Hosting play dates. Being friendly and chit chatting around town, at school drop off, at the office. These little acts keep her connected so she knows what’s going on in everyone else’s lives. She probably delivers flowers, meals, gifts to others all the time. |
Anonymous
Great advice. Be vulnerable. Authentic. Real. |
Anonymous
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They are extroverted.
They make you believe that you have a special relationship with them when in fact it's probably superficial. But they don't see any relationships as superficial they are all meaningful. They think everyone is delighted to be with them and subsequently act that way in return. They ask for help and over thank with what sounds like the most sincere gratitude. They aren't necessarily givers and they aren't necessarily the kindest or the person who shows up. They make you feel like you are the most important thing in the moment so you feel like they spent real time with you and it might have been 20 minutes two months ago. They aren't negative, they also find a solution in the moment. |
Anonymous
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If you live in the same city for a long time, then that helps. A friend of mine just moved and she told me the thing she misses is running into acquaintances -- like her friends' mom's friend or whatever. Or the old co-worker of your best friend, etc.
If you need something, these people help -- if you just moved and dont' have any friends yet and only worked at one job, it's harder to cultivate a larger group. |
Anonymous
there are a few things we talk about: 1. small talk. he loses interest in surface conversations so quickly that he never has a chance to make a deeper connection. I told him that the purpose of small talk isn't the content -- it is establishing trust. once trust is established then you can move on to "big talk." 2. making time for people. this seems so obvious to me but isn't to him. for example, if he made a date with someone but then day of finds himself busy with work, he cancels. I never, ever cancel, unless I'm in the hospital or something. The effect of this is that he doesn't make people feel very valued. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP who has a social butterfly friend. You have described my friend. My friend and I have known each other since kindergarten. She has always been extroverted, sociable and chatty. She got married when she was 22 but her marriage broke down and they divorced 3 or 4 years later. They didn't have kids. She has remained happily single and childfree since her divorce. She's 54 now. She only has to text or call a couple of people from her circle and immediately she has a little group to meet up with or whatever, whereas I sometimes struggle to get someone to meet up for a cup of coffee with me. Of course I don't ALWAYS struggle to meet with people BUT I have to make A LOT more effort than my friend. My friend also meets up with her girlfriends for cocktails, meals, days out and shopping trips. My friend is heavily into social media. I am not. I'm also more reserved than she is. |
Anonymous
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I think a lot of givers don't get to play receiver.
The receivers are the ones who are very resourceful and typically very social. |