I ‘ve recently spoken with a friend about the friendship circles and how this is good exercise to know where we stand right now and what relationships we want to grow and nurture in the future.
Searching the internet for mentoring, for more information to understand better this approach , I came across a couple of articles that combined led me to the following structure of friendship connections:
- SELF – me, myself, my goals and my desires, my expectations, what turns me on and what turns me off. Because it is important to know myself in order to be able to nurture further. It is important to be friends with myself and to understand myself so that I accept the way I am and to like myself with the bads and the goods.
- INTIMACY / FAMILY – those relationships that give us emotional and physical intimacy: boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, children, parents and grandparents’. They should be the closest connection that we have, the people that we can count on. They are my Allies when I need support and my Anchors when I strand. Family should be there for me and support me for better or worst and is different from friends.
- CLOSE FRIENDS – Friends built with trust and support in a long period of time. Friends whom I speak to when I need advice separately from my family. They are my second best closest connections and in specific cases can also become Family, and not becoming a family legally (by marriage for example) but becoming Family by the emotional approach to which we get. With my close friends I exchange emotional context and support. They are also my Allies when I need support and my Anchors when I strand.
- CASUAL FRIENDS – those I meet from time to time and with whom I have an occasional relationship. We see each other in context. We have common interests and we exchange emotional reciprocity in that specific context or situation because we feel good around each other in that situation.
- SITUATIONAL FRIENDS – that we meet as the name says in specific situations like work, sport, trips but with whom I interact seldom only when that circumstances occur. We usually don’t exchange emotional intimacy or if we do is about the specific context in which we met.
- AQUAINTANCES – those that I know and I interact only rarely. Those people that I know a bit more than a stranger but with whom I may not have a relationship. Could also be those people that I know by sight and with whom we just say Hi! to each other.
- Circle of EXCHANGE – made up by the people whom we pay to be in our lives: doctors, hairdressers, psychologist,
Intimacy/Family and Close Friends create the Circle of Friendship Allies and Anchors. They are built on trust and honesty. We confide and share with each other thoughts and desires because we have reached a specific level of emotional intimacy.
Situational Friends and Acquaintances form also the Circle of Participation. If we don’t participate at specific events we wouldn’t meet them and develop these areas in our lives. These are usually the circles that nurture our most closest emotional intimacy circle of friends. That’s why we usually have solid friendships that started in university or at word or at sports events or dance classes etc.. These friendships start here and grow to become our most closest connections in our lives.
I said earlier that family is different than friends. Family members can spread along all circles of friendships according to the level of intimacy we share. Sometimes family members can be very close other times can also be same as casual or situational friends, like for example our brothers and sisters, or aunts, uncles or cousins with whom we have a less intimate emotional relationship and share less goals or interests.
For further reading I recommend:
https://www.slpsocial.com/post/circles-of-friends
https://inclusive-solutions.com/circles/circle-of-friends/what-is-a-circle-of-friends/
https://agileleanlife.com/healthy-relationships/
https://agileleanlife.com/relationship-circles/
https://stillstandingmag.com/2015/03/04/circles-of-support/