National Call a Friend Day in December

Keeping healthy friendships can be tough especially during the holidays and throughout the year. Often your friends might socially isolate themselves from you and others due to inconvenient situations. Therefore, during this time it is encouraging to call a friend who feels lonely or has disconnected from your friendship. Calling a friend on or before December 28th can surprise someone you have not spoken to for many months or years. Every year on December 28th is National Call a Friend Day which can help bring joy to someone and can make a friend feel loved. 

Holidays can bring sadness, loneliness, and make one feel burned out. Also being too busy to connect with your friends can also make you feel disconnected. Being a good friend is challenging but it is possible to stay connected with your friendships. Find time to call a friend during your lunch break. Leave a friendly voicemail if they do not pick up the telephone right away. 

Additionally, make plans with your friends and understand their personal boundaries. Make suggestions to drink coffee, tea, or a snack during your lunch break from work. Check in with your friends and let them know you value their friendships. As well as calling them and being respectful with their time. Another way to connect with your friends is by making a video call. 

Acknowledge time and day differences especially when your friends are traveling during the holidays. Be prepared with your responses, comments, and have an open communication with them. Depending on your friendship style, keep in mind that they may not want to have a long-distance conversation. Encourage your friends to call, text message, or video call depending on their comfort level. Nonetheless, call one or three friends per day and update them about your personal life. 

Similarly, encourage them to update you on their personal life. Although they might not tell you everything, communicating with them can help you reconnect with your friendships. Depending on their friendship style, you might sense more trust or might need more time to build a friendship with them. There are many types of friendship styles such as Discerning, Ideal, Communal, Associative, Receptive, and Stabilized. Yet, it is necessary to be respectful, courteous, patient, and take your time to get to know each friend.

Being selective and cautious with your friendships is a discerning friendship. Discerning Friendships has loyalty, kindness, and are healthy friendships to have. Although you or they are cautious when it comes to revealing personal details about oneself; It is a healthy friendship because of the experiences and the trust. This trust can take months or years to build because of past bad experiences with friendships. Also, experiencing a traumatic event, verbal abuse, domestic violence, bad experiences of someone gossiping behind their back, losing trust, and being disrespectful are other reasons for being selective with friendships. 

Additionally, having bad childhood experiences with friendships can make someone selective. No matter what the reasons are, always listen to them and be respectful with their friendship boundaries. Another healthy friendship style is Ideal. An Ideal Friendship Style is intense and feels like you have known someone for many years. Nonetheless, an ideal friendship style is comfortable since the beginning of the friendship.

An Ideal friendship style is built on genuine trust, genuine interest, respect, honesty, authenticity, support, and is a healthy friendship. As well as having shared values, you feel peaceful and can have conversations without judgement. Last ideal friendships solve conflicts quickly or in a timely manner without damaging the friendship. Therefore, strive to understand, accept, and acknowledge your friend's feelings. 

Communal Friendship Style is when friends make time and get together to entertain each other with friendly activities. This form of friendship is supportive and both of you share life events. As well as discussing one's emotions openly and with honesty. Although you might not see them often, you can always update them with recent events in your personal life. It is also a healthy friendship to have if both of you have excellent communication with each other. 

Associative Friendship Style is about friendships with acquaintances. This friendship style can be challenging for some because it is tough to find common and shared values at work, gym, or public places. Also, Associative Friendship Style is convenient, lacks commitment, and is not a meaningful friendship. It can also be uncomfortable if you or other friends do not like each other. Furthermore, it is a learning process and often one is cautious about this friendship at work. 

This friendship style can have an optimistic impact in your life depending on one's attitudes and behaviors towards acquaintances at work. Sometimes you might feel intimidated, uncomfortable, and unmotivated to begin a friendship at work. If your co-workers pretend to be friends with you just for getting work information; You might be more careful and limit your friendship boundaries. Therefore, keep in mind that these friendships can be temporary and might end after they leave the company. Associative Friendship Style can also become a Utility or Useful friendship because it lacks a deep connection with each other. 

Receptive Friendship Style is an imbalance friendship where one can take advantage of another. This friendship style can occur in workplaces or in college. Moreover, this is a challenging friendship where you and your friend have different job titles, job positions, and many job priorities. One might feel jealousy, dislike for each other, and might feel competitive with each other. Nevertheless, be careful about having a friendship with someone who wants to control and wants to make you feel awful about yourself. 

In contrast, a Stabilized Friendship Style is the goal for friendships. Although some friends might have a combination of two or several friendship styles, always practice gratitude, kindness, and do not take their friendship for granted. Having a stabilized friendship can make both of you aware of each other's interests, values, and have meaningful conversations. Even if the conversations are about the weather, random topics, or keeping each other company; This type of friendship style can make you have a balance between work and family life. You both understand and feel comfortable with the friendship even if you are miles away from each other. 

Nevertheless, true friendships take a lot of work, vulnerability, authentic appreciation, and support. Be aware of your friend's friendship style and your friendship style. Be careful with friendships just for pleasure, usefulness, pretend, and toxic ones. Remember to be kind to yourself and to your friendships. Besides calling your friends on December 28th, try to spend time with your friendships by watching a movie, making a meal to share with them, and other common shared activities. 

Show kindness, appreciation, and respect their privacy. Accept your friend's feelings and give them space if they need it. Dedicating time with your friendships outside of social media can help you focus and establish supporting friendships. Be aware of the challenges, the friendship styles, and the warning signs of an unhealthy friendship. Here are some resources about being a good friend. 

How to Be a Good Friend-Mind Body Green:

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-be-a-good-friend

3 Emotional Intelligence Tips For Helping a Friend in a Rough Patch-Big Think:

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/3-emotional-intelligence-tips-for-helping-a-friend-in-a-rough-patch/

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