4 Ways To Strengthen Your Friendships (Even From Afar) & Why It's So Essential

Every week, my father meets with a group of about eight Trinidadian friends on Zoom, to connect and, as we Trinis say, "ol' talk." Somehow, despite the fact that they've been meeting like this for over a decade, I knew nothing of this gathering until recently.

"Karen, you've never seen anything like it," my mom told me. "Sometimes I go hide in a corner and pretend I'm reading a book, but mostly I'm just eavesdropping on their conversation. They are constantly teasing each other and arguing and laughing and talking over each other." She shook her head. "For hours, the whole lot of them just get louder and louder, and all I can do is sit there and laugh."

"How do you know these people?" I asked my dad.

"Oh, some of them are friends from high school," he said. "And some of them are folks I met during my career." My dad had worked as a petroleum engineer. Given the importance of the energy industry to the Trinidadian economy, he became well known in the country as a result.

"Is everyone in the group in oil and gas?" I asked.

"No. One is a psychiatrist. One is a doctor, and one is a dentist. There's an economist. All had very successful careers but are now all retired and have been for decades. We used to meet in person at a clubhouse called the Cosmos Club in Port-of-Spain at about 4:30 in the afternoon every Friday. We'd sit at the bar, and one person would bring some street food in. I would join them every time I was back home in Trinidad, about four times a year. But then, when COVID hit and Trinidad went into lockdown, the club closed. So we began meeting on Zoom."

"What do you guys talk about?"

"OK, so what topics do you talk about when you're all together limin'?"

"We talk about topical subjects in Trinidad or the world. And even though we joke and laugh, we do address serious issues. Because of the diversity of the group, someone always has an interesting perspective that the rest of us haven't considered before. Usually, after our time together, we'll send each other articles to further expand on the issues. And then the next Friday, we'll take up the topics again or talk about new ones."

"That sounds like a true Trini lime." I grinned. "But this has been going on for a long time! What is it about this group that compels you to return again and again every week, for over a decade?"

Dad thought for a second. "Well, a cynic might say we're a bunch of old so-and-so's who have nothing better to do. But our love of our country keeps us going. And honestly, our friendship keeps us going."

"Say more," I urged him. "I mean, you have lots of friends. Why this particular group?"

Dad smiled. "Well, there's an old philosophical saying that when you have a friend, if your relationship ends, that friend takes a part of you with them. I think the inverse of that is also true. I think when you keep contact with your friends, they share some of themselves with you. Because of this, there's a part of you that grows. I think the word friendship is about more than just being acquainted with a person. It's about someone who has touched your soul and whose soul you have touched.

My dad's relationships with his friends are enviable. Having connections rooted in memory and shared history is a gift. It's one that I don't share, ironically, since my father's career meant we moved frequently when I was a kid. Very few of my childhood friendships lasted longer than a year or two. So given how important connection and belonging are to our well-being, especially as we age, how do I—and others like me, who have moved around a lot in their childhoods—cultivate bonding friendships and relationships?

Creating habits around these four strategies not only enables us to heal our own social worlds; it creates rituals that help us thrive as we get older. 

While I may not have the wealth of lifetime friendships that my dad has, I realized in reviewing these strategies that I had already begun to apply at least two of them to my life. I was getting better at my morning meditation and intention-setting, so solitude was becoming a form of daily comfort. Further, thanks to my daily habit of asking myself how I can feel more purposeful, I was always looking for ways of being in service.

But the first two strategies—devoting daily focus to the people I love and doing so without distraction—seemed more challenging, so I'm drawing my attention to them next because the issue of loneliness is not one to be trivialized. Social bonds not only enhance how content we feel in our lives but have significant impacts on our health as well.