The Dynamics of Relationships

As my peer group is hitting the quarter life crisis mark, lots of them including me are increasingly asking similar questions, how do we manage our relationships. By relationships I mean not only having a girl friend/boy friend, it also relates to keeping in touch with past friends and importantly how to make new friends or meet potential life partners.

Couple of interesting pieces written by my friends whose blogs I do follow regularly, actually made me think on these lines in more details. The problems include is being taken for granted by supposedly good friends to travails in finding your true soul-mate . 

Why the Crisis in the first place

The job disperses the friendly group into different geographies which brings challenges of adjustment. Some adjust fast and some get bogged down more. The ones who cannot adjust become naturally self centred in order to make the adjustments, which is considered selfish by other friends. As time progresses, pay packages, the race to buy the new car, the comparisons begin to take toll on friendships.  Ego and the inability to communicate your true feelings is the problem in most cases. 

The Tough Question

There is one additional caveat, sometimes we outgrow a certain relationships and it is time to let go and there are relationships which can be rekindled with some interventions, the challenge is knowing which one needs to be pursued ?

Evaluating this questions becomes really tough, it requires us to be objective ( tough call for a irrational social animal called man/woman), keep aside our ego, delusions and the tendency to wanting to cling on and decide if the relation is giving us positive energy and is meaningful or it is actually deceptive, draining our energy and eroding our self worth.

Rather than going more detail and being prescriptive, I would just say in the words of Shakespeare To thy own self be true, reflect over your relationships, take stock of friends, acquaintances and enemies. Decide who needs to stay, who needs to go and what are your priorities in life. At first It may seem tough, scary but then you need bite the bullet and make the seemingly tough decisions.

The Three Ring Theory

Reference is due to Khalil who came come up with theory in the first place long back in my engineering days . In order to have sustainable good relationships, we need three rings or three kind of friend circles.

First Ring

The inner circle of closest friends whom who can confide everything and also fewer in number. The most mature and oldest friends.

Second Ring

The good friends and the hangout buddies which comprises of a bigger circle with whom we do share our interests and are in touch with regularly.

Third Ring

The social acquaintances like office colleagues, classmates the folks with whom we enjoy the occasional banter and have a potential to move up into the inner circles. I believe this circle is important as today's strangers become tomorrow's good friends.

In summary, I believe it is important to maintain a wide circle of friends so that we give space to our close friends and give chances to get to know new people so that the cycle of making new friends does not have to die after we hit the corporate world.