Friends

Look Back, Look Forward: Part 3 – Best Friends Forever

University is where you make some of your best and closest friends for the rest of your life.

original photo by Incase.

original photo by Incase.

You may be sick to death of hearing stuff like that.  But it’s true.  I know it’s a cliché, but so many students forge lifetime friendships and make bestest buddies during their uni years.  Maybe even bestest westest buddies.  It’s that good.

But friendships are strange things.  When you go your own ways, many delicate issues that don’t even revolve around the relationship can upset the balance.

Who’d have thought you’d be so concerned about the state of your mates?  Let’s explore some of the uncertain questions.

When your student experience comes to a close, how do you keep in touch with everyone after you leave?

  • Keep as many channels open as possible. Facebook, phone, text, letter, visit, instant messaging…it’s all open for you to use.  Don’t feel restricted to one or two methods of contact.
  • Don’t worry about it. Most relationships sort themselves out without much hassle.  Even if you have an overflowing address book and a Facebook profile with enough friends to fill a small stadium, it doesn’t matter.  As I discuss below, different types of friends become apparent, if they haven’t already.
  • Think quality, not quantity. Speaking to someone once in a while isn’t less special than speaking to someone every day.  The situation itself is where the goodness comes from.  Concentrate on creating wonderful situations, not multiple ones.

What effect does the end of uni have on the relationships you’ve built up?

  • Distance – Your closest mates can move hundreds of miles away from you.  The relationship doesn’t come to an end, but the dynamic does. Distance isn’t a barrier to anything but constant face-to-face banter.  And it’s great when you don’t see someone for a year and you meet up again as if it were the next day.
  • Personal circumstances – Career, family, romance, money…all sorts of things change.  The shift from student to graduate brings uncertainty.  You’ll find some previously close friends who fade away in the whirl of life outside higher education.  Don’t take their personal circumstances personally! Unless it’s obvious there’s a direct reason for the breakdown (i.e. they tell you), it’s rarely because of the friendship itself.  Life throws us around.  There is more than enough technology available to stay in touch, but personal situations still make it tough to engage with others as much as you’d like.
  • Casual friendship is exposed – Once you move on, you’ll realise that you don’t know much at all about some mates.  You shared the fun, but not the personal details.  The question is now whether you naturally lose touch or build things up further in your new situation.

Do you have time to deal with all your contacts now life is moving on?

  • Be brief, but care with every word. We’re busy people.  A few typed words thoughtfully written can be appreciated equally as much as a hand-written essay.
  • Keep an up to date address book and birthday calendar. Keep physical copies, as well as electronic ones.  A book of information in your hands gives you more focus than relying on Facebook or a mobile phone to tell you when it’s someone’s special day.  You’ll find it easier to manage all contacts with this information to hand.
  • Don’t forget about all the amazing people you’ve got to know.  There are people I love to bits and haven’t seen in ages. It happens. Their absence doesn’t stop me thinking about them all the time.  While the amount of contact changes in a click of the fingers, the strength of your feelings change more slowly and may not fade at all. Don’t be afraid to get in touch and let them know you’re thinking of them…however long it’s been!

How will all those friendships work out? Common groups of friends you’ll end up with include:

  1. Those you continue to share almost everything with – The core group of people that make life worth living, no matter how infrequently you get to see them.  Enough said.
  2. Christmas/Birthday card list fodder – People you want to stay in contact with.  But due to distance or career or family or a combination of things, contact is rare.  You don’t worry if contact breaks once in a while, but you try to make the effort to send cards and the like.
  3. Hardly any contact – You’re happy to check in on an irregular basis, but rarely go beyond that.  Don’t be surprised if years go past until you speak again…still happy to catch up though.
  4. Random stumbles through a mutual ‘closer’ friend, or through living in close proximity – Just because you’re no longer in direct contact with a person doesn’t mean you won’t bump into them from time to time.  You may talk about uni days, catch up on a more formal basis, or spark a deeper friendship outside the confines of the student experience.  Hey, this could be the start of another beautiful friendship!
  5. Fairweather friends – What seemed like a match made in heaven turned out to be a situational convenience.  Cut your losses…
  6. Facebook only – Facebook is like a link many past graduates had to go without.  Our ability to connect casually can’t get much easier.  You don’t need to lose contact with anyone now!  Mmm, good thing or bad?  You decide.
  7. Instant loss of contact, not even Facebook – Okay, some people do slip through the net and don’t even appear on your Facebook list.  Maybe they aren’t on Facebook (WTF? Srsly?) or you never connected that way (yeah, that’s more likely).  Once you leave uni and you don’t have a single way of contacting the person, you probably aren’t bothered about making contact now.  But if it’s an oversight, you need to do three things.  One, call yourself a muppet. Two, ask your mates and Facebook contacts how to get hold of the person.  Three, hope one of your other friends can help!

The good news for today’s students is that networking is easier than ever.  Many of us are big on networking without noticing we’re doing it.  It comes naturally.

Therefore, no matter what graduate life throws at you, you’re in a good position to keep your relationships in great shape.

You or ‘everyone else’?

Just because “everyone else does it” doesn’t mean you should join in.

It may be ‘everyone‘ around you drinking heavily and partying regularly, it may be ‘everyone‘ procrastinating on purpose, it may be ‘everyone‘ moaning about the state of the course without actively trying to change things.  Whatever you see ‘everyone‘ doing, don’t be afraid to make your own decision and do something else.  Your different attitude probably won’t be noticed.

photo by AndYaDontStop

photo by AndYaDontStop

Shunning the popular choice may be difficult and uncomfortable.  Doubly so if your decision means giving up something you enjoy or challenging yourself to work harder.  So long as you don’t give up anything important, it’s fine to forego the odd social outing or escapade.  You may even be indulging in too many entirely respectable activities.  Do you really need to be an active member of 7 societies, volunteer for 2 causes, keep down a part-time job, and try to stay on top of study?

While you shouldn’t feel obliged to defend your decisions, there will be the odd time when someone does question your actions.  Usually it doesn’t take more than thanking a person for their advice and quickly moving away from the conversation.  On the (very) rare occasion you face greater questioning, stay strong and don’t be afraid to point out why you’ve chosen a particular direction.  If you aren’t getting anywhere, if you feel uncomfortable talking about it, or if you don’t want to justify your actions to someone else, politely explain that you don’t want to discuss it further and (if necessary) physically move away from the situation.

Peer pressure has many faces.  A small percentage is uncalled for and something you don’t need from so-called ‘mates’.  Fortunately, much of it is friendly and of little consequence.  That’s why you probably have nothing to fear when you choose not to do what everybody else is doing.

It feels so much easier to let others make decisions for you.  If it goes wrong, you’ve got someone else to blame.  The truth is that when you make your own decisions, you begin to feel more in touch with what you truly want and need.  Don’t fear that you’ll become arrogant.  You should still listen to others, engage in debate, and appreciate that you’re not always right.  With that, the confidence in your decisions does help you grow stronger, getting you to think more clearly and independently before making commitments.

How have you moved away from an otherwise popular situation?  Have you taken a different attitude and found it worked to your advantage?

20/20 – Day 16: 20 networking nuggets

You need other people.  Nobody succeeds alone.

Engagement is crucial in everything we do.  On your own, in a dark room, it wouldn’t take long before you came to a stop because you needed skills that you didn’t have.  From learning how to do it yourself, to finding someone who will do it for you, other people need you and you need other people.

How do you make contact with these people and begin a relationship?  It’s not that difficult.  Below, I list 20 top tips toward mastering networking.

  1. Don’t judge, remain open.  Opinions only seek to close off opportunities.
  2. You won’t know unless you try.  Don’t be afraid to make the first move.  Waiting for people to come to you doesn’t work.
  3. What have you got to lose? You won’t lose anything if you reach a dead end, yet you’ll gain so much if you find an in.  Your choice.
  4. Do it all year round.  Quiet moments can yield huge gains.  Busy times bring everyone out.  There is no specific networking season unless you count ‘always’ as a period of time.
  5. If networking with a specific purpose, prepare beforehand.  General networking is pretty open once you have a basic set of openers and ideas.  For more specialised pitches or a focus on targetted individuals, you need to have a plan.
  6. Don’t think of your contacts as useful, see them as people.
  7. Introduce other people to the conversation.  Have you ever heard that you should act like the host at events, even if you’re not the host?  I’ve used this trick a couple times before.  Not only will you be memorable (for the right reasons), but you network by bringing others together to network too.  When this technique works, it works incredibly well.
  8. Focus on the person, don’t let your attention slip.  I think of it as paying ‘Bill Clinton attention’.  When Clinton communicates with people, it seems as if his entire attention has turned to that one person.  It’s like he switches off the world around him, but not to the point where he’s just staring in an uncomfortable manner.  While I haven’t spoken to Clinton personally, I’m pretty sure if I did he would come across this way.
  9. Help others. Be useful.  Just take Twitter as an example. One of the best things about Twitter is when people help others by offering recommended links, answering people’s questions, and putting in a good word for others.
  10. Keep tabs and remain on track even when an association naturally ends.  Unless you don’t like the person and you’ve totally moved on from that line of work/life, there’s no point in burning bridges.
  11. Don’t expect from others without trying to make an impact yourself.
  12. By all means find as many people to network with as you want, but focus on the quality of the contacts rather than the number you’ve collected.
  13. Don’t expect the world. It’s not like you’re owed a favour. Asking isn’t ordering.  If you’re turned down, accept it.
  14. Don’t expect instant results. Networking takes time.  That person you’ve known since you were 6…who’d have thought they would be the perfect contact now you’re 34?
  15. Be kind.  People like to be complimented and like to know you care.  Don’t be false, but do be appreciative and thankful when you can.
  16. Talk about the weather. We’re human.  We don’t talk shop all day.  Smalltalk is not just reasonable, it’s required.
  17. Show an interest in others.  An interest…not an obsession.
  18. Go gently.  A pushy attitude won’t get you far.  You’re building a network, not recruiting soldiers.
  19. Change with the times.  It’s easier than ever to network.  You have access to millions of wonderful minds via an Internet connection.  You don’t need to leave the house. But wherever you are and whatever platform you use, be prepared to go where the people are.  They don’t come to you, you go to them!
  20. You are the key…Not your tools, not your business card, not the money spent, not the gifts you lavish upon them, not anything else.  YOU are the key.
Title image: original by tiffa130 (cc)  /  Bottom image: Lumaxart (cc)

20/20 – Day 9: 20 hints for living with others

There’s no such thing as a perfect housemate.  I certainly wasn’t perfect.  Neither were the wonderful people I lived with.

But we listened. And we worked together. And we didn’t shy away from talking about problems. Much. 🙂

While yesterday’s post was aimed at finding accommodation, today’s post is about how to have a relatively stress-free time once you’re living in it.

Staying in private accommodation is a different experience to that of living on campus.  While some issues remain the same, it’s a whole new world.  Whoever you’re moving in with, be they best of friends or practically strangers, it’s best to be prepared.  Welcome to Day 9 of 20/20.

  1. Set meetings. The frequency and formality is up to you, but make sure you all get together on occasion and talk about any issues regarding the rental.
  2. Don’t be picky. Everyone’s different. They can’t all be perfect in your eyes. If it’s not a big deal and it’s not bothering you, let it go.
  3. Try to share items so you don’t all have to buy the same stuff. This works especially well with more expensive and less frequently used kitchen items.
  4. Respect the house rules. You don’t want to hear your housemates music at two in the morning. They don’t want to hear your music at that time of night either.  If you need to go as far as writing down some house rules, have a meeting and write them down. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
  5. Getting up earliest or coming back latest, remember to be quiet!
  6. Understand boundaries.  Your housemates probably won’t expect you going in to their room either, unless you’re invited.  Even if you have an open door policy that extends to when you’re out, others won’t.
  7. Tidy up after yourself.
  8. Communal cleaning should be done as a group, or on a rota.  Agree to one and stick to it.
  9. Each housemate take separate responsibility for a utility bill (electricity, gas, water, phone).  You all get practice, you all get a bit of work to do. Fair and reasonable.  Unless one person specifically wants to do the work (as happened in my 2nd year).
  10. Pay up on time whenever a bill comes in.
  11. Respect differences. No matter how similar you and your housemates are, there will be differences.  There’s nothing wrong with that.
  12. Don’t hog resources.  Be fair when you use the bathroom, the oven, the house phone, the living areas, and so on.  People may not speak up when you spend 2 hours on the same thing that takes them 20 minutes, but that doesn’t mean you should carry on regardless.
  13. Don’t allow guests to outstay the welcome of your housemates. Let’s say your partner visits. One or two nights is usually fine, although it’s still best to ask or have a prior agreement regarding guests.  If you know the stay will be longer, make sure everyone is happy with the situation.  When guests stay longer than expected, don’t ignore it, let everyone in the house know and explain why.  Remember, guests use resources too, so they’re costing the house money.
  14. Only hold parties and large social gatherings as a whole house. If it’s specific only to you, make sure you have explicit agreement from housemates that it’s okay.  Make sure boundaries are set and safeguards are in place.
  15. Don’t turn the heating up or down loads without coming to an agreement first. This is one that often gets overlooked. But if you’re always freezing while the rest of the house feels warm, they’re not going to appreciate the extra heat (or the extra cost)!
  16. Set up an area for messages, information, and so on. Just a fridge door will do.  Find space to get key information together that everyone can quickly check.
  17. Keep a list for phone calls made.  Mobile phones take away the urgency for a student house to have a phone.  Even if you have a phone because of broadband, there may be little use for the phone.  No matter how little the phone is used, keep a book by the phone and note down all calls that are made.  That way, when the bill comes through, you’ll know who needs to pay for each call.
  18. Speak up.  Don’t suffer in silence.  Unless you explain what difficulties you’re having, people may not realise.  However, instead of moaning, discuss the situation sensibly.
  19. Discuss the need for a TV Licence. Some students can’t be bothered to watch TV.  Others watch it whenever they’re in, no matter what they’re doing.  Not everyone wants to pay for a licence, because TV isn’t going to be a part of their student life.  If they don’t contribute, don’t complain if they suddenly watch the odd show. Life’s too short.  On the other hand, if they veg out every day in front of the box…
  20. Prepare to compromise. You can’t have everything your own way.

Title image: original by tiffa130 (cc)  /  Bottom image: original by San Sharma (cc)