Skip to content
Culture & Religion —

Make a Friend, Bond Over Social Anxiety

Research suggests that making a new friend doesn’t have to be anxiety-inducing, just bond over your shared social anxiety.
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Finding friends can be tough after college, but research led by Eliane M. Boucher of Providence College has found bonding over shared social anxiety can help build a foundation of platonic companionship. So, forgo trying to break the ice by finding a common interest in Battlestar Galactica or a fondness over Revolutionary War reenactments, and talk about how comfortable or uncomfortable you feel about social interactions.

Melissa Dahl from NYMag writes on the study, published in the journal Personal Relationships, that investigated how 56 same-sex friendships took off when people were paired with similar and dissimilar levels of levels of social anxiety. The participants were paired off randomly, it was only until after four weeks had passed that Boucher determined their levels of social anxiety through a questionnaire, plus an additional survey to assess how close they felt to their new buddy.

After an additional six weeks had passed, Boucher and her team interviewed the participants again, asking how close they felt to their friend. As suspected, those with similar levels of social anxiety (whether high or low) tended to be more closely bonded that those with dissimilar levels.

The researchers wrote:

“…friends matched on [social anxiety] experienced increased closeness and decreased uncertainty over the six weeks, suggesting [social anxiety] similarity may become increasingly important as friendships develop.”

It’s nice to know that those of us who feel anxious about meeting people aren’t doomed to become just another Forever Alone meme.

Read more at NYMag.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
Related
Guest Thinkers
Happy New Year
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth). Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay. Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
Up Next