Friendship is one of the biggest factors in our health and happiness. Scientists, philosophers, and therapists agree: A life well lived focuses on developing meaningful connections. 

But today, unfortunately, most of us don’t feel like we have those bonds that leave us feeling supported, seen, and loved. Most of us need to become more practiced at both making new friends and deepening some of the friendships we’ve already started.

What are the different types of friends?

Not all friendships are the same. 

We understand that there’s a big difference between a new friend and a best friend, but do you know how much of that is credited to time spent together? One of the primary factors determining closeness and depth of friendship is how much time any two people have spent together. 

Scientific study & research concludes that the more we interact with each other and have shared experiences, the more we’ll feel comfortable with each other and will be more likely to feel close to each other. Logging hours together helps build familiarity and a sense of safety, in addition to giving us more time to make memories and get to know each other.

While time together isn’t the only necessity, see what a difference it makes to developing a close friendship.

These are the 4 stages of friendship that are developed over time:

Stage 1: Acquaintances

Stage 2: Casual Friend

Stage 3: Friend

Stage 4: Good/Best Friends
 

A study led by Dr. Jeffrey A. Hall, from the University of Kansas, helps us see how much difference our time together makes in moving people into closer relationship:

Stage 1 to Stage 2: It takes ~40-60 hours of time spent together after meeting to form a casual friendship.

Stage 2 to Stage 3: It takes ~80-100 hours of together time to go from casual friends to friends.

Stage 3 to Stage 4: It takes 200 hours or more spent together to go from friends to close/good/best friends.

So, a good first question in our friendships is almost always “How might I spend more time with this person?” 

That might mean interacting more frequently, it could mean spending longer time together when we do connect, and it can also include doing more memorable things together that will leave our friendship feeling more special.

Want to give your new friendships a chance to bond? Or make more memories and spend more time with your old friends? It’s time to invite them to spend time with you! 

Here are some ideas near you!

5 Things to Do/Places to Visit with Friends in Betalbatim, Goa



Here are some interesting places to hang out with your friends in Betalbatim, Goa : 

1. Betalbatim Beach
2. Sunset Beach
3. Lover's Beach
4. Our Lady of Remedios Church
5. Christ Rei (Christ the King) Chapel

What are the best ways to make local friends in Betalbatim, Goa?

But maybe you aren’t sure who to invite to join you? We can get a good idea of how to best make new friends based on what works the most often for others. Here is a graph of the best places where friendships happen.
 

Here are 5 important questions to ask that might help lead to you making better friends:

1. Who was I close to you in high school, college, or past jobs that I might be able to reconnect with and develop a more current relationship based on our shared past?
    
2. How might my work help me meet more potential friends? In my organization? In industry associations? With clients or vendors?
    
3. Have I met my neighbors yet? If not, what might I do to connect with them and start being more friendly?
    
4. What places do I attend or visit frequently (i.e. a church, a dog park, a cafe) where I can keep my eyes open for potential friendly conversations?
    
5. Are there any social, spiritual, emotional, or physical activities that I want to do more often in my life and how might I do those with other people?

Also, an increasingly popular way to make friends is through our online tools. A survey of more than 500 People of various age groups conducted by Datsme found that ~75% of people would download an app like Datsme that would help them find friends with similar interests and psychological compatibility.

The survey also captured that the preferred way of finding friends was through mutual connections (~50%), Meeting people at social events/parties (~57%), and chatting via online social apps (~38%).

So bringing in this data, let’s add a few more questions to your growing list of ways to make new friends:

6. Which friends do I already have who might introduce me to other friends of theirs?
7. What types of social events and/or parties should I prioritize and say yes to attending?
8. Am I open to downloading an app to possibly meet others who live in Betalbatim, Goa who also are open to making new friends?

(You can meet new, interesting & like-minded people in Betalbatim, Goa through the Datsme App. Datsme helps you find meaningful connections based on psychology, mindset, compatibility and similar interests between people.)

Hopefully, you now have a list of places, events, resources, and people where you can meet more friends.

But as you also see in this graph, there are certain qualities we also are looking for in our friends. This means if we want people to want to spend time with us, these are the qualities they are looking for in us. All of these qualities fall into 3 major categories that Shasta Nelson, author of Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness, calls the “3 Requirements of Relationship.” When looking at all the data on bonding and connection, these three factors are always present.

What will help me bond with the new friends I meet in Betalbatim, Goa -

The Frientimacy Triangle:

These are the three basics of every healthy relationship: Positivity, Consistency, and Vulnerability. All relationships develop and deepen as we enjoy each other, interact regularly, and get to know each other. We will feel closest to the people with whom we repeat these three actions.

Let’s look at them in more depth:

1st Requirement: Consistency, or Consistent Time Together

As we’ve already discussed, we have to spend time with people to bond with them. We’ve all met people we enjoy and are positive and fun to be around, but if we never saw them again, that wasn’t a friendship.

Consistency is the hours logged. It’s the history we build. It’s the time we spend together. This is where we create rituals and we make patterns, We increase our interaction.

This is where we get to know each other. As we spend regular time together, we start feeling more like we can trust each other.

We feel safe when we can predict each other's behavior when we have a sense of what we can expect when we feel like we know we can rely on each other.

This factor is the one where friendship felt automatic when we were kids. Because school was consistent.

Because of consistency, we still end up building relationships at work, at school, at church, and at associations, because our consistency is automatic.

At the end of the day, we will feel closest to the people we see regularly and come to believe we can count on them.

2nd Requirement: Vulnerability, or Mutual Vulnerable Sharing

But spending time together isn’t enough. We don’t bond with everyone we go to school with or work beside. For us to feel close to each other, we have to eventually feel like that time together is helping us get to know each other.

Vulnerability is where we share, where we reveal, where we let people in and we let more of us be seen.

It’s not just sharing the skeletons in your closet, the insecurities, or the shame. It’s also talking about what is going well, and your successes. It is also sharing our dreams and the things that truly inspire us. It’s being able to articulate what we are feeling, and asking for what we need from somebody else. It’s sharing our opinions, our ideas, our preferences.

Remember, the number one quality people look for in friends is honesty. We want to feel like you trust us to share who you are and that we can trust you if we share who we are. We feel closest ultimately to the friends with whom we have mutual honesty and sharing.

In order to develop a more intimate relationship, people must increase the breadth and depth of their conversations.

Breadth - variety and range of topics discussed

Depth - degree to which the information is revealed (personal or private); personal significance of the topics discussed.

It is often easier for breadth to be expanded first because of its more accessible features. It consists of outer layers of personality and everyday lives such as occupations and preferences.

Depth can be more difficult to reach and includes private memories and more unusual traits that we might hesitate to share with others. 

There are 3 layers we can slowly build up to:

1. Superficial small talk with little personal information about the speakers.

2. The next layer is intimate, with increasing breadth and depth and more personal details.

3. The third is the very intimate level, where extremely private information is shared.

At the end of the day, we only feel loved if we feel known, we can only feel known if we can share ourselves.

3rd Requirement: Positivity

But let’s be clear, we only want to be vulnerable if we believe we have a chance of feeling good that we chose to share. None of us wants to spend time with, or share personal information with, someone if we believe we will be judged, dismissed, hurt, or ignored.

When we want friendship, we want the reward, we want to feel joy, and we want to feel good. This comes from smiles and laughter and kindness and acts of service and fun and gratitude and affirmation. We want to enjoy being together and feel good about who we are and how we feel about each other!

That does not mean you have to be super positive all the time, we can still vent and complain. In these cases, positivity means we might practice empathy, compassion, and validation. We don’t have to cheer each other up all the time, rather we have to feel accepted, and not judged.

At the end of the day, we will gravitate to the people with whom we feel good about ourselves when we’re with them. We all want to feel loved, liked, and accepted. We will choose to spend more consistent time with the people we enjoy, and we will feel safer sharing ourselves with the people who communicate acceptance and affirmation when we do open up.

So does this really work? It does!

All new friendships start at the bottom of the triangle on a foundation of Positive emotions, but with low Consistency and low Vulnerability.

As we spend more time together, increasing our Consistency, and get to know each other incrementally, increasing our Vulnerability, we slowly move some friendships up the Triangle. It’s never fast or instant. Even if we immediately click with someone or feel chemistry with someone, we still have to develop a pattern of spending time together and getting to know each other. Remember, friendships take time– up to 200 hours before we may feel like best friends!

By the time somebody is at the top of the triangle, we have been vulnerable by showing ourselves by sharing our feelings and stories and history and dreams.

We have practiced consistency, and hopefully we have survived some changes together and found new ways of being together.

We have increased our positivity, so that we know how to love each other in meaningful ways.

High Vulnerability - We feel seen and accepted. 

High Consistency - We feel safe and trust forms. 

High Positivity - We feel satisfied.

That is what we all want, and this is what we are craving.

We know that finding friends as an adult in Betalbatim, Goa is not easy.

But now you’re ready and equipped with the right road map.

You can develop closer and more meaningful friendships!

Shasta Nelson, the leading global expert of friendships and healthy relationships, tells us:

In a survey of more than 10,000 people, When asked -

“How fulfilling are your friendships on a scale of 1 to 10?” (with 10 being the most satisfying)

Up to 70% of people reported a 5 or below.

Our world is fractured by an epidemic called loneliness. We’re not so worried about the stereotypical recluses and hermits that we tend to picture when we think of that word, rather we are worried about the vast majority of people who are lonely and don’t acknowledge it, who may not even recognize it in their lives.

People often think that they can’t be lonely since they know more people than they can keep in touch with. And yet, they report feeling largely unknown. We know more people than at any time in history, and yet we feel very much like we have nobody to confide in.

“Modern-day loneliness isn’t always because we need to interact more,” says Shasta Nelson,, “Rather, it’s often because we need more intimacy.”

Our social networks just keep growing and growing, yet we are not happy and fulfilled.

So you are not alone if you wish for better friendships! Most of us now have to practice doing friendships differently if we want different results. 

It might feel scary, weird, or awkward as we learn how to make better friendships, so let’s start with a reminder of why they’re worth it!

What are the benefits of having close friends?

There are many emotional, physiological, and psychological benefits of friendship, such as:

1. Act as companions
2. Validate our beliefs about ourselves
3. Support our autonomy
4. Make us feel competent
5. Expose us to new interests, activities, and ideas
6. Increase our sense of belonging and purpose
7. Reduce our stress
8. Improve our self-confidence and self-worth
9. Help us cope with traumas, such as divorce, serious illness, job loss, breakup, or the death of a loved one
10. Encourage us to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking, smoking, drug use, lack of exercise, etc
11. People with large friend networks also have a higher pain tolerance
12. Each happy friend boosts our happiness level by 9%

In short, if we want to be happy and healthy, we will want to develop close friendships!  It’s worth it!