Ever had a friend with whom you have only grown close over the years, and with whom you still use that secret code language you had devised as kids, even though it may sound like childish gobbledygook? If you are nodding to this question with a nostalgic grin on you face then congratulations! You have just discovered what only experts have been privy too, a common language will strengthen your friendship like none other.
That special language of friendship
Andrew Ledbetter from Kansas University published a research based on the longitudinal study of friendship in 2007 and in it, after researching a number of friends, it was discovered that the closeness of two friends in 1983 predicted how close they were in 2002! It means that the more you invest in a friendship today, the more it will strengthen your friendship in the later years. [1]
If you ever sit with a group of friends, you’d be surprised to see how unintelligible their conversation would sound to you. Years of friendship mostly means years of shared jokes, catch phrases and even completely senseless references that mean something to each and every one of them. This shared common language will strengthen your friendship and keep it ready for the long haul.
The bonds that slip away
Our cherished childhood friendships tend to languish in the light of adulthood – our friends become our last priority and everything – from spouses to children, jobs to new friends take precedence in lives that are increasingly busy. As adults, we also tend to become more understanding of our friends and lower our expectations from them. Sadly, this often causes those friendships to simply unravel over time.
However, that one joke that always cracked your gang up, or that one embarrassing incident that all of you can never live down – it just takes a moment of shared remembrance to strengthen your friendship with the lifelong glue of days gone by; those days of carefree and joyous abandonment called childhood!
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Reference
| [1] | ^ | Purdue: Forecasting Friends Forever |
