When You Need Space From Your Friends
While we love our friends and love spending time with them, let’s face it: there are times when we need a little space. Maybe you’ve been spending too much time together, or you don’t see eye to eye lately. Whatever the reason, we all need to take a step back sometimes. Here’s how to deal when you need space from your friends:
· Spend time with other people. Or, use this as an opportunity to meet new people and make a new friend. Just because you need space from one friend or one group it doesn’t mean you need to sit around by yourself. Use this as an opportunity to pursue some of the other relationships in your life.
· Hang out with your family. Our families often take a backburner to our friends. Use this time to reconnect with your family members. Hang out with your siblings or help your dad with his weekend errands. Get to know your family better by spending time with them with the goal of reconnecting and creating new memories.
· Set a new goal. Taking a break from your friends is the perfect time to set a new goal in your life. You’ll have more time available to throw yourself in to work or school or whatever it may be that you’re focusing on. Use the time away from your friends for something positive for yourself.
· Enjoy doing things on your own. We often forget that we don’t need to be surrounded by a big group of people all the time. Use this time to hang out by yourself. Go shopping solo or watch movies. Go for walks in the park and take yourself out for coffee with your favorite book. Get used to spending some time by yourself and enjoying your own company.
· Work. Or study. This isn’t very exciting, but there’s probably a big to-do list piling up that you really should get to. Use the time away from your friends to be productive and tackle some projects that you haven’t gotten around to. The end results will be sure to pay off.
· Start a new hobby. There’s probably something you’re interested in that you haven’t pursued because you have felt like you just haven’t had the time. Now is your chance. You’ll have more free time if you aren’t seeing as much of your friends for a while, so use it to do something fun and interesting.
· Stay friendly. This isn’t the time to cut your friends off completely or to sever any friendship ties. Instead you are just taking a bit of a step back. Make sure your friends don’t get the wrong idea by staying friendly and continuing to hang out with them, just do it less frequently and in smaller doses.