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Hey guys, welcome to episode 10 of how to get your sheet together.

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This is already episode 10, which is crazy.

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I'm super stoked that you're all still here.

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That's always a good thing.

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Let's go straight into the question that I received from my subscriber.

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And the question is, how do you tell if you have healthy friendships without testing them?

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So first of all,

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this is going to be another petite pod episode because as you know,

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I've got a lot going on.

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But I think it's a very interesting question and it should be part of a longer

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article or a podcast about friendship in general because I know that so many of us

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struggle with this in this society.

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But for now, I'm going to stick to the basics.

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So first, let's have a look at the different types of connection that you can have.

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People can be in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

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When people are in your life for a reason,

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that means that it is usually a shorter kind of relationship and it gives you and

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or the other person some kind of benefit,

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but then ends when this benefit is no longer there.

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People can also be in your life for a season.

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So that means that you have a relationship over a longer period in your life and it

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does help you to grow,

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but then it eventually ends when you realize that you're not the right fit or not

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the right fit anymore.

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And then when people are in your life for a lifetime,

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then obviously that means that this kind of relationship lasts for a lifetime.

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I absolutely adore Terry Gorski's levels of connection and I figured I would also

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add this to this podcast.

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He talks about superficial involvement, companionship and friendship as three different levels.

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You start with the superficial involvement,

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then you move on to companionship and then you move on to friendship.

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So superficial involvement is where you connect superficially,

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but you have no commitments to one another.

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For example, my waitress at this cafe that I often ride from.

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Does she seem like a lovely woman who is as socially awkward as me?

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Absolutely.

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Do I know the details of her love life?

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No, and I don't care about it either.

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And that is okay.

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companionship is where you connect because you share an activity.

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In other words, the shared activity is more important than the person.

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And I'm going to give you two examples of that.

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Number one is, well, basically this was almost all the people I worked with in corporate.

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Once I left the scene and our shared activity fell away, so did the connection that I had with them.

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And the second example is that whenever I want to spend some time outside of my

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girl cave and I don't particularly feel like spending time with one person in particular,

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I will simply leave a message in a group asking who wants to join.

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Again, the activity is important, not the person.

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This is companionship.

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The third level is friendship,

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which means that you connect for the purpose of mutual support and enjoyment of

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each other.

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So the person is important and the activity is secondary.

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For example,

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when I tell my friend that I would love to go for a walk and she would love to go

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for a coffee,

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then we figure out a way to make both of us happy and meet up anyway,

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because the most important thing is spending time together and not the activity itself.

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To be honest,

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it doesn't really matter how you want to categorize human intimacy,

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but the main thing to remember here is that there are different types of connection.

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Meaning.

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And I'm looking at you, fellow codependents.

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It is not your responsibility to rescue this,

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I don't know,

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seemingly depressed man that you've seen around.

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You don't owe that person anything.

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You are not friends.

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You're not even companions.

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Okay?

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This is a casual relationship that you have.

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It's also important to keep in mind that these levels of connections aren't

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necessarily fixed or clear,

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and that is okay.

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So they can be in flux,

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meaning that the connection with this person can change,

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it can even disappear,

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and then it can come back as well.

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Basically like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey intimacy stuff, to quote the doctor.

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Now, going back to the question, how do you tell if you have healthy friendships without testing them?

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Well, honestly, that depends on what kind of connection you have.

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So again, keep Gorski's levels in mind and also what you expect.

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So I would say that the most important part to make sure that a relationship is

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healthy is to analyze if you are both generally operating at the same level of connection.

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Meaning if someone treats you like a companion and you are on the intimate

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friendship level,

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then it is much better to emotionally fuck off from that level of connection

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because it's just going to hurt you.

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Secondly,

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just like in romantic relationships,

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we always have expectations of a minimum level of communication,

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time and effort spent on the friendship.

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And as I said before,

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relationships are in flux and sometimes people have a lot of shit going on in their life.

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But...

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If this person is not meeting your minimum expectations chronically,

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then it might really be time to review the friendship and put them on a different

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level for yourself.

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So there is so much more to this, of course.

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But as I mentioned before, this is a petite pod.

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I hope that this basic information helped you guys anyway.

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And of course, as always, let me know in the comments what you think.

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Also, if you have any questions for me, please send them to me.

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Thanks, guys.

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Ciao.