Raina Cohen

His father won't even sit right next to him on the couch.

He has to leave space.

And all of his friends would do the same before he had this other friendship.

So I think those sorts of barriers around norms of touch can also get in the way.

And there are plenty of other things, too, that I think get at the idea that friendship is supposed to be easy, that we shouldn't

you know, beat inconvenience or inconvenience others.

Those are a few of the, I think, the barriers that come into getting closer.

Yeah.

I mean, one is how do you get more time together?

And one thing that might sound simple but is really helpful is having recurring ways to see friends.

So I have a friend who has two young children and is really bound to her house.

There's a day of the week when her husband has choir practice.

And every other week, I come by after her kids are in bed, and we hang out at the house.

And it's built into our calendars.

And even if one of us is unavailable, traveling, whatever, we have this expectation of how much we're going to see each other.

that I think you can lose track of if you see somebody once, you don't make plans immediately, and then a month or two or three passes.

Another way that I've done this is to plan the next time you're going to see the person before you leave the existing interaction.

So if you're at dinner, get out your calendars and figure out the next time.

So that's one thing that I would recommend.

I think on the idea of what is acceptable to ask of a friend or do for a friend, I think trying to experiment with asking for help a little bit more or at least telling people when you're in a