Social Circle Balancing: I Want My Friendship Groups To Remain Separate, And That’s Okay …
Embracing the complexity of keeping your friendship groups separate …
“I recently had a group therapy session surrounding the topic of ‘communities’, in which we were asked to draw all of the various communities we belonged to. I’ve never been a fan of doing timed exercises- probably because it takes me back to my school days where I dreaded being picked on to show everyone what I’d come up with, worrying that I’d have nothing say. When I did, unfortunately get chosen, I could feel my palms sweating whilst I mumbled my way through some bullet points to the background noise of muffled sniggers, I digress. As the Zoom chat went silent, heads down, I remember looking at my piece of paper and thinking “hmm, don’t really belong to any” and then stared into space thinking of whether tagliatelle or rigatoni would be the winner for dinner tonight.
That being said, after the 10 minutes were up I’d created a mind map full of different circles, and I actually felt overwhelmed, as well as extremely lucky and grateful. A bit of context for you, I’m currently in my twenties, creeping slowly towards the mid-way mark to 30 and I live in the big smoke, also known as London. I’ve lived here since I was 20 and nearly 5 years on, it’s safe to say that I still haven’t mastered the finesse of being able to balance all my different “lives”. Family life, friends from home, work friends, alone time, friends from old work, and when we were given that task in the session, I came to realise that these were my different “communities”.
“I think, selfishly, I like keeping all my communities separate because I like how each “group” encourages various different sides of me to come out that doesn’t always get a lot of air time.”
I’m sure I won’t be alone in this, but I have this weird thing in which I don’t want to mix or intertwine my various groups. Everything needs to be separated and they all take up a piece of their own in my “world” pie chart (this will be the Virgo in me and I must state that this lives in my head and not on a piece of A3 stuck to my kitchen wall). I have a slight panic when I can see these worlds possibly colliding, and try and do everything in my power to make sure that they don’t- it’s as if my brain can’t compute the two coming together - synergy, is that the word? It seems that as we get older there’s a constant balancing act that you’ve got to maintain- you literally become the person holding the spinning plates, and you don’t dare drop one in case someone gets offended or they feel you’re pushing them away etc etc etc. Really, you’re just trying to keep one main plate spinning, which is your day-to-day life.
As we’ve transitioned into lockdown, something I’ll never get over writing, I feel like it’s gotten even harder. We’re under even more pressure now to keep the communities afloat and I don’t know about you, but, I feel like I'm being more social than I ever have been. There’s a Zoom pub quiz, a Houseparty (don’t forget to lock the room), a Facetime with the rents, a Livestream on one of the many social platforms that can’t be missed, don’t forget the group WhatsApp chat for the joint Netflix party you’re having and when does it end? It hit me that my London life and family life along with all the other “worlds” have actually combined - my worst nightmare.
Bringing you back to my pie chart that I mentioned earlier, I recently read something interesting that caught my attention. Ali M.Mattu, PhD, clinical psychologist, states that we tend to code-switch with the people in our lives, meaning that we change the way we speak based on who we’re talking to. For example, the way you interact with your best friend will most likely be different from the way you talk to your parents. So, if you’re thinking about pooling it all together (e.g. dinner with the best friend and parents), it’s supposedly very normal to be nervous about how you’re going to act around them. I never worry about my different groups getting on well, when I come to think of it, it’s more about how do I manage the way I am around my best friend as well as the person I am with my parents. Will they clash? Will I be a slightly off mesh of different personalities? I think, selfishly, I like keeping all my communities separate because I like how each “group” encourages various different sides of me to come out that doesn’t always get a lot of air time.
I probably feel this pressure to engage and manage my communities regularly as I don’t want to upset anyone, but it’s unlikely that they’re thinking about this as much as I am. Unfortunately, I don’t have any words of wisdom to impart on you, and it’s unlikely that through writing this I’ve suddenly come up with a ‘cure’ of how to go about the balancing act that some people seem to have nailed. Apologies for that, but I’m still figuring it out too. What I will say, is that it’s totally fine to feel this way. There are days where I want to be a hermit and be completely on my own, other times where I want to engage in a full two hours with my boyfriend and not constantly keep up with the various WhatsApp chats. Twice a week I want an uninterrupted hour to talk to my sister on the phone and call my dad whilst I wait in line for the post office. Fridays are for drinking hours with my work frolleagues, and the quiet evenings with a glass of gin are for Trivia quizzes with my best friends- that’s how I seem to be managing it. Doing it this way provides a healthy dose of who I want to be in certain situations that are within my control … oh no, that’s a whole different article right there!
I might never be able to become a connoisseur of executing my different personas with various communities, but then I suppose it’ll stop me from becoming a lazy girlfriend, friend, colleague, daughter, sister and more. Always a silver lining right? Here’s to figuring it out one step at a time together- now where’s my ice cold Bailey’s and my hermit face mask?”
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Thank you so much to the gorgeous Isabella for contributing this brilliant piece! If you want to see more from her you can find her on Instagram @IsabellaSpeight or on her website www.isabellaspeight.com.