“Friends can be very good medicine”, Recent research indicates that people with companions have better health and live longer. People without friends more incline to suffer from cancer, hospitalizations, and premature death than those with lots of friends.

Men’s and Women’s Friendships: The Differences

Women always have more friends than men. Women’s friendships tend to be shared personal feelings, emotional support, and nurturing. Men join in activities and tend to “do” rather than “be” in their friendships.

Most women make friends continually throughout their lives while men lose old friends and do not replace them back. Women use the term “friend” more discerningly than men. Men are likely to define friends as members of their football team, colleagues, or neighbors, even if they don’t know them well. To some men, friends are people they don’t dislike.

Work can be the best place to make friends. Just as women used to chat across the back fence, today’s women often make friends and chat with others who work in the next office.

Friends can make lousy jobs better. Friendship at the workspace can make a day tolerable and contribute to good mental health. Working together for a long time fosters closeness that is a natural means for making friends. In many cases, work relationships become extended families for colleagues.

It is wrong to choose only friends who act and think the same as you do. When friends are all the same there is not room to develop in the friendship. The following are the strategies to make a friendship.

• Develop friends of different ages – You’ll enrich your life when you make friends who are either younger or older than you. Become a special friend to a child in your block. Benefit from the association and experience of an elderly.
• Stay in touch with old friends – Send e-mail or postcard, answer the phone, or make an effort to call on longtime friends.
• Choose your friends carefully – It’s much more joyful to be around friends who laugh and see the bright side of the world.

If you don’t have time to see friends, consider these timesaving activities to get your friends together.

Sunday brunch – prepare a fast and simple menu on Saturday and use Sunday afternoon to tidy up.

Make your own sundaes – put out fresh fruit toppings and invite friends to enjoy low-fat yogurt sundaes after dinner.

Summertime picnic – invite friends home for barbecue hot dogs or hamburgers.

Formal parties – sometime you may feel enthusiastic and want to catch up on entertaining many friends.

Take your kids to the park and walk with a friend – your kids can play while you sit and talk.