{"id":14837,"date":"2025-09-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/?p=14837"},"modified":"2025-09-26T12:12:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T10:12:51","slug":"renewing-friendships-is-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/renewing-friendships-is-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Renewing friendships is easy. What holds us back?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Write it or don\u2019t? The psychology of hitting \u201csend\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers at <strong>Simon Fraser University<\/strong> in Canada set out to learn what makes us willing to reach out to someone we\u2019ve lost touch with. Earlier studies found that <strong>90 percent of people have an \u201cold friend\u201d they still feel warmly about but no longer contact. What\u2019s more, although most would like to reconnect, only about 30 percent actually do<\/strong>. Why do so few of us move from intention to action?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To find out, the team analysed <strong>850+<\/strong> messages participants drafted to former friends. Crucially, everyone had the option to send their message \u2014 but no one was forced to. The <strong>texts were examined on 20 criteria<\/strong>: length, expressed emotions, references to past\/present\/future, even whether the authors took responsibility for letting the friendship fade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Renewing friendships: who actually decides to do it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The results were surprising. <em>\u201cWe used statistical regression analyses to examine links between message features and the behaviour of making contact \u2014 only six were statistically significant,\u201d<\/em> the authors write in <a href=\"https:\/\/online.ucpress.edu\/collabra\/article\/11\/1\/143319\/212890\/Who-Reaches-Out-to-Old-Friends-and-What-Do-They\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><em>Collabra: Psychology<\/em><\/a>. Translation: <strong>content isn\u2019t the key factor<\/strong> predicting whether someone actually sends the message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if the wording doesn\u2019t matter much, what does? The researchers shifted focus to the people themselves. They recruited <strong>312<\/strong> participants and <strong>asked about happiness, loneliness, personality traits, and beliefs about friendship<\/strong>. After participants drafted a note to a former friend, the team asked whether they had actually sent it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As in prior work, only <strong>34.2 percent<\/strong> decided to send their message. But this time a unifying trait emerged: a belief that friendships can <strong>survive long gaps<\/strong> without contact. The researchers called it <strong>\u201cfriendship resilience.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Worth reading:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/fear-of-adulthood-in-youth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fear of adulthood in youth. How to face it.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The real blocker is in our heads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This study offers a clear lesson. <strong>It\u2019s not a lack of perfect words that stops us from reconnecting<\/strong>. The problem lives in our assumptions \u2014 the fear that a reach-out is doomed to fail. If we believed friendship was more resilient than it seems, we\u2019d hit <strong>send<\/strong> far more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So next time you think of an old friend, just write. Don\u2019t overanalyze, don\u2019t search for the perfect reason, don\u2019t stress about length or jokes. <strong>Type: <em>\u201cHey \u2014 it\u2019s been a while. How are you?\u201d<\/em><\/strong> If you don\u2019t try, how will you ever learn whether renewing friendships is easier than you thought?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Read this article in Polish<\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/odnowienie-przyjazni-jest-trudne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nie\u00a0trzeba wiele, by\u00a0odnowi\u0107 star\u0105 przyja\u017a\u0144. Co\u00a0nas blokuje?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You start a message to an old friend\u2026 then delete it. Familiar? Studies show renewing friendships is hard for many of us. What, exactly, holds us back \u2014 and who hits \u201csend\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":14840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[829,610,687,798,781,1843,834],"class_list":["post-14837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-emotions","tag-loneliness","tag-people","tag-psychology","tag-relationship","tag-renewing-friendships","tag-science"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Renewing friendships is easy. What holds us back?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s not the words\u2014it\u2019s your beliefs. Discover how \u201cfriendship resilience\u201d boosts renewing friendships and helps you finally press send.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/renewing-friendships-is-easy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Renewing friendships is easy. What holds us back?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s not the words\u2014it\u2019s your beliefs. Discover how \u201cfriendship resilience\u201d boosts renewing friendships and helps you finally press send.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/renewing-friendships-is-easy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Holistic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/portalHolisticNews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-28T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/renewing-friendships.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Maciej Bartusik\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Maciej Bartusik\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/renewing-friendships-is-easy\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/renewing-friendships-is-easy\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Maciej Bartusik\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0758fb0cf338b71ce51e2da415bc266c\"},\"headline\":\"Renewing friendships is easy. 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