Let’s look at the benefits of friendships first. They provide encouragement and motivation, a place for comfort thus it reduces stress and grief. Support from friends also means improved confidence and our overall mood. The majority of us have also gone through a time when we really need someone to just listen to us. Of course, there are different kinds of friendships we make in our lifetime. We have acquaintances, close friends, best friends, etc. I personally have kept in contact with a few people from high school; those are my true best friends. I’m sure we’ve all experienced the toll of a failed friendship. That one friend we wished we still talk to but it’s just awkward if you try to say hello. I remember one girl in high school who I tried to be friends with because we both love K-pop. Surely, we can talk about that to get close, right? It was a mutual effort but until now, we just could not become close. As cliché as it might sound, the chemistry just wasn’t there.

Now what is the science behind friendships? Without even any research, our instinct is to seek those we have common interests with. A doctor from the American Psychological Association said this provides the purpose of ‘fostering compatibility and maintaining the rewards of affiliation’. According to the ‘Handbook of Relationship Initiation’ by sociologists Sprecher, Wenzel and Harvey, we are more likely to find joy from relationships that are ‘in sync’. Naturally, we are also drawn to those with similar demographic traits, intelligence, beliefs, hobbies and personality. One might ask, how do I know if we connect? Well, a study published in Nature in 2009 shows that two areas of the brain become active when we meet someone new – the amygdala (the area that deals with emotion) and the posterior cingulate cortex, which prompts autobiographical memory as well as make decisions.

You might wonder how much of a personality can contribute to the success or failure of a friendship. Whether your extroversion or introversion had anything to do with it. The Big Five Personality Traits is a theory that helps to determine the formation of relationships - extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness and neuroticism.

Extraversion just means having a lot of friends, agreeableness is exactly what it sounds like, and similar to openness to experience. Conscientiousness is the quality of self-discipline(being responsible, rational). Neuroticism means being emotional. Clearly, it’s a balance of everything. You can be a proud extrovert or introvert, but balance is needed in a friendship. When you enter university, you probably become friends to whomever you spoke to first, yet they might not be your current friend. Kelly Campbell, psychology professor at California State University, said that we make decisions in creating a relationship through cognitive reasoning, where we’re thinking through things, gathering information, being rational, weighing the pros and cons or there’s the emotional side, which includes things like intuition, leading to personal chemistry. In other words, we use our brain or our heart when selecting our friends.

From this and real-life experiences, we always ask ourselves how do we find the right friends then? Especially coming into university, we invest so much concern over this. We have the right to. University is truly a time when we need the support. Find friends who will listen to you, those with common goals and interests and those who will motivate you to improve in what you may lack. On top of that, normalise getting rid of ‘friends’ who won’t do so otherwise.

Remember, a failed friendship is not always someone’s ‘fault’. At our age, it’s also important to find the right friends; the ones that will support you the ways you need and vice versa. Iconic friendships like Chandler and Joey and Harry and Ron are admirable but don’t feel the need to compare. Don’t be afraid to say hello to an old school friend today and never let go of your true friends!