The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I'm in my mid twenties, and I've recently realized that all the friends I've made after getting out of high school have been of superficial/situational type. I've had gym friends, with whom I'd hit the gym with. I've had party friends, with whom I'd hit the bars and clubs with. Then I've had hobby X/Y/Z friends, with whom I'd do those hobbies with. Those relationships never went beyond those common interests, and once either I or them stopped participating in our common interest, our relationship would fizzle out. I have the opposite experience with my childhood friend group. We barely have anything in common nowadays, but I know I can call any of them up and ask for help or talk about something absolutely random. I've never achieved that level of trust/closeness with friends I've made as I've gotten older. Is it what adult friendships are like or is it just me not being able to navigate social games? On one hand, I've been thinking it's on me - I've realized that all these new friendships require effort to maintain and progress. If I don't invite my gym bro friends to do other things with me, then our friendship will stay at the gym bro level forever. On the other hand, it seems a lot of people take that passive position, so always having to be the one that organizes things feels forced and doesn't grant much confidence in that relationship.
I have, perhaps surprisingly, managed to make new close friends as a mid twenties guy. Here's the trick, you first say "hey bro (or girl I want as a friend), I really enjoyed talking to you at that thing that time, we should get coffee sometime, how's next thursday?". Next, you need to talk one-on-one, it's hard to make a new close friend when you're always in a group with them, and you need to (gradually) tell them some of your secrets, vulnerability is required for close friendship. Virtually everyone to whom you offer one of your small secrets will reciprocate with one of their own, and thus the friendship builds.
Then, once you've hung out a few times one on one, you hit them with a heartfelt "hey man, great hanging out today, this is kinda weird to say, but I want you to know that I'm really grateful to have you as a friend". Think of yourself, would you allow yourself to grow closer in friendship with someone you weren't sure wanted the same thing? Realising that someone you considered a close friend doesn't feel the same probably hurts at the same level as romantic rejection. That's why the earnest declaration that you consider them a close friend works so well, it alleviates their fear that their friendship will not be reciprocated. People do want close friends, they're just afraid to hope.
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