The Importance of Friends' Night

Friend’s night.

A concept most of us might have forgotten about during the pandemic era of slowly fading video chats, text messaging, and phone calls. Your closest friends seem a world away, distant online and distant in text.

It’s time for a reset.

It’s time to gather ourselves up, work up the courage and text those closest to you, get vaccinated, and go out. The world is alive again and it is time that we stepped back into the light.

I didn’t even realize how much I missed simply sitting with my friends, chatting about randomness, work, and our love lives. Taking that step out of my door, stepping into that restaurant, and ordering my go-to drink felt almost like a re-birth.

This past year has been filled with so much stress, uncertainty, fear, and worry. It is hard to let all of those swirling negative emotions fade into the past. This pandemic is a part of us now. It has shaped who we are and it has forcibly shape-shifted our priorities.

After so much change and so much uncertainty… After realizing that you may be a new person now… It is even more important to have a friends' night.

Many people might be ready to jump right back into the old 'normal'. Many people might scream into the wind, have a mask-burning party, and rush into crowded bars without abandon or worry.

But, for some of us, the thought of gathering again might fill us with fear and anxiety that shakes us to our very core, rooting us in the fear-ridden state that the pandemic trapped us in.

So do what you are comfortable with. Stepping back out into this strange world is no easy thing. Ask a friend over for a movie, walk to a coffee shop and grab coffee to-go, walk around the park, or meet up for drinks at happy hour before the rush comes in.

Do whatever you are comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be exactly like it was before to be great! It may not be the same, but it will be exactly what you need.

Everyone is going through this. Everyone is figuring out who they are now and what is important to them after this topsy-turvy year. We are all in the same boat.

Sometimes it can be easy to forget just how important self-care is. One thing that has been easy to forget is the importance of in-person connections. Of actually looking at someone smiling right in front of you. Of actually getting to banter. We’ve grown used to disconnection and internet fatigue.

Our social lives are part of our self-care routines too!

As much as many of us might like to say that the social aspect of our lives isn’t really all that important, that is a lie (I'm speaking to you, my like-minded introverts). We need other people, other beings, in our life to sustain us. We need to have someone to talk to and share our emotions, frustrations, happiness’s, and everything in-between with. When we don’t have this, we cower into ourselves. We shrink into our shell and refuse to leave our protective covering, not realizing how damaging we are being to our own mental health.

If we don’t try, if we don’t peak out from our shells, we won’t be able to begin to heal from this season of pain and suffering.

This last year has shaped us. The pandemic and the political upheavals have all affected us in different ways. We need to go out, explore who we are now, and begin to embrace our new world.

Friends help.

Going out for that first time can feel like this giant, implausible, hurdle. But it is so important to bridge that gap, make the decision, and allow yourself the self-care of actually being around another human being.

This is actually backed up by science!

According to psychologist Susan Pinker:

“Face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters and, like a vaccine, they protect you now, in the present, and well into the future, so simply […] shaking hands, giving somebody a high-five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust, and it lowers your cortisol levels, so it lowers your stress.”

This summer listen to science. Get both vaccines, the one to fight covid, and the one to fight our loneliness and stress. We need social interaction to help spread those feel-good hormones throughout our bodies. Now, more than ever, that is something that many of us drastically need.

We need each other. Reach out. Go out. Smile again. Laugh again.

Feel that oxytocin race through your veins, grab hold of that good old-fashioned high that comes from simply being surrounded by those that you care about. Re-form those connections that have become weathered and worn. Reach out and remember that life can be better than the isolation that the pandemic enveloped us in.

I promise you that it’s worth the effort, but if you won’t listen to me, listen to science and your own heart begging to feel connection again.

Allow yourself the freedom to feel happiness. Friends' night... The new holy grail of social connection and the much-needed vaccine for our pandemic fatigue.