Relationship mood

Bring Up Your Points When the Time Is Right

Very often it's not what you say, it's when and how you say it. Certain conversations just work better when the time is right.

Avoid times like this:

You're both in a hurry and need to leave.
Your friend is distracted with work or the kids.
You're at a party.
The spotlight is on someone else (at an awards banquet or birthday party, for example.)
You're in a group of people who can overhear you.
It can be difficult when you're angry with a friend, for example, and you just want to get the discussion over with because you know it will be unpleasant. But the adult thing to do is wait until you have the time to talk things through properly. Without that, you'll end up causing a bigger problem in your friendship.

Understanding Your Social Circles
In a world dominated by social media, with such an emphasis placed on the number of followers that you have on Facebook and Instagram, it’s easy to feel as though you need to prove your worth, and how likeable you are, based on the number of people you interact with, both online and off.

Sure, you might think you’re required to have a certain number of friends in your life to feel fulfilled or avoid loneliness, but that’s just not true. According to the experts, you could realistically have just five close friends and be completely socially satisfied. That definitely helps take some of the pressure off, but isn’t there some sort of secret sauce to a healthy social life?

Read more https://relationship-mood.com/blog/article5

Know What You're Going to Say

If you're the type that starts a story and doesn't know how it ends, you might be doing the same thing in daily communications with friends. Maybe you think about something you want to tell them, but your mind wanders and you end up talking about a bunch of other things instead. This is okay if it works for your friendship, but if you're having a lot of misunderstandings, it's time to use the mental edit button.

How to know if you're rambling on too much? Look out for situations like these:

Your friend became angry because they took something you said personally, but you didn't mean it that way.
Your friend assumed that you were complaining about something when you really weren't.
Your friend told you they were tired of hearing the same old stories from you.
Learn to Be Assertive

Many people think being assertive means walking all over people, but in fact it actually means that you confidently talk to others when you have something to say. This means that instead of waiting to let an issue build, you address it right away. Or that you confidently state your opinion, even though you know your friend disagrees. You do it with respect and don't argue, but you don't let someone else dominate the conversation either.

Being assertive means that when friends overstep their boundaries, you lovingly correct them. This helps keep arguments to a minimum and allows you to avoid those negative feelings that can build in a friendship over time.

Listen

By far, a lack of listening skills is the biggest problem in communication. It is the cause behind:

Hurt feelings (when a friend feels you aren't listening)
Misunderstandings (when you assume what a friend is going to say and miss the actual point)
Arguments (when you only hear a few words and get mad that your friend doesn't appear to be saying what you want them to).
Learn how to actively listen, where you fully understand what your friend is saying. In addition, it will help your friend feel that they are being heard.