Arthur C. Brooks offers two tests to check your friendship health. Count how many people would notice if you seemed off and ask if you're okay. Then list non-spousal confidants you can be vulnerable with. Fewer than two or three people, or no recent conversations, signals a weak support system.
Give yourself a friendship checkup. And there's two tests for this. Test number one, ask yourself how many people know you well enough that if you were slightly off on a particular day would ask, you feeling okay today? Are there people in your life that would ask you that? And that, by the way, that have the permission to ask you that, are you feeling slightly off? If you put up so many barriers or you know so few people adequately well that nobody could ask you that, that's a problem in that test number one is going the wrong direction. Test number two. List a few people, not including your spouse, with whom you're comfortable discussing personal things about your life. I mean, saying something really vulnerable about your weaknesses. Now, it doesn't mean that you would be comfortable divulging your deepest, darkest secrets, but really personal things about yourself. Now, your deal friends, you're just not going to do that. It's inappropriate that you get too personal. And that's my point. How many people do you have in your life for whom it's not inappropriate for you to get personal? Take an inventory of that. List a few people. If you struggle to name 2 or 3, that's a dead giveaway. And if you can, be honest about this. When was the last time you actually had that kind of conversation with that person? Don't make it theoretical. When did you talk about these things? If it's been more than a month, you're kidding yourself. So take those two tests and it's all green lights, good for you.
