Friendship is such an important aspect of every person’s life. Humans are innately social creatures, and we all crave community and connection. Life is more enjoyable when surrounded by friends who care about and uplift you during life’s challenges.
Friendship assuages isolation and makes life more fun and exciting. Most friendships are built upon shared interests with each other and are deepened through experiences encountered together and time vested in the relationship.
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1. Be Proactive
Proactivity is key in facilitating a fun bonding experience with friends. To guarantee success in your hangout sessions with friends, you will likely want to prepare to an extent. Preparing before a hangout or outing together will set you both up for more success and will hedge against experiencing boredom.
Preparation is an important aspect of life in general, but in the context of friendship, preparation enables you to be a more proactive friend and companion.
One of the best things you can do to be a proactive friend is to be an initiator. Initiating contact and spending time together will ensure you’re doing your part to strengthen the friendship and help it flourish.
2. Combating Boredom
To combat boredom in a friendship, you must be intentional, not only in your hangout sessions together but also in the friendship as a whole.
Relationships are a two-way street, and both people in the friendship must put in inequitable work to keep the friendship thriving.
Intentionality is key in a friendship, and it comes into play when working to combat boredom.
There are many creative ideas for activities you could try when you’re feeling bored. Below, we’ve compiled some specific ideas of boredom-combating activities you could facilitate with your friends. You could try countless ideas, but hopefully, this list will give you a good starting point.
Go For a Walk
One of the simplest things you could do is momentarily change the environment and go for a walk. Not only will the physical activity aspect of a walk increase endorphins, putting you both in a better mood, but it will also provide quality time and purposeful conversations.
Have a Movie Night
If you’re feeling bored, you could facilitate a movie night together. You could either go to the movie theater and make a night of it at the movies or create an at-home movie night or movie marathon of a series. Pop popcorn, get yummy snacks and treats, and make it special.
Plan a Themed Night
Themed nights are a great way to streamline fun and create your own activity. Planning a themed night can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish; one of the best parts about themed nights is that they can be individualized based on your collective interests and desires.
You could make your themed night correlate with an upcoming holiday, such as a Halloween or Christmas party, or make it food-based, like an appetizer or dip night where everyone brings a contributing dish. The possibilities are endless!
Eat a Meal Together
Sometimes, you need delicious food to shift your mood and solve boredom. You could choose a restaurant to sit down and eat at or order takeout if you’d rather have a night at home. If you don’t want to go to or order from a restaurant, you could plan and prepare a home-cooked meal together.
Listen to Music Together
Music is a great bonding tool and will surely create a good time together. Play upbeat tunes and have an impromptu dance party, or turn on mellow tracks to set a calming tone. Either way, music will help you have a better time together.
Book Club
Choose a book that you’re both interested in and create a book club together. You can read the book separately and come together to discuss what you’ve read. Add some snacks and treats, and have an engaging book club discussion.
Puzzles and Games
Playing games and doing puzzles together is a collaborative and engaging way to pass the time and work together. The card game Uno is always a great option, and you only need two players. Puzzles come in different difficulty levels based on the number of pieces, so you can customize your experience to be as easy or difficult as you want.
Go Thrifting
You could visit your local thrift store to liven up your time together. Thrifting feels like a scavenger hunt, and you will enjoy searching for amazing deals and finding “treasures” to take home with you.
Sports
If you’re bored, you could play a sport or watch a game together. Friends love to bond over adrenaline-inducing activities like football games and other sports events. This is why Super Bowl parties are such a popular idea.
Bake a Sweet Treat
Baking is a delicious way to solve your boredom together. Choose a treat that both of you like well enough so you can bake and decorate it together. You could also each bake your treat and have a taste test of each other’s creations.
Karaoke Night
You can either go to a local karaoke place or create your karaoke night at home with a microphone and your favorite songs. If you don’t have a microphone, use a hairbrush and pretend! There are plenty of instrumental versions of songs on the internet.
Arts and Crafts
Creating art together is a beautiful way to combat boredom. If you don’t know where to begin, you can find a guided painting tutorial on YouTube. It will be fun and exciting to see the different final products that each of you create.
3. Communicate Openly
One of the most valuable pillars of friendship is honesty. For a friendship to be strong and successful, honesty and open communication must be a priority. Respect is also a crucial aspect of this, as you want to ensure that your honest communication with one another is respectful and loving.
Having a foundation of honesty is very helpful, especially if you’re experiencing boredom.
If both friends feel comfortable and secure enough to be honest about their feelings and boredom, then there’s a greater chance of success in fixing and solving the boredom issue. You will be able to work together more collaboratively from a place of honesty and respect for one another.
4. Mix it Up
Sometimes, the best thing to do when experiencing boredom is to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. When you try something new in the company of another person, this can be a bonding experience for you both.
Cultivating shared experiences is an important aspect of building meaningful relationships.
5. Time For Some Fun!
Friendships take work and intentionality, but the work is so rewarding. The value that friendships add to our lives is unmatched. It’s always worth it to work out any bumps in the road and combat boredom to keep the friendship thriving.
Attitude is everything, and if you have a positive attitude going into spending time with your friends, you’re more likely to have an enjoyable time together. It’s okay to be honest about your emotions; true friends will want to know how you feel.
Make sure that you are also a safe place for your friends where they can be honest as well. If you work together and choose not to give up, you will see success.
Tips to Strengthen Friendships
To make your friendships stronger, start by being a good listener. Pay attention to what your friends say and show you understand. Keep a positive attitude even when things get tough.
Stay in touch often and share your own stories, too.
Show them you’re open and honest. This builds trust. Also, be there when they need you most. Your reliability makes friendships last longer.
Additional Reading: The Value of Friendship and Reasons Why Friends Are Important
