5 Types Of Friends You Need To Have

Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget. We all need to feel connections in our lives. Studies have shown that good friendships have tremendous benefits for our mental and physical well-being. One piece of research concludes friendship is positively associated to life satisfaction, and that how often you see your friends and how much you enjoy your friendships directly corresponds to your happiness.

How many people do you have in your life that you can call a friend? While having one good friend in your life is a blessing, having several types of friends in your life can maximize the benefits that friendship offers to us. What types of friends do you need to have in your life? That's what we're going to explore today, Alexis.

Here are the five types of friends that you need to have.

Number one: The Positive Friend
Everyone needs that friend that is like a ray of sunshine in their life. This is our upbeat, outgoing friend. The kind of friend that is almost always up for trying new restaurants, checking out an art gallery, or going partying. Research has proven that when our friends are in a good mood, it puts us in a better mood too. Studies found that evidence suggests mood may spread from person to person via a process known as social contagion. To put this in simple terms, good moods are contagious.

When our friends are in a good mood, their mood spreads to us and makes us feel good. That's where having a positive friend in your life is so important. Positive friends are the friends we can count on whenever you're in the mood to socialize, let loose, and exercise the extroverted part of your personality. Not only do they give us a boost to our mood, but they're also down for trying new things with us that our other friends might not be interested in. They give us the confidence we need to grab life by the horns, and they can help us with becoming a more self-assured and decisive person. This kind of friend might not be the sort of person you confide in or ask for emotional support from, but they're the friend that you love to spend time with and always have fun with.

Number two: A Best Friend
Best friends are the hardest friends to come by, but the ones that have the biggest impact on our lives. Our friendship with a best friend is the one we consider to be the strongest, most intimate, and most important friendship among all other friendships. Our friendship with our best friend won't look the same to someone else's. For some, a best friend could be the person you spend the most time with; for others, they might not even see their best friend a lot if they live far away or simply have other commitments.

But no matter exactly how the friendship looks, a best friend is someone you can always depend on. You could call them at 3 AM, and they would answer. You could tell them you need to come stay with them indefinitely, and they would welcome you with open arms. And of course, you would do the same in return for them. Your best friend stands out among all your other friendships because they're the person that is always there to support you no matter what.

Having a best friend helps us in so many ways. It gives us a boost to our self-esteem, knowing that someone wants to be our best friend. It shows us that we must have qualities that mean someone wants to spend so much time with us and give us so much support. It helps us to not feel lonely; even if we're not with our best friend, we know that if we really needed to talk to someone, our best friend would be there for us. A best friend gives us the comfort of knowing that we can physically rely on someone, like if we need someone to help us move or pick us up from the airport. A best friend is someone that knows us inside and out and so can offer advice that is relevant to who we are. In short, having a best friend can have life-changing positive implications.

Number three: Group Friends
Group friends are people that you share mutual friends with. You often all meet up or talk to each other on a group chat or video call all at the same time. You might not necessarily spend time with all of these group friends one-on-one, but you enjoy spending time together. Group friends are great to have because you can do things together, like attending music festivals or holding dinner parties.

You can do things as a group that wouldn't be as fun if you were doing them with just one other friend. Having a group of friends can be very comforting; it's nice to know that several people have your back. Being in a group means there's always someone around to offer advice or to help you out of a tricky situation. If you have a group of friends, you get several perspectives on things rather than just one. For example, if you ask your friend group for advice, one of those friends might give you some poor advice, but because there's a group of you, other friends would pick up on it and make sure to provide you with better-suited advice.

Plus, with a group of friends, it's more likely that at least one friend will be knowledgeable about certain topics and can help you out with certain things. For example, let's say you want to start investing in cryptocurrency. Your best friend might not know anything at all about cryptocurrency, but it's likely that at least one of your friends in the group would be and could offer some guidance and advice. Having a good group of friends is like having a second family. Each member is unique, but together you form a solid unit.

Number four: Life Stage Friends
While our best friends may be lifelong friends, life stage friends are friends that we connect with because we are at the same stages in life. For example, you may connect with other parents at a toddler class. With these friends, you can lean on each other for any worries you might have about your kids or share stories about your kids that other friends might not be interested in. Or perhaps you just graduated from college and are job hunting. Having a friend that is doing the same can provide you with a boost in morale for finding your dream grad job.

Life stage friends are the friends that you can relate the most to with whatever it is currently going on in your life because they're also experiencing the same thing. These friends that truly understand what's going on in our lives at this very moment and that are going through it with us are friends that are invaluable to us in the here and now. Life stage friends are the best kinds of friends for giving us advice on whatever particular stage we're at. While our best friends or our work friends do understand our life situations to an extent, our life stage friends truly get how it feels to go through whatever it is that we're going through.

Our other friends might be at completely different stages to us, and their lives can be progressing at completely different paces. That means they're not exactly the most equipped for giving us advice on our lives when our lives look so different to theirs. Our life stage friends may not make sense in the long run, and that's okay, but they serve a very real purpose for the current moment.

Number five: Work Friends
When it's a work day, most of us spend half of our waking hours at our place of work. Since a big chunk of our lives is spent at work, we shouldn't neglect our need to socialize just because we're working. A recent study looked into how having a good friend at work impacts your performance and enjoyment at work, and it made several critical conclusions. Firstly, having a good friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including profitability, safety, inventory control, and retention.

Secondly, if you have a good friend at work, you are much more likely to engage customers and internal partners, get more done in less time, support a safe workplace with fewer accidents and reliability concerns, innovate and share ideas, and have fun while at work. Friends are beneficial because they offer a certain kind of camaraderie and support. For example, a work friend is someone we could confide in if we were having a bad day at work. They're also great for providing us with advice on our careers since they're also working in the same field.

We may or may not spend time with our work friends outside of work. Our work friends might not even be the kind of people we would ordinarily spend time with, but while we're at work, they're there for us as people we trust. Work friends are important because they can help us to be more productive at work. They're supportive when things go wrong, and they are uniquely poised to help us progress further in our careers.

Thanks for watching today, Alexis! Those were the five types of friends you need to have in your life. Since you watched to the end, you deserve a bonus, and this bonus video won't disappoint. Do you have all these types of friends we talked about in today's video, or do you think it's time you made some new social connections? How good are you at making friends?

If you're not exactly the best at connecting with people and turning acquaintances into friends, you're not alone. Being good at making new friends is a little bit of an art form, and there are certain things you might be doing that are deterring people from becoming your friend. Check out our video on the 15 reasons why you don't make new friends. See you in the next video! Thank you.