There are a lot of adages that end with ‘knows best’. Mother knows best, father knows best, family knows best… we could go on. One you don’t hear very often is that friends know best, but according to a new study, there are some cases where your friends certainly are the most accurate voices.
The study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, found that when someone’s friends considered them ill-suited at that time for a committed relationship, they were more likely to be insecure in said relationship – or in other words, not ready.
To come to these findings, researchers collected data from nearly 800 people in separate friend groups. The subjects self-reported their own readiness for relationships, their friends’ readiness and their friends’ attachment styles. Almost across the board, participants believed that their friends with insecure attachment styles were less likely to be ready for a relationship.
“Friendships affect so many parts of our life – not just our health and happiness, but also our romantic prospects. Friends can constrain or facilitate who we date. They can also help our romantic relationships flourish or subtly and not-so-subtly undermine them,” said William Chopik, co-author of the study.
“Judgments of readiness likely explain all sorts of reasons why friends help and hurt our chances of finding love.”
So what’s the takeaway here? Well, the researchers hope that the findings will help young adult’s romantic lives by encouraging them to be more open with their friends and, perhaps, more susceptible to their opinions.
“Friends play a key role in forming and maintaining romantic relationships, from introductions to advice. However, there is rarely a chance to know how they perceive us,” said Hyewon Yang, another researcher. “I hope this study offers a holistic understanding of commitment readiness from a social network perspective, while emphasizing the vital role of friends in pursuing, developing and maintaining romantic relationships.”
Now of course, this is a classic chicken or egg situation. Is the fact that our friends don’t think we’re ready for a relationship a good indicator that we aren’t? Or is their lack of faith causing our insecurities and sabotaging our relationships? Further studies will need to find out.
