It’s worth keeping in mind too for the mental health that your situation in the office may have been deceptive. My first job, I had a very close knit and friendly work group, but we only very rarely met up after work or on weekends. There were a handful of people, sure, but at the end of the day I was still lonely, and drinking to fill that hole.
I may not have made many friends while working at home, but I can at least deepen the friendships I do have with my college friends and try to chat with people casually at coffee shops. And work from coffee shops too.
Yeah there is something to be studied about people who yearn to return to office for bonding reasons. I think there’s some deeper issues with people who find their work is the only way to keep/make friends. Or confuse a coworker relationship as a definition of ‘friend’ when the dynamics are actually very different from an intimate friendship dynamic.
Not saying that you can’t build a work relationship into a friend but it runs a high chance of not being a sustainable friendship as a family or organically formed friendship that is based on who you are as you not who you are ‘as a work colleague’ which only stretches as far as having someone’s back with a client. (It’s a service relationship that is already about someone benefiting off what you do and not about who you are underneath that)
If anything a healthy interaction benefits from more time away from work (not travelling to) to interact more with family and more organic friends.(and also why I’m always suspicious of people who do want you to travel and start micromanaging how you travel) cuz their lack of care for their own mental health is being unleashed onto others impacting their lives in a negative way.
I think this is why in therapy they ask you to define yourself they are looking for the definition of you that you’re not servicing someone else(hence is the issue with work relationships). As that has lots of problems with it on the ground level of mental health.
Yeah what I found is that friendships I had with people before we became coworkers felt way more like friendships than those I met first through work. The only exception was when I immediately hit it off with someone at work, and we quickly became friends more than coworkers.
It’s worth keeping in mind too for the mental health that your situation in the office may have been deceptive. My first job, I had a very close knit and friendly work group, but we only very rarely met up after work or on weekends. There were a handful of people, sure, but at the end of the day I was still lonely, and drinking to fill that hole.
I may not have made many friends while working at home, but I can at least deepen the friendships I do have with my college friends and try to chat with people casually at coffee shops. And work from coffee shops too.
Yeah there is something to be studied about people who yearn to return to office for bonding reasons. I think there’s some deeper issues with people who find their work is the only way to keep/make friends. Or confuse a coworker relationship as a definition of ‘friend’ when the dynamics are actually very different from an intimate friendship dynamic. Not saying that you can’t build a work relationship into a friend but it runs a high chance of not being a sustainable friendship as a family or organically formed friendship that is based on who you are as you not who you are ‘as a work colleague’ which only stretches as far as having someone’s back with a client. (It’s a service relationship that is already about someone benefiting off what you do and not about who you are underneath that)
If anything a healthy interaction benefits from more time away from work (not travelling to) to interact more with family and more organic friends.(and also why I’m always suspicious of people who do want you to travel and start micromanaging how you travel) cuz their lack of care for their own mental health is being unleashed onto others impacting their lives in a negative way.
I think this is why in therapy they ask you to define yourself they are looking for the definition of you that you’re not servicing someone else(hence is the issue with work relationships). As that has lots of problems with it on the ground level of mental health.
Yeah what I found is that friendships I had with people before we became coworkers felt way more like friendships than those I met first through work. The only exception was when I immediately hit it off with someone at work, and we quickly became friends more than coworkers.