Back

Sumiko At 60: Friends can boost your health, but what if you struggle to make or keep them?

By Sumiko Tan 

I was unwinding for the day, scrolling through Instagram, when the WhatsApp message arrived. 

“Hate to be the bearer of sad news but I think you should know
that A passed away last month after a very long battle with cancer,” the message said.

It was sent by a school friend with whom I had lost touch for close to 30 years.
Back in junior college, the three of us were in the same class and moved around as part of a larger pack.

We hung out at the canteen, went to parties and sneaked out of Madam Kee’s economics class to go to McDonald’s at Liat Towers. Those shared experiences made us good friends.

After our A levels, we went our separate ways to university. For a couple of years after that, we’d kept in touch, but eventually, the phone calls, letters and meet-ups petered out.

Those friendships I made in JC were shelved as working life and relationships gave me different social groups to move around in.

As the years went by, it felt more and more awkward to try and rekindle ties, even though the emergence of social media had actually made doing so simpler.

We had all probably changed as people and wouldn’t have much in common now, I reasoned. 

Despite the good times we shared, there had also been small, unspoken teenage slights which I suppose still rankled a little after all these years. I didn’t have the
energy to face or resolve them.

I decided that some friendships simply run their course and are better off as good memories. Trying to force a reconnection may not do me, or my old friends, any good.

Occasionally, though, I’d give in to my curiosity and check if they were on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

A month or so before I got the message about A’s death, I had looked her up on LinkedIn. I don’t know what made me do so; she had just come to mind.

She appeared to be doing well, having carved out a successful career in banking. I was happy for my dear, old friend.

And then the news came.

The odds of someone surviving to age 60 in Singapore are very high, so I’m not quite yet at the age where it is no longer shocking when my peers die.

A’s death came as a jolt, as did the death of another special JC friend at the age of 53 in 2015, and a lawyer I had interviewed who died in 2023 at the age of 57.

But sad as I was, A’s death didn’t push me to reconnect with my JC mates. All the reasons for the reluctance to revisit the past hadn’t changed.

It is not only reconnecting with old friends I struggle with. I’m bad at forming and maintaining new friendships, too. I blame shyness and laziness. I also want to avoid the emotional exhaustion that can come from being overly involved in another person’s life and problems.

If a true friend is defined as someone other than a family member whom I can phone to bail me out of jail, I have, I think – or at least hope – two.

If you’re talking about people other than family whom I’d invite to celebrate my release from jail, that might number six – the two above and maybe four others.

That’s from my perspective, of course.

I consider these six or so people good or fairly good friends. Whether they feel the same about me is another matter.

I’ve had the mortifying experience of realising that someone whom I regarded as a friend didn’t quite see me in the same light.

It is another reason I’m wary of investing in friendships.

WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS
I’ll probably pay the price for this. 

A wealth of research points to how people with high-quality social connections enjoy not just more pleasure in life but also greater health and longevity.

In 2023, United States Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy spoke about an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in the US. Citing a study, he said the mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15
cigarettes a day, and even greater than that linked with obesity and physical inactivity.

Scientists increasingly make a distinction between two aspects of social relationships: social isolation and loneliness.

Social isolation refers to the objective state of having limited social relationships or infrequent social contact with others.

Loneliness is a subjective feeling of being isolated, when a person perceives that their social needs are not being met.

Social isolation and loneliness represent distinct phenomena, said a 2020 study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the
US.

“An individual can be isolated and not feel lonely, or can feel lonely even if he or she is not isolated,” noted the study on social isolation and loneliness in
older adults.

“Although those who lack social contact may feel lonely, social isolation and loneliness often are not significantly correlated.” 

A 2021 study led by the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine bore this out. It found that slightly more than four in five seniors in
Singapore who felt socially disconnected lived with their family or other relatives or friends.

The 2020 American study said it is incorrect to assume that ageing, per se, causes social isolation and loneliness. Rather, older adults are at an increased
risk because of factors such as living alone, death of friends, retirement, changes in income, illness and impairments.

The study noted that poor social relationships have been associated with a 29 per cent increased risk of heart disease and a 32 per cent increased risk of stroke.

Social isolation has been linked to an approximately 50 per cent increased risk of developing dementia. Loneliness among heart failure patients has been associated with a nearly four times increased risk of death, 68 per cent increased risk of hospitalisation, and 57 per cent increased risk of emergency department visits.

A 2020 study in Britain added to the bleak data. It found that a person’s score on a loneliness scale predicted the onset of Type 2 diabetes over the following
decade.

Among other things, isolation is said to increase the body’s levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which regulates functions such as sugar levels, blood pressure and memory formation. Chronically elevated cortisol can harm the body, leading to diseases.

Associate Professor Rahul Malhotra, deputy director of the Centre for Ageing Research and Education at Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School, said
the quality of social connections appears to matter more than quantity.

“An individual may have fewer number of friends they connect with on a regular basis, but the quality of the connection – how close they feel to them, are they
comfortable enough to share personal information and advice – seems to be predictive of the individual being more resilient.”

SET IN MY WAYS
The science is clear on social connections having health benefits. But making new friends is hard and even more daunting as one ages. We – or at least, I –
have become set in my ways.

I’m fine having plenty of acquaintances. These low-key casual relationships, or what sociologists term “weak ties”, demand little of my time and emotional energy.
I can dip into them when I feel like it, or close the chapter on them and not feel guilty walking away. I have many such connections, made mostly through work.

But are they enough?

They help, say researchers who have studied peripheral ties.

One theory is that a person’s social network has different layers and a diversity of “weak” and “close” ties optimise well-being. Positive casual relationships provide
companionship, a sense of belonging, emotional support and are associated with greater physical activity.

In the 2024 book The Laws Of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life, science writer David Robson studies over 300 scientific papers to come up with advice on making social connections.

Robson says the ideal social diet will vary from person to person.

“In general, people who live with someone they love tend to have greater well-being than those who live alone, and people who socialise with friends, relatives or colleagues around once a week are healthier and happier than those who have
face-to-face contact less than once a month,” he says. Beyond that, there are no hard-and-fast rules.

Social ties can be supportive (when the connection is helpful), aversive (hurtful and barely ever helpful) or ambivalent (helpful yet hurtful, including so-called
“frenemies” or even a parent or sibling).

Supportive relationships are the most beneficial, of course.

However, studies have found that ambivalent ties provoked a stronger negative response than purely aversive people. There was something about the
uncertainty of the ambivalent relationship that made it more stressful than someone “reliably unkind”, he notes. The long-term effects of ambivalent ties may be just as bad as having few connections.

He offers practical advice on making friends. For example, praise people generously but be highly specific in your words of appreciation.

He gives evidence to show that people are about twice as likely to help us as we expect, and they are more likely to have enjoyed helping us out than we might
predict.

“If you find that someone is struggling to warm to you, consider asking them for a small favour… this may change their opinion and make your future interactions easier,” he says.

Since becoming more aware of the health benefits of social connections, I’ve come to two conclusions: There’s nothing shameful or pathetic in wanting
to make more friends; I need to take deliberate steps to widen my social circle as it’s not going to happen by itself.

Last year, I signed up for taiji lessons, not just because I’ve always wanted to learn taiji but also because I will meet like-minded people. On my daily jogs, I have progressed from smiling at the dogs being walked to smiling and saying hello to the humans walking them.

These baby steps may well lead to more meaningful social connections. At the very least, they make my day feel better, and that’s already a healthy start.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.