how to know if your relationships are actually good or just convenient

or: why "quality over quantity" is real and what that even means in practice

sth to think about

okay let me set the scene.

it’s 1938. a group of researchers at Harvard decides to start one of the most ambitious psychology studies in history. they’re going to follow a group of people for their entire adult lives; periodically checking in on their health, careers, relationships, habits, the whole picture. for as long as the study can keep running.

(spoiler: over 80 years later, it’s still going. some of the original participants have passed, and now their data is being layered with data from their kids and their partners. it’s officially the longest-running study of adult life ever conducted.)

now, they did all this to find answers to a specific question: what predicts healthy, successful development across a person’s life?

the answer to this, after all those decades of tracking actual human lives in real time, is not what most people would guess. it's not income, not career success, not IQ, and not even physical fitness or cholesterol levels.

the single strongest predictor of a long, healthy, satisfying life turned out to be the quality of your close relationships (Waldinger & Schulz, 2023).

one sec: a quick honest note

before we go further, bc i’m a psychologist and this matters: the Harvard study is pretty dang impressive (80+ years of multi-method data, very low dropout rate, hundreds of scientific papers)… but it also has its limitations: the original sample was white American men from a very specific historical era, which obviously isn’t all of humanity (duh). and correlation doesn’t prove causation, even in longitudinal research: good relationships might support better health, but it’s also possible that healthier people find it easier to maintain good relationships in the first place.

so when you see the finding floating around online (“friendship is the secret to happiness!!”) flattened into a self-help slogan, that’s an oversimplification of what definitely is a more nuanced body of work. what the research more accurately suggests is that chronic loneliness is genuinely harmful, that emotional connection buffers stress, and that relationship quality predicts a lot of life outcomes. BUT, not as a one-size-fits-all thing and not as the only thing that matters.

that said, the directional finding is real and supported by a huge amount of additional research outside this one study. so we can take it seriously without treating it as gospel.

now that we have that out of the way, let's continue.

🧚‍♀️ quick context for anyone new here: i’ve been doing a series on Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model, which is a framework from positive psychology for what actually makes a life feel good. so far we’ve covered:

P — positive emotions: savoring, gratitude, the science of noticing what’s already good

E — engagement: flow states, attention, why scrolling never gets you there

this week is the R: relationships. so here we go.

okay so the quality of my close relationships matters, got it.

but what does “quality” actually mean?

we've all heard the saying “quality over quantity”. and that sounds great as a phrase, but it doesn’t really mean anything until we get specific. so let’s actually unpack what is meant by “quality” in this context.

the markers that tend to show up across research on healthy close relationships are:

🤍 psychological safety: you can be honest about how you actually feel (including the uncomfortable parts) without fear that they’ll judge you or pull away

🤍 mutual support: care flows both ways, not just one direction. you can lean on each other and neither of you is doing all the emotional labor all the time

🤍 secure attachment: you can trust they’ll show up when it matters, AND you don’t need constant contact to feel secure in the bond

🤍 shared values: you don’t need the same opinion on every topic (please no, how boring), but real alignment on what actually matters; like integrity, honesty, or how you treat other people

🤍 acceptance of who you are: i don't mean the curated, performance-friendly version. they like the real you… including the messy parts

🤍 conflict capacity: disagreements happen and don’t end the relationship. you can repair instead of just avoiding all friction (this one is HUGE, more on that another day)

🤍 genuine joy in each other’s wellbeing: they’re actually happy for your wins. there's no competitiveness or lowkey resentment when good things happen for you

let me be clear: a close relationship doesn’t have to hit ALL of these perfectly all the time (no relationship does).

but the pattern over time matters.

if most of these are present most of the time, that’s a quality relationship. if most are missing, then that’s prooobably what’s been making things feel off, even when you couldn’t quite name why.

the modern problem: connected but not close

we are more “connected” than any generation in human history. group chats, DMs, social media, video calls… you can technically be in touch with hundreds of people every single day. and yet loneliness has been steadily increasing for years (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015 - they’ve found that chronic loneliness has effects on physical health comparable to smoking around 15 cigarettes a day… which is genuinely insane to think about?!).

so how is that possible, you ask?

bc being constantly in touch is not the same thing as being deeply connected.

a lot of our daily “connection” is what i think of as thin contact: surface-level pings that register to our nervous system as social, but don’t actually give our brains the depth we’re wired to need. a reaction emoji on a story. a quick “how’s it going?” text. a group chat where everyone’s funny and nobody’s vulnerable.

don't get me wrong, none of that’s bad! it’s just not the same as someone who actually knows what’s going on in your life, who you can call when you’re falling apart, who notices when you’ve gone quiet for too long.

the stoic angle

this wouldn't be The Soft Stoic Letter if we didn't look at what the Stoics had to say about relationships. so here's a beautiful quote by Marcus Aurelius:

“we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. to act against one another then is contrary to nature.” — Marcus Aurelius

(yeah, told you it was a beautiful one.)

according to the Stoics, humans are made for connection.

🏛️ they had a word for this: sympatheia. it's the idea that everything in existence is interconnected, and that humans specifically are designed to be part of a larger whole. so, acting against other people isn’t only unkind in this view, it’s also quite simlpy working against your own nature.

🏛️ another related concept: oikeiôsis, which means natural affiliation / familiarization. the Stoics described moral development as expanding concentric circles of care: you start with yourself, then extend to your immediate family, then friends, then community, then all of humanity. growth, for them, meant the gradual extension of genuine care outward.

which is honestly beautiful! it’s saying that becoming a better person isn’t about becoming more independent or more self-sufficient (modern individualist culture’s favorite goal lol). growing as a person manifests in expanding who you actually care about and how deeply.

“friendship of all things is the most delightful, the most pleasing, and most desirable.” — Seneca

Seneca, too, understood that we need each other.

BUT (and this is the important caveat)

🏛️ the Stoics also wrote a LOT about not making your inner peace entirely dependent on other people. bc other people are, ultimately, outside your control. they can leave. they can change. they can disappoint you in ways you didn’t see coming.

so even though connection is essential, building your entire sense of wellbeing on a single relationship (or even a few) is pretty risky to say the least.

what the Stoics were pointing toward is a distinction i talk about a lot in my workbook: the difference between attachment and love.

attachment tends to come from fear: you need them to stay, you need them to behave a certain way, your peace falls apart if anything shifts.

love is something different: rooted in care, not fear of loss. it doesn’t require constant proximity to feel secure. it doesn’t demand things from the other person in order to exist.

🧠 modern psychology calls the healthy version of this interdependence: you're connected AND secure in yourself. not codependent (“i need you to be okay so i can be okay”), not hyper-independent (“i don’t need anyone”). both ends of that spectrum lead to suffering. the middle is where we're aiming.

a note for anyone reading this from a lonely place

this is important so i want to say it directly:

if you’re reading this and going “great, the strongest predictor of my wellbeing is something i don’t really have right now”... please don’t spiral.

the takeaway here is that this is one of those areas of life where intentional effort genuinely changes SO MUCH over time. so i want you to see what you might not have right now as a starting point rather than some verdict you're stuck with.

✨ here are a few things worth remembering:

your current relationships are NOT your forever relationships. the people you’ll be close to at 40/50/60 might not even be in your life yet. relationships are built, not assigned. you can absolutely start building deeper connections at any age!

(and honestly, in some ways adulthood is a better time to do it than school, bc you actually know who you are and what you’re looking for now.)

yes, it does take effort. yes, it does take being open. and yes, it does take saying yes to things sometimes when you’d rather stay home. but it is genuinely possible at every stage of life.

and if you’re an introvert (hi, same), you don’t need a huge social circle to flourish. two or three close people you can actually be real with is genuinely enough.

bc like we established: it's quality over quantity. 💞

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sth to learn from

okay so. friendship history time.

i grew up as the kind of kid who had one or two best friends at a time. but i also dealt with periods of pretty rough isolation. i felt left out all the time and never really felt like i actually belong.

and then towards the end of high school, our classes got reshuffled, and i suddenly found myself part of this group of 8 girls. they had all known each other for years before i joined, but they let me in like there was no question about it.

that group is the first time i actually understood what friendship could look like at its best. ofc there was drama and fights and discussions (we’re all real people lol), but never the gossipy mean stuff. there was always understanding, and space for each person to be a whole different individual. it was, frankly, a kind of emotional maturity that 17 year olds aren’t typically known for, and i still think about how lucky i was to land in that group. 🥹

i don’t talk to most of them on a regular basis anymore. we live in different cities and countries now, all doing our own grown-up things. but i know with complete certainty that if i needed any of them, they would be there. and whenever we manage to meet up, it’s like no time has passed at all.

that's some quality friendships right there.

now, in my actual day-to-day adult life, the landscape looks different and less storybook-pretty: i have maybe two really close friends where i currently live.

this is mostly due to the fact that i've become more selective. i try to only spend real time with people who are uplifting, who share my core values around things like honesty and integrity. and i'm very consciously not pursuing connections with people i can sense are going to bring drama. this is not even out of judgment really, just out of: i don’t want that in my life.

i won’t pretend this has been all rainbows and butterflies. being more selective has cost me certain relationships. people i used to spend time with don’t really like me anymore. i’ve said no to things and had it received badly. but i've learned that that’s part of the trade, as tough as that sounds. you can’t curate your closeness and expect everyone to like you for it.

but i’d rather have a small, peaceful inner circle than be liked by everyone but essentially dreading half my interactions.

it's quality over quantity after all. 😋

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sth to practice

this week’s tool works for two different starting points. whether you have great close relationships you want to invest in further, OR you’re still building your circle and want to be more intentional about how… this should fit either way.

1️⃣ clarify what you actually value in close relationships

before you can deepen what you have or seek out something better, you need to know what quality looks like specifically for you.

grab something to write with and sit with these for a few minutes (this is not a quiz, just a reflection ok, no right or wrong here):

• what do you most need from a close relationship to feel safe and seen?

• what do you have to offer in return?

• what’s non-negotiable for you (the things you won’t compromise on, the values that have to be shared)?

• what’s something you’ve tolerated in past relationships that you don’t want to tolerate anymore?

• when you’ve felt closest to another person, what was present that made it feel that way?

the point here is getting specific. once you know what you’re actually looking for, both noticing it AND building toward it becomes way easier.

2️⃣ one small action this week

pick ONE thing based on where you’re starting from.

→ if you have close relationships you want to invest in:

reach out to one of them this week with something a little more substantive than the usual. have a real conversation, do a check-in that goes deeper than “how are you”, or make plans that involve actual time together.

make an effort, whatever that looks like.

→ if you’re still building:

pick one small openness practice, like

• saying yes to a social thing you’d usually decline

• having a slightly longer conversation with someone you’ve started to like

• being a bit more open about something real in an existing acquaintance, just to see what happens

• signing up for a social gathering or meetup where you're likely to meet like-minded people

• reach out to someone online who has inspired you / seems interesting to you and let them know

no matter what group you're in, by doing this, you're investing in the conditions where deep connection becomes possible.

so pleaaase don't skip the second part ok thank you very much.

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sth to ask yourself

here’s your journal prompt for this week:

where am i closing off from new connections out of comfort or fear? where could i be a bit more open?

or choose one from step one of the tool above. :)

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sth to save

here’s this week’s reminder. save it as your lockscreen, or keep it in your camera roll for when you need it.

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next week: M is for meaning — purpose, contribution beyond yourself, why “what do i want to be useful for?” might be the single most clarifying question you can ask yourself.

📒 if you want to go deeper on healthy attachment, interdependence, and building relationships that actually nourish you instead of drain you, my workbook the stoic girl starter pack has an entire module dedicated to this stuff (it’s one of my favorites in there honestly). you can grab the workbook here. 🤍

🌷 and if you’d like some more guidance on your personal development journey, check out my video course/community here – we work through the whole workbook together. 🤍

until next week,

with love,

luise

M.Sc. Psychology | Founder of Blussomly

website | instagram | tiktok | youtube | email

References:

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.

Waldinger, R., & Schulz, M. (2023). The good life: Lessons from the world’s longest scientific study of happiness. Simon & Schuster.