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Friendship celebrations


Erederyn

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Do you wish there were some sort of ceremony or event to celebrate your friendships? Romantic relationships are often celebrated with anniversaries, engagement parties, weddings, and so forth. People often congratulate couples when they start a romantic relationship or move in together or get married. But people don't do that for friends. Of course, you could always decide yourself to celebrate your friendships, but I suppose the difference is that these often do not get the public recognition that a wedding would, if that makes sense. Or do you find any such sort of ceremony or celebration would be over the top and unnecessary, especially since these sorts of things are quite public and potentially performative and/or you feel it's unnecessary to have public recognition of your friendships? 

 

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I don't believe that it is unnecessary to have celebrations for friendships. people have public recognition for famous TikTok couples and famous people drama all the time. why not for friendships as well??

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not sure

on the one hand I would really like to have some sort of celebration of friendship, especially after a year of not really seeing my friends. 

On the other hand I think any sort of celebration will become horribly  tacky. So maybe I don't want anything that would seem like a friendship version of a wedding.

I would rather it be something more similar to how some celebrations like christmas and say, thanksgiving in the US, can become more a celebration of family as fewer people focus on the original culture behind them. If there was a day of celebration where the done thing was to get together at someones house with a group of friends and spend an afternoon chatting, even if it wasn't designed as a day to celebrate friendship, that would be cool.

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I kind of do that with my best friend for her birthday and vice versa. We'll each make a very visible post on social media (Instagram, nowadays) talking about how much we love the other person. Then on or around our birthdays we'll plan an event where we get or make dinner and do activities. Even this year we had picnics (thankfully we're both summer birthdays) and then went to our individual homes for Netflix watch parties.

I have had a few friends in high school and elementary school where we would have friendship anniversary celebrations. The high school friend I'm thinking about was a thing that lasted until our early 20s (unfortunately we had a falling out), the elementary school friends was a couple of friends and wasn't actually an anniversary but just hanging out with the intention of celebrating our friendship like it was a holiday.

That being said, while it doesn't have to be something posted all over social media, I think having friendship celebrations should be totally normal. Friendship anniversaries, if possible, are great. Sometimes we can't remember a specific anniversary, that's okay. Pick a date. Or, just have a random celebration. If you, like me, are very extra and love to make things (even small gatherings) special with decorations and food, do that! 

I currently consider myself greyromantic but may be aro when I consider my past romantic relationships, but I have had romantic relationships in the past and I feel like the pressure in Valentine's Day and even Christmas celebrations with a romantic partner is so intense compared to the pure joy of celebrating the love of a friend. 

 

also hey y'all first post glad to be here!

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Hey @vvv! Welcome to the community lol! 

Your post makes so much more sense than mine did lol. tbh i would do all the things in that lol.

2 hours ago, roboticanary said:

On the other hand I think any sort of celebration will become horribly  tacky. So maybe I don't want anything that would seem like a friendship version of a wedding.

like, i agree. not a celebration like a wedding but like spending the day together, buying food, being random with each other, and just enjoying that and each other. my bestie and i try so hard to have days like that lol but its hard cuz of covid and i keep getting quarantined lol.

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In high school, my friend group regularly had sleepovers whenever one of us had a birthday, so that kind of felt like a tradition/anniversary/friendship celebration thing, especially bc being invited to birthday sleepover by friend initially was kinda the start of being acknowledged as actively close friends rather than friendly acquaintances.  Even if not exactly a public acknowledgement thing, having times to get together like that can be nice.

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I agree, there are many ways to celebrate friendships! It's nice to read about the different ways you all do that ? I used to do friendship anniversaries more often when I was younger, but most of my friends have outgrown this. And I think even just planning a nice lunch or fun day out together can definitely be a way to celebrate.

But yeah, there's nothing big that is a recognized form of celebrating a friendship. Not that public recognition is necessary to treasure your friends (like I said, a lot of those things tend to be very performative anyway), but sometimes I see how people treat milestones in the romantic relationships of others, and I feel a bit... left out? No one congratulates me on a friendship. I don't get well wishes or cards or the like from others because I've become best friends with someone. 

I'm going to celebrate 20 years soon with one of my best friends, and my other friends haven't really reacted to this when I tell them how excited I am. I'll be doing something with my best friend to celebrate that anyway, but there's not really any external recognition. And yet my friends are planning these huge gifts and moments (even traveling with covid restrictions) to celebrate the civil marriage of our mutual friend. 

Then, I also vaccilate- I sometimes want to have a big thing for my friendships, but like @roboticanary said, it could become tacky. Also, would I then have some ceremony or party for all my friends at once or per friend? ? That could become over-the-top lol.

But for sure, we should still celebrate our friendships, regardless of whether it gets public recognition!

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On 3/9/2021 at 11:32 PM, roboticanary said:

On the other hand I think any sort of celebration will become horribly  tacky. So maybe I don't want anything that would seem like a friendship version of a wedding.

Doesn't this always happens if you take a well-known ritual and use it for something else? It's usually done for parody reasons, but if it's taken seriously, it's tacky.

So if we would carbon-copy the wedding ceremony and make it for friends it would be positively a joke.

OTOH blood brotherhood ceremony... not a fan, but is it really tacky? I'd say no. So an original non-tacky friendship ceremony is possible. I just think that this one is quite bad. Why does it have to be painful (and unnecessarily dangerous) if it's about friendship?

Edited by DeltaV
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20 hours ago, PeepsInTheChiliPot said:

I’d love for there to be a friend celebration that’s a bit mainstream. My close group of friends are big on celebrating everything so we’ve sort of had days out in honor of our friendships. 

I wonder what a good day for a global friendship day would be... 

You know, I think there should be two, so that we can have a summertime one and a wintertime one for each hemisphere. I'm speaking from a US-perspective, but it would also be nice if they could be in months where there are less-to-no recognized federal or cultural holidays... Maybe August and January...

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4 hours ago, vvv said:

I wonder what a good day for a global friendship day would be... 

You know, I think there should be two, so that we can have a summertime one and a wintertime one for each hemisphere. I'm speaking from a US-perspective, but it would also be nice if they could be in months where there are less-to-no recognized federal or cultural holidays... Maybe August and January...

According to Wikipedia, in the US national friendship day is the first Sunday in August. They have a list of the days for other countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Day

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6 hours ago, PeepsInTheChiliPot said:

According to Wikipedia, in the US national friendship day is the first Sunday in August. They have a list of the days for other countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Day

Let's celebrate all of them ?

What would you do on a friendship day? Except make the greeting card companies rich?

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On 3/11/2021 at 12:14 AM, DeltaV said:

So if we would carbon-copy the wedding ceremony and make it for friends it would be positively a joke.

OTOH blood brotherhood ceremony... not a fan, but is it really tacky? I'd say no. So an original non-tacky friendship ceremony is possible. I just think that this one is quite bad. Why does it have to be painful (and unnecessarily dangerous) if it's about friendship?

Agreed, I don't think it'd really work to just take something like a wedding ceremony and make it for friends, there would have to be some original ceremony.

Blood mention:

Spoiler

Funny that you mention a blood brotherhood ceremony, because my best friend and I did made a blood oath when we were 9 years old to be chosen sisters for life. Looking back, I think maybe it wasn't so sanitary or safe hahaha. 

 

9 hours ago, Holmbo said:

What would you do on a friendship day? Except make the greeting card companies rich?

Hahah, yes, we'll make greeting card companies so rich, they'll have to recognize us! 

I'd probably turn friendship day into a friendship weekend, honestly ? I'd organize a weekend getaway for us to spend some quality time together in a nice area. We'd have a nice dinner planned (where we can dress up if we want to because why not?). It'd be a time to reminisce and appreciate each other. If they want, people can exchange gifts. I'd like to write a nice little note for each friend as a keepsake. 

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4 hours ago, Erederyn said:
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I'd probably turn friendship day into a friendship weekend, honestly ? I'd organize a weekend getaway for us to spend some quality time together in a nice area. We'd have a nice dinner planned (where we can dress up if we want to because why not?). It'd be a time to reminisce and appreciate each other. If they want, people can exchange gifts. I'd like to write a nice little note for each friend as a keepsake. 

I like that idea!

And if we do really expensive weekend it works with your first suggestion too ?

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  • 1 month later...

I want my friendships to be celebrated, just the length alone of my friendships have outlasted marriages. Why wouldn't I want to celebrate the amazing people in my life? 

Gosh this could be so exciting making up traditions and such. 

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  • 1 month later...

Yeah if I had proper friends x3 I think for that just a general party for all ur friends is good tho. 

And there is ofc friendship day. A nice chance to send someone a card or a small token gesture gift some snacks perhaps.

Also birthdays exist :3 if you don't mind celebrating just one person at a time.

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Friendship day sounds amazing! I usually use my friends' birthdays to tell them how amazing they are, but it would be nice to have an occasion to celebrate the friendship itself.

As a little kid I remember some of my classmates having "friendship ceremonies" at recess that were basically reenactments of what we imagined weddings to be like, and at the end someone would say "I declare you best friends. You may now hug." It was kinda cute.

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