When we were talking about groups, it made me think of my home friend group a lot. It’s much easier to analyze something when you’re far away. Well, I mean, it’s hard emotionally, but distance gives you a different, more objective perspective.
Last year, my home friends and I realized that there was a problem in our group. No, we weren’t arguing. There weren’t any moral or ethical concerns or even a lack of communication. In fact, everything felt too stable and good. That’s when we started to notice that we had slowly stopped sharing the “negative” stuff – mostly the self-reflective things, the deeper conversations about our personal struggles. Why? I didn’t really have an answer at the time. We talked about it briefly and moved on.
But our class reminded me about this issue.
One of the concepts we discussed was group norms – the informal or formal rules that shape how members behave in a group. Sometimes, these norms shift without us realizing it. In our case, I think an unspoken norm developed over time: to keep things light, not to bring up anything “too heavy.” No one said it out loud, but maybe we all felt all different sorts of pressure and stress, so we decided at least not to bring these things up when enjoying our time together. And once that became the norm, breaking it felt uncomfortable, even though we had always supported each other in the past.
Another factor could be group cohesiveness. Ironically, the closer and more stable the group is, the harder it can be to disrupt the established harmony by bringing up negative emotions or personal struggles. We were so focused on maintaining the feeling of closeness that we might’ve stopped being fully honest with each other.
Now, after reflecting on it through this new lens, I think we didn’t lose our connection – we just let our norms evolve in a way that didn’t serve us emotionally. Maybe the next time I’m home, I’ll bring this up again.