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Ambivalent relationships drain the most
The background drain
Ambivalence runs like an app in the background, draining energy without being noticed. The ambivalent friend appears on the calendar and prompts a thought of canceling. Afterward there is the sense of wasted time: tired, unable to remember what was talked about, unsure whether the friend really likes you or whether you learned anything.
Sorting your people
These relationships cost more energy than the good ones or the toxic ones. One way to sort them is to list everyone in your life and mark each name: a star for people you would move things around to see, a minus for people you dread, and a question mark for people you would forget about if you didn't hang out. Weeks go by without a thought of the question marks.
Taking a break
Taking a break from the question marks shows whether they are missed. The time and energy that comes back can go to the people with stars, which deepens those relationships.
Why can't people keep up with everyone?
The Oxford evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has argued that people's social circles form layers of roughly 5, 15, 50, and 150 people, each about three times the size of the one inside it. Closeness takes time, and the time people can give is limited. In an 18-month study, Sam Roberts and Dunbar found that friendships declined without face-to-face contact. Family ties were more resistant to decay than friendships in that study.
Why do unresolved obligations nag at people?
In 1927 Bluma Zeigarnik, working with Kurt Lewin in Berlin, found that people recalled interrupted tasks better than completed ones. In 2011 E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister reported that unfulfilled goals intrude on a person's thoughts. In their experiments, making a concrete plan for the goal reduced those intrusions.
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