Relationships rarely mimic each other. We may not actively realize it, but each relationship serves a specific purpose in our lives –and this isn’t meant to be some profound statement. We simply partition our interactions into categories that fit our interest. One person is the go-to friend when it comes to your favorite sport, another is the chap you discuss the latest in Internet marketing with; so on and so forth.

 

Yet finding common ground is contingent upon common interest –and interests are always in a state of flux. So what do we do when interest in a relationship starts to fade? There are really just two things to do.

 

Struggle for Common Ground in Relationships

 

1) Diversify

 

An individual has more to offer than what is offered to you. Sometimes the key to maintaining a relationship is learning to move away from the underlying purpose of why that relationship started to begin with.

 

Some business relationships develop into personal relationship, and these personal relationships in turn lead back to future business relationships. Other businesses thrive on offering diversity. They use an array of choices to maintain interest; though this doesn’t in any way detract from businesses that choose to focus on one niche.

 

Personal relationships may not sustain well with merely one area of common interest. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. By growing different interests within the same relationship, we can avoid the possibility of tying down the health of a relationship to the health of your interest. Sometimes we’re going to grow out of hobbies or activities, but this doesn’t mean we have to grow out of our friends.

 

How to diversify?

 

Get a glimpse of the other interests a friend has, and see if it fits you. New interests are bound to pop up when conversing; it’s a natural process of discovery. Alternatively, the artificial approach would be to create those new interests by, in turn, creating opportunities to nurture new interests. Agree to try something new, or get involved in an activity they partake in.

 

2) Let it die

Sometimes there’s no use propping up a dying cause. Forgetting about a friendship isn’t a sin; it’s just a sign that you’ve both moved on. Your lives don’t tally. These friendships either get forgotten entirely or move into a separate category we could call “passive” relationships. These are relationships that pop up every now and then, but never really create a big difference.

 

To grow and explore new relationships, sometimes we do need to outgrow the ones that hold us back. It isn’t a rule, but it’s a likelihood.

 

When to let a relationship die?

 

ome relationships enter a phase where the interactions in them are meaningless –and you know it. It’s this feeling that we are interacting for the sake of interacting. This could be a telltale sign that the relationship has actually died out, yet we are propping it up for the sake of formality. Alternatively, just let the process run its course; if you haven’t noticed anything, it probably means the relationship has lost its importance.