Being socially connected and having flourishing friendships can deeply enhance the quality of your life. The right friendships can uplift you and help you get through the toughest times. However, not all friendships will have the same impact on you. Some can even feel emotionally uneven, where you feel like you give more than you receive, or you walk away from interactions feeling depleted rather than nourished.
People don't support those who are just credible and reliable; they respond when valued and understood. Emotional closeness and trust predict willingness to help far more than formal authority or job title. When support is seen as self-serving, reciprocity drops. Genuine altruism inspires stronger responses. Building authentic, ongoing relationships makes it natural for others to want to help when you need it most.
Reciprocity (give-and-take exchange) is essential for successful human interactions. Feeling motivated to return a favor (and feeling owed for a favor) drives social behavior, personal interaction, and interpersonal attraction too. In fact, as I discuss in Attraction Psychology (Nicholson, 2022), reciprocal social exchange is the heart of dating and romantic relationships. Beyond that, it is a motivational force in professional interactions as well.
"I have a rule: I never accept an invitation if I don't want to invite somebody back," Garten told Esquire. According to Garten, you should never invite anyone because you feel obliged, and she is right! Fewer things are more uncomfortable than extending an invitation to someone whose company you don't enjoy, and on the flip side, no one wants to go to a dinner party if the invitation wasn't genuine.