[TL;DR: What type of friend are you? Is there a problem with unconditional support as a friend? How does your peer personality affect others when it comes to negative influence of drugs? We experienced The Birthday Party – one of three immersive escape rooms at The Trip: What Happened in Larspura – and walked away with new thoughts about friendships. And the kind of friend I’d like to be.]
The Peer Ecosystem
Ever wondered about the different types of friends we want to have in our friendship circles? Maybe there’s a ride-or-die friend who gives unconditional support in all situations, or the social butterfly who is the life of the party. Maybe there’s also the social connector who keeps everyone together, one who observes from the sidelines, or even the friend who’s free-spirited and never imposes or judges? Got all these friend-types in your life? Check. Now, which category do you fall into and what would you do in situations where your friends are under pressure to engage in harmful activities?
A recent experience at an escape room got my friends and I talking about the different types of friends that we have and how sometimes our friends can unintentionally harm us, as they navigate different influences and situations.
The Experience
Set in the context of a party, we had to interact with four friends of a fictional character Ben who abused drugs (imprinted with an otter) and was ill. Through our conversations with these friends, we had to uncover the real story that started Ben’s drug addiction and the roles each of the friends played in leading Ben towards drugs. Whether it was a friend who actively encouraged Ben to experiment and try new things in the name of fun, or a friend that helped cultivate Ben’s permissive attitude towards drugs through inaction or “unconditional” support, their impact on Ben’s life were evident as gameplay progressed. The ride-or-die, unconditional friend Kevin, inadvertently enabled Ben in every way even as Ben consumed the illicit otter pill. JJ, the respectful observer, continued to maintain distance and boundaries even as Ben had his first taste of drugs and continued to watch silently as he abused it without intervening. Similarly, the social glue Ash, prioritised keeping peace within the group over the health and life of Ben, while May, the social butterfly of the group even encouraged Ben to experiment all in the pursuit of fun.
When the Rubber Hits the Road, What Type of Friend Am I?
Each of these peer personas and the social setting we were immersed in at The Birthday Party demonstrated to us the complexities and challenges in speaking up against drugs and protecting our peers in these high-risk situations. From the perspective of the different characters, each of them had different motivations and reasons for acting the way they did.
Intervening and speaking up is not easy: after all, it does not guarantee that we can protect our friends and convince them against consuming drugs. This could be especially difficult in group social settings, where the action of speaking up or intervening could be seen as undesirable and going against the group.
In the face of a situation like what happened at The Birthday Party, how then should we act? Should we hold ourselves back from intervening when our friends engage in harmful behaviour?
Let’s think about it differently. Youths in Singapore feel a high sense of belonging to their peers. This means that, even as young people, each of us has immense power to influence – whether this is positive influence or negative influence. We can have the ability to exert this power and influence to help our peers out of bad situations. Though we can’t control how others respond, the possibility that our peers might accept our guidance means we can make a positive difference by using our influence thoughtfully to protect them. Speaking up in these challenging situations could prevent our friends from abusing drugs and protect them from the lifelong harm that comes with drug abuse. In the case of The Birthday Party, imagine what Ben’s life could have been, if each of his friends had chosen to speak up and dissuade him from abusing the drug. If each peer persona had acted otherwise – leaning into and embracing their power to influence – Ben’s life trajectory could have been completely different.
While Ben is a fictional character from the escape room experience, the story mirrors very real experiences suggesting that this happens more often than we think.
What would you do if you were one of Ben’s friends? Would you step up to convince Ben not to consume the drug?