How close are you to your colleagues ?

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I’ve recently started a new job. I left my last role due to bullying so find I now hold back with new people until I really get to know them. It’s a really friendly and outgoing team and they’ve made me feel really welcome. I can see they’re a close bunch.
Am I wise to be like this holding back or am I unreasonable?

I've had colleagues that have turned out to be very close friends who i would tell anything to.

I don't work with any of them anymore right enough and tend to hold back a bit now.

Not sure if that comes with getting older? Those close friendships were formed in my late teens/early 20's.

Hold back to start but just gauge it to see how it goes i'd say.

It's only me and my boss, and we get on brilliantly. We sit and chat all the time, discuss our personal lives and go out for a 'works christmas doo' together somewhere expensive. I would class him as a good friend.

I work in a very small department. Some of us get on better than others (e.g. chatting about anything under the sun, being guinea pigs for our latest cookery exploits and so on), but there is one person that we all know to be careful around, because they carry tales to the manager (who encourages it, but that's a whole other story).

I don't think that it's unreasonable to hold back to start with. It takes a while to rebuild trust and gauge other people and their reactions, especially given the bullying at your previous job. However I do hope that you settle down and feel comfortable within your new team soon.

I like my colleagues and care for some of them, however I share little about anything meaningful in my life. Party because I’m a chatty but aloof person, and partly cus I’ve learned if you open yourself up you get burned.

I find I’m able to care but stay at arms length. Occasionally go to the pub on a Friday, but I don’t see any of them individually outside work. Keep myself to myself. Works for me. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here.

We are a tight knit bunch of 34 individuals. We work in a centre for kids with mental health and behaviour issues. We have to have each others backs and be there in a lot of ways for each other. It’s a hard place to work mentally and emotionally. We socialise together, message and do all sorts. All very close and know each others families and go on days out together etc. I couldn’t work anywhere else. You spend more time at work than you do at home so I feel it’s important to have good relationships with colleagues. Even former colleagues have remained really close.

I have some friends from 40 years ago, we all started work in the same place at same time, only one of them still works there but we are all still close.

This, maybe over time you get to make a real friend or two but they are just a random group of people employed by the same company that employs you.

In one job I made a group of friends that I'm still close to 30 years later, including my husband and one of my bridesmaids! My current colleagues are just colleagues though. They are really nice but I don't see or message them outside work.

I work in a small team and we are genuinely a close nit bunch. I am particularly close to 1 of them who I consider a friend. We are all being made redundant and will most definitely keep in contact xx

I think you’re wise.

I’m friendly with colleagues but apart from one person I talk to outside work on WhatsApp who I would now call a friend (we both previously worked for another organisation and she has since left my current organisation after 2 years) no one really knows anything about me such as my relationship status, age or anything other than roughly where I live and where I have been on holiday because it came up by chance. I have had dinner with colleagues when away for work together but that’s the limit really.

Professional boundaries are important.

my colleagues are great, theres some im closer to than others but you can be friendly and close but you dont need to give your whole life story

Most of the friends I’ve made as an adult have been through work - I met one of my closest friends in the job we both started as graduates almost 30 years ago. She left after about six months and we live in different cities but we’ve always stayed in touch and meet up in person a few times a year. I think I have collected a good friend in every job, including one I hated from day one and started looking for another post after about two weeks.

In my current job I have three friends who I am in touch with outside work, would go for lunch or whatever with. I have one colleague I actively dislike and avoid but am professional and pleasant with, the rest of my team I am happy to chat to and like well enough but wouldn’t seek out.

I’ve kept in touch with previous colleagues but the ones I work with now would turn on me (and do!) every chance they get to make themselves look good