Friendship
I remember the rules of making friends in kindergarten. It was easy. You just walked up to someone that seemed nice (or had the same lunchbox as you) and said “Do you want to be my friend?” There were no limitations or requirements. There were no qualifiers or expectations. It was just friends. Inevitably the other person would say “Sure!” and you would run off hand in hand to play and rejoice in a new born friendship. As we get older, our lives become more complicated and so do our friendships. On a weekly basis I hear adults share the desire to have lasting, meaningful friendships. I see the peace that healthy friendships bring and the heartache that comes when a friendship is deteriorating.
One of the key components to a healthy, meaningful friendship is open and honest communication. Healthy communication is what makes those great friendships so meaningful. Unhealthy communication is what causes many friendships, or relationships for that matter, to fall apart. Being open and honest with yourself is a great way to prepare to be open and honest with others. Communicating with friends involves both sharing your challenges and successes as well as allowing opportunities for your friend to share their ups and downs. It’s a balance between being there for someone else and that person being there for you. Although there may be times when you need to lean on the other person or they need to lean on you; there has to be balance. Imbalanced friendships quickly turn into trouble. It is important that, from time to time, we evaluate the friendships that we are in to determine if they are healthy.
Often times when I work with individuals that are struggling with a lost friendship, I learn that the two individuals have simply grown apart. Sometimes life takes us in different directions. Two people that were best friends through grade school may struggle to keep in touch when one goes away to college. Having children sometimes changes a friendship. It is ok for two people to decide that they need to go in different directions.
Social media has confused the word “friend”. If I look at my list of “friends” on social media, most of them are people that I once knew in high school or are distant acquaintances. I hear teens say to me “I have 200 friends on (whatever social media platform)”. When we are talking about true friendships, quality certainly comes before quantity. I don’t know that I would be able to meet the physical or emotional demands of having 200 close friends. I’m not even sure if I could juggle 20 really close friends!
If you are struggling with developing or maintaining healthy friendships; the first step may be to sit down and write out a list of the qualities you are looking for in a friend. You can then review these qualities to make sure they are realistic and healthy (a friend that is available 100% of the time may sound good but that isn’t realistic or healthy). It may also be a good time to look at the list and ask if these are qualities that you bring to a friendship as well.