Friendship according to urban dictionary, occurs when you love someone and would do anything for them.
This is exclusive of sexual love, often called platonic friendship.
We all want to have friends, people we can trust with every aspect of ourselves, but sometimes people change and friendships end.
Here are some of my rules for maintaining friendships beyond, or outside, of places you might meet someone.
1. Honesty is best policy
As an adult, maintaining friendships is different.
When you’re young, in school, there is more time to focus on going out together.
With adult friendships, honesty is best policy because it means you’re communicating.
The outcome may not always be comfortable.
It may be hard at first to express your honest and authentic self, but it is necessary.
If you hold back from expressing your truth, then hiding that emotion will end up hurting your friendship in the long run.
No matter what, be honest.
2. Keep it light and fun!
This doesn’t mean you can’t have those deep conversations about high school bullying.
If you trust your friend enough to embrace the conversation about past trauma, by all means, have that conversation!
Live your truth no matter what that looks like!
Keeping friendships light and fun means finding the humour in life, and being able to laugh at yourself.
I’m a big fan of being silly and letting it out through dancing.
3. Reason, season, lifetime
Throughout my life, I have had many ups and downs with friendships in particular.
They say that is a symptom of borderline, I say, it’s life.
I would put all of myself into my friendships, my friends were my world.
Of course, that’s what I learned in school, how else would anyone know if you were cool besides the friends you had?
Except, the cool people were never my friends.
I was friends with many groups of different people, and I liked it that way.
Interestingly enough, the issues arose when I was in a group of friends.
Friends are in your life to teach you something, to make your life better, and to open your heart to love in a new way.
There are some who will stay for a lifetime, a reason, or a season.
Each friend has something to teach you.
4. Gossip kills friendship
At camp, I was taught that gossip is a sin, and that to be a child of God, in the best way possible, talking about people behind their back is not a nice thing to do.
Some may see this as indoctrination, with it being called a sin and all.
Honestly, though, when does gossip ever benefit anyone?
IT DOESN’T.
The rule is;
if someone says something to you about someone else, they are probably telling someone else about you.
It shouldn’t be something that I am writing about, gossip kills friendships.
I don’t care if you thought that Sally should know about what happened between Carly and Mary, it’s not your place to tell Sally about that situation.
Did it happen to you? NO. Then don’t repeat it!
Even though I learned this at camp, being at an all girls school, it was extremely difficult to stick to the no gossip rule.
As an adult it is easier, but in certain friendships, such as coworkers, it’s harder to resist telling something that happened, or nit-picking a situation.
I am observing that in groups it is harder to resist the urge to gossip about other people’s business.
5. Personal development improves friendships
I’ve talked a lot about the self in my posts throughout September, but I want to reiterate here;
self-love is vital to healthy friendships
It is as simple as being able to understand that not everything is a fight.
Friendships are hard because we cannot read each other’s minds, and so some actions might come off as annoying, but are not intentionally meant to annoy you.
Personal development allows you to know the difference and be self-aware enough to communicate your need in an assertive and respectful manner and maintain that friendship despite the actions which initially cause annoyance.
It is not something that can be done, and completed, personal development is a constant in adult life.
There are always new situations to learn how to navigate.
By reading, watching, listening to, and then reflecting on what others have to say about personal development means you are better supported in yourself to deal with the navigation process.
No one is perfect.
But we can learn everything we can about assertive communication in order to maintain healthy and happy friendships in our adult life.
Remember…
Everyone is different, so my tips for friendship are setup by my experiences of friendships, which are different from anyone else’s.
In the words of Tm McGraw, always stay humble and kind.
With light and love,
Blessings,
Stay true stay weird.
~~ Kristina