On Better Friendships
You might need to breakup
I don’t think we examine the quality of our relationships often enough. That might explain a lot of the pain, incompatibility, miscommunication, heartbreak, and strife in our interpersonal lives.
Even when we do evaluate, we hardly focus on our most common relationship: friendship.
Friendships are incredibly unique. There may be some common tropes, recurring themes, and dynamics, but since no two people are the same, no two friendships are either. Yet all healthy friendships have three specific things in common: integrity, caring, and quality.
Integrity
Integrity refers to your own consistency of character.
Are you trustworthy? Can someone rely on you regularly to be with them and for them through thick and thin? Are you dependable? Can people count on your word as your bond? How honest are you? Do you speak openly and kindly, from the heart, or do you deceive? Are you loyal? Do you have your friend’s back? And conversely, can you trust others? Trust must be mutual.
Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose.
Without integrity, a friendship lacks the strength to weather even the slightest pressures. The gossip of a stranger, a white lie, or a miscommunication could easily demolish the relationship.
Caring
Do you understand your friend’s love language? Do they understand yours? Do you empathize with one another, understanding and sharing each other’s feelings? Or is emotional communication imbalanced? Do both sides come to conversations free of judgement and open to listening? Do you support your friends and do your friends support you through bad times AND good times. Support through good times is key. If your friends aren’t showing up for you, there may be some jealousy and negative energy that needs to be addressed.
Caring — about people, about things, about life — is an act of maturity.
Quality
Are your interactions filled with synergy and good humour? Or are you bogged down by the weight of obligation? What’s your dynamic? Have you reached a mutual understanding of what works best for both of you? Do you have fun? It may seem obvious, but so many of our friendships, upon further reflection, aren’t very enjoyable.
Now What?
1) Change Nothing
Refuse to self reflect or grow. Refuse to communicate with your friends in an open and healthy manner. Spend the next few decades with a gnawing sense of discontent with your relationships before finally dying.
2) Breakup
Perhaps you haven’t been as honest as you should be, or perhaps your honesty is far too brutal. Maybe you’re judging your friends based on your way or the highway. Maybe you’re dragging the corpse of the friendship along out of obligation.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
If you don’t believe that your friendship(s) can be saved, move on and find new ones.
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
3) Improve Yourself and Your Friendships
Work on yourself. Open the avenues of communication. Reach out. Have a heart to heart and figure out what works for the both of you. Remember to never depend on one person to fulfill all your needs. That sort of pressure kills friendships fast.
Talking to your friends about your friendships may feel awkward, meta, and difficult, as though you’re breaking some unspoken code, but it will be worth it. Life’s too short, and you don’t know what you’re missing.
Good luck.
You can follow Saint Andrew on Twitter @_saintdrew, and Tumblr @saint-drew where I share my thoughts, opinions, and art.
