Is three a crowd or is three allowed?

I am the first one to admit I am wary of group friendships. After some negative experiences I learned the hard way not to put all your friendship eggs in the group basket. I prefer to have individual friendships. For a start it is safer, because if you fall out with one of them, you don’t automatically fall out with all of them. Secondly, individual friendships naturally allow for more intimacy and privacy to really get to know each other on a deeper level and talk about things you might not feel comfortable discussing with the group. Lastly, conversations tend to flow more freely between 2 people, with less tangents and equal talking and listening.

However, that’s not to say I haven’t found myself in group friendships from time to time, regardless of my preference to avoid them. Sometimes you are welcomed into somebody else’s group. Other times a duo, becomes a trio inadvertently. And sometimes a trio is formed naturally by association. I have experienced all three of these triad friendship scenarios, and only one of them has lasted the distance.

There has been a lot of attention right now on the triple friendship thanks to the third season of “The White Lotus” show on Netflix. The season features a somewhat relatable tale of a group of three female friends and a behind the scenes look at the potential for toxicity that exists. Naturally all is seemingly rosy when the triad are all together in the one room, but get any 2 individuals in the group away from the third and you can almost guarantee that the third will be the topic of conversation… or should I say criticism, ridicule and or judgement by the other 2.

It’s a risk you take, I suppose. We all know that women are prone to gossip, and often it is harmless enough. Other times, we might speak about the third party with genuine concern or even plan something nice like a surprise. It is NOT always bad…. But it certainly can be and based on the buzz the season is causing, I’d say that more people relate to the darker side of the trip than the vanilla and strawberry components of this particular Neapolitan sundae! So I thought I would share my experiences and try to make a comparison as to why one failed and one succeeded.

Firstly, the triad friendship that is thriving, was never intentionally formed as a triad. It so happens that the 2 other lovely ladies involved knew each other a while before either of them met me. Whereas in the one that failed, all three of us were relatively new to one another. I had met one of the people involved, and we had become fast friends. Which, in of itself is often a red flag. Anyway, after a few months perhaps, my new friend had made another new friend. They thought we would get along and were keen to make an introduction. They weren’t wrong. We got along great, as we shared a common interest in writing and content creation. We spoke the same language and this was someone who could read between the lines intuitively and hear what I was not saying. I love people like that.

As our bond blossomed however, the friend that introduced us became increasingly uncomfortable, feeling excluded when myself and this new person would communicate online privately or get together as a duo. It appeared my friend had considered us to be their friend, but never considered that we might foster a private connection too. This friend began running interference, lying to us both and manipulating situations to the point that I decided to extricate myself from the group altogether. It was nasty and ugly and didn’t reflect on any of us particularly well, however I still stand by my choice.

In the thriving threesome however, my 2 friends had already formed a close connection. Over the years, although I met them in a group setting, I formed a strong connection with one of them in particular and we became close. It wasn’t for many years later that the second friend and I actually started becoming friendly. These friendships formed very naturally and independently. Only after a time when both friendships had reached the point of closeness, did we even consider getting together as a triad. And when we did, it was for my birthday. I saw no reason not to do this, we were all friends. And it went swimmingly. We had such a great time, we decided to make it a regular event.

However, all of us understood that this was not an exclusive triad. We each have, and respect, our private connections as duo’s and that we can, will, and do maintain those individual connections. With plenty more to talk about than each other.

I will admit that I talk more openly with one party than the other, however myself and the second party share more in common in terms of life and our engagements with each other are far more frequent. I have no idea, and no need to know, how often the other 2 talk or get together without me. I do know that if we suggest something as a three and one isn’t interested, we are very open about the other 2 going ahead with the plan, however, if one person is unable to attend, but interested, we will work together to try and find a solution that includes us all.

https://alexalexander.com/joining-friend-groups/

The second situation is more mature, more evolved and more natural, where as the first one was more forced, orchestrated, and was supposed to stick to a particular narrative. It wasn’t flexible enough to change and evolve with circumstances and possessiveness and jealousy started rearing their ugly heads. Gossip, control, lies and manipulation crept in. Insecurity and some sort of assumed hierarchy or loyalty tore us apart.

I have no concerns at all about anything similar happening in the second triad, because we communicate and speak positively and don’t try to control the narrative, or each other. We respect each other as individuals and support the paths we are travelling. We respect one another’s opinions and experiences and input and rally when one of us needs it. We are there for each other, as individuals and as a group.

What I didn’t realise, or perhaps respect, in hindsight, was that I had been invited to someone else’s friend group in the first scenario. It wasn’t their intention that we would form friendships and they felt their loyalty was betrayed. So if you have been invited to someone’s friend group, know your place, and try to understand and respect the boundaries and limitations there. Then maybe it could work, but wont be as close.

If however, you have formed a trio more naturally because you all had the mutual friend anyway, then it has a greater chance of success on the basis that it doesn’t take priority or impede on the duo’s involved.

So, is three company, or is three a crowd? And is three allowed? I think it can be either company or a crowd and you’d be wise to know the difference before it is allowed!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

If conversation feels one sided, does that mean the friendship is one sided too?

A few posts back, I made a reference to the fact that a friendship might be lopsided at times, with one party having less to give at any given time due to circumstances outwith their control, while the other party finds themselves stepping up to compensate. This is completely normal, so long as it goes both ways and each of you knows they can count on the other to do the same when needed. If it is consistently one person doing all the heavy lifting, then the friendship is one sided, not lop sided.

Similarly, there have been times when I felt the burden of communication was solely on my shoulders. It might be that I am the one always initiating contact, or that it is always me who is asking them about themselves and their lives, while they show little to no interest in my own. This alone doesn’t always constitute a one sided friendship, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t notice the imbalance quite obviously.

I do have friends with whom I consider myself more of an audience than a guest speaker, however the circumstances do differ. With these friends, their lives, are truly more hectic, chaotic, dramatic and generally, well, more interesting than my own. However, they do make an effort to direct conversation my way, it just so happens that I don’t have much to share. Particularly if we see or speak regularly.

With friends you speak to all the time, it seems reasonable that you have conversations that seem boring on the outside, but that provide much meaning; because it is in the mundane details of life that you really get to know a person. You share details with these friends you might forget to share with someone you only catch up with once a month, simply because the smaller details slip into the background to cover deeper territory. However, sharing a laugh with a friend that you just slipped over at the local shops or smashed your partner’s favourite mug develops an intimacy, and it is nice to have people to share these smaller details with on the daily.

What is harder to swallow, is the type of friend who seems to only get in touch when things in their world aren’t quite so rosy. A friend who wants to share every screenshot of messages between them and the person they are seeing to decipher the secret meaning. A friend who calls to send hours on the phone dissecting their relationship or that fight with their boss. But when you try and share with them your thoughts on the musical you attended on the weekend, you get a flat response like “I love musicals.” Nothing further. Nothing that invites conversation. No explanation of what musicals they like or questions about what you enjoyed particularly.

These are the conversations that tend to leave us feeling drained and used. Because when we try and change the subject away from our friend or the current drama, they show very little interest in engaging. Worse still, if you try and share your own drama, they either don’t show interest and say “That sucks” and nothing more, or they quickly relate it back to themselves and before you know it they are once again stealing the limelight. Never short of something to share, but never seeming to allow you the space to do the same, even when you really need to.

I am always a big believer in reciprocation. Of course, in a perfect world this would mean that you give your best self, and your level of friend energy and intensity, wherever it may lie, is reflected back to you. However, this isn’t a perfect world. And sometimes you give, hoping to receive, and end up disappointed. And in these circumstances, all you can do is be the mirror instead of hoping they will mirror you.

Give them short, disinterested answers when they try and share with you. Don’t overly engage with their stories or be a willing audience. You might be surprised, they may even read the subtle signals and self reflect that actually those kinds of conversations are relatievely unsatisfying and that they have unwittingly been subjecting you to this. Or they may just cool off at any more attempts in engagement as they go off in search of someone else to be the next willing audience.

Either way, your own energy is preserved from this kind of emotional vampire. If they do decide to discard you, then you haven’t really lost a true friend anyway, and if they are able to show up for you, then each of you has actually learned a valuable lesson. In most cases I would not advocate for bringing this up to your friends direct attention…

That said, if this is a long standing friend, who has had a sudden shift in behaviours, then I would suggest you might practice patience, before gently sitting your friend down and telling them that you don’t feel they have been able to hold much space for you recently, and you want to understand the change, and see if you can’t course correct to a more even keel. If this is the case, practice diplomacy and kindness. The truth might hurt to hear, but that doesn’t mean you have to deliver it in a harsh or hurtful manner… even if you are feeling angry and hurt.

Speaking of one sided conversations, this blog is my voice, sharing my thoughts. But it doesn’t have to be one sided. Comment here, or head to facebook to engage with my stuff there. Share your own thoughts and experiences because we can all draw on these to learn and grow collectively?

Hope to jear from you soon.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The friendship reinvestment plan

The friendship that turned out to be the catalyst for this blog, was clearly  one that was dear to my heart. I was hurt and confused when my friend seemed to disappear into her own world, her own life, and it felt like she had entirely forgotten my existence at all. While there, at that stage at least, had been no harsh words or bad feelings between us, that I knew of at least, our friendship just evaporated right before my eyes.

It’s a story as old as time, isn’t it? Girl meets boy, and promptly forgets about her friends, leaving them in the proverbial dust as she races down the aisle? And that readers, is exactly what happened. My friend seemed so confused, when I expressed hurt over her magicians disappearing act from my life. As far as she was concerned, I was still her best friend in all the world. Just because we didn’t see or speak to each other as much as we used to, didn’t mean she loved me any less. While the logical part of me understood this to be true, in theory, the truth remained that I no longer felt loved.

Our weekly girls nights in had stopped in favour of her going on date nights out. Initially this was fair and I was happy to oblige, however, when she still hadn’t resurfaced nearly a year later, my patience was growing thin. Didn’t she miss me? I missed her. Why hadn’t she noticed we weren’t spending time together? Had it ever been meaningful for her, or had it just been a space filler until she met her prince charming?

When I met this friend, she was in the throws of a painful separation and soon to be divorce. So it wasn’t really surprising that she was seeking new friendships, to start a fresh chapter. Naively, no part of me questioned where her old friends were. And, had I questioned it, I would likely have just thought that she had learned a valuable lesson about maintaining friendships and relationships simultaneously so she wouldn’t find herself in a similar predicament again next time. I blindly trusted, without discussion on the topic, that if she did start dating again eventually, that we would remain close.

The fact that I am writing this post at all, tells the rest of the story, doesn’t it? When she started dating, it was exciting as I got to hear all about the disasters and highs and lows. We analysed texts and discussed the pros and cons of each guy like she was buying a new car. I guess I never considered what her eventual choice would mean for me, and our friendship. Or how convenient her singleness had been.

Things became increasingly tense between us as I attempted to demand time with her and she was unable or unwilling to oblige. She said she was always there for me if I needed to talk, but I was not receiving any calls to see how I was to even tell her, and messages went unread and unanswered for days. And yes, I did see that she was online not reading my message. She, understandably became fed up with my disappointment in her, and demanded I be happy for her. We were at a standstill, neither able to show the other what she wanted to see, or provide the support she needed.

It didn’t help that I didn’t think she should marry him, and I told her as much when they got engaged. By the time of the wedding, that she did go through with, I wasn’t even sure I would make the guest list. But I did, and at that stage, I knew I had to let her go emotionally and wish her well. Although it was difficult and painful for me, I managed to find acceptance and maintain a more casual connection with her. Although she still thought of us as best friends, I no longer felt that way, but I could see that we didn’t have the same beliefs and values around what it meant to show up as a best friend.

I knew I could still talk to her about anything and everything, but because she wasn’t around, I didn’t really. We were just moving in different directions, but I did still have love and care for her none the less. So when that marriage also came to an end, I was there for her. Not to the same extent that I had been the first time though. So when she found herself once again living on her own, I never suggested we reimplement our weekly girly catch ups etc… I had learned my lesson. I knew there would be another man soon enough, and there wouldn’t be room for us both. I only visited her a handful of times, although I felt a bit mean about it when she suffered an injury that basically left her bed bound for months.

I wasn’t wrong though, as soon as she recovered, she had put herself back out into the dating world and had soon enough met another man I didn’t particularly like the sounds of. I actually never met him, despite the fact that they eventually bought a house together and were together about 5 years. That’s not to say I didn’t see her though. This time perhaps she had learned a lesson, and suddenly she was much more engaged in our friendship despite her relationship.

She came on weekends away and plenty of girls nights outs, leaving her partner at home to do whatever men do when we leave them to their own devices. And he seemed happy to allow her the time and space, which he last husband did not. So for the next few years we grew closer again. We started talking again, deeply, and I could feel the spark reignighting.

Sadly, her relationship with this latest man had started to sour, after 5 years, and she had decided to end it. The circumstances were complicated but it soon became clear it was her only option. She was unable to find a rental and didn’t really have anywhere to go. So we sat down and looked at the numbers and figured out she could possibly afford to buy a small 2 bedroom apartment for herself and her daughter. And once we did that, she put the wheels in motion.

She eventually moved into her new place, and has sworn off men. Ok, yes, I will believe it when I see it, but at the same time, the commitment to buy a place on her own and provide her own security has me fairly convinced she might mean it this time. So my question, I suppose, becomes, is it safe to reinvest emotionally in this friend? And if so, how much time should I invest in her?

I have contemplated if my unwillingness to show up for her after her second divorce contributed to the loneliness that saw her fall into the arms of another man nowhere near good enough for her. Perhaps if I had of been around more, she might’ve been happier on her own? That said, this has all led her to her own place, which can only be seen as a positive.

The problem is, the more time I spend with a friend, the more emotionally invested I tend to become. So I don’t know how much I should be there for her. She has my full support, of course, and I have spent time and money on storage solutions and helped her source much needed items from my contacts…. And I do not want her to be lonely. Part of me is actually excited that the opportunity to reinvest has presented itself again.

So I have decided to commit to making time for her on a monthly basis. Time I will actively pursue. I will be open to more time if she pursues it. I am not willing to commit to any formal schedule at this stage, because then we will each feel trapped and burdened by this in time, and I will miss it if she is ever unable to continue it. (And resent it if it is because of a new partner.)

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am willing to reinvest slowly. I don’t think I am throwing good money after bad, but this time I will be cautious, and invest based on all the information. Our friendship was always worth the emotional investment. I have never regretted it. I just didn’t do enough research the first time. Now I have more information to practice a more realistic and stable approach.

I am a believer in reconciliations and second chances, are you?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!

When a friend can’t show up for you.

The whole purpose of this blog, is basically, to remind you, and myself, that when a friend lets you down or withdraws, it usually isn’t about you. More often that not, it has nothing to do with you at all. Sounds simple, right? It really is! However, the reason I have a whole blog dedicated to the subject, is because it so often FEELS like it IS about you.

And, to be fair, in some ways dear readers, it is. Because although their reason for withdrawal may be completely unrelated to you, their absence is still felt by you, and you are still the one left dealing with the consequences of something they themselves are going through. This leads me to todays post, to explore the situation further when you need a friend to show up for you emotionally, or physically, and they are literally too caught up in their own heaviness to be there.

Somewhat recently in my own life, a close friend withdrew from me quite suddenly. I tried to be patient and understanding, because I was well aware of the issues this friend was dealing with in their own world, and that they were feeling pretty low and stressed. You can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.

We celebrated my birthday in August, and as my gift they had purchased tickets to an event for us in early September. If memory serves correctly, it was the end of August when they received some heavy news. We still attended the show in early September, but I could feel that my friend was somewhere else; physically present but emotionally absent. In the car on the way home that night, I initiated a conversation about things and although the discussion was heavy, my friend seemed to feel lighter for having shared what was on their mind.

This particular friend loves the phone, and would call me (yes, actually call, not text) several times a day sometimes, and always a few times a week. Never at any specific time, just whenever the urge hit. So I definitely noticed the silence and the absence from my life in the way of physical presence too. I invited this friend to a theme park with us at the start of October, (a month being an unusually long time for us not to have seen each other or spoken really) and they did come along, however seemed to spend the day avoiding me or any real conversation. It felt awkward and strained.

I reasoned that maybe they didn’t want to talk about it and wanted to distract themselves on the rides and slides, letting off some steam and not thinking about their situation for a minute. Which was reasonable. However, when they cancelled on me for our next ticketed event the following week, (tickets we had from the previous Christmas) I started growing concerned. This friend is habitually late, but in all the years of our friendship, they had never, that I could recall, actually cancelled on me. I tried to remain calm and cheerful, telling them that I completely understood and was always here if they wanted to talk. But I guess they didn’t because by the end of November I hadn’t seen or spoken to them in any meaningful way and we had not seen each other in person since that first few days of October. Which meant that since August, we had only seen each other twice, when typically we were catching up about once a week if not more, before that. I say this to allow context. I don’t expect to see all my friends this often, and for some of them, that schedule would be normal, however for this particular friend, it was a noteable shift.

Messages to say I was thinking of them were left on read. Memes sent were not reacted to. Emails about the kids schooling or questions about Christmas were unanswered. My phone was not ringing. It was getting harder to ignore the withdrawal and not take it personally, so you’d think I would’ve been relieved when the phone did ring eventually. I was… initially.

Except that during this particular call, my friend had to call me back 3 times because they were helping another friend with an emotional crisis, and needed to go to her house for a coffee. The second time they called me back, they were talking about the new cake place they tried at their weekly catch up with another friend. And the last time they called they complained that a third friend of theirs had made plans with them, then changed said plans, and my friend was annoyed because this change meant they weren’t going to be spending enough time together as the plans were shortened by 2 hours, not leaving enough time to have a meal and chat.

It is very hard not to take a withdrawal like this personally, when you are well aware that the person is not withdrawing from all their social contacts, but just you, specifically. So of course, my mind went into overdrive (which is never good, by the way) trying to pin point the moment that I had unwittingly offended this person. When I came up empty, I decided the best course of action was to quietly let this person go. That appeared to be what they wanted.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t hurt, upset and annoyed. I was. But what can you do? If our friendship had run it’s course, that didn’t surprise me, given that we have had a bumpy road over the years. Maybe they were done with the drama and maybe that was for the best. So I was even more hurt, confused and annoyed when on the odd occasion I did hear from them, it was to ask me for favours. Could I buy and deliver flowers to someone on their behalf please? Could I bring them lunch at work because they left theirs at home. Could I go collect an item from the buy nothing pages before they gave it to someone else.

This person was not showing up for me in any real way, and yet kept asking me to do things for them, without addressing the unanswered messages or the distance between us. I have learned better than to bring it up myself. I didn’t want to know why they no longer wanted to be my friend, because that was only going to serve to make me feel worse. And honestly, I was tired of caring, when it didn’t appear to be reciprocated.

So I was surprised, to say the least, when this friend showed up at my house on the 1st December to give me our annual advent calendar exchange. I had one to give her in return, as I had bought it in the after Christmas sales earlier in the year (it did not contain perishables) however, I just wasn’t expecting it to happen. The exchange was brief, as they showed up right when they knew I would be leaving to take my son to work. They also had someone else in the car with them. So we didn’t even hug. They presented me with a beautiful calendar that I very much loved, and I ran inside to grab theirs, then we went our separate ways.

When I returned home, I messaged my friend to thank them for the lovely gesture and to say I was surprised to see them in all honesty. They acknowledged that they had been terribly distant and apologized. I admitted that although I knew they were dealing with personal issues, that I felt hurt and abandoned, not to mention used and taken advantage of. That I understood the need to withdraw, but found it difficult not to take it personally. They acknowledged that they knew it was painful for me, and that was part of the reason they kept their distance, because they couldn’t deal with my upset about things, and they felt guilty.

But once we had communicated things clearly, we were able to resume our connection. I just needed them to communicate clearly with me, and they needed the same thing. They should have explained why they weren’t able to show up for me, and acknowledged that they knew I might struggle with this but it wasn’t personal. And they needed me to broach it, to express that I was feeling hurt and used and abandoned although I understood their energy and capacity to give was low. I didn’t because I didn’t want to start a fight. And isn’t it ironic that we both didn’t want to cause conflict, so we avoided the conflict until it was too big to ignore.

If your friend is going through something and they can’t show up for you at the moment, allow them some grace, but don’t allow yourself to get hurt. You matter too, and if they are your friend they will care about that no matter what else is going on for them. And if you are the friend who is going through something heavy, communicate that to your friend and reassure them that this is not personal, you do care about them and if they really need you, that you will still be there, but to be patient with you meanwhile. A friendship may be lopsided at times, but it should never feel one sided.

All it takes is clear communication so everyone knows where they stand.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Falling out with work friends

Remember when you were in school, and one of your good friends, sometimes even all of them, have stopped talking to you, for whatever petty reason school kids can muster. Sometimes for no reason at all other than to test the loyalty of the group, and take pleasure in the power, not to mention your misery.

Part of the reason it was so torturous was that there was no escaping it. You literally had to go there and subject yourself to the silence 5 days a week. Mind you, at least, back then, before the internet took off and mobile phones became commonplace, you could escape at the end of the day. If you are of my vintage anyway… perhaps I am showing my age!

I want to tell you that when you leave school, things get much easier as you surround yourself with a variety of peers. Many older and more mature, men and women, from different backgrounds. You’re less pressured to be a certain way and more able to be your true self…. Right? Well, yes, and no. Just because you are free to be yourself, doesn’t mean everyone will like you. They wont, and this can make work every bit as torturous as school, with the added pressures of seeing passive aggressive vague posts directed at you on social media or having to keep it professional outside of office hours for the greater good.

It is exhausting when you don’t get along with a colleague, and painful to understand the impact this can have on your relationship with other staff members too. Particularly if you considered those people friends. And work is so much more enjoyable when you have meaningful friendships within it. I am certainly not advocating for people not to make connections at the workplace. That would be nearly as miserable. Nearly.

But when a colleague takes a disliking to you, either directly or as the result of some sort of altercation or misunderstanding etc….suddenly work is a much harder place to be, no matter how unenjoyable it was before. You either end up isolating yourself from them, and anyone they associate with, or find yourself isolated unintentionally as everyone else awkwardly avoids you so as not to get involved themselves.

Added to this, it can be difficult to talk about the situation without putting others in an awkward position, which may lead you to further isolation. And there is nothing worse than watching the person who is making your life a misery swanning around laughing with the others in the break room while you eat your cold spaghetti at your desk because heating it up would mean going in there, where you are clearly unwelcome. You would rather avoid the awkward silence that ensues when you enter the room and the longest 2 microwave minutes of your life.

You might notice someone you normally chat with at the water cooler is suddenly avoiding eye contact and drinking only hot coffee today, despite it being the hottest day on record, or the stern look on your bosses face that tells you they know what has transpired and somehow believe it is all your fault and you better fix it, pronto!

So what is the best course of action? Should you confront your colleague and ask to discuss any problems or tension in the air? If you do, will they acknowledge the issues, or politely give you a cold smile and tell you everything is fine? Should you hunker down in your office and avoid eye contact with everyone until the storm blows over and it is safe enough to re-emerge? Should you call a meeting with your boss, or HR, to get the issue mediated professionally and pursue any warranted bullying claims?

Honestly, it does depend on the person and the situation you find yourselves in. If they are bullying you, then a trip to HR is warranted, no matter who’s feathers may get ruffled. It would also teach others not to mistreat you as you wont hesitate to take the appropriate action. However, a trip to your boss may not be the smartest move. Maybe they got there first, or maybe your boss wont appreciate you dragging them into things. You want to demonstrate that you have the maturity to handle personal conflicts in the workplace, and not make a public display in the process.

It may be advisable to request a private meeting with your colleague, to clear the air between you, however if they are the sort of person who is giving you the cold shoulder, they may not be open and willing enough to do this, particularly if they have rallied other colleagues against you in the meantime. It’s difficult to know if the other team members are on the bully’s side, or if they just want to avoid being in your position.

Should you talk to them about it? Probably not, unless they approach you about it directly themselves. I do always remember one colleague approaching me and asking for my side of the story in a similar situation and I actually had a lot of respect for her for doing this. Not because she was butting in where she didn’t belong, but because she was not just going to believe everything she heard and wanted to make sure I was ok. She told me what the other person involved was claiming and told me she wasn’t interested in taking sides, but that she felt I should know what was being said about me, and she didn’t feel it was fair to assume it was true. The fact that she spoke to me at all was soothing to be honest as everyone else seemed to be avoiding my desk, which was separated from the others by a wall at the front of the office, like the plague.

However, just because it mighn’t be appropriate to discuss the situation at hand with your other colleagues, that doesn’t mean you should stop talking to them entirely either. Of course you probably worry about putting them in an awkward position if they get seen conversing with the enemy, however if they were truly your friend, they wouldn’t be concerned about that enough to turn their back on you entirely.

My friend has currently found herself in a position where the colleagues she has fallen out with, have a close alliance with some of her other key support people and friends at work. She has noticed one of them appears to be avoiding her, and while disappointing, has made it clear where their loyalties lie. Another colleague who does not wish to get involved however, is still friendly with my friend and willing to partner with her in team building exercises etc…. So this act has solidified their connection. These things do tend to show you who your real friends are.

The best course of action however, is to do nothing, to say nothing and continue on being your awesome self until they get over themselves or find something new to be upset about. That said, this is the precise reason it is not wise to have all your eggs in one basket. It is better to have a few close friends from different areas of your life, than to have only one or only all work friends for example. So that you still have some support of impartial people no matter what. Whatever you do, just don’t suck up to the bullies and reward their behaviour. Their behaviour says much more about them than it does about you and vice versa. So just be cool calm and collected, no fight, no flight, no freeze, no fawn. Your work and your attitude will speak for itself. But if you can’t resist a passive aggressive statement, I found a save the whales poster behind my desk was effective, funny, and eased the tension somewhat! Haha

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

People Pleasing is Pointless

This post is a follow on from last weeks post “Amigo’s with Anxious Attachment.” Please click the link or scroll down to the post below to read it first.

The whole point of this blog is essentially to remind readers who identify with my struggles that it isn’t about them, to calm down and focus on something that is! The reason it’s a struggle, is because it is painful to us when a close friend disappears from our orbit, for any reason. And if those of us with anxious attachment styles, can make it about ourselves, maybe we can make changes that might control the outcome? We can’t, I know that, but essentially that appears to be at the core of it. We just don’t want to lose you, and if we are losing you, it’s too painful to bare, so you better get lost! Fast! Don’t prolong the pain by slowly and quietly distancing yourself. Let’s just call a spade a spade, and end it! The ambiguity is intolerable. If we feel you pulling away, fiction easily becomes fact. You hate us, and probably always have. We are prone to allowing negatives to rewrite the history of our narrative, and erase any positives.

It’s defeating, because we try so hard! We try to figure out who it is you want us to be, and then we try to be that. Or, failing that, we will try and be like you instead. And it works for a while. But inevitably we crack. We can’t always perform. We might’ve had to let you down or tell you no, in order to please someone else. Then the shame spiral kicks in. We know you’ll eventually leave when you realise we aren’t perfect, or more so, when you discover we aren’t who we pretended to be.

Our real shame should be deceiving you to begin with, although we meant no harm. We do cause harm, to ourselves, to our friends, and to our friendships. We say yes, when we mean no, and let resentment build until we snap. We snap at people for using and abusing us, when in reality it was us who mislead them to begin with, into thinking we were always happy to serve. How can they know what we didn’t tell them? We were easy to be friends with because we had no needs… does that mean we didn’t need them? If we don’t need them to show up emotionally, why should they? Why would they? We ask for nothing and become increasingly upset that we get nothing.

You don’t get the chance to know our authentic selves, or the fact that actually we hate the ballet, even though we have gone with you for years, or that we are allergic to cats although yours has sat on our lap every single visit. (It’s ok if it costs us a small fortune on antihistamines and allergy pills that we load up on before we come over, and swallow more of in the bathroom at your house. As long as you never know!) We never tell you what we like, want or need. To be fair, a lot of the time it’s because we don’t know. We have spent our whole lives pretending to like things other people like and needing nothing at all, for fear of being seen as needy. We just need you to stay. (Not needy at all, right?!) We are protecting you from letting us down by not being interested in us, because we already know we aren’t interesting, and protecting ourselves from the pain of you rejecting us for who we actually are.

But if we are going to be rejected anyway, isn’t it better to be rejected for who we actually are rather than making all this effort to be someone we aren’t? What’s the point if they ultimately won’t like that person either?  And, if someone can’t make allowances because we don’t like the ballet or we prefer them to not have the cat trigger our allergies, is that someone we want to be friends with in the first place? We should give our friends more credit than that, because if we think so little of them, why are they our friend? Will we take anyone that will have us? If that’s the case what is our friendship worth? Is it a valuable asset, rare, to be cherished as we so desire, or as common as a till receipt to be tossed away without a second thought?

Our friendship can only have value, if we ourselves know our value, and make others pay the proverbial price for our friendship. Just as we do for them and theirs.

We can’t please everyone all the time, so why not just please ourselves, and allow our friends the opportunity to please us at times too?  We’re only making them feel inadequate and indebted anyway, and actually that doesn’t feel good. They aren’t perfect, and they don’t want you to be perfect either!

We need to try giving a little less, and taking a little bit more…. Maybe even asking for a bit more if that’s what we need. What’s the worst that could happen, that wasn’t going to happen anyway? This way, maybe it won’t. And if it does, we haven’t abandoned ourselves, which is what really matters, and what we’ve been doing to ourselves for years and then blaming our friends for it. If we stop abandoning ourselves, maybe this fear that other people will abandon us will disappear? Worth a try, right?

Give people a chance to prove their friendship, even ask them to, and make sure they do it. If they don’t, then we may leave. With no shame, because they let us down, not the other way around. We stood up for ourselves, and took care of ourselves, which is what we should have been doing all along…. Rather than waiting for our friends to take care of us and being hurt and angry when they couldn’t. If we can’t do it, how can we expect anyone else to do it? Sure, you took care of them, but it was at your own expense. They never agreed to take care of you. It’s too much to ask.

We need to stop caring for others as an excuse to avoid ourselves. And stop expecting others to care for us. If we do it ourselves, we wont need them to do it. And not needing them, however much we want them, how freeing would that be?

Let’s try it and see!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Amigo's with Anxious Attachment

I love to play armchair psychologist with one of my good friends. We are both interested in the psychology behind our own actions, thoughts and feelings and those of our friends and family. One of our favourite topics to circle around is attachment theory. We would both self-diagnose as anxious attachment types, and this is evident in our dealings with those around us.

People with anxious attachment, fear abandonment. For this reason, we tend to be relatively submissive, putting the needs of others before our own. Our sense of self worth is largely external, meaning we base how we feel about ourselves mostly on how other people feel about us. The more people that like us, the more likeable we must be! So then we can like ourselves…. This is problematic for many reasons, one of the most obvious being that we never actually truly know how other people feel about us. Most people don’t tell you directly, and even if they do, that doesn’t make it true. And feelings are subjective, nuanced and expressed differently by each individual. Ambiguity almost always exists, and it is ambiguity we find the most triggering.

Even if it is true, that someone likes us, then that’s coupled with the need for us anxious attachment types to make sure that the person in question keeps on feeling positively about us. Not just one person either, this applies to pretty much everyone we cross paths with. The idea that someone wont like us appears to trigger fears that we have been discovered as unlikeable, and it is only a matter of time before everyone else then finds out too! Deep down this must be how we feel about ourselves.

It sounds ridiculous, but it happens on such a deeply subconscious level, that most of the time we don’t even realise what’s happening. All we know is that we strive for perfection, aim to exceed expectation, tend to over give generously, listen more than talk, avoid conflict, and never express negative emotions. Well, not never. Because nobody is perfect, and you can only take so much, so eventually us anxious avoidants will explode, or withdraw, or both.

Our overactive emotional brains perceive rejection, often falsely, and this rejection triggers our fears of abandonment, which causes us to reject the other person before they can reject us. Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy really isn’t it? The thing is, we don’t want to reject people, we are merely trying to protect ourselves from the pain, and distance is the only way to achieve it. But only if that distance is instigated by us. At this point the coin flips and we become avoidant attachment types! Out of sight, out of mind, out of pain. Although, deep down, we want nothing more than for you to ask us to stay, forgive us, and ask us what we are really struggling with.

If you don’t, and why would you if we just ended things? (The only logical conclusion would be that we wanted things to be over, right?) We will avoid you out of shame. Definitely if we have had an angry outburst, spoken harsh words, or made a fool of ourselves crying or begging. But there is also shame for whatever way we let you down in the first place, for not being good enough, perfect enough, no matter how hard we tried. If someone has picked up a flaw, or put space between us, or we made some obvious mistake. If we let you down. The shame, coupled with the fear that the other person hates us now they have seen our true colours, triggers us to run away and hide. If you hate us, we hate ourselves, and we can’t escape ourselves, only you. If the hurt to us, perceived or real, was severe enough we may lash out and hurt them with our words, before we reject and retreat. We are not particularly logical, we are emotionally driven.

It’s ironic, because losing people is the very thing we fear. And yet, more often than not, the people we have lost, and there will inevitably be at least one, probably more, we were the ones who ended the friendship, one way or another. Friendships in particular are commonly the most fraught relationships in our lives, based on the voluntary nature of them. Family is stuck with us, in a broader general sense, although I recognize this is not true for all my readers. Romantic relationships have structure and stages and legalities behind them. Even coworkers are a bit of a fixed position. But friends? They chose us, and they could just as quickly change their mind and leave us.

In a romantic relationship, if a partner stops answering your calls, you are justified in seeking clarification about this. If they have no time for you and make zero effort for 2 weeks, acting as though you don’t exist, you are entitled to be upset and concerned. However, when the person is a friend, it is expected that you just carry on in the uncertainty, not knowing if they are leaving your life or not. If they are mad at you or not. If you have done something wrong or hurtful or upsetting. You aren’t meant to notice, or care. But we do! Although we all know the stresses of being busy, people with anxious attachment styles struggle to accept that sometimes it isn’t about us at all…. Unless we are reassured of this, and then the behaviour changes.

Commonly, if we do feel someone pulling away, we will become clingy. We actually don’t mean to be clingy, and don’t realise we are even doing it. What we think we are doing is trying even harder to please you, in an effort to regain your love and attention. Although the other person might just need some time and space to focus on their own life, we may try and interject. Insert ourselves, give ourselves some sort of role to stay relevant and included. We think we are being generous and helpful, offering support. Then, when said support is rejected, WE feel rejected, and that is when the triggering of anger might happen.

You might hear us throwing back in your face everything that we have ever done for you, how ungrateful you are and how all we were trying to do is help you. The fact that you didn’t want help, can be a bit lost on us. I guess, what I am getting at, is that we tend to make things about us, cringe, even when they aren’t. And that doesn’t usually end well. Either we push you to break up with us because we won’t give you space, or we give you so much space that it takes you a while to notice we are actually gone, when you resurface from whatever was keeping you busy and distracted.

We end things as abruptly as I am about to end this post! But tune in next week for the follow up edition of how people pleasing is pointless!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The Power of Positivity. For my GALentine.

Next week, on the 13th February, is GALentines Day! If you don’t know what that is, click here. If you aren’t sure how to celebrate, try here, here or here for ideas.

However, this year I wanted to dedicate a post to a particularly bright, bubbly and beautiful yellow rose in my life! You know who you are! x

All my friends are so different from one another. Some are serious while others are light. Some are religious or political while others are spiritual or atheist. Some are negative, seeing the bad in the world and the worst in others. Some are realists. But as I sat on the couch of one of my dearest friends the other day and we chatted with her teenage daughter I noticed something.

Talking about an old family friend or acquaintance, (I can’t be sure which as I don’t know the person in question or their connection to my friend and her family,) my friends daughter exclaimed “was she the ranga?” For those of you who aren’t familiar with Australian slang, ranga refers to a person with red hair. It is often, although not always used in a derogatory way. I don’t think my friends daughter meant it to be derogatory, merely a shorthand way to recognize the person in question.

“Yes, my friend beamed, her smile wide and bright and genuine. She’s so beautiful.” The words ran off her tongue naturally and without hesitation or any hint of annoyance at the use of the word ranga. I contemplated how this particular friend, despite her struggles, of which she has more than her fair share, is always such a kind woman, generous of spirit. Of how easily she sees the good in others, and how openly and willingly she expresses it. And how much I love and admire this quality of hers.

She’s the first to correct me if I’m hard on myself, and would likely be the first to jump to my defense if anyone else was hard on me either. She loves to celebrate me, and our friendship and tell the story of how we met when the teenagers were mere tots. She openly expresses, frequently, how important I am to her and how much she values my place in her life. She’s intentional about our time together and always makes sure to fit me in. She’s affectionate, both physically and emotionally. She’s trusting and always making people feel good about themselves in small ways she probably isn’t even consciously aware of.

If she likes the shop assistant’s nails, she will not hesitate to dish out a compliment, or tell a stranger on the street that they look fabulous in that colour. She handles conflict with a calm easiness, and her assertiveness rarely comes across as arrogance. She’s elegant, classy and worldly, yet takes no hesitation in asking the homeless man outside the local supermarket what she can get for him, with a genuine warmth that makes him feel seen, heard and a worthy for the brief moment of their exchange.

It should come as no surprise that she loves colour and art and food, and all things that bring beauty into this world. Her clothes are loud and unapologetic, as she claims space in this world and encourages us all to do the same. In a massage, she will ask the therapist if the pressure is ok for them. She will offer her car to the friend without one, or to drive the neighbour to a doctors appointment.

My friend isn’t perfect, nobody is, and we have had our issues over the course of our friendship, but she isn’t afraid to apologise or to try to deepen her understanding of concepts outside her realm. She is so forgiving in nature, so beautifully vulnerable, so willing to move forward and not hold any grudges. And even when she holds anger and sorrow, she somehow brings beauty to those darker feelings too with her positive aura.

This is the friend I undoubtedly spend the most time with, realistically. I have been drawn into her enigmatic presence since the moment we met. I honestly thought she was too good for me, too cool and confident. Yet it was her, who gave me permission to be myself, and not just a mother and a wife. It was her who encouraged me to have some fun, to treat myself and practice self care. It was her who welcomed me in with her extended family and proudly introduced me much more grandly than I felt worthy of.

As I touched on earlier, this friend has had more than her fair share of setbacks and heartbreaks. She often fears that I dread spending time with her, or feel emotionally exhausted from the endless drama in her life. And yet, this is rarely the case. Rather than drained, I often still somehow feel energized from our time together, because she makes such effort to connect, and to maintain that connection. Her dramas remind me how lucky I am, both in life and to call her a friend. She’s positive, but not toxically so. She is able to hold space for the darker side of life, without getting too bogged down in it all. She will still smile at the waiter and praise them to the boss for outstanding service. She’ll still make a chicken joke given the opportunity!

I am not so naturally light and positive. I like to think of myself as a realist, but, realistically, I am probably a pessimist, which makes her shining her bright light of positivity on everything so balancing and refreshing and hopeful to me.

This post is to thank her for being the bright pop of colour on my canvas, for shining her light in the dark, and always making sure she holds both my hand and my heart tenderly. For being an advocate, for celebrating my successes, no matter how small, and accepting me just the way I am, although I am not as bright and cheery. For reminding me to see the bright side of life, frolic in the fun, and that I am worth spoiling, and worthy of her loyal, reliable, constant and consistent connection.

I don’t say it as often, or as freely as she does, but she is definitely a very valuable bright star that lights up my sky and helps me shine brighter. If you are reading this, you are one of my favourite colours. Never forget it. Never dull your shine for anyone or anything! If positivity was a superpower, you’d be my superhero! Happy GALentines Day! Love us!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

The ConFract - the concept of a friendship contract

Anyone familiar with the real housewives will remember in season 3, when Cynthia presented Nene with a friendship contract! And made her sign it and everything! As we talked about ‘frésumé’s” (friendship résumés) a few weeks back, I thought the formality of the idea fit in nicely with the concept of the ‘conFract’ – a friendship contract.

I know for a fact that there are times when some of my own friends feel like they unknowingly signed a conFract when we became friends, as I have high expectations and I hold them to a high standard. Because I am someone who prefers a smaller inner circle, that means that my friends have a heavier workload in keeping me satisfied. In short, they find me to be high maintenance! I certainly wouldn’t consider myself low maintenance, not for my inner circle.

That said, I struggle to accept that I am high maintenance either. I will initiate contact, I will plan outings or book tickets, I will bring insect repellent, or sunscreen, and pack the picnic. I will remember you have a gluten allergy and cater accordingly. I will ask about your kid, or the doctors appointment you had last week. I will pick up your sick kid from school, help you with your work and wrap your Christmas presents for you. All I really ask is that you show up, engage, connect, have a good time and show equal interest and concern for my own life.

The issue is, of course, that in showing up, what I mean, is making time. Time to disconnect from your phone and your outer world, and connect with me instead. And in this day and age, and in the phase of life I am in, where some of my friends are grandparents, while some have babies, or primary school aged kids, or teens to adult children and everything in between…. Time is the one luxury most people have little of to offer.

I am guilty as charged of encouraging formal arrangements, such as catching up every Sunday night or a once a month brunch. These sorts of arrangements help me feel secure and manage my expectations. If we have agreed to a monthly catch up, I wont expect to hear from you much outside of that. However, as discussed in our last post, I also wont love it if the monthly friend asks me for weekly favours. That said, you can still be a close friend I feel connected to and cherish. That’s true even if I only see you 4 times a year too. As long as you aren’t asking or expecting more than you give, I am happy.

My friends, however, sometimes feel trapped by these more formal arrangements. They prefer a more casual impromptu approach, whereby if they are free, they will call me, and if I am also free, then we will get together and find something to do. As opposed to me finding something I would like to do and inviting them. They feel they are letting me down if they have to cancel. They feel like a bad friend because of all the effort I am putting in and how little they have to offer in return. And who wants to spend time with someone that makes them feel like a bad friend? I am scrunching up my nose as I even write this. Nobody does.

The pro’s to the conFract style of friendship, is that everyone knows the terms of the agreement, and, if this no longer works for both parties, we can come back to the conFract and make amendments. If we were meeting weekly but that is getting too much for one or both of us, we can negotiate to a fortnightly or monthly schedule instead. We can agree not to let resentment fester, and immediately address the issues, instead of retreating or withdrawing when we feel we cannot fulfil each others expectations or needs. And, if we cannot agree on mutual terms, we can agree we no longer fit, and it’s purely a matter of incompatibility rather than a lack of love, like or respect that has come between us and part amicably.

The cons to the ConFract include that it doesn’t feel good to be the person who wants to ask for less. The person who is saying “can we spend less time? Can I offer you less and still expect your friendship, and support?” Although this happens all the time in friendships, it is largely unspoken. One person pulls away until the other gets the hint and stops trying so hard. Or one person takes on a sudden amount of new and added responsibility, or goes through some emotionally heavy event and instinctively the other knows to allow them some space because sometimes giving less is loving more.

When Cynthia presented Nene with her contract, it also included things like not going to sleep on an argument and always talking things out straight away. Because in friendships ghosting is the most common way to end things. Breakups are hard and uncomfortable after all, and when there was no official getting together or monogamy we can tell ourselves there is also no need for an official ending. However, my friends know I will not turn a blind eye to a slow withdrawal from my life. I will attempt to talk it out, even if it fails. This too, is part of the unspoken contract of my friendship. It doesn’t always prevent the endings, but usually does offer a sense of closure, a reasoning or an acknowledgement that we no longer connect meaningfully. I would like to say it means endings are more amicable, but as in messy divorces which are also formal, this is seldom the case. Where there was love, there will be loss and pain.

The reason my friends put up with my unspoken conFract, is because ultimately they think I am worth the commitment. They know I am a good friend and they wish to continue our friendship. They understand that while it might be a little awkward – there is method to my madness and we can all feel a little more secure. Strangely it can keep the lines of communication more open than closed because I want to help my friends meet my needs. I don’t want to ask more of them than they can offer. I don’t want to feel let down every week if they continuously cancel.

It’s always better to know what we can offer each other and accept from each other. Better to know what to expect than to be either disappointed, or, alternatively, resentful because one is asking or expecting more than the other has to offer. And it is always useful to be able to openly communicate about these things. While you might think this formal approach would kill the free spirit of the nature of friendship, it actually gives friendship the respect and commitment it deserves.

There is no literal paper, no signatures, just a conversation and as Sinada Maitreya put it “sign your name” (across my heart!) Except it sings “I want you to be my bestie” instead of baby! ❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Frésuemé – the friendship resume.

While I like to think of myself as a good friend, it isn’t lost  on me that if I was good at friendship, I wouldn’t write this blog about all the challenges I have faced and fractured friendships. So what exactly qualifies someone as a good friend to begin with? Is there a specific set of qualities or actions that amount to the title of good friend?

The answer is no. But if it ended there, this would be a very short blog post, wouldn’t it? Haha The truth is that friendship is less objective and more subjective, and most of our problems seem to arise from the fact that we give what we want to receive instead of what our friend does. Added to which, our values and expectations around what constitutes a good or close friendship.

It seems almost everyone I know includes acts of service quite high on their list of desired qualities in a friend, while it hasn’t been something I personally have required much of. While I value this willingness in my friends, I very rarely call on their services, and if they never really offered practical assistance, I’m not convinced I would even notice, let alone care. However, because I am friends with people who do value it, I find I am often uncomfortably called upon to provide practical assistance to those in my inner circle.

Help with organizing the junk drawer, or doing taxes, help with collecting sick kids from school or babysitting, help with running errands while friends are at work, or away on holidays, help with little admin tasks, or work assistance. To name but a few. I am a useful person to have around it seems, based on the fact that I am not in paid employment so my time is an available asset, not just to myself. (Although if I did use my own time as wisely as my friends use it, I would have a much more tidy and organized house than I do! Haha)

I have posted before about the love languages and how they are also applicable to friendships, and the ways in which acts of service drain me and leave me feeling very used if not much quality time is offered to compensate or meet my own need for closeness and connection. But of course, I don’t tell people this when I start up a friendship, do I? What would that look like?

“Hello new friend, I expect you to spend a lot of quality time with me and if you don’t I will resent you for asking me for favours?” Doesn’t sound very good does it?! Mind you, it doesn’t sound great from the other side either. “Hello new friend! I actually have no time to offer, because I am insanely busy with everything and everyone besides you, but please continue to serve me whenever I need something at the last minute, because you have nothing better to do anyway, right?”

While I am willing to offer plenty of quality time, my friends actually don’t want this, and while they are offering reciprocal acts of service, I don’t really want that, either. So why is it, that when we make a new friend, we aren’t clear like this in our wants needs and expectations? Why don’t we hold interviews and exchange ‘frésumé’s’? We would probably save ourselves a lot of time and energy if we did. And know if we were looking for and offering compatible things.

Mine might list qualities as loyal, affectionate, kind, funny, reliable and generous. I have years of experience and I enjoy long lunches, dinners and movies, comedians, concerts and theatre shows, and deep chats on your sofa lasting hours. My needs and expectations are regular face to face get togethers, open mindedness, vulnerability, sense of humour, attention and effort, and girls weekenders. In return I am willing to offer words of affirmation, acts of service, gift exchanges, affection, loyalty, secret keeping and a safe judgement free space to share. I am an early to bed and early to rise person, and prefer cats over dogs!

If I compare that to the ‘frésumé’ of some of my closest friends, theirs would read:

“Qualities – funny, smart, disorganized, career oriented, social butterfly. Intermittent experience over the years, seeks low maintenance friends able and willing to maintain close connections based on good feelings towards each other despite lack of contact for long periods of time. Values acts of service above all else, will ask for favours frequently, and offer help in return if I can. Prefer phone calls as they are quicker than texts, messages or emails, and value family more than friendships. Seeking a willing audience to listen to my complaints about life, a few quick coffee catch ups a year to which I will be late and probably reschedule at least twice. I love saying we really must get together and never making it happen and pretending we are both the busiest people on the planet. I need lots of time and space, alone time, patience and understanding about how busy I am, good faith that I do really value you although my actions seldom show it, meme exchanges where we do not talk, likes on social media to feel like we know what is happening in each other’s worlds and support with balancing my career and home life. In return I offer unconditional love and good will, understanding when you are flaky or busy, endless praise of all the ways you serve me and how I couldn’t live without you, and a Christmas card. I’m a night owl, as that’s the only time I get to stop and wind down, I love a late lie in, and I prefer dogs over cats.

If we exchanged these facts at our first meetings, we would quickly see we aren’t compatible or looking for the same things at all. But the problem is – the way we begin friendships tends to be akin to the ways in which we begin dating in a romantic context. Which means we invite someone to spend time, and if we are lucky, they make time to spend with us and we have a wonderful time laughing and sharing and bonding over every little thing that we DO have in common. And there is usually loads, and we actually really like each other. I assume they have time for me, because, well, that’s the basis on which the connection was formed. I assume they want to spend time again, because we both enjoyed it so much, and I reach out and ask for another friend date soon….. it’s only then when my busier counterpart starts to realise they may have misled me regarding their availability for a friendship on the level that I am seeking, and they have to spend months or years slowly managing down my expectations in order to keep the friendship alive. This can actually be a painful process for everyone involved.  My friend feels terrible for letting me down, while I wonder why they don’t seem to want to spend any time with me and if I have done something wrong, all the while telling myself if I was important enough they would make time.

When the real issue is that friendships aren’t as important to them, not me, or just that our wants, needs, expectations and values around friendship are so different to begin with that we probably shouldn’t have embarked on a friendship in the first place. Then again, I would be missing out on some really wonderful people if that were the case.

My point is that we should be aware of our friends wants, needs, expectations and values around friendship, and do our best to meet them there. Which requires patience and understanding and effort on both sides. A compromise of sorts, where we are both mindful not to take, nor give, more than the other person can reciprocate!

What would your Frésumé say?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

https://emotionalsupportlady.substack.com/p/are-we-friendship-compatible

Is it Empathy, Sympathy or Pity?

I like to think of myself as someone who is empathetic. The definition of empathy, as described in the online dictionary of Oxford Languages is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” I guess this translates loosely as being able to put yourself in the position of a friend, (ok, it doesn’t have to be a friend, but for the purpose of this article, and my writing in general,  let’s say it is a friend) and not only understand how they are feeling, but also to feel it with them.

In that context, I am not always an empathetic friend, at least not to every single friend in every single situation. Sometimes, is probably as close as I can claim, for some friends, I am empathetic. Although I take too much responsibility for the feelings of others at times, that is acutely different to feeling it for them, or with them. And for the most part, this is probably healthier than being an empath, who absorbs and takes on all the feelings of all the people around them.

Perhaps what would be more accurate, would be to say I am a sympathetic friend. The definition of sympathy, also as described in the online dictionary of Oxford Languages, is “feelings of pity and sorrow, for someone else’s misfortune.” Loosely translated, once again in a friendship context, this is perhaps the ability to know that your friend is struggling and feel genuine sadness for them. So, for example, I might worry about a friend in an abusive or controlling romantic relationship, and feel sadness for my friend having found themselves in this situation, I myself do not feel hurt or abused or controlled. However I would feel the need to help my friend escape this situation in any ways I could, and not judge them for their choices that led them to the situation.

That said, I can’t escape that right there in the definition of sympathy is pity…. The online Dictionary of Oxford Languages describes pity as “the feeling of sorrow and compassion, caused by the sorrows and misfortunes of others.” I can only conclude that the difference between sympathy and pity therefore would be, if in the example above, I felt sorry for my friend, and implied that they had made stupid choices that I would never make, and felt no urge to be of assistance because I felt they got themselves into the situation and should get themselves out of it too. A quick google search affirms this, finding that the main difference is that pity implies an element of superiority.

Why does it matter? Because a few months ago, one of my closest friends called me to share some particularly heavy health news. This news not only leaves her in a state of limbo for the rest of the year, but also has a direct impact on her future, dreams and life planning. She had received the less than happy news a few days earlier, and stated, although I didn’t ask (or demand to know,) that she hadn’t told me, because she couldn’t handle me being “too much.” At the time, she was very upset, and I chose not to address this comment, take her advice at face value, and just listen to her.

I had been in the car, dropping my son at his casual job at the time of the call, and I stayed parked there in the carpark as I listened, and for a while after the call ended, immediately googling the name of the condition, the treatment, the prognosis. I let the tears fall as I drove home, heartbroken for my friend and knowing how devastating this news had been. Wondering what I could say or do, to assist or help her feel better, or, at least, less alone. Alas, there was nothing I could say, nor do really. All I could do was share the weight of this news, carry it with her and feel our way through it, together.

https://www.curlygirldesign.com/shop/greeting-cards/carry-you-greeting-card/

When I got home, I sent her a message to reiterate that I was there for her, that she wasn’t alone in this and some hopeful statistics meaning she shouldn’t lose all hope. I didn’t share that I was heartbroken, although I had said on the phone that I was terribly sorry to hear this news and that she found herself in this predicament. I didn’t mention that I had cried, because I didn’t know if that would be “too much.” It’s such a vague critique, but I could only suppose she had meant that she couldn’t carry my grief on top of her own. Which was fair.

Chatting some more about it the next time we saw each other, I hugged her and said that I was so sorry. Teary, she said “don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault.” Of course, I knew it wasn’t my fault so I explained further that I was just so sad for her, and I knew it was crushing news for her.” Sitting on my couch, she looked at me and said “but you don’t know. You can’t possibly imagine.” She was right, of course, despite my sadness, the news ultimately didn’t affect my life, my future or my dreams. I couldn’t imagine, and I hadn’t tried. My sadness was for her, and her loss, while her sadness was for the loss of a life not yet lived, a path not taken. A path, I might add, that I had taken, lived and experienced. An uncertain future, with unknown goals or aspirations. A resistance to acceptance, with no other real option. Could she, would she, ever be happy? I had no answers.

When I cried after that phone call, that was pure empathy. Absorbing her grief. I suppose though, it was also mixed with sympathy. Absorbing her grief, and feeling sorry for her misfortune and my inability to make the situation any better. But I maintain I did not feel pity. I have always loved and admired my friend, exactly as she is. Although we have taken distinctly opposite paths in life, I have always enjoyed sharing in her journey, perhaps as a glimpse into the other side. She too, represented to me, a path not taken, a life unlived. That said, I didn’t grieve that path, as much as I envied it at times. I know it is different.

What my friend was not saying, when she said I didn’t really know or understand, that I couldn’t imagine, was that she feared I would pity her. That everyone would. She did not want to be perceived as a failure or as weak or broken or less than. And although I would never see her in this light, as she is undoubtedly one of the strongest most capable women I know, this is how she secretly felt inside, and worried others would see it too. Not to mention that when she shared in my journey in life, there was not only envy, but pain, and resentment. Through no fault of my own.

My friend had anger towards me for the life I had led that she had not. She knew her anger was misplaced and unfair, and that I don’t pity her. The truth is, she has self pity right now, so she is seeing the world through that lens. I wanted to reassure my friend that I am in this with her, that she isn’t alone, that I am invested and I care just as much as she does. And they’re pretty words, but ultimately not quite true. So instead, I let her cry, held space for her emotions, let her talk it out, and change the subject when she was ready, or too exhausted to talk about it further.

She didn’t need me to be empathetic or sympathetic and she certainly didn’t need my pity. She needed to feel loved and heard and supported, not pitied. She just needed a friend, a neutral safe space, and for me not to feel anything outwardly at all so she could process her own feelings and hear her own thoughts. So that’s what I’ll be. Enough. Not too much.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Can friends be like Family?

A while back I wrote a post titled “Friends are NOT the family we choose for ourselves.” This proved to be a controversial post, and upset some of my readers, so I wanted to take the time to address this today.

I acknowledge that I write from a place of privilege in regards to this piece as I am blessed with a close and loving family on whom I can trust and depend in times of need. And in times of celebration too. I have never been in a situation where I was forced to replace family with friendships…. Well, sort of, but not in the true sense.

As my family emigrated here a tiny bit before I was born, I do not have the large extended family network here in Australia that many of my friends do. And I observe both the pros and cons of having the extended support networks available to them. Largely I notice that these large family networks keep my friends quite busy and less available for friendship, which, in turn can at times exacerbate by own sense of loneliness, as they are the people I would turn to for my social needs, while their own needs are met more directly by their families.

However, I do understand that is not the same as not having any family around  me for love and support and creating those bonds with friends instead. Let me clarify that I have absolutely no issues with this concept. I do not feel friendships are inferior to family and I do indeed believe they can be just as close, if not closer than actual family.

I obviously failed to articulate myself well in my previous post as many of my readers took the post to mean that I didn’t believe in the concept, when really, what I was trying to say was that friends can in fact be closer to us at certain times, perhaps at all times, because they are usually not related to us by blood.

The factor of separation is actually the beautiful part of friends who are as close as family. They choose to love us, they are not obligated to do so. They probably didn’t know us since birth or have hefty expectations of who we may become in the future. They simply liked us exactly as we were. Sometimes family are so close they are unable to separate themselves from us enough to allow us the freedom to be truly ourselves for fear of how it reflects on them.

At times it may feel with family that they had to love us, or that we have to love them for no other reason than birth circumstances. Whereas with friendships that is simply not the case. In that sense, yes, friends can be the family we choose for ourselves. They often very literally are. But the point of my post is that what allows this is the very fact that they weren’t family in the first place.

Personally, as I grew up with a family that emigrated, we tended to socialize with other families who also emigrated. These friends were family friends, so whilst I  knew they were not family, they did become part and parcel of special occasions and I always knew if I really needed to I could turn to them in a crisis. Their children were probably more like cousins to me than my actual cousins on the basis that we saw them much more often. Yet, I never considered them to be cousins or really family at all.

I have friends who say I am like a sister, or even a wife to them. Friends I have known since high school or even pre school. Friends I know would be there for me when it really came to the crunch, and friends I am dedicated to being there for in return. While I don’t consider them the family I choose for myself, I definitely don’t consider them any less important than family.

I definitely have friends with whom I discuss matters I would be unlikely to raise with the family, and friends whose family I am very familiar with. I have a few who certainly blur the lines between friend, family and relationships.

Because I do have family to turn to though, I would not expect them to be the first in line to help me if I needed it, whereas there is an unspoken expectation that family is the place I turn to first and foremost for help and support and guidance. I have greater expectations of them to be more heavily involved and invested in the lives of my children. My family hold weightier expectations of me in return too. If they need assistance or care, it would be assumed I would be first in line to provide that care and they may ask favours of me that they wouldn’t ask of friends.

This may not be the case for some of you. If you do have a strong network of friends in replace of your family, and you hold each other to the same standards and expectations of family that you can comfortably rely upon, I congratulate you. I am beyond happy that friendships have taken on such an important role in your lives and you have found safe people on whom you can depend.

I would like to formally apologize to anyone who was upset by my former post and took it to mean that I did not feel friendships were as important as family or that they could not serve the same purpose. When my point was really just to say that our family are not always our friends. Our family are sometimes too close for comfort to enable that more relaxed and accepting relationship we sometimes need.  And that friends can indeed step in and close the gaps here for the simple reason that they aren’t technically our family.

So maybe I should have said yes, friends can be the family you choose for yourself, even if your family are not the people you would choose to be friends with. It’s not a competition in any sense regardless, both have their place if you are fortunate enough to have both. Some people only have friends, and some only family.

I am one of the lucky few who have both. I don’t need my friends to be like family, or my family to be like friends, but I am fortunate that I do like my family and do have friends I could depend on like family if it came down to it. Each are just as important to me and I hope to everyone.

Friends are every bit as important as family, however you class them.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

New Years Reconciliations!

Usually at this time of year I would write about new years friesolutions, making new friends, being a better friend to yourself, saying yes to more opportunities to make new friends or renewing your friendship style. So this year, I wanted to write about reconciling and reconnecting with existing friends to make your old friendships feel like new ones. Or at least renewed ones!

Last week I wrote about the seasons in our lives and in our friendships that may make us more or less available to one another or close to each other at any given time. After a season of being particularly distant to a friend I am generally closer to, I wanted to make a bigger effort to re-spark our friendship fire.

It would be easy to blame her for the distance that grew between us this year, and it would be just as easy for her to blame me. How often do 2 people stop communicating by each reasoning that the other hadn’t reached out? When the truth is, if that silence grows, both parties have contributed to the quiet.

It’s not that I didn’t try to address it with my friend during the past 12 months, I did. And it’s not that she wasn’t receptive, because she was. We were able to acknowledge that we were somehow floundering, that our friendship felt forced and unnatural, despite our best efforts to soldier on. Earlier in the year we had exchanged heated words, that resulted in each of us feeling tender and unsafe in a connection that had previously been strong.

Although we got over ourselves and apologized and attempted to move our friendship forward, we had apparently cracked the foundation of our friendship, and so any bricks we attempted to lay to build new bridges crumbled into piles that seemed to build walls instead. We could still see each other, but we couldn’t seem to reach each other.

It’s a pattern I am sure many of you may recognize in some of your own friendships, where there is a hurt, spoken or unspoken, and one person withdraws a little. Then the other withdraws a little as a result of their friend withdrawing. The first friend senses this and withdraws even further…. Until you are so far apart you don’t feel comfortable using the word friend to describe each other anymore. Somehow you aren’t sure it fits. It doesn’t feel representative of your connection.

My friend and I have a Christmas Roast tradition. Which basically means we write each other a mean letter full of jokes at the others expense. And this year, I chose to use that letter to light heartedly address our issues, and let my friend know I missed her. That I felt the distance and I was sorry for the part I played, and that I hoped we could renew our connection, but that if we couldn’t, there was no hard feelings and I wished her nothing but happiness for her future.

She immediately admitted to feeling similarly and apologized for her own role in our drift, and we discussed where the issues were arising and where we could each improve. We noted that we really had to make more effort to spend quality time together which had been lacking and immediately actioned a plan to rectify the rift. We both agreed to start showing up again.

And so far, we have been. She sets off for an international holiday tomorrow, and I know the flight details. It’s not a necessary thing, but it is something I would have known in the past and never bothered to request on her travels in the last 12 months. So I requested the information – not because I need it, just to show that I care. And she let me in on some pretty big health issues she has been facing, hence letting me in, instead of shutting me out as she had been doing.

She spent a day with my kids and I doing something fun, which we haven’t really done much since they were much younger, and it was a nice way to remind us both that there is always a place for her at our family table and she is welcome.

We have been sending memes and short messages most days. Nothing of massive importance, but just pumping some blood back into the veins of our communication and making each other smile. We gifted each other a few tickets for things – an opportunity to book quality time now in advance. A promise that we will make time, actioned, if you will.

To be honest, before this, I wasn’t sure we would even make it to 2025 intact. It felt to me like she was done with our friendship, and I had been working on gaining acceptance about this and letting it go gracefully. Which has never been my strong point. But just as I felt I reached that stage where I was willing to let it go, if need be, she realised that isn’t what she wanted at all. That it was a comma, a pause, not a full stop.

So here is to writing a fresh new friendship chapter this year and seeing if we can keep the connection strong, now our cold winter season has passed. Hopefully our spring will see something new and fresh bloom.

I encourage you to do the same, to make this the year you try to recover old connections and refresh them. Let’s call it 2025 keeping connections alive!

Happy New Year Readers! Thanks for your continued support. Wishing you all the best for 2025, and hoping it is your best one yet! Make it one to remember, not one to forget!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

T’was the season… or was it a reason?

Sometimes when a friendship ends, you ponder, was it a season, a reason or a lifetime friendship. If it ended it is often, not always, but often safe to assume that it wasn’t the latter, which leaves only a season or a reason. The idea that it was a season might indicate that it was short or fleeting… but seasons in friendship are quite a bit different to seasons in the weather.

This is because people live their lives in seasons of sorts. Teens is a season, as is twenties, thirties and forties etc….. Also people have a season of singledom and committed partnership seasons too – which may change quickly or frequently. Raising young children is a season and so is raising teens. Retirement is a season, as are the working years. Studying is another.

There are also other sorts of seasons, for example a season where you are less socially connected. Seasons where you might have a rift in your family. Seasons of illness and injury. Seasons of loss and grief. Seasons of joy and success. And in these different seasons, we attract different types of people. We have differing needs and energy levels to offer friendships, different time restrictions or availabilities and different priorities.

https://www.smallripples.com/seasons-of-life-which-one-are-you-in/

So if, for example you and a friend were very close as you raised young children of the same ages together, and then grew apart more as the kids grew up and chose their own social circles that took you more towards other parents, that could be considered a season. You probably didn’t think of it as such when you were in it, particularly if it lasted a decade or more. I am sure you probably would have considered it a lifetime, IF you had given it much thought at all.

It can be jarring therefore, when your season comes to an end. This is true whether or not you saw it coming. Whether the distance was slow and gradual or a more sudden and obvious change. But sometimes, what was a season for one of you, may have actually been a reason for the other. And that’s not something I really considered much before. I always kind of assumed it would be a mutual thing!

And maybe, in the above example it was a mutual season, or it could even have been both a reason and a season for one or both of you. If you feel the friendship brought you something or taught you something in its season it probably was both. But let’s say, for example, as is often the case, you are in your married season, and you meet a fun friend in her single season… you might find that when their single season comes to an end, your friendship kind of comes to a close with it. That is one of the most common friendship problems.

In this case, it is highly likely that while you were a season for your former single friend; someone to have fun with and pass time pleasurably with while they played the field, for you, perhaps it was more of a reason. Perhaps for you, the reason was to remember yourself, and to learn how to build and re-eastablish friendships outside of your couple. To regain a sense of individual identity and remember that it is ok to have frivolous fun from time to time. Or maybe it was a lesson, if you discovered how much you yourself actually longed to be single and were attempting to live vicariously?

A season friend of course, is no less valuable than any other. They had their purpose, regardless, and although it can be painful if your season ended before you were ready, there is a good chance that you too have been a seasonal friend in someone else’s life without realizing it or meaning to be. For instance that person you used to be close to at work who you didn’t keep in touch with when you left, although they did attempt to catch up with you? Or that person you were close to before you had kids but kind of drifted away from after they were born.

It’s not intentional, nor something that happens with malice. It’s just that when our circumstances change, inevitably our circle changes somewhat with them. Often it’s not even something you are really aware of in your conscious mind.

I know during the years after I had my kids, I gravitated towards other mothers of youngsters who could relate to my struggles. These people were also more available as most weren’t working full time either – on maternity leave or stay at home parents, which made time together more effortless. It wasn’t my intention to spend less time with my working childless friends – it just sort of happened without me really noticing or giving it much thought. But my childless working friends did notice, and did give it a lot of thought and weren’t too pleased with the change.

Similarly I have been on the rotating end of a season where I found it difficult not to notice and accept while my friend didn’t seem to notice the distance the changes put in our path.

All in all, the most important lesson to take away is that a season in someone’s life, be it yours or theirs, isn’t necessarily obvious until it is over. So we must enjoy our friends and thank goodness that we are included in this season and that ours has aligned with theirs at this stage.

We only really ever have today. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not promised and definitely not promised to be the same. So be present in today. Be present in your friendships. When things change tomorrow, know that their presence was not unimportant or any less meaningful just because it ended.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

5 More Sleeps til Christmas

It’s hard to believe that in just 5 days Christmas will be upon us. As a kid I used to live for these last 9 days before Christmas. I have a dear childhood friend who was born on the 16th December and each year I would excitedly exclaim “It’s less than 10 days until Christmas now!” You know, instead of “happy birthday!” Because I hadn’t quite mastered the art of friendship at that stage. Luckily she stuck with me anyway so she must’ve seen some true potential somewhere! That is a gift, truly.

As an adult, the excitement is more about when the day, or should that be month/s will be over, so you can actually sleep again. While it never seemed like Christmas as a child and those last 9 days dragged on for what seemed like an eternity while I tried my hardest to be good for Santa’s elves and talk a lot about how neat and tidy I was going to be at school with my books etc the next year… as an adult my promises are actually true and it feels like it is always Christmas!

That is in large part because I start making the lists in the first quarter of the year, then I tend to buy things in stock take sales midyear, and wrap them in the third quarter, leaving the fourth quarter for writing cards, making advent calendars, planning treasure hunts, and of course attending events! So it really is low key simmering in the back of my head always. Luckily for me, I do love and look forward to it.

But, I know most of you don’t. And I know many of you will be using these last 5 days to make lists and buy gifts and wrap them and write cards and make foods and plan events… so I will not hold you up with a long winded post.

What I will say, is that your support is a gift that I value and treasure. Thank you to all the loyal readers and supporters who tune in each week. Now go and spend some time with your in real life friends and have fun.

Make it one to remember, even if it’s one you can’t remember, because you are a bit too merry! Haha

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

It’s a Wrap Christmas Recap

There isn’t much I haven’t written about Christmas!

The planning often starts way back in November, particularly if you want to plan an advent calendar, or a virtual calendar or annul newsletter.

There is certainly A LOT of planning that goes into the festivities this season, and so my first tip is about the art of friendship at this time of year and the ways in which friendship itself is a gift worth giving, and receiving. If gifting isn’t your thing, I suggest presence over presents. As it is such a busy bustling period, it is important to plan your time appropriately, and know who is important enough to be making time for and with. So that you can go ahead and actually plan some time together! To make this easier, you might choose to create some Christmas Traditions with friends, that way they happen seamlessly each year without so much planning and forethought?

But if you aren’t much of a planner, this one might make you smile.

We all know there are a million parties and events to celebrate too, which often require a plate of food to be presented, so if you are looking for some cute Christmas food ideas to impress, look no further.

Once you have got the planning in motion of how to spend your time, who to spend it with, it is time to start making a list and checking it twice to find out who’s been naughty and nice! This refers to who is on your list, and should they be there? If they should be there, do you know where to even start with a gift list? It can be very overwhelming! Or maybe your Christmas list went through the wash with the whites? Haha

If you want to know one simple tip on selecting the right gift for your friend, or are looking for a meaningful gift idea or 5 for your female friends this festive season,  or maybe you are looking for a gift alternative for a friend that is particularly hard to buy for?  Click the links! What if you have left buying gifts to the last minute? …..But buying all the gifts is just the first step isn’t it? What about wrapping and storing them for that matter? How about a wrapping party?

If you are looking for a way to add some excitement to the presentation of your gift outside of wrapping, here is a recipe for a Christmas treasure hunt!

Even the people who don’t make the gift list often make the Christmas card list. If you simply don’t know what to write in your cards, I have you covered. If you accidentally picked up the blank card and need poem inspiration to fill it, don’t panic!

If you are lucky enough to have the logistics sorted for the day, which can be problematic in of itself, you still have to be mindful to remember to send some love to any solo friends, who might be feeling the pinch of loneliness if they couldn’t be with you, or anyone else, on the day. It could be as simple as sending them a funny friendship Christmas meme?

Whatever advice it is you are searching for this Christmas, I’ve got your back! So sit back, click the links and get busy following my ADVENTurous advice! Haha

Happy Holidays

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Santa Claus is coming to town. He’s making a list, and checking it twice, he’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice….. Have you checked your list for the same thing?

It is typically around this time of the year that we find ourselves evaluating our lives, thinking of new years resolutions and taking stock of what we have achieved in this last year. It is also the time of year where we often start making lists. To do lists, to buy lists, to cook lists, and of course, gift lists. This year, as you make your gift list, I thought it might be wise to do a quick health check of the friendships that appear on your list to see how they have developed or changed in the past 12 months.

Perhaps you might find some names on your list that you have grown apart from, and actually buying them a gift might feel a bit out of place given the shift in your friendship. On the other hand, you might have made new friends that should probably be on the list, being how quickly your friendship developed closeness this year. Maybe you have a few that have stayed steady, and a few who were a bit erratic this past 12 months?

The point of this exercise isn’t to say if someone is a good friend, or a good person. It is more to gauge how your unique friendship sits and feels compared to how it felt in the past. And, to serve as a general guide on how to evaluate a friendship, instead of assuming or pretending you are good friends, because you always were good friends.

Do their words and actions align?

One of the most confusing things about a friendship is when someone tells you that they consider you to be a close friend, however, they don’t treat you in such a way that this feels true. It might be something obvious, like always being too busy to spend time with you, but making plenty of time for their other friends. Or it may be something more subtle such as making negative “jokes” about you or at your expense, or not being happy for you when something good happens. If you find you are feeling confused in regards to where you stand with your friend, that is likely because their words and actions aren’t aligning. Most of the time, people will show you things that they won’t tell you.

Are your expectations reasonable?

If you are finding that some of the names on your Christmas card or gift list are causing you some confusion, because their words and actions aren’t in sync, the next question to ask yourself is if you are expecting too much? If your friend had to cancel 2 catch up’s in a row, you might be jumping the gun to assume that your friend no longer likes you. Similarly, if you expect close friends to speak daily, and they only speak to their other close friends once a month, this could be causing you to misinterpret their actions. If however, you used to speak everyday and they gradually started pulling it back, and now you hardly hear from them, it might be worth accepting that your name probably isn’t going to be on their gift list, and take them off your own.

Do they communicate well with you?

Communication is a skill, and some of us are better at it than others, but as a general rule, you should feel like the people on your list should be people you feel you can talk to openly. They should be people you feel safe with, people that actively listen and show interest and apologise when there are misunderstandings or upsets between you. If your friend is constantly minimizing how you feel, shrugging you off or calling you dramatic, then this is not someone who can handle your emotions or who is showing care and consideration for your feelings. Maybe you do have a tendency to over react, but they should still care that something hurt you enough to trigger such a big reaction from you and want to help resolve things. If you have a friend who never listens, only ever talks about themselves, never asks about you and refuses to take accountability for any of this, it might be time to ask yourself why they are still on your list?

Are they reliable?

Our friends should be people we can depend on and count on. If you called your friend in an emergency, do you think they would be there for you? If they say they will meet you at 12 on Saturday, can you feel assured that they will be there at 12 on Saturday, or do you know they will be late, probably cancel and then spend the whole hour you scheduled together on the phone to someone else, or playing games, answering work emails, or whatever else? Not every friend is going to be able to be your emergency contact and I understand that. But we all have people in our lives that we would rush to in an emergency and if they are on your list and you aren’t on theirs, that warrants some self reflection as to why you are prioritizing people who are not doing the same for you?

Is the friendship balanced?

We tend to fall into patterns with our friends, which might mean that one initiates more than the other, or one calls more than the other. But if one of you stopped this, would the other person notice? Would they care? Would they make efforts to close the gap? In my own life I do tend to be an initiator, however I will become resentful if my friend NEVER suggests time together, because it starts to feel like I am carrying, if not forcing, the friendship. I have a friend who always calls, and if she stops calling, I am highly unlikely to call her. Both because I know she is unlikely to answer anyway, and because I am not a caller. That said, I will message and ask how things are, or suggest a catch up. If you sat back and stopped putting in effort to your friendship, do you feel confident that your friend would notice, and care enough to take steps to bridge the gap?

I would like to point out here, that all friends don’t have to be all things. You may well have friends where neither of you would be, or expect to be the emergency contact, and that is perfectly fine. You might have friends who are too busy to make time much in person, but show up for you in other ways or keep in touch frequently. You might have a friend who does talk about themselves a bit much, but you know their life is chaotic and that if you needed them they would stop and listen to be there for you.

This shouldn’t be about comparing your friends to each other, but comparing them to themselves and your connections with them in the past and how they sit today. It is about comparing how you feel for them to how you perceive them to feel for you. It is about looking at your gift list and seeing who deserves to be on it and asking yourself who is on it out of habit? And asking yourself if that person is still worth the investment or if they are actually costing you emotionally.

If you are mindlessly exchanging $50 gift cards with someone habitually each year, although you no longer actually spend time or talk, wouldn’t it be easier to just keep your $50 for yourselves and let it fizzle? If you are buying extravagant gifts for someone, does your emotional investment still match that financial investment or has it begun to feel like an expectation rather than an expression of genuine friendship? Is your gift of a box of chocolates for someone really an empty gesture because you don’t know how to end things?

Now you have taken stock of your list, are there people on the list who probably don’t deserve to be there anymore? Are there people who probably do deserve to be there who aren’t? Are you brave enough to make the switch?

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Falling out of like with each other.

A few months back I posted about if we always like our friends and if they always like us. I came to the conclusion that we probably do like our friends, even if we don’t ALWAYS like them, or like EVERYTHING about them. That’s unrealistic. I also concluded that it was unlikely our friends would be our friends if they didn’t like us either. I do stand by this, but today I wanted to talk about the territory you might land in when you love your friend, however you no longer like them. And, as a result, we will also explore the opposite, when you like your friend, but you actually couldn’t say you do love them.

If you are a regular reader of mine, you will know that I do consider friendships to be like platonic relationships. This is because I don’t have a large circle of friends, and because the few friends I do keep, are close in nature and spend plenty of intimate one on one time together. I could easily say that I love them, because I do. And, I feel fairly confident that most of them reciprocate that love. Most. That means I do feel I have a few friends who either don’t believe in the concept of platonic love, or that they just don’t feel that strongly about me. And I do understand because I suppose it is fair to say that I do have some friends for whom I do not feel love either. They aren’t close friends, in my eyes, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t consider me a close friend that they have love for.

Of the friends I have that I do love, I can definitely say there are ones I struggle to like. Don’t get me wrong, I obviously used to like them, as that is what drew me to them in the first place. Maybe their charms wore off, or maybe once I got to know them better I saw things that didn’t sit so well with me. Or maybe we have just grown apart, no longer have shared interests or values and don’t vibe each other the ways we used to.

This is all fairly normal within friendships, but the reason we struggle to let go of old friendships that don’t really fit anymore is because of love. We liked each other once, we spent time together, bonded, shared memories, shared secrets and heartbreaks and triumphs and worries… and we grew to love each other. So when you start to realise you no longer like someone you have love for, you land in a very difficult position.

Friendships aren’t family, they aren’t blood, so you aren’t obliged to keep them in your life. There are no legal ties or formalities like marriage to keep you tied together, and yet, this doesn’t seem to make it any easier to leave them behind. I think loving your friends, and yet not really liking them anymore is the platonic equivalent of “I love you, but I am just not in love with you anymore!” Except in those circumstances at least you can say “can we still be friends” and when the pressure of romance has dissipated, maybe you can be. It is also acceptable not to want to be friends either. Yet in the concept of platonic bonds it is unfriendly to end things!

Because you love your friend, it isn’t always as simple as that. Just like relationships, you wonder if you can save the connection and find that spark again. Learn to like each other again. On the other hand, sometimes the love is what makes it too painful to endure and causes you to end it. The better news for friendship, is that the love that exists, and the more casual arrangement, paired with the lack of monogamy means it is easier to silently let space grow there, yet still hold love for each other, still be there if one of you needs it, and just see if it comes back together in time. It often does.

This is much easier if the feelings are mutual. If only one person has lost the like, the person who hasn’t may struggle to understand the space, and either end things, or cling to things, making things a bit more complicated. But what happens if you love your friend, and they in fact never loved you? They liked you just fine as a friend, maybe even a good friend, but for them, it always stayed a bit more in the casual territory than the close category? It is kind of like the platonic equivalent of unrequited love, where one person wants to be friends, and the other wants more. And actually, it has a fairly similar outcome in that the person who feels less, holds all the power, because they are less invested and there is nothing you can do to change that. They can’t meet you where you are with love, so you have no choice but to settle for like. Eventually this kind of mismatch tends to weigh heavily on the more invested party and they may indeed start falling out of like, and hopefully, out of love, too.

Maybe the real issue, is when someone loves your friendship because they know you are a good friend. They know you’re a good person, and they know they benefit from having you in their life…. But that doesn’t mean they like you, and certainly doesn’t mean they love you. They love having you in their life and like the benefits and security you provide, but yet you can almost feel the resentment they hold towards you for having to tolerate you in order to reap the rewards of your friendship. These are the most dangerous friends. You might not spot them immediately, but your intuition will start telling you something is off quite quickly. Listen to it. If they only want you when they want something, that is the biggest red flag.

The last aspect to cover is when you run out of love for each other, but retain the like. Although this seems counterintuitive, it can happen in friendships. And this is where you both agree, either verbally, or non verbally, that you have grown apart, and going your separate ways is the healthiest outcome. You thank each other for the times you shared, and wish each other well for the future. There is no ugly parting, no animosity or hard feelings and no awkwardness if you do bump into each other in the future. You can still be polite and amicable, show interest and remember the qualities you liked and admired in one another. This is probably the happiest ending…. And the least common.

Do you have friends you love but don’t really like very much anymore? How about friends you like, but never quite loved? Do they love you? Is it awkward? Send me your stories and let me know!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Friendship Festivities; Gifting Via Treasure Hunt - A Recipe For Fun

Christmas Friendship Festivities – the treasure hunt

Ok readers, those of you who have followed me for a few years already will know that I love all things Christmas. I know some of you are groaning at the mere mention when we haven’t even hit December yet… But this one takes some planning in advance. And honestly, if you start now and reduce your December stress, you may actually start to feel more positive about the festive season! One of the best parts about Christmas is the opportunities or reasons it presents us to connect and spend time with our friends just having fun.

In a few of my posts I have referenced doing a treasure hunt to make gifting more of an “experience” even if the gift itself isn’t all that exciting. So, in the spirit of fun, I decided to post a recipe for a Christmas gift treasure hunt.

NOTE: This is NOT an affilliated post.

MATERIALS

Pen

Christmas tags or paper to write clues on

Suitcase or bag that can be padlocked shut. If using case with a 4digit numerical lock you will need a pack of playing cards and for a 3 digit lock you will need red, white and green jellybeans)

Keyed luggage padlock (or any suitable keyed padlock)

Lockable diary with key

Lockable book safe with key

Zip ties

Pair of scissors

Board game

Physical Dictionary

Reusable advent calendar

METHOD

Place or hang the advent calendar in the room.

Place the board game on the table or somewhere around the room unhidden.

Make a little stack of books or books on a shelf in the room.

Put their gift in a suitcase locked with a small keyed luggage padlock.

(If you are using a suitcase with a numerical lock, instead of hiding the key in the advent calendar in the next step, write a clue that says “Christmas engagements seem romantic don’t they? First you exchange a heart and a diamond, but in the END you’ll wish you had a club and a spade!” Use the heart card for the first number of your code, the diamond for the second number, the club for the third number and the spade for the fourth number. Example if your code is 1234 you would use the ace of hearts, the 2 of diamonds, the 3 of clubs and the 4 of spades.

If you only have three numbers, use the clue “the Christmas colours are red, white and green, how many of each colour can be seen? Once the code is spoken, your treasure chest should open”  You will need however many red jelly beans as your first digit, however many white jellybeans for your second digit and however many green jellybeans for your third digit. Example if your code is 999 you would need 9 of each colour of jellybeans.)

Write a note from the grinch that says “You win. Merry Christmas” Hide the key (or relevant code clue) for the suitcase and the “you win, Merry Christmas” note from the grinch in your advent calendar in the last box or pocket. Bonus points if you fill the other pockets with other chocolates or treats they can keep. If you are using jelly beans, hide your green ones here.

Write a clue in a key lockable diary that says “You’re so close, you’re nearly at the END of your ADVENTure. (clue for last pocket or box in advent calendar.)

Close and lock the diary.

Put the diary next to a dictionary and a safe lock book among some other books.

Hide the key for the diary and the clue about the diary inside the lockable book safe. If you are using playing cards, hide the spade card here also. If you are using jellybeans, hide your white ones here.

Open the dictionary to the word Christmas and highlight the date (25 December) Add a sticky note that says can you cut the code? If you are using playing cards use the club card here.

Set a 4 digit code lock to 2512 or 1225 depending on how the date would appear in your hemisphere.

Use the lock to lock a pair of scissors in the handles so they don’t open.

Write a clue that says “what is the meaning of Christmas? Can you find it?” (Clue for the dictionary.)

Put the scissors and the meaning of Christmas clue in the board game placed on the table or somewhere around the room. If you are using playing cards, hide your diamond card here too.

Write a clue that says “You are smart, you must read a lot. Have you read “name of book safe title.” Example my own safe book is called “etiquette essentials by I. M. Aladee so my clue would read “You are smart! You must read a lot. Have you read Etiquette Essentials by I.M. Aladee?”

Put book safe clue and key for booksafe inside a cupboard or drawer and zip tie it closed. If you are using playing cards, put your heart card here. If you are using jellybeans place your red ones here.

Write this clue “They never let poor Rudolf, join in any reindeer……” (The answer is games) and make it into a Christmas ornament to hang off the tree or stick it to an existing ornament.

Write a Christmas card saying that their gift was locked away by the grinch inside the suitcase (or bag or whatever you have that can be padlocked shut) and they will need solve a series of clues and riddles to prove their Christmas spirit and unlock their treasure chest. Add not to worry too much because the grinches has lots of bark but no bite like something else in this room. (This is a clue to the christmas tree.)  

Put the card on top of the suitcase or bag.

https://www.kontentkiddos.com/christmas-treasure-hunt/

RESULTS

The card on the case will lead them to the tree, the tree will lead them to the board game, the game will reveal the scissors, the scissors will lead them to the dictionary which will reveal the code to the scissors and a clue to cut the zip tied drawer or cupboard. Inside the cupboard you will find clue for book safe and key for book safe. Inside the book safe you will find the key and clue for the diary. The diary will lead to the advent calendar, which has the key and a note from the grinch saying “You win” (Or the relevant code clue) They may now use the key or code to unlock the treasure chest (suitcase or bag) to reveal their gift.

It should be fun and simple, and probably won’t take too long. Let me know how you go?!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx

Friendships are not fairytales.

One of my better blogs was about friendships in the media and all the ways that the messaging we receive from media damages our expectations of friendships. It starts with fairytales as children and then the magic is diluted somewhat into less obvious but equally unattainable expectations of friendships. Think of any classic tv series featuring friendships, for example the 90’s classics “friends” and it will paint a picture of an idyllic group of friends who base their lives around each other, and seem to have no real other relationships or responsibilities outside the group.

Although on some level, we know this is a fantasy, somehow it still sticks as some unattainable goalpost for our friendships that always leaves our real life friendships falling short. Not only this, but both media and fairytales lead us to believe that friendships are forever, always have a happy ending and never face any real hardships that can’t be resolved in an episode. Reality is very different.

This means that we are ill equipped to deal with the harsh realities of friendship fall outs, and have no real examples of what it takes to maintain or repair relationships of a platonic nature that have soured. For example, a whole series may be dedicated to one married or romantic couple and the trials and tribulations they face over the course of their relationship. We see real and relatable examples of all the things that could threaten the couple’s relationship and all the ways in which we might try to navigate these things in order to reconcile. Without such strong examples for friendships, and without monogamy, the solution to fractured friendships is all too often just to remove and replace the relationship in question.

Friendships sit in the grey areas of society, being basically the only relationship that is completely free of legal ties, responsibilities or formalities, and so the only one really based and dependent fully on love and commitment. Isn’t that ironic. The lack of formal structure can make it hard to mark milestones or celebrate friendships, which can, I feel, dampen their importance. Without that first date, despite the fact that you definitely had one, dressed up for it and were nervous about it, the significance of the anniversary often passes unmarked. Similarly there is a lack of progression milestones, like getting engaged, married, buying a property or having kids. Friendships do grow, but in less culturally shared and significant ways which makes them appear stagnant.

I posted just recently about the newer concept of friendship counselling and even found myself reluctant to be open to the idea, despite the fact that I agree friendships are relationships and do go through rough patches. I believe people often struggle to save marriages they should leave and walk away too easily from friendships they should save. Yet, societally this seems to make sense.

All of it adds up to the reasons why friendships are the last tier of relationships and the first ones to fall from the priority list the minute people get too busy. Is it any wonder so many friendships fail without the time and attention they deserve? Would anyone expect a marriage to last if you only spent an hour with your spouse 2 times a year and spoke to them once a month in a short string of messages? Would it be acceptable to just call your spouse toxic because they asked more of you than you felt you had to offer? Would people encourage you to just walk away without even trying to repair and reconcile? I doubt it. The idea is almost as laughable as friendship counselling.

Fairytales and fables have their place as fiction of course, but what we really need is true demonstrations of imperfect friendships. Of the ways in which friendships can ebb and flow over time. The ways in which friendships grow together, grow apart, grow stronger, weaken and fracture. Of friendships that are rocky, as a normal, not just as a once off fight over something petty, but that depict 2 people who are committed to being there for one another, and staying there for one another even when it’s hard.

These depictions don’t need to be life partnerships, although these are valid relationships and do deserve representation. What I would like to see if the depiction of 2 friends, supporting each other through their everyday lives that include other important relationships, young children, elderly family members, illnesses, deaths, promotions, financial inequality, careers and how all these stressors can and do impact friendships. How lack of time and resources can push people apart. About how easily busyness can be misconstrued and miscommunications easily result. How not prioritizing the bonds impacts them, and yet how they work through these issues constantly and consistently, because they love and value each other despite it all.

Just as relationships do, friendships face jealousies, insecurities, lack of presence even when technically present, neglect, hurts, anger, disappointments, sadness, thin ice and all the other negatives that are experienced in romantic relationships. And they are often more difficult to navigate as we don’t have the language, or the references of how to deal with these. We aren’t even taught to expect difficulties. The general consensus, particularly when it comes to female friendships, is that it’s all romance and roses. Or more so giggles and gossip. Wine and whining. Drinks and dancing. Love and Laughter.

A healthy friendship should have all of these positives, but just as with any real relationships, you can’t have the good without the bad. The last ways in which friendships are not fairytales, is that they do end. They do not always live happily ever after any more than most marriages. And not only do they end, they can end just as messily and painfully and nastily at times. They can be toxic. And sometimes the right thing is to end them. And yes, your heart will still break, because if your friendship was true, then you loved each other and you lose that love. You lose a part of yourself. It hurts.

So just because I want to see depictions of friendships in their raw imperfection, and I want to see people fighting against each other and then for each other, doesn’t mean I think we should stay in friendships that just are bad for us, or abusive, any more than I would want to see that in any other form of relationship. I just want these 3 myths busted. Friendships are always happy and easy. Myth. Friendships are disposable and easily replaced. Myth. Friendships are fairytales. Myth.

Friendships are not fairytales. But they are love stories all the same.

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx