My friends call me the "Social Butterfly" and I have to admit that it's pretty fitting. I enjoy meeting new people and just conversing with anyone...and I mean anyone. I always joke with my core group of friends, most of whom I've known for years, that they are stuck with me FOREVER...and in most cases they are. One friend and I fight like sisters...we've had friendship break-ups, but we always mend our relationship and it comes back stronger than ever. I've never had fall-outs with anyone else like I've had with her that end up making our bond tighter and that's why I consider her a sister. Others, I've never had an argument with, but I've always been able to express my feelings to them about various issues going on in their lives and they've always been able to do the same with me. We have a very open relationship and that works for us, but everyone can’t handle their friendships like we handle ours. Every group of people have very different dynamics that you have to work with, but if you don't have trust as a foundation, then your friendship won't be built on stable ground.
One of my line sister's and I were talking about friendships and how sometimes we see other people's friendships and try to compare the two and start to put those expectations on our friends...which is unfair. We all have grown up differently, and those experiences make us who we are today. After so much time of being who we are, it's hard to make an overnight change. Now, that's not justifying the wrong that we do, but understanding that should help to increase our patience in working with our friends. We all have a choice...we can choose to continue our relationships or we can choose to end them. If we choose to continue them, then we are saying that we accept that person for who they are and we are willing to work with them on changing their undesirable characteristics AND they are willing to do the same for us (because truth be told, there are some serious things about us that we should be working on as well).
As for me, I decided to discontinue a particular relationship because although I was working on the things that I needed to be a better person and a better friend, I didn't feel that they were. Their behavior was starting to be self-destructive and there was a lack of trust. A lack of trust in telling me the whole story when soliciting my advice and opinion, behavior changes, poor judgment, narcissism, and the inability to balance personal relationships and accept responsibility for actions. I didn't end the friendship because this was the first time that it had happened, but because it was becoming a pattern and me continuing to bring these issues up were wasting both of our time and my breathe...especially when she didn't see an issue with these things. I won't say that we will never be friends again (because I know that there is a good person in there...I've seen her before), but it's going to take a lot of soul-searching and self-evaluation on her part before I decide to open myself up again. I could either complain about what was going on or I could do something about it and I chose the latter. It is her life and she can live it in whatever fashion she chooses, but as a real friend I only want to see the best for her. I would like for her inner beauty to shine as brightly as her outer beauty, but I can only want so much. If that’s not the way that she wants to live her life then I can’t force it on her but I also won’t be a play-piece in her game of Life.
Bright Side: Just like I deserve more in a relationship, I deserve the same in a friendship. If it were a guy who was handling our relationship like this, I wouldn't think twice about putting things on hold for re-evaluation...and the same should go for a friendship. Only time will tell what the future holds...
