Friends – How to keep them!

Friendship is literally one of the most complex relationships we’ll ever have to figure out. Some run deep, whereas other people are more like acquaintances. Some last forever whereas some last for a short period of time. Some feel easy and some seem to take a lot of hard work. I feel like over the last few years I have learnt a lot about what it means to be a friend and yet at the same time, I still have a heck of a lot to learn. However in those years I have come to realise that there are three main hurdles that can often cause a rift between even the closest of friends. It’s quite a big topic to talk about and so I’m going to split it into three blog posts. A hurdle a post.

1) Getting lazy

This is the easiest behaviour to fall into and yet is hard to identify as a problem because its effect is slow. It is essentially a result from getting too comfortable in a relationship. Just like with romantic relationships, at the beginning of a friendship you are on your best behaviour once you’ve decided you like them. You put in loads of effort because you want them to like you and when they do, happy days! New friend! Soon enough though, you get used to each other and you become comfortable with each other. Now comfortable isn’t bad. In fact comfortable is a great thing! It shows that a relationship is genuine and people can be themselves without fear of being rejected. It is a step towards friends feeling like family. However being too comfortable is when things go downhill. It is when comfort becomes complacency. All of us have experienced this at some point and have even been the guilty party who hasn’t put the effort in, myself included. We get lazy, and we drift apart. Some causes of this are:

Long distance

More often than not, our paths lead us to different places in our lives whether that be education, a new job, who we date or where we live. We stop seeing our friends as often as we used to and that is when some friends part ways. This is when we hear the common phrase, “Let’s stay in touch.” The shame of it is the intention is there, but not always the delivery. Unfortunately we cannot avoid the fact that we will not live near all our friends all the time and long distance is a part of friendship. However what can be avoided is losing those friends from our lives.

Significant changes in our lives

It is easy to put effort into our friends when they slot so perfectly into our daily routine and there is nothing to distract us. It is a lot harder when that routine changes or when something – or someone – changes it. A new job. A baby. A new group of friends. A new boyfriend/girlfriend. Something that requires more of your attention. When we get these new things in our lives it is exciting. Of course we have to focus on our new job or a baby! Of course we want to spend every second we can with the person we are in a relationship with. The hurdle arises however when this new things begins to replace our friends entirely. When we start to steal from the time set aside for our friends until eventually they have nothing left. We start rescheduling and cancelling more and more and maybe even stop seeing them altogether. I totally get it when it comes to being in a new relationship because I’ve experienced that. When I first started going out with my husband Jonny, all I wanted to do was hang out with him. I was lucky with him though because right from the start Jonny told me he didn’t want us to be in our own bubble. He had friends that he wanted to see and I had friends that I should see, otherwise we were going to find ourselves alone. So that’s what he did. Every now and then he told me he was going to be busy one night because he wanted to hang out with his mates. And at first I hated those nights! All I wanted was to spend time with him. So I would sit at home and watch TV, wishing he was with me. I chose to be with Jonny over putting any effort into anyone else. A little later down the road, that left me with hardly any friends. I’d not bothered with them so they’d not bothered with me and although I had Jonny and my family, I didn’t have anyone else and that was a pretty lonely place to be. So I changed it. I learnt my lesson and I began to put effort into people again and now I am in a place where not only do I have Jonny – because surprisingly he didn’t suffer from not seeing me for a couple of hours every now and then – but I have an amazing group of friends who genuinely care for me as much as I care about them! Jonny goes out with his mates and I’m happy about it because I want him to! Friends are a really important part of life. New changes in our lives don’t have to replace our friends. It is just another part of our lives to share with them.

What both of these causes have in common are the excuses we use alongside them.

“I’ve been so busy.”

“I’m sorry I’m seeing my boyfriend/girlfriend tonight.”

Although sometimes these excuses are valid, it is using them repetitively that takes a toll on the friendship in the end. When we get lazy and stop putting any effort into communicating with each other, making time to chat for an hour or so to catch up and take a genuine interest in each other’s lives, we lose touch. When we stop putting any genuine effort into arranging a date to hang out and sticking to that date, we lose touch. And actually like I said before, loosing friends from our lives can be avoided. How?

1) Through communication. By making time to find out how they are and showing them you care. Give them a call. Text them. If you know they’ve got something important going on soon, chase it up and find out how it went. Encourage them. Celebrate with them in the highs. Support them in the lows. Just be there and also share your life with them! Let them be there for you too.

2) Through arranging time to hang out. Being proactive, getting your calendar out and booking in a date when you’re both free to hang out – and stick to it! I am a big believer in honouring your first commitment. If you have arranged to do something, you don’t sack it off for a “better offer.” That makes people feel exposable and unimportant to you. Give them your time. Make sure you’re around to celebrate big events in their lives or support them when life gets hard.

These two things alone are enough to maintain a healthy friendship but there are other ways. In a book called, ‘The Five Love Languages,’ it talks about how people have different love languages. There are five different ways people give and receive love.

– Words of encouragement. Some people feel loved when others are building them up and encouraging them.

– Quality time, like I mentioned. Others feel loved when people aren’t just hanging out on their phones, but are actually having quality conversations and doing quality activities together.

– Receiving gifts. If we buy gifts for people, it makes them think, “They thought about me.” This can even stretch to buying people a chocolate bar.

– Acts of service. Some people feel loved when you help them out and serve them. That could be house chores or it could be helping them out if they are really busy.

– Physical touch. Pretty self-explanatory.

Those a few more ways that we can avoid losing our friends from our lives, and actually it can be really fun to work out what people’s love languages are and start showing them we care in that way. It is merely preferring your friends despite how you feel. By making sure they know you care about them despite what’s going on with you. Because actually it’s attainable. You don’t have to give all your time and attention in order to achieve it. No one is too busy to give up an hour in a week. Even if your significant life change involves having a baby or getting a new job and free time really is rare, there will still be some time somewhere for your friends. Get them involved in your child’s life! Friends shouldn’t be your lives, but they should be a part of them. They should enhance them. Don’t do what I did and push your friendships to the side, because it gets very lonely without them. The secret to good friendship is to show them you care about them. Not just tell them because words can become meaningless if they are not backed up by actions. But that’s it. That’s how simple it is. To overcome the hurdle of laziness, it simply involves being proactive and just showing you care.

When I was a teenager, another reason I didn’t used to chat to people or arrange hangouts was because I felt like I was always the first person to bring up conversation or suggest hanging out. I sat at home thinking everyone else was hanging out and I wasn’t thought about. I would say to myself, “No I won’t text them. Why do I always have to be the one to put in effort.”  For me it was a sign of insecurity. The ironic thing is, the majority of people all sit at home thinking this same thing! Most people think they are always the one putting in effort so they leave it to see if anyone else will and we are all just sat at home leaving it. But you know what. Sometimes people are genuinely just really busy and are going about their normal lives. I’ve learnt that it doesn’t matter if I’m the first one to start off a conversation or if I’m the first one to arrange a hang out. It doesn’t make me pathetic. It means I have to opportunity to show someone else that I care about them. That I’ve thought about them. Being the first one isn’t a bad thing. It’s a blessing! It means I have security in myself. It means I get to make other people feel good about themselves. And actually it means we get to chat and hang out and get closer! If I can be part of the reason that we are closer, then happy days!

Like I said at the beginning, this is just one of three hurdles that can get in the way of friendships. And the things about hurdles is they usually they take effort on your part to get over them. They take hard work but it’s worth it because once you’ve done it, you’re surrounded by people who love you on the other side.

Chapman, G. (1995). Five Love Languages. Chicago: Northfield Publishing.