Friendship

There can be no real doubt that friendship is very important. It can sustain a person through hard times, offering refuge from the ravages of life and an alternative perspective on a difficult situation. This is a good thing; it is healthy and productive and worthwhile.

That being said; friendship can also be very dangerous. In fact, it can be toxic.

Why would I say such a thing? What do I mean? I’ll tell you.

There are people out there and at one time or another I’m sure we’ve all been one of them or close to it, that place far too much value on friendship.

Allocating way too much stock in the approval or exclusivity of their close friends.  Often measuring their very self-worth by what their friends think of their lives.  Or allowing themselves to fall into a bleak pit of despair if a person they consider a friend doesn’t respond to a text message, or perhaps has been busy and hasn’t had chance to catch up with them in a while.

 

Yes, there’s no doubt, friendship can be a lovely thing. It’s also however a fact that if you put your faith in a person and invest too much of yourself in others, you’re not only placing yourself at a potential disadvantage in life, you’re also leaving yourself open to callous exploitation.

 

We all can benefit from friends, but experience has taught me that if you rely too heavily on them and allow their place in your world to be too much of a determining factor, then quite frankly you’re hurting yourself.

It’s a shame in a way, because sometimes you may have a well-intentioned individual who tries to ‘be there’ for someone who they feel may be struggling, only to find themselves then overwhelmed by the enormity of the need that person will then develop for them.

Something this type of scenario ultimately can destroy friendships. To put this perspective adjacent to the views expressed earlier, this is an example of how sometimes the ‘cruel to be kind’ philosophy has to prevail. You shouldn’t put too much faith in others, but you also shouldn’t encourage others to place too much faith in you…

 

If you offer to be someone’s ‘sounding board’ a bit too often, particularly someone who might be a bit psychologically vulnerable, you are I believe in effect fostering dependency and in so doing you’re actively stifling that person from developing proper independence. How can a person ever tackle and overcome the challenges of life, if every single situation that comes up has to trigger a conference with friends and a ‘what should I do’ pity party situation? It’s unhelpful.

Friends are great, but they can’t live your life with you or for you and they shouldn’t have to.

Ultimately our lives are our own, our choices and the consequences that manifest from those choices have to be down to the individual.  You can’t make a choice that has disastrous results and then blame it on a friend because they advised you to do it.

There’s another side to this as well, it’s not just about the vulnerable and needy, as touched upon earlier, there’s the exploitative and manipulative to consider.

Those friends who don’t offer their opinion of your life choices to you, but force it on you instead. Those friends that may in fact become angry if you spend too much time with other friends or don’t ‘consult’ them before making an important life choice.

Those friends who basically treat you like an employee rather than a friend.

The sort who act as if they’re there to support you, all while quietly keeping you held back or ‘in a box’ while surreptitiously putting you down with the odd remark here the myriad ‘joke’ there.

 

In reality, negative people who profess to be your friend while repeatedly mistreating you are keeping you around, only because they feel superior to you and thus as a result less insignificant themselves. You are a tonic to their inferiority.

Watch this type of friend closely as they fail to conceal their fury if you elevate your social standing to a point ‘above’ them. Or worse (from their perspective) make friends who are nicer to you than they are, or worse still, dare to go on a night out without inviting them.

This type of friend nobody needs. Get rid of them.

 

Friendship won’t hurt you, if you don’t allow it to have the power to do so.

Putting your belief in other people isn’t something that you should never do, but it is something that if it is done has to be proportionately, rationally, reasonably.

A friend is there for you, but they don’t have to be available on demand like Netflix.

A friend will support you yes, but they don’t have to drop everything at any moment of the day or night and come running and they don’t deserve to be chastised if they fail to do so.

They have a life just like you have a life and we must always remember that.

 

Friendship is all very well, but you don’t (or shouldn’t in my opinion) depend solely on friends.

Let them be a part of your life by all means, but do not make them a pillar of your existence, because the fact is that some people will turn out to not be who you thought you were and when pillars crumble, the roof falls...

 

Some people really are here today and gone tomorrow and some ‘friends’ really are only friends if it benefits them in some way. Better to be guarded. Better to be careful. Better to depend on yourself while allowing yourself to listen to others of course, but never ever let another person make you who you are.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!