An Honest Post On Friendships
The idea for this post has been written down in one my notebooks since the summer so I thought it was finally time that I stopped being a pansy and actually wrote it. Over the past few years I've learnt a lot about friendships, especially how much they change when you become an adult. Gone are the days of being in the playground and playing hopscotch with my best friends, when you reach a certain age a lot of things change and the relationships you have with people can do a complete 180.
Being a really shy child I found it quite difficult to make friends, talking to people used to scare me so much that I just wouldn't do it. That being said throughout school I was lucky enough to have a pretty good set of friends and when I was in high school I had 5 best friends that I thought I would never lose contact with and they would all be stood there on my wedding day. I left school 8 years ago and can you guess how many of those best friends I still talk to? 1. Going to college in the city away from all my school friends caused us to just drift apart. Obviously as you grow up and start developing into an adult you're going to change and sometimes it's just a case of not getting along with those people that well anymore and that's fine.
Losing friends is hard to accept and when you properly lose touch with them it can be heartbreaking. It made me feel incredibly alone and isolated when I drifted apart from my school friends and then when I went to university I thought that would be the place where I met the best friends of my life. That is what everyone tells you isn't it? Those will be the friends that will be in your life forever and guess what sometimes they aren't. I've lost contact with the majority of people who I went to university with because the effort just isn't made from either party.
You always see people with a big group of friends that are inseparable or girls that have their very own Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda and for a long time I've felt like I'm wrong for not having that. I've got two best friends and I feel like that is all I need because they are true friends, I'm there for them no matter what and vice versa. One of those friends is from school and the other is Jen, I love those two girls more than anything in the world and my life just wouldn't be the same if they weren't in it. They are the people who really just get me, they don't complain that I like staying in or mock me because I don't enjoy drinking. Lately I've realised just how much of introvert I am and I need embrace it instead of feeling badly about what I enjoy doing because I'm happy doing those things.
Last year showed me a lot about friendships and I lost a few people out of my life who I really thought were real friends. They really weren't my friends though and now I've had that space away from them I've been able to see that they aren't people I would even like to be friends with now. It's funny how things like this happen, although it definitely wasn't funny at the time in-fact it was really painful. It can be hard to see at the time but being friends with someone who brings you down and makes snide remarks about you isn't a friendship at all is it really? Ultimately I would rather have no friends than be friends with people who just aren't nice and get off on making others feel bad.
Making new friends when you're an adult is incredibly hard, especially considering I work from home 90% of the time with only my dog for company. It is difficult to meet someone who you generally get along with and share similar interests, values and morals. You can't force friendships and as lovely as it would be you can't make people be nice as hard as you try. I wish I knew that in my early 20's and I would have spent a lot less time being down in the dumps about it. Nowadays I'm a lot happier with the friendships that I do have, I'm lucky to have those people in my life and I need to remember that the quality V quantity mantra is something that can be applied to every aspect in life.
What lessons have you learnt about friendships?
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