I have heard it said that friendships are like stars: the brightest ones burn out the fastest. One of mine is on life support at the moment, and it was one of the brightest friendships I have ever had. There were people at school who asked about it. It happened quickly, and sadly, is dying slowly and painfully. Being strapped on life support is not good for the friendship. It needs to die or come back to life. This is my statement about it. I do not know what the other party thinks or feels, but I have a feeling I will never know.
Right now, I have a friendship that I personally believe is on its’ last leg. My friend got a boyfriend a few months ago, and since then we have moved apart. We used to be as close as thieves. Now, we barely talk to each other. All she ever goes is spend time with her boyfriend. When I mentioned that we should go for dinner and catch up, she was like, oh that sounds fun! Little did I know that she would tell the boyfriend. He texted me and got all territorial. He said that his girlfriend should not go to dinner with another guy. After a few hours of going back and forth, he said that she asked him to go on the attack. Apparently, I stress her out and make her nervous. It was her idea to attack me. This got me thinking.
I personally believe that when you are friends with someone, you are in it for the long haul. If you are going to commit to being best friends with someone, it is not a one year fling. It is not something that you can throw away after a short amount of time. The aforementioned friend does not think that apparently. You don’t need to spend time with a friend! Who needs one on one conversations? This friend and I have been distant for about 5 months. We didn’t talk for a while, and we had just started patching up when she got distant again. I thought that her boyfriend was pulling her away. I confronted him one night about it, and he said that it was her decision ultimately.
What kind of friend lets a friendship die and ignores and shoves off the other friends efforts to salvage the relationship. Who does that? You should not treat best friendships like a dirty rag. This person and I hung out all last summer. We did everything together. We went out to dinner, we hung out. We got along very well. I thought that we were super close. Then, the glue started separating. We spent less and less time together, and now when I want to spend some more time together, she does not want to spend that time. All she wants to do is hang with her boyfriend, away from all life and activity. And then she had the nerve not to tell me that she didn’t want to do anything. She did not have the guts or common courtesy to tell me. Now I am left alone looking at the apparent ruins of a once mighty friendship.
A friend is a person that you invest time and energy in, and a person that you have lots of time getting to know, and continuing to get to know. What you put in, you get out. You have to work really hard to grow a friendship. But, that hard work will give you a fantastic friendship. When you don’t work on a friendship, it withers away and goes the way of the dinosaurs. This friends boyfriend denied this tonight, but he is wrong. This friendship is an example of that. If me and the friend had spent more time and energy over the past few months, we would be closer now. But, with no care, the friendship is on life support. Time will tell what will happen, but for now, that person is getting deleted out of the favorite list on my iPhone. No conversation leads to destruction. When you are friends with someone, you should not give up when the going gets tough. The tough should get going and keep the friendship alive. Friends are an investment. Treat them with care. If you don’t, one day you will wake up alone with no one there for you because you were not that for them. At the end of another failed or failing relationship, you will see that the hard work needs to be on both ends. If it is not, the friendship, whether real or not, will begin to die.
