Who Needs Friends?

You do!  Yes you, YOU need friends.  And no I don’t mean additional friends on Facebook or more followers on Instagram.  I don’t even mean more people who used to be your friends in HS whom you are now friendly with.  And nope, I do not mean your co-workers who you go out to drinks with once in a while.  I mean friends - real down to earth, get down and dirty all up in your business, tell you about yourself, defend your honor, protect your secrets, promote your greatness, got your back and tell you about yourself to your face friends.  No matter what you have told yourself after getting married, having children or ending bad friendships in the past, you need friends.  Yes you do.  No matter what situation you are in family or relationship wise, you need friends. No matter if your significant other is your best friend, you need friends that are not him/her.  No matter how great you get along with the other spouses/significant others, you need your friends to be on your team.  No matter how busy you are raising your precious children or chasing your fancy career, you need friends outside of the playground and outside the workplace.   No matter how much you live in your head and believe no one else will understand you, you (especially you) need friends.  Support and accountability are the fundamentals to any friendship.  When you become an adult and outgrow the receipt of that from your parents, you need your friends to give that to you.   And when you don’t have friends as an adult, you suffer for two reasons.  1) There is loneliness in the isolation of just family or just a relationship.  2) The older you get, the harder it is to meet and form substantive friendships with your peers.  So who needs friend?  You do!   

And the key to having friends is knowing how to BE a friend.  Because you can be friendly, sweet, outgoing and all the rest, yet be unable to maintain significant friendships simply because you lack the ability to focus on being the friend you seek.  Being a friend requires that you focus on someone other than yourself.  More people have difficulty with that than they realize.  Friendship is NOT blind loyalty.  But is requires loyalty.  Friendship is NOT unequivocal support, but it requires that you are supportive of said friend.  Friendship is NOT disposable.  When you treat people as if they only matter when you need them to matter, they will not stay around you and be of any benefit to your life.  Friendship IS an investment.  One you have to be willing to make in order to BE a friend.  I know, I know.  In the midst of all those other things in your life you deem of higher priority than maintaining friendships also require investment and you just don’t have the time.  MAKE THE TIME!  It is critical to your mental well being to have friendships.  So who needs friends?  You do! We all do!