Sometimes things happen such as walking into your home and being overwhelmed by a stench. Maybe my dog drank stagnant river water and got sick in his kennel. Maybe upon removing him from said kennel, he kicked up diarrhea and it hit me in the face. Why is it that these types of things generally happen when my husband is out of town? When I am going through the Big D (and I don’t mean Dallas or divorce) and my home smells like a gas station bathroom, I need someone to commiserate in my misery. Nothing rings truer than the quote by P.C. Cast, “If you have true friends, no matter how much life is sucking, they can make you laugh.” Let’s face it ladies, sometimes life sucks and we need some friends to join us on this journey we call life.
Many of us know we need friends and desperately crave them, but find ourselves filled with loneliness and no one to call in a time of need. I think the two biggest things that prevent us from having close friends are being afraid to show our true selves and an unwillingness to put in the effort.
I often wonder if technology has done us more harm than good when it comes to our personal relationships. We have more ways than ever to reach out towards others and yet many of us have never felt more alone. I think we have made an error when it comes to how we invest in relationships. We have left behind long phone calls for short texts with an emoji. We no longer sit down over a cup of coffee together and look at a photo album; we simply like a picture on Instagram. We truly yearn for close friends and yet settle for a fake sense of community over the internet. It has become easier to skim the surface of our personal relationships than go deep.
The kicker about having close personal relationships is that you are required to work at it. We have to be vulnerable and real. We have to choose to peel back the curtain to show how we truly are instead of the social-media-approved, glossed-over, photo-shopped version of our lives. Without the openness with each other, it is all superficial. I don’t know about you, but being insincere and fake with people just leaves me exhausted. I don’t have the time or energy for that nonsense anymore.
When I look at the people in my life who seem to have an overflow of friends, I have noticed that they share similar qualities. It is people like my friend Amy, my Dad or my husband. People are drawn to them and they are adored by many. The similarities don’t end there. These three take a genuine interest in other people. They make the effort to spend time with others or to reach out. They are incredibly giving with their time and money to help others. When they are around someone, they bring the focus off of themselves and to the other person. What I have learned from these three is that if you want friends, the single best thing you can do is to simply be a friend to someone else first. Stop worrying about how much other people are doing for you and do for someone else instead.
Is it all worth it? Is it worth the fear of being ourselves with others or putting in work to serve those around us? I absolutely believe that it is. It is the cries of “Me TOO!” when we so desperately want to be understood. It is support when our hearts are hurting. It is having someone who offers advice that enables us to see things with a different perspective. Life has ups and downs and it is so much more fun to be able to experience those things with our friends.
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