The Gifts and Lessons of Friendships
Reflecting on my friendships throughout my life, I’ve had kind friends that have blessed me and also some friends who have taught me lessons. As an introvert, I’m someone who enjoys having a small group of friends that I have closer ties with, rather than a large group of friends I don’t know as well. I have never been the life of the party or someone who is very gregarious. I enjoy hanging out with people more one-on-one because I feel that people tend to be more authentic in an individual setting rather than in a group. I have always been selective with my friendships and want to make sure that the friend is someone that I can trust and who is a kind person. I value quality over quantity. I don’t want to force a connection with someone, but would rather have an authentic and natural connection.
Since childhood, I’ve had the ability to be friends with people who think and look differently than I do. I’ve been friends with people who are different races, cultural backgrounds, religions, socio-economic statuses, sexual-orientations, political affiliations, etc. I’ve had some friends who have lived very different lives than me, but we have connected on some of our similarities and/or have enjoyed talking about our differences. It’s important to be able to be friendly or at least cordial with people who may be very different from us. One of my closest friends is an atheist, while I am a Christian, but we have never argued about religion, but rather enjoy talking about our love of reading and enjoy writing for our blogs. We also relate because we are both introverts and are more homebodies.
During my elementary school years, I had the same small friendship group and the same best friend who I met in kindergarten and we were friends for many years. We immediately clicked when we first met and we were inseparable. She was also an only child just like me and she enjoyed having someone to have playdates with. For the most part, I remember elementary school as being pretty nice and I feel most of the kids got along well. Of course, there are always some mean kids, but for the most part I was not bullied and had some nice friends
Once middle school started, I didn’t feel there was as much drama as middle school can usually bring because the school I went to was K-8, so it was mainly the same kids I knew since kindergarten with just a few new kids that came from different elementary schools. Throughout middle school, my best friend and I unfortunately drifted apart and she became closer to our other mutual friends and got a new best friend. The friendship group I had been in for a while wasn’t as friendly to me as before, so I had to find another friendship group as well. Losing my best friend and experiencing disconnection from some of my friends was a difficult experience, but unfortunately a common experience for many. Having my best friend replace me was tough and I still feel there is pain there that I have to work on processing and letting go. We never talked about why we drifted apart, but I know these things happen. Not really knowing where you fit in and who you are going to hang out with during recess is common, especially in middle school. Looking back now though, I am grateful that I got to see my friends grow up as we spent over eight years together. We had a lot of fun experiences, even if we aren’t close now.
Personally, high school was tougher for me and I had to learn how to navigate the challenging social dynamics of it. I went to a catholic school with a completely different set of kids and only one girl came with me from middle school. I did feel that not knowing most of the kids before high school started, put me at a disadvantage and it seemed the cliques were already formed before freshman year started. Similar to most people, I felt that high school was cliquey and could be pretty cutthroat. Of course, there was a lot of gossiping, backstabbing, and drama and all those things I dislike and actively avoid. During my freshman year, I met a group of girls that I stayed friends with throughout the four years. It was a small group, mostly composed of four or five other girls. For the most part, I felt they were nicer than most, but sometimes I felt that I was friends with some of them just to have friends to sit with at lunch or assemblies, rather than it being an authentic connection. While in my sophomore year of high school, I unfortunately started getting bullied, mainly by two girls that I didn’t know very well. It was a tough situation and something that was very difficult for me, but I just tried focusing on my academics, so I could go to college. Bullying is unfortunately a common occurrence and something that leaves a lot of scars. In October, I am going to write a more in-depth article about my experiences with bullying for Bullying Prevention Month.
Thankfully, my college years were a lot better and I made a lot of new friends, with some people that I still currently have in my life. My college was much bigger and more diverse with many international students coming in from different Asian countries. It was nice to meet people from other cultures and I felt that most people were pretty nice and open to new friendships. College definitely broadened my horizons. For the most part, I had some pretty good friendships that were positive and I still spend time with some of my college friends today.
Looking back at some of my friendships, I’ve learned many different lessons. Some of my friendships have shown me the importance of having boundaries and standing up for myself. A few of my friends have taken advantage of me and didn’t treat me very well. I remember I’ve also had some friends who I felt would emotionally manipulate me and say that I hurt their feelings, even when I didn’t do anything to them and they were just creating unnecessary drama. When I was younger, I would apologize to these people to just keep the peace, even when I didn’t feel I needed to apologize for anything, because I had a hard time standing up for myself. Now at twenty-six, I understand this manipulative behavior and have learned to stand up for myself and not overly acquiesce to anyone. I can apologize to people, but only when I feel that it is truly warranted and not something to just keep the peace.
Additionally, I have learned the importance of making sure my friends are a positive influence on me. Thankfully, I’m lucky that I have never really experienced peer pressure in my early years and have never had people encourage me to engage in any harmful behavior. I think most people knew I wasn’t going to do anything reckless, so they left me alone. I know many other people have struggled with peer pressure and it can be hard to say no to doing things you don’t want to do, but it’s important to never do things that go against your values. For the most part, I feel my friends had a positive influence on me or at least not a negative one. Hopefully, I have also been a positive influence on them and have helped make them better people.
I really feel that I’ve only had one friend who I later realized wasn’t a positive influence on me and he was encouraging me to do things that weren’t healthy for me. I realized I was doing things to impress him or get his validation and that wasn’t good for me. I just didn’t really realize how much this person was negatively influencing until my sexual assault really opened my eyes to the quality of my friendships. Seven months after my assault, I realized that this person wasn’t a good influence on me and I needed to end the friendship because it wasn’t a healthy one. I feel disappointed in myself that I allowed myself to get influenced by this person and I can see how I have some people-pleasing tendencies that I need to overcome. Ending the friendship was sad because I felt that I had invested a lot of time, energy, and effort into it. I really opened up to this person and thought I had found a new friend for life, but this wasn’t the case. There is still a lot of pain there and I need to continue working on processing the friendship and forgiving him.
Not all friendships last forever and that can be the most difficult part. Most friendships last for a season of our lives rather than forever. There are certain people I still wish were friends, but some of them didn’t have an interest in staying friends. I'm learning how to accept the endings of friendships and realize I can find new friends who desire a friendship with me. For most of my friendships that have ended, they just came to a natural conclusion and either they stopped reaching out or I did. There’s only been a few friendships that I had to actively let them know that I needed to end the friendship because it wasn’t healthy anymore. I don’t enjoy having to cut people out of my life, but sometimes it needs to be done, especially when people continually overstep your boundaries or are continually disrespectful.
As an adult now, most of my friends are from college, my church, or from people I have met through different Meetup events. Making friends as an adult can be difficult, but I have found that going to different online and in-person events has helped me meet new people. For the most part, I am open to new friendships, but sometimes feel that there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to make new friends. I realize I don’t enjoy opening up to people and becoming vulnerable because I know there’s a risk of being hurt. There's the cynical part of me that feels making new friends is a waste of time and effort. I feel I have put so much of myself in people that are not in my life anymore and have hurt me. I think I realize that a lot of the time I have overly given of myself and then become resentful when the other person doesn't reciprocate. I am now trying to recognize when I am giving too much of myself and let the relationship be more of an equal exchange.
Overall, friendships can be beautiful, complicated, fun, challenging, supportive, and a whole host of other adjectives. It was fun to reflect back on some of my pivotal friendships throughout the different stages of my life, while also seeing some of my friendship patterns that I need to address. Friendships can be challenging because they are a mirror and can show us the things we may not want to see about ourselves. While it can be tough to see the shadow sides of us, friendships can also show us our light and our positive traits as well. We can see the times when we were a bright light in people’s lives and vice versa.
