Browse Tag: friendships

We can’t be friends.

In early January, I logged into Facebook and noticed the status of my good friend “M” that struck a chord. She said:

Trying to remind myself that just because a cause is important for me, it doesn’t mean it will automatically be important to my friends. And that their choices are their own even if they go against my fundamental beliefs and I have to respect their decisions, but it’s not easy.

Hers is an astute statement, and one of the most important truths one can–and arguably must–face about one’s friends and relatives. But it seems to be getting harder and harder. We are more unapologetic than ever about our standards and beliefs; we hold our ideals close to our hearts more fiercely than ever. So where does that leave a friendship when one party makes a move or statement that completely goes against the other’s ethics and standards?

My friend M is a staunch defender of animals. She is adoptive mother to a beloved rescue dog to whom she devotes much care and affection; she also uses much of her free time to further the cause of mistreated animals, always encouraging people to adopt animals if they are looking to grow their clan with four-legged cuties. After M posted her Facebook status, she later explained her sadness and frustration to me privately: on a day that she was running an adoption event for rescued dogs, one of her best friends went to the mall, and decided on a whim to buy a dog from a pet shop that sources its dogs from puppy mills, hence promoting and perpetuating inhumane treatment of animals. Sadly, this friend has volunteered at some of M’s animal rescue events, and is aware of the shop’s bad practices. So the friend posted pics of the new puppy on Facebook, and M, surprised to see the new dog, messaged her and said, ‘pleeease tell me you adopted the puppy.’ Friend’s response: ‘Oh, sorry girl, we were in the mall and it was a spur of the moment thing.’ For M, the spur of the moment aspect is one of the worst things about the whole situation, being that most people get cats and dogs on the “spur of the moment” then get fed up with the work several months later and get rid of them, contributing to an already uncontrollable situation for animal shelters. I feel my friend’s pain: that flaky buy-and-ditch behavior with animals has soured me on several people I know personally.

To M, the treatment of abused animals is wholly important and an issue of ethics and morality; to her friend, it’s kind of nothing. Where do you draw the line? After all, this wasn’t a disagreement about where to eat for dinner. When you truly don’t see eye to eye with a close friend or relative about something that “counts,” are you able to forget the difference of opinion easily? In the spirit of honesty, I admit that I can’t get past certain differences, even with people I love. For instance: I have felt a dramatic roller-coaster-stomach-dropping sense of disappointment during conversations that revealed certain friends of mine to be genuine bigots. Did I begin to feel a toxic hatred for them? No, because I don’t like to feel toxic hatred for people, but the truth is that I never thought of them in the same way again, and I ended up distancing myself emotionally from those friends. Was this judgmental and harsh of me? Should I have tried to change my former friends’ minds? I’m not a confrontational person, so that wouldn’t have been my style. Should I have had a mindset of “friends can disagree, let’s move past this”? That wouldn’t have worked for me–my memory’s too clear to ignore and forget that type of thing.

My friend M? Though thoroughly disappointed in her friend’s on-a-whim pet store purchase, she didn’t want to dampen her buddy’s happiness and excitement of having a new puppy in the house, so instead of criticizing, she chose to insist that her friend put the dog in training school to avoid a future “this dog’s out of hand” situation. She also offered to lend her books on dog-rearing. Her friend didn’t show interest. In the weeks that have passed since that day, she has not had any further contact with her friend, and confesses that she can’t help but feel disengaged from the relationship.

What constitutes a deal-breaker for you in a friendship? Are you able to disregard major differences with your friends?

**Photo: “We’re not friends anymore” by JMParrone

Concerning friendships…

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Starting out on a little sidenote–there are some websites and blogs that I follow regularly—GOOP, Gwyneth Paltrow’s site being one of them. GOOP.com gets an unfair share of harsh criticism in my opinion. Seriously, why all the hate? I enjoy the little entries on lifestyle, health and travel. It’s funny how so many people worship, *cough cough*, er, I mean “follow” celebrities and glorify their silly behavior, their alcohol-and-drug-infused crazy spells, and their extravagant spending. Then a celebrity decides to create a website with some pleasant articles that contain useful information like recipes, workout tips and advice, and this is the celebrity that gets bashed. Something’s wrong with this picture!

But I digress, lovely readers. I decided to bring up GOOP because I recently found what has become my favorite article ever about friendship. On Ms. Paltrow’s site, which also sends its articles in newsletter form to subscribers, there was a recent entry titled “Friendship Divorce.” The following question is at the top of the page:

“What do you do when you realize that although you may have years of history, and found real value in each other in times past, that you kind of don’t like a friend anymore? That, after time spent with this person, you feel drained, empty, belittled or insulted. My father always used to tell me that, ‘you can’t make new old friends.’ How do you distinguish if someone in your life makes you change for the better or if you are better off without them?”

What follows is an engaging series of enlightening responses from scholars, authors and psychologists sharing their thoughts on friendships and the way friendships change over time, how one can tell whether a friendship is worth saving, and how one goes about defining “true friends.”

I love love LOVE this article because it addresses one of the most relevant topics in our lives. This everyday miracle we call friendship—this strangely absurd art of coming into contact with one of the 7 billion people on the planet and sacredly keeping this contact over time and distance—often causes as much heartache and headache as it does joy.

I’ve always put a high value on amiability; I’ve spent a lifetime going out of my way to remain likable, even to people who didn’t like me. I used to put all kinds of effort into friendships long after they stopped being of any benefit, much less enjoyment.

A few years ago, a co-worker shared this quote with me: ‘People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.’ The quote didn’t mean as much to me then as it does now. I used to feel a tremendous sense of guilt and loss whenever a friendship fizzled out or died. Now I understand that it’s no biggie, that it’s only natural. All living, breathing things have a life cycle. I now think of friendship as its own living and breathing organism—one that needs nourishment at times, one that is capable of having a long and healthful lifespan, and sometimes one that can become quite disease-ridden.

I used to keep dying friendships on lifesupport at all costs for as long as I could. Nobody likes a funeral. But where’s the quality of life in that? What’s the purpose of the friendship at that point? Let it go with its dignity in tact. Its death doesn’t render its life meaningless. That friendship was a part of your life for a reason; he or she brought you joy at one point. Be confident that you took from each other whatever it is you were meant to take from each other, and move on.

So that said, I vow to be the best friend that I can be. I’ll still be nice and amiable because I don’t know how to be any other way with my friends. If I ever sense weird red flags about any of my friendships, I’ll study the relationship inside and out with a critical, but loving eye. And I mean that with all my heart.