What I've learnt about friendships

This year I have learnt how to let go of one-sided friendships. I’ve had lots of different conversations with some of my university friends recently about friendships and what we should do when a friendship isn’t equal, or doesn’t make you happy. Now, I’ve had quite a bumpy ride with friends and friendship groups my whole life really, all I ever wanted to do was please my friends, but sometimes life happens or personality’s clash. Eventually I realised that a friendship needs to be equal and I like to think I’ve learnt what it takes to maintain good relationships with the people who you value the most (obviously I’m only 21 and I am well aware that I don’t know everything about life, but I wanted to share my thoughts of friendship as I move into a different chapter in my life). 

With most of my friendships throughout my life I have been the one who organises things – whether it is an activity or what film we are going to watch. I have a side of me that needs to be in control and organised, and this has flowed into my friendships. However, I’ve found that with me taking control in organising things, sometimes friends stop trying and just wait for me to organise when we meet up, and it hit me in the past six months that I’m fed up of being the only one who ever suggests to do something (which I therefore feel like I’m the only one making an effort in the friendship.) For example, there have been moments in my long term friendships when I decided I’m not going to be the person who texts first, I’m going to wait until they message me, but in reality, that experiment actually is quite sad and has gone with me not speaking to that person for a month or so, then finally giving in and texting with a passive aggressive ‘we haven’t spoken in so long!’ Some of those friendships have continued but others just haven’t; not because something happened, but I gave up trying to push for a friendship that wasn’t natural, or two-sided. Other friendships survive on a text every month, but those are the people who although I don’t speak to them everyday, I just know that they are there. All friendships are different, but this is just a trend I’ve noticed.

At university I often became close with someone through an activity – whether that’s because I saw them weekly in a seminar, or through clubs/work - and once that ended I tried to continue the friendship because I genuinely really wanted to, but sometimes people just don’t reciprocate and after a long while, I just stopped trying. And I’m not saying this to paint myself as a great person or anything, maybe I’m a hypocrite and maybe I never tried with a friend and I was the reason we grew apart. But I am just describing what I have noticed over the past year and what I’ve learnt from it: You have to put in effort for a good, balanced friendship.

I’ve never really properly argued or fallen out with anyone, all my friendships just grow apart because of the way life has taken us. In a sense, it almost feels worse. It’s such a horrible sinking feeling when you realise you’ve grown apart from someone you used to speak to everyday. Some friendships withstand distance and can survive on occasional texts, others just can’t, and that’s okay. Every person you’ve had in your life was there for a reason. 

But what I do preach is that if someone wants to be your friend, they will try – they will make time for you, they will text you, they will care about you – and if they don’t, then go and find someone else because everyone is worthy enough to have a best friend that they can text absolutely anything to. 

I have had this blog post written for about two weeks but was actually quite nervous to post it. I’ve always wanted to write more personal posts on my blog, but have been scared with how much to share and conscious of the people in my life. The topic of friendship is something that has grown incredibly interesting and important for me and I just wanted to share my thoughts. I’d love to know anyone else’s thoughts on one-sided friendships and what it takes to maintain a good friendship. Feel free to drop a comment down below, or tweet me your thoughts!

Thanks so much to Nicole for snapping these fab photo's!