Teens Meet Outreach

Friendship is a beautiful thing; to love and to be loved is a feeling wanted and appreciated by anyone. A friend is someone who stands by you and who is with you through your ups and downs. They celebrate your successes with you, and still stand by you in tough times. It is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people.

There are many forms of friendship, some of which may vary from place to place, but certain characters are always present in such bonds. They include affection, kindness, love, virtue, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, loyalty, mutual understanding, compassion, trust, ability to be oneself and enjoyment of each others company.

Although friendship is something we all desire and having great friends improve our lives for the better, there are some friends or friendships that are toxic. Some turn sour, some fizzle out and some just grow apart. Anything can happen in friendship, as a popular proverb says “20 friends won’t play together for 20 years”. Just because we like someone or we don’t want to hurt their feelings doesn’t mean we should ignore their negativity.

There are signs, big signs that we often overlook when it comes to some friendships. No matter how long you’ve known them, saying goodbye to a not-so-great friendship is never easy. But instead of ignoring signs that it’s time to let a particular friend go, you have to put yourself first and let go of any person that is probably weighing you down.

Some of these signs include:

1.  Trust Issues: although this is a fixable problem, there are some situations where it seems like nothing can be done. When there is no trust, there is no friendship. A good friendship is founded on trust.

1. You feel you can never truly be yourself around that person or that the person doesn’t truly accept you for who you are.

2. Hanging out with them starts to feel like a burden or you start to make excuses not to hang out with them anymore.

3. Your personality changes for the worst when they’re around or they introduce you to bad habits or support your bad habits

4. They bully you or belittle you

5. They try to manipulate your thinking, beliefs or actions to suit them.

These are a few signs and there are lots more. But if you know or realize there is someone you need to distance yourself from, what do you do then?

A. You can sit down and tell them directly that you don’t want to continue being friends. Although this is a tough approach and sometimes can cause more harm than good but it could be the best and only solution in some situations.

B. You could slowly allow things to drift apart, just allow the friendship to slowly progress into non existence. This is a much easier but slower approach.

As difficult as it is to let go of a friend, if they’re not good for you or they constantly hurt you or they do not add value to your life, by letting them go you’ll be happier, healthier, and free to live your life in harmony with your values. Friends are meant to love, care and improve each other and not otherwise.

I hope this helps you to see beyond and let go unproductive friends. Feel free to leave a comment below and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog to not miss a post.