Author's Note: I wrote this essay on what I
don't do in a friendship that are probably some of the most important things
that hold a friendship together. I have realized why with the help of two of my
best friends along the way, but you will hear more about that in the piece. Let
me know what you think!
To find a real friend is to find someone who knows just about
everything about you. Someone who actually cares about how you feel, and
someone who is there through it all so that they know what is going on. This is
hard to come by. Of course there are some things I do regret about some of
my past friendships, and things that I would change about each of them. A lot
of those different things happen to be stuff that all strong friendships should
just have, but mine never seemed to. I would have opened up more about what was
actually going on in my life. I would tell them different things they wanted to
know, even though I may not have trusted them 100%. I would most importantly
tell them why I was mad at them, if I ever was, but most of the time I would
just leave it and not talk to them. I never understood why I did most of these
things until I became best friends with two very important people. Yes, we may
argue sometimes, but it never lasts long, one thing I know we will never do is
hide things from each other. I don't know why I never did these important
things in my past friendships, but going forward I know why I won't ever do
them again.
People turn on you, it's true as much as when we are little we
don't believe that it is possible to loose any friends, but it is a lot easier
to loose them than to gain them. I never liked to tell anyone about my home
life. Frankly I thought it was none of their business. I was at school, not at
home. Why should you care about what my parents are like, and how my household runs.
I have realized that they only want to know so that it isn't awkward if they
ever come over to your house. I still don't tell many people about my mom for
reasons that no one really needs to know. Usually I like to tell my friends
about my dad. Either way they would like my dad a lot better. But sometimes it
just isn't the right time to ask someone about their family usually when I
first meet someone my questions are a lot more like do you have any siblings,
and are they younger or older. Then if your friendship grows you will find out
more. My friends just get that about me, eventually I will tell you about my
home life but right away the first day I meet you I feel is a bad time to ask.
Plus, I never really could grasp the fact that people actually cared and wanted
to care. So a lot of the time I would just be like no you don't need to know
that. Until Kaitie came around. She just seemed like the kind of person who was
laid back and not judge mental. My kind of person. Are friendship started
instantly, but she still doesn't know about my "life". She gets
everything else like the sports I play and things along those lines. But one of
the reasons I haven't told her is that she just hasn't asked why I don't talk
about it, which is perfectly fine with me. The whole thing is I would rather
have someone ask about it than just be like well here it all is, and this is
what I realized when I started being friends with Kaitie is that if they don't
ask it really isn't something that has to be said.
Even though I think a certain way about telling people about my
family. One of the other things I have found myself doing is not telling people
simple questions that they want to know? Some of them aren't even that hard to
answer like, "what did you get on your science test" or "What
did you do in science today?" Even though the questions are as simple as
that I have strong views. Surprising right? I feel like people, even my friends
need to know what I scored on any test that is something that is for my teacher
and I to know and not the entire school. It is not a hard thing to live with
but it annoys a lot of people because they would openly tell you anything you
wanted to know, I am not that way. Also when people ask me what I did in
certain classes a lot of times everyone is doing something different so I tell
them what I did and then they yell at me when they had to do something
different. I really don't have problems with answering my friends questions
along these lines if they aren't going to tell everyone. Things that aren't
your business or you are just going to complain about the answer later, I
wouldn't ask me about it just for a fair warning.
Getting people to understand why you don't want to answer their
somewhat "dumb" questions, is a task all in itself. Telling people
why you are mad at them is just about the worst thing you could ever have to
do. Sometimes friends and family don't understand why you bottle everything up; and sometimes I don't know the answer. Or at least I never really thought I
did. Now that my best friend Chloe and I have gone through one of these
arguments it is easier to comprehend. She didn't like the way I was treating
her "I was acting like a best friend" she said. I can take that I can
understand that, but why couldn't she just tell me. I understand now that it is
harder to realize when you are truly mad at someone, or if you are holding
a grudge over just about nothing. Which happened to be what this was
about. Nothing major but we had some really awkward moments. Things that people
do wrong to you, don't hold a grudge. Tell it to them to their face it is much
nicer hearing about it straight from the person than from the people they have
told.
Realizing why you never did the important things that hold a
friendship together is one of the hardest things to do, but when you have
friends there to help you along the way, it just makes your whole life a lot
easier. I am still working on remembering not to hold grudges and also to not
get so annoyed with peoples somewhat "dumb" questions. It is going to
take some time and some effort, but it is nothing I can't handle with the help
of some awesome best friends along the way.
