Real or Faux Friends?

In life you will find that friends come in and out of your life, sometimes for very short periods, sometimes for longer periods and sometimes they are there for life. Throughout high school, I was unlucky enough to move a lot and always found myself having to make new friends at new schools, and even though you try to stay in contact, I found those friendships that I thought would be forever just begun to fade away into memories and happy snaps.

Over the past few months I have found myself questioning a lot of friendships that I have in my life, Of course after high school you lose contact with people you don’t make the effort to see, or people that you saw daily at school but really outside of school you weren’t that close – even people you thought were long time friends become acquaintances that you wave too down the street, but as I am getting older (and hopefully wiser) I have begun to question the importance that my friendship has to some people.

I like to think that as a friend, I am someone who can be relied on and that is there for the long term. I know that like all people, I may not be in someones life forever, but if you are my friend I will always try and put you first. However a friend of mine and myself were having a conversation about this, and she pointed out to me that the time and energy I put into a friendship, can often be taken for granted and not reciprocated, for the exact reasons stated above – I will always try and be there for you, and she made the point that maybe I am giving to much to people who don’t appreciate me as a friend, only that they know I will be there to rely on.

& it got me thinking, how can you tell if your friend is real or faux?

Since having this conversation with my friend, I have begun noticing things that may point to the latter, which is partially distressing as they are friends that I thought were in the long term category. But after a number of dismissive texts, vague suggestions of catching up & the fact that although I made the effort to text to see how they are, they don’t seem to have any interest in me and my life – which is fine, I suppose, but I would like to think that friendship includes asking someone how they are…

Although I can’t bare the thought of cutting people form my life, maybe I need to start treating those as they treat me, however its not in my nature so I don’t see it sticking. But it has definitely opened my eyes to the world of assessing your friendships without blind acceptance and really trying to find your own value.

Value yourself and really asses how other people make you feel, are they the kind of friends that make you feel good about yourself? that care about what is happening in your life as much you do theirs? Remembering to surround yourself with people who have a positive impact on your life is often not second nature to us, but should be something we consciously try to do. 

Have you ever felt undervalued as a friend? How can you tell if a friend is real…or faux?

thankyou for reading

Jess xx