What Makes a Good Friend?

"A friend is one who knows you and love you just the same."

~Elbert Hubbard 

Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about friendships, both new and old. What makes a good friend? What qualities do you look for when deciding whether you should become friends with someone or even when you considering to continue your friendship?

I feel blessed that I've so many great friends over the years. I've stayed friends with most of them since the time we met, but other friendships have waxed and waned or died out altogether. A few of these were toxic friendships and definitely needed to end, but a small portion of them I really did not want to see end; however circumstances being what they were, regrettably those friendships could no longer exist without causing one or both of us considerable emotional harm.

While I have a rather large number of people I call friends, I definitely hold some closer to my heart than others. Over the last 15 years or so, these friends have seen me in some of my best and worst moments. Although some of my friends have seen me in some dark times, especially when my heart has been broken by the men I loevd,  what I think stings me even more to the core is the fact that I had friends outright betray me, abandon our friendship without really giving a reason why, take advantage of our friendship, and much worse. On each of these occasions, I would call some of my other close friends crying my eyes out over the situations not really understanding why they acting this way and wondering what I had done wrong to cause them to treat our friendship this way. 

"An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may would your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind."

~ Buddha

Well, after several years of dealing with these issues and coming to the realization that I can't control what others do, I finally decided that I needed to reevaluate what qualities I look for in friends and what lengths I am willing to go to in order to hold on to a friendship.  I actually stumbled upon a quote that pretty much sums it up.

"A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often - just to save it from drying out completely."

 ~ Pam Brown 

In keeping with my "Change Checklist" for this year, I am still on the path to ridding myself of toxic friendships and relationships that are still lingering or that I have been debating on keeping around.  I thought that I had accomplished this item on the checklist, but recently I have come to believe I still have some work to do before I can truly check it off the list.  Additionally, I am evaluating how good of a friend I have been to my friends and taking steps to making myself a better friend.

Qualities I Value in a Friend (and Strive to Exhibit with Mine)

• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Trustworthy
• Can count on them no matter what (especially for late night calls and bail money - if the time should come)
• Even if life gets busy, they make time to send a text, email, Facebook message or something that shows me they are still thinking about me and our friendship
• They call me out on my bullshit (when needed) and call things like they are
• Are funny and can make me laugh
• Loves me for who I am and encourages me to embrace who I am
• Celebrates in my joys and comforts me in my sorrows
• Are unique, diverse, and are not afraid to be themselves with me
• Someone I can trust with my secrets
• Supportive no matter how many mistakes I make
• Good listener and attentive

What I Won't Tolerate Anymore

• Being taken advantage of
• Breaking my trust by telling private matters to people they should not have
• Lying to me about things you have said and done about me behind my back
• Ignoring or not returning phone calls, emails, texts, and/or Facebook messages in a reasonable and timely manner (I mean we are all busy, but I work more than 60 hours every week and can still manage to send messages from time to time)
• Putting down my other friends (no matter what your reason is)

Friends cannot truly call themselves friends when they treat those they claim to care about like they are an after thought or an accessory to their life.  Yes, people grow up, get married, have kids, and have lives of their own, but I have a long list of friends who have achieved all of these and still manage to talk with me and/or get together on a fairly regular basis.

I am tired of holding on to the hurt and the anger from dealing with these so-called friendships that I don't feel are truly friendships anymore. It's time that I let them go, and by letting them go, I will also be releasing myself from these awful feelings that I know longer need to hold onto.

Maybe by releasing these friendships, they will realize what a good friend I really was to them and decide to come back and finally talk to me about why things ended up they way they did. If not, I truly believe that is their loss. I've had some friendships that ended in this way before and after some years, we reconnected.  Honestly, I feel our friendship has grown stronger in many ways because of the turns that our friendship took. I only hope that this will be the case for some of these friendships I foresee losing in the near future.

To my amazing, wonderful friends, THANK YOU! You are some of the most amazing people I know, and I am a better person for having you in my life. Life would most definitely not be the same without you. It would be dull, gray, and boring instead of exciting, full of color, and so, so bright. I love you all and wouldn't trade you for all the riches in the world.