Making friendship work

I started out as a combination of a shy child when it came to conversations, and an active one when it came to boisterous playing in the outdoors. Over the years, especially when I became a teenager, I realized that for longer lasting friendship and better relationships, I needed to improve my communication skills. And then started my attempt at making better conversations, engaging the introverts in “small talk”, and generally, improving my overall sociability. I think I have done a pretty okay job. Smile. 

Now, having crossed the single status and being promoted to motherhood (not to mention the threshold of the 30s), my emotions have changed and so has my attitude to relationships. They are no longer about making more friends, but a lot about keeping the old ones closer.

However, with changing life, friendship is becoming harder to manage. You have to work around them to keep them going. The newly acquired friends are the most difficult to keep. Thus, coffee evenings, play dates for kids, and drinks and dinner events are planned and executed. For me a friendship has to be effortless. It shouldn’t feel like a task. So when you have “friends” who are hardly ever around, it makes it so much tougher to manage.

Like the friend who never keeps in touch and pretends to love you to bits when she sees you every 3 months. The one who says she’ll call back but forgets. The one who’s seasonal and pops up once a year. The one who returns from a foreign land every year promising to meet you this time but never does. The one who stays less than a kilometre away but neither calls you over nor takes your invitation seriously. The one who’s part of your group but if you were left alone with her you’d probably end up staring at the walls. The one who says we’ll definitely meet next week and that week never comes. The friend who treats you like a task on her things-to-do list. Sigh.

Honestly, I like them all. But I wish they’d be more available. More, as in over and above phone calls, mails, messaging and FB. People, whom I can meet, sit next to and chat and laugh with. And not just keep planning to do so. I have a lot to blame myself too. But I’m making amends. So if you like me and want to spend time with me, I’m game. Just remember to keep your promise when you say, “Let’s meet up!!!”