The Importance of Having Genuine Friends

Just this past Sunday I got my suspicions confirmed. Someone who I had called a friend in the past talks badly about me behind my back. She had bad mouthed people in front of me and there was nothing to make me believe that she was not doing the same when it came to me.

I knew it was coming but I was disappointed nonetheless. Friendship does not come easy for me. I guess it has something to do with the fact that the older you get and the harder it is to make friends but it’s also me.

If you happen to be my friend and you’re reading this you know that I have a ranking system, a list of sorts. There are categories and everyone starts as an acquaintance. You can then become an acquaintance on the way of becoming a friend and then you reach friendship status.

Some people think that the list is very pedantic. But it’s all about labels. You can have best friends and standard friends. All the people I call friends are my best friends. The others are special acquaintances. I will admit that my system is complex. But oh well.

This instance with this former friend made me think about the importance of having genuine friends and being a genuine friend myself.

I do not know why I did not notice the signs before. I only realised that she was not a friend before the end of my second year at university. I had spent quite a significant amount of time with her and thought I could rely on her as a friend. But she was rarely if never there for me. She did not support me in the way I would expect a friend to (despite the fact that I supported her) and whenever I hang out with her I could feel myself breathing in that negativity that she insists on carrying on like a bullet proof vest that she’s got to wear to deal with the world.

This situation has just made me sad. Maybe she  has problems herself and is being suffocated by her own negativity, so much so that she doesn’t seem to ever be happy for her friends. And perhaps I should be more understanding of her circumstances and try to help her.

But the pain is too fresh. And the betrayal I feel is hard to ignore. Perhaps I’m being too selfish, thinking only about how I feel. But if there is something I realised in the past 6 months is that I’ve got to think about me. I’ll have to live with me for the rest of my life and I cannot be a good person if I’m surrounded by people who make me feel horrible and who make me feel like I’ve got to talk bad about people I know and don’t know.

So I’m thinking about me. And I’m seeing this as a lesson. My mom always say that the only thing that you don’t pick up from your friends is beauty. You hang out with a bunch of people and chances are that you’ll pick up some of their habits. From now on then, I’m making sure I’m surround myself with genuine friends, so that I can learn and become a better friend too.

To end I’ll share the wisdom imparted by Sarah regarding 3 types of friends that need to be out of your life

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Have you ever had to get rid of friends who were not genuine? What do you think are the quality of a genuine friends? Let me know in the comments below!