The importance of nurturing our friendships
If I’m going to write about living a more meaningful life then I can’t not write about relationships, and not just the relationship we have with ourselves, which yes is an important one, but the fundamental relationships we have with others.
This is something I’ve felt tentative about until recently because of my own issues but the thing is - when we feel happy in our relationships our life satisfaction orgasms. As a result we find ourselves feeling more settled, content and less eager to fill our lives with the meaningless. Healthy relationships are a key ingredient to a meaningful life, they make us better people too.
We’re used to having the Disney happily every after dangled in front of us as the golden egg of a relationship we should be searching for. In our culture, so much focus is on romantic relationships being the solution to all our problems; the idea that those are the ones that will complete us, sustain us and are worth all our efforts and attention. Disney has a lot to answer for. As someone who is currently wading through the wasteland of marriage separation in her thirties I can confirm this is utter rubbish. I also feel compelled to encourage you to gently shift the spotlight to shine on those relationships too often overlooked - our friendships.
Last week I found myself standing on a dance floor holding hands with the person facing me. They looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I love you to bits, you know that right?”
“Right’ I nodded. And I did know. It filled me up. My heart was full. I felt loved. I felt seen. And there wasn’t a prince charming in sight, just my dear old friend from University halls who’d gotten married earlier that day.
Back in school I can remember being told boys will come and go but friends will last a lifetime. This was very confusing alongside all the fairytales I was watching and reading so it’s understandable my priorities got a little skewed. The elusive fairytale felt more exciting to chase. As someone who was raised by a single mother a loving relationship was a mystery to me and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. When the boys did come along I found myself desperate to try and secure romantic love whilst simultaneously wanting to run wild and free. This may well come down to my taste / bad choices of men but every partner I’ve ever had has wanted me to spend all my time with them, and I’ve always struggled to resist this pressure.
Our time is our most precious resource precisely because it’s limited, so we have no choice but to allocate it as we see fit - and we can’t do it all. Choices have to be made, including who we spend our time and energy on. This is where our friendships can end up being neglected, but at what cost to both ourselves and our friends?
Like any relationship, nurturing our friendships takes work but we have a lot to lose. In her book Five Regrets Of The Dying, Bonnie Ware discovered one of the most common regrets of her terminally ill patients was they didn’t keep in touch with friends. And it’s so easy done. After the school bus rides, nights out, the flat shares, and the hen weekends comes a different chapter in lives. Our friends are no longer our family, we start having ‘real’ families and priorities change. Time passes us by, seemingly speeding up as we grow older and it’s easy to start drifting apart from our friends.
My own personal struggles with friendships range from feeling like I didn’t need any friends and isolating myself to struggling to be vulnerable, not knowing how to be a good friend and giving up when things got tough. As heartbreaking as it can be, it’s normal and natural for friendships to end and I’m not saying hang on to those that are toxic for you, but nurturing what is healthy and shows potential for growth has proven to be a skill worth honing.
The rise of individualism and self-empowerment / self-improvement movements are adding to the struggles we can face when it comes to nurturing our friendships. Prioritising ourselves and doing what’s right for us has its place, especially for girls and women, who tend to feel like their voices do not matter and struggle to ask for what they need, but I think we need to beware of going too far down this road because it’s a basic human need to be part of community and connection. We need relationships and having good ones requires some selflessness, effort and sacrifice for the greater good on both sides. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that alongside the rise of individualism we’ve seen a rise of loneliness.
I have deep seated resentment I’m in the process of letting go of around prioritising romantic love over friendships throughout my teens and twenties and it’s a bitter pill to swallow. I’m still a hopeless romantic at heart and haven’t given up on love. If anything I’ve become more determined to understand it and long for it more than ever. But to combat this regret I’m battling I’m committing to being a much better friend from now on, not just because I’ve learned my lesson - I should’ve listened, but because I also want to become a better person and being a good friend will do that. We can’t change the past, but the now and the future are there for the taking.
Statistically 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Friends really can last a lifetime and it’s important to know and accept that the love we find in our friendships is in no way inferior to the love we’re conditioned to seek romantically, in fact in many cases it supersedes it. Don’t overlook the joy, warmth, comfort and love to be found in our friendships. We can’t get everything from one person and this kind of romanticism is dangerous. It leads to nothing but disappointment, co-dependence and (raises hand) resentment - more things Disney has to answer for.
Post break up it’s our friends who will remind us of who we are without that person. They will make you feel like yourself again, feel safe and above all feel loved. The oldest will remember you at your worst through the bratty teenage years - and they’ll love you anyway. They are the family we get to choose and they matter greatly. Our friendships play a pivotal role in our lives. Study after study has found that they bring us more satisfaction than our romantic relationships. So check in with your friends, listen to how they’re doing, send them old photos so you can enjoy nostalgia together, make time for get togethers, let them know what they mean to you and book those trips. Work through that anxiety so many of us feel after seeing our friends and keep going with these relationships.
Friendships offer us kindness, a safe space to be vulnerable and understanding in ways a partner can’t always offer us. Treasure these gifts that are good friends, you need them, they need you and take it from someone who’s tested the waters, the results are worth it. And If you aren’t good at friendships, if you don’t feel you have many or even any just know you only need a few, one will do. But don’t give up on this kind of love, because it’s so important and worth the effort.
