Friendship

The 90s kids are growing up, all in their 20s now. Some in Uni, some leaving, and some left years ago. I've noticed many find it difficult to find friends or keep friends. getting rid of toxic friends and making sure to do your part when it comes to maintaining friendships.

If you find it difficult to make friends, then here is a small tip I use, whenever you go out, to a gathering or a party, try talking to one new person, get their number and try to keep in touch. Or even when you bump into an acquaintance try to arrange to meet again, and stick by it! Or if you have them on social media try starting a small conversation, it can be as simple as sending a meme and from there if the conversation hits off try arranging to meet up.

Friendships are so important, you lean on each other and you learn from one another. But the thing is that it all comes down to finding the right friends. What I mean by this is that even in friendships there are the toxic friends which we need to be careful of. We all know about bullies, we can point them out straight away but when it comes to friends, friends that don't make you feel good about yourself, or even make you little anxious while being with them. The toxic friends, it's hard to identify them. We have them or we can be them. When we first become friends we put our all in that relationship, making sure not to hurt one another, but as time goes by we can become more comfortable and we start calling each other unkind names as a joke. This is a dangerous zone for a friendship.

Sometimes people may say something that will offend you, instead of keeping it in and ending the friendship straight away, try confronting them. And if it doesn't get better or they make you feel as if you're overthinking the comment instead of apologizing then there is no reason for you to feel bad to drop them. I always avoided confrontation, so I simply just forgive them and overlooked their mistakes, but this was unhealthy for us. They didn't know how much they hurt me and I felt like I was suffocating every time I was around them. No matter how much you hate confrontation, push yourself to do it, you could save a relationship, or get rid of one without feeling guilty later.

There are times when we can be too sensitive, things that aren't a big deal can become major with us just from over thinking it all. This could lead us to start disliking the other person over something that doesn't need to be given a second thought to just because it was so silly. People aren't perfect and they make mistakes, so if we take everything that is said in a wrong way we will only create bitterness in the relationship. We will start to dislike them for no reason, or get annoyed at the them over the simplest things. The best thing to do in situation like this is to stop ourselves from overthinking things, try thinking about the situation from a calm mind and reminding ourselves that not everyone is perfect and not everyone is out to make us feel bad. If this horrible feeling doesn't stop then ask the other person about it, just simply talk to them. This is how we maintain friendships, we don't just assume the worst, but we work at it.

I recently confronted a friend, it took a long time to do it. When I did do it, I felt so much better. It turned out that person didn't even know they were hurting me and apologized. It made me feel glad that I was able to save a friendship instead of just cutting them off. Don't get me wrong I've had confronted someone else before and it did not go as smoothly as I thought it would and did lose them, but it was better for my mental health. I mean, it allowed me to see there was no point of keeping someone who puts me down on purpose and they didn't see that they were doing something wrong, even after I had explained how some of the things they said made me feel. It was to the point that they didn't even apologize because they felt they had done nothing wrong and said I was making it all up.

In friendship we need to do our part to be understanding and to be careful not to hurt our friend's feelings, being aware of these things will take us a long way. We in the end are humans and will make mistakes, so if we do then just apologize, don't allow your pride to stop you. The friendship is way more important.