PSA: How to be a Good Friend and Find Good Friends

For a large portion of my life, the people who I considered my friends weren’t actually very kind to me, but I didn’t know what the rules of friendship were and whether this was normal or not so I kept them around. I was taught by my parents that making friends was easy, so I thought that horrible, manipulative people truly just had my best interest at heart. I think even the best of us struggle with this sometimes, so I put together a few tips to hopefully help you out. Feel free to share this with people if you find it useful.

Friendships should be equal in “give and take,” especially when it comes to anything involving money.

Friendships should be equal in the “give and take” regions. Now, this doesn’t have to be instantly equal. For instance, if your friend forgets their wallet and you offer to pay for their lunch, they obviously can’t pay you back that day. If they decide to pay you back in cash and give you less than you spent on them, consider this a warning sign that you may not want to offer to pay for them again. If they buy you lunch another day (or something else of equal value, like taking you out for drinks), that would make up for the previous inequality. However, if this person constantly asks for things and never gives you anything in return, then this is an unequal friendship that you want to get out of or attempt to even out. It can also be a problem if, as an example, you pay for a more high end dinner, and then to pay you back they buy you cheap fast food and call it even. That isn’t even, and you shouldn’t accept it as even unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Remember that your time is valuable and people should respect it. The effort you put into the friendship should be equal.

Unequal friendships can also take form in the area of time. If you try to put aside a lot of time for your friend but they don’t seem to put the same effort in, this can be a serious red flag. If this person asks you to take time out of your schedule to take them somewhere, this can be fine, but only if they return the favor or offer you something in return for your time, like paying for gas or buying you ice cream. This is especially important if you’ve gone out of your way for them, spending a lot of your own time, and they don’t return the favor.

Beware of people who gossip about friends, because they’ll probably gossip about you too.

If somebody talks shit about all of their friends to you, they’re probably talking shit about you too. Try not to feed them anything. If they’re trying to provoke you to say something negative, they could use what you say against you later. For instance, they’ll ask you how you feel about someone, and then tell that person later what you said about them just to cause drama. Try to remain neutral when these types of people start talking trash and don’t give them anything to work with.

Saying no doesn’t make you a bad person. You don’t have to say yes all the time.

Don’t feel like you always have to give your friends everything they want, especially if the other person doesn’t. You don’t want to be the only one saying yes and giving into demands. Remember that saying no once in a while isn’t a bad thing. This is something that I’m especially bad at. I want people to like me so badly that I end up over committing to them, even when I have other things to get done. If denying your friend occasionally makes them stop talking to you, then they don’t respect your decisions in the first place.

Now, not only should you watch out for other people doing this, but you should also look at your own actions and determine whether you’re being a bad friend or a good one. It’s important to evaluate how your role in a friendship affects someone else as well. It takes two to tango.