Photo: John (my handsome hubby) and I had one of our
My earrings are gifts from a company I have stayed in contact with. I love love love this
We Need Close Friends, Not Crappy Ones.
I have a question for myself and anyone else reading this. Why do we keep people in our lives who are just crappy friends? I am writing this just as much for me as I am for you. Many times, I have found myself putting up with waaayyy to much in my friend group. I am nice, I forgive, I try to communicate when necessary, I show up when I say I will… So why do I keep finding friends who do not return the favor? From my experience, I have desired for someone to like me so bad, I ignore all other healthy relationships and try to friend-win the one person in my life who isn’t my biggest fan. If you are thinking this is strange, think a little more about your best friends or your friendships. Which ones do you value more? The friends who have always been there for you or the friendships that have been flaky, inconsistent, and quite frankly, do not treat you well? When we keep crappy friends in our lives we keep ourselves from growing as a person, we are not respecting ourselves, and we will push quality friendships away.
Graduating from college was a rough time for me. My college boyfriend and I broke up and I was not myself. The last thing I wanted to do was look for jobs. I ended up on my parent’s couch. During this time a group of my friends went on a road trip. I was not a very pleasant person to be around, I will be honest. This group of girls were my friends. I loved each girl so much. I had a horrible melt down the night before we were going to go home. After the trip I found out who my friends and who were not. When six months passed and a few of my friends never reached out to see if I was ok, I decided some things needed to change. There’s nothing like a difficult time in your life to weed out the fake friends in your life. This was the first really hard time in my life. Before that I didn’t know what it meant to have friends that had your back. I decided after that summer, my close friends were going to be quality, not crappy.
The biggest change I had to make was I needed to stop trying to friend-win. If a person isn’t putting as much effort as I am in a friendship it does not reflect me as a person. I really believe that no one person has more value than the other person. Our tendencies as humans is to label people. You’re more important or she’s more important. Or she’s better than I am… This is simply not true. Although we tend to value and devalue people; we are all on the same level in value. God created all of us so uniquely and so intentionally, I wouldn’t want to ever say anything otherwise. However, when we bring the high school mean girl mentality into adulthood we end up labeling people. Labeling and defining the value of friendships will lead us to friend-win which ultimately leads us with crappy friends.
A good friend will show up, she will be encouraging, she will celebrate with you, and be there when you are not the most pleasant person to be around. Personally, I am glad that my friend group was weeded out through a hard time in my life. When I got married I stood with some of the most amazing women I know. I knew without a doubt each one of those ladies loved me and would show up for all the little annoying parts of weddings. Another quality of a good friend that we don’t talk about is, they won’t put up with your bad friends. A good friend usually has healthy boundaries in their life. They won’t want to be around your unhealthy bad friends who don’t have boundaries. I personally had to bail on a few events because of a friend’s friend. Like why do you have a friend who isn’t kind? I don’t get it. A good friend knows that you tend to act like those you surround yourself with. She also knows that you will be associated with whoever you are with. Pick your close friends well!!!! If you are looking around and asking yourself what happened to your good friendships, it might be because of one friend who you are trying to friend-win.
Lastly, be a good friend. Misery loves company. Be the friend you’d want to be and you’ll find yourself with quality friends. Please don’t sell yourself short. Surround yourself with quality women who will push you to be better, to do hard things, and to love well. Value all people. Friendships happen through the funniest circumstances, with the people we don’t expect. Friendships are like mini miracles. When you find a good girl friend it is a blessing that doesn’t just happen over night. By being a good friend you will surround yourself with good people, value others, quit friend-winning, and appreciate the friends who show up.
One of my favorite things to do to build my friendships is throw parties. I love having an excuse to hangout. One tools I use for planning parties is PaperlessPost. PaperlessPost is an amazing site where you can send invitations through email, text, and social media. I’ve used this for my friend’s shower, bachelorette party, my birthday party, and national donut day. It is awesome!
This post is sponsored by PaperlessPost
Hannah is a radio/podcast host, blogger, and mental health therapist who loves Jesus and fashion. Her work revolves around betrayal trauma and the eldest daughter population.
