Jess Randall

Friendships are an interesting social concept that takes on many forms. Some people feel the need to have many, many friends, perhaps this is because  they like a busy social life, or they like to have many options available as to who to hang out with, or they may not want to spend too much time alone in their own company, or perhaps they may want to feel needed.

I have this one friend who mixes in a lot of different social circles, she’s married and has children however she is deeply unhappy in her marriage. For her, friendships are important because they replace the emotional vacuum that exists within her marriage, as much as I love this girl I am so relieved she has so many friends because she is heavy maintenance. She isn’t all take, take, take, she actually has a heart of gold but I went through a phase with her where we got too close and she opened up a lot about her personal life to me, after that she used to text me at least twenty times a day. I found this difficult to cope with as I would be at work and just couldn’t reply to each one of her messages but when I didn’t reply, she would start to text me asking if I was ok, or if she had done something to upset me. I had to back away big time in the end because I just couldn’t cope with her. Anyway she then unfriended me on facebook, one of my other friend’s suggested I challenged her on it but I think this would have played into her hands because it was giving her the attention she was after. I have to confess once that contact actually stopped I felt as though I regained some of my life back! This friend of mine moved onto other friends and eventually reinstated me as her friend on facebook. If it had been anyone else I probably wouldn’t have been as forgiving but I know this lady really has some issues that she needs to deal with, but I hold my hand up it can’t be me, I have too much on my plate already! After all there are limitations on what you can realistically provide in your role as a “friend”, you need to find people who are on your wavelength in order for that friendship to be a successful one.

There are those people who actually just prefer their own company or they are wrapped in home life and therefore haven’t got time for friends. I must admit I do like my solitude time, it gives me a chance to blog and write but I value my really good friendships. These good friendships consist of at least four or five people in my life that have been so supportive towards me, they keep me motivated and focussed and best of all we all have a crazy time when we get together.

I did used to have a few more friends that I considered “good friendships,” but over the years you get to figure people out and I realised  these people were actually gossiping about me behind my back so I let go of them and good riddance.

The one friendship that I lost that did quite upset me was a friend of mine who basically ripped me off, she owed me a whole load of money and never paid it back when she said she would. We ended up falling out over it and then her husband gave me a mouthful of abuse, it ended with them saying they would pay me back but would have nothing more to do with me – well they kept part of their promise, they never spoke to me again! The loss of that friendship only upset me because we had known each other for 30 years but people change as time goes on, clearly we had just grown apart and she certainly didn’t value our friendship or she wouldn’t have abused my trust, again I say good riddance!

I have at least four or five really good friends, and really they are all I need. They have been there for me during the darker periods of my life, they are good company to socialise with, they have me in stitches to the point I have tears of laughter rolling down my face, they are trustworthy and the keep me motivated, most importantly we all give each other space so this avoids any boundaries being crossed. They are really the only group of friends I need and I feel truly blessed to have them in my life.