“I haven’t made my decision yet. I’m just going to pray on it.” Never in a million years would I have thought a phrase like that would be the death of a friendship, but it was. The person on the other end of the line made a simple reply “I’m not going to say anything else. I’m just going to listen.” Sounds supportive, right?  Wrong, it was the DOA to a friendship and a harsh reality to a truth that I didn’t want to believe. My friend didn’t really care about me trying to figure out my issue as much as they cared about me taking their advice. Once I realized it I though back to all the times we had fallen out over the years and generally it was because I had said or done something they didn’t like. In addition, I noted that each time we reconciled our friendship it was because I reached out. WTF is wrong with me?!? I’ve been chasing after this chick like a lovesick teenager pursuing the affections of a crush that doesn’t want them. No cool, not cute, and not what I do.

After I finished having my “come to Jesus” talk with my mother and bff I had to take a sit-down with myself. Sure, I could be mad at the friend that had wronged me but people can only do what you allow them to do. With the amount of time this friendship lasted, I definitely had done some allowing. Was it intentional… no. Did I learn from it… yes. What I learned was that they were not the problem in this equation, I was. They had been consistent over the years. They never faltered or wavered in their behavior they gave me the real them. The problem came with me not believing them when they told who they were over and over again.

When formulating friendships they should be looked at the same way as romantic relationships. What does each of you want from the relationship? Do you have common goals and interest? Do your morals and values coexist peacefully? Most importantly do you all share the same ideologies about the purpose of the friendship and how friends treat one another? When building a friendship with someone you should thoroughly investigate it because even tough it is not romantic it is till a matter of the heart. We love our friends, we build life long memories with them, and we share some of the most intimate details of our lives with them. Often times our friends know us far better than our own families.

“Heavy heavy that ish so heavy ba-bay” (think Dreamgirls lol) Friendships were so much easier when we were children and letting someone cut you in line was all that was needed to prove loyalty. Now that life’s complexities have arrived so have the complexities to friendships.  But, to sum it all up, sometimes our “bad friends” aren’t necessarily bad. It might simply be that we chose the wrong candidate to fill the position. (((Huggies)))