Let’s chit chat about friendships. As I mature I make it a point to maintain a specific level of awareness about the relationships I have with family, best friends, and coworkers. Hell, every relationship gets an annual inspection over here in my world.
Coasting
I am sure many of you have seen memes that celebrate and excuse what could very well be a budding issue of disconnect happening in a friendship. Recently, I saw this and it put the wheels of my mind into motion. This a perfect example of a friendship that is on auto-pilot.
Is this healthy for friendships? Ol’ boy with the cowboy hat said it best, “Hell NAW! To tha naw naw naw!” I began to ask myself questions.Ā Have I had friendships that functioned like this and what’s the status of those friendships today? Then it hit me, I have in some respect experienced an “auto-pilot friendship”.
Growing up as an only child for my mom and being the youngest aka “last of the Mohicans” as my daddy calls me amongst my siblings on his side, I always wanted to have best friends. I don’t know if it was the Disney movies or the cheesy ass Lifetime movies I watched growing up but I always said that when I grew up I would have them.
Head In The Clouds
As a kid, I imagined having best friends that I would travel the world with. We would share the milestone moments of our lives such as being in one another’s weddings and being Godmothers to one another’sĀ kids. You know on some Beyonce and Kelly type of vibes.
My daddy had and has friendships that are 20, 30, 40 years long. He always said this about friendships:
Banana, always remember that when it comes to friendships quality over quantity is your best bet!
Even with that wisdom, my daddy tried to pass on to me I, like most kids when it comes to taking parental advice, I ain’t listen.Ā In college, I was blessed enough to meet a gang of dope ass women and I’m not saying that simply because they are my friends. We were all from different parts of the country and for the most part, we had all just met at the beginning of our college career. We just clicked!
A Few Bumps Along The Way
Through trial and error, I learned that large groups of girlfriends simply do not work for me. They can get messy afĀ and FAST!Ā With those valuable learning experiences from undergrad tucked away in my memory I finished college with a hand full of true blue friendships.
As I am sure you know for yourself, post-collegeĀ friendships take work sis! Gone are the days where you see one another every day, doing everything together every single day from the time of waking up in the twin bed in your dorm room, to sneaking food out of the cafeteria to stash for later, and going to every party together.
Rerouting
We all will have friends to move to different states for work. Others will become wives before or after you. Some will become mothers before or after you. Hell, sometimes people just grow in a different direction in their lives and they have every right to do so. The paradigm of your friendships will change and you must be prepared for that. Even with adjusting to the change, with proper care, your friendships can still flourish!
One friendship, in particular, comes to mind that I had placed on autopilot. It was on autopilot because I was so accustomed to her being classified in my brain and heart as a best friendĀ that I never fathomed us not being friends. A few years post college I noticed that I still referred to her as one of my best friends from college because in my mind she was. Being the sensitive ass Cancerian that I am, I noticed that I was being referred to as just a friend from college. This may seem small to you but words, always have and always will, matter to me.
The more it happened, the more it began to eat away at me. My intuition told me that an unexpected shift was happening in the friendship and as per usual I was spot on! Soon after I picked up on this and other changes in the friendship it ended abruptly.
Surviving Turbulence
Was I a perfect friend? Nope and I never claimed to be. I assumed because of all of the petty bull we experienced in college together I figured we were set for life. Lately, I have thought about this former friend and I begin to wonder. I often wonder what kind of friendship we would have if we hadn’t left it to coast on autopilot. Maybe we could have devised a plan to carefully guide the friendship through the turbulence it experienced. The demise of the friendship taught me a key lesson:
NEVER put your friendships on autopilot!
As women, I think that we often take for granted the friendships that we have because we are so accustomed to making new friends. Often we place more importance on being present and attentive only to romantic relationships.
Some women damn near lose all of their edges trying to maintain a relationship with a man. Others will spend hard earned money to take relationships courses and to pay dating coaches. Some will ruin their eyes staying up late reading Steve Harvey books in the dark while bae is snoring to the high heavens to become the undefeated “Man Whisperer”.Ā All of that effort but many barely put 1/10 of that level of effort into maintaining a friendship with their homegirls.
Final Destination
Could I have been a better friend? Yes, most def! Now I know that the error made on my part was in me viewing the friendship through rose-colored glasses. Maybe I did things that caused her to demote the friendship. When I think about the state of the friendship in its last stages, there were concerns on my end that I should have voiced but I simply didn’t.
There are three major ingredients in maintaining my friendships:
Honesty
Communication
Effort
Friendships require work! We can’t buy into this idea that we do not need friends. That shit is wack. It’s lame and it’s played the fuck out! Make your friends a priority. Honestly, your girlfriends provide a different level of support and love.
This doesn’t mean sit on the phone every day or smother your homegirl. What I am suggesting is making sure that you nurture your girlfriends with consistent honesty, communication and effort to promote growth in the friendship.
Who knows where the friendship could be today if we had both been mature enough with one another to have a few “come to Jesus” talks? I say all of that to say this:
Get your ass off of Instagram for a few hours and take a moment to call/text your bestie. See what she is up to. Maybe meet up for brunch and hash things out if it’s needed.
Do you have a friend that you feel has placed your friendship on autopilot? How will you fix it? Let’s chat in the comments.