You can’t.
My entire life I’ve been the girl that made friends easily. Few things bring me more joy than the process of making a new friend, and growing even closer to the ones I already have. There’s a comfort that comes with getting to become progressively open about your weirdness to someone. That being said, I will be the first to tell you that I would give anything to be considered a good friend or acquaintance by everyone I have come in contact with. It’s a wonderful feeling to know you are remembered and cared for, and an even better feeling to know that you are remembered as being nice and friendly.
Sadly, that is simply impossible. The most obvious reason would be that it’s simply impossible to please everyone.
I couldn’t tell you how I manage to make friends so easily, and I doubt I could even give you solid advice on how to become this way. What I do know is that it’s both a blessing and a curse.
The blessing of making friends easily is that it’s given me a heart more susceptible to love. I love the fellowship, the trust, and the care that goes into friendships. I easily trust people, I easily open up to people, and I easily love. Sadly, society has turned all three of these things into weaknesses. If I could give any one piece of advice to anyone, it would be to ignore everything society tells us about those three things. Living a life full of love is never a bad thing, and certainly not a weakness.
Love on any level is by no means a burden, however loving so easily does sometimes come with its complications.
A few years ago, when I really started cracking down on journaling my thoughts, I wrote down four major things I wanted to see myself follow through with. One of those four was, “Foster the friendships you have, and remind your friends how much you love them. Get rid of the friendships that are bad for you.” And there you have it, the curse of making friends so easily, wrapped up in those two sentences.
Seems contradictory doesn’t it? I mean earlier I mentioned that growing closer to my friends was one of my favorite things to do. Do not be misled. Although making friends easily has blessed me in unfathomable ways, it has also created in me some unrealistic expectations of others, as well as myself. Because I love so easily, I have often expected others to feel the same way. It has taken me years to realize the full extent of this.
Most everyone that really knows me knows that my junior year I went to a school 3.5 hours away from home. I made friends there easily, but the problem I had was maintaining my friendships back home. My senior year I returned and everything was back to normal, but then I experienced the same problem with my friends from the other school. This problem carried with me to college. It wasn’t that I was losing friends, I was just gaining new ones rapidly, and old ones were taking a backburner. Now for most people this isn’t really a problem, in fact I am quite aware that it is completely normal, and to be expected! The idea of letting the past be the past comes into play, and it becomes all too easy to think that we have all gone our separate ways. But I can’t do that. It’s hard for me to lose a friend. I don’t like it at all. Acquaintances come and go, but the people I call my best friends for years and years are not people I intend to let slip away.
College has taught me many things, and provided me with many memories, but one of the most prominent things I have learned while being in it is that you just can’t be everybody’s friend. Take it from the girl who has been physically and emotionally exhausted from trying to be that person. Because the truth is, I love my friends so much, that I couldn’t possibly tell them enough how much they mean to me. I have to remind myself that they know I love them, but it is hard. My personal struggle is feeling like no amount of laughs or fond memories could ever accurately convey to them how much I love them or how much they’ve done for me. I also have to remind myself that just because I haven’t seen so-and-so in a month, or talked to so-and-so in a few weeks, that doesn’t mean that they have forgotten about me, or love me any less as a friend! People handle friendships differently.
And this all plays into getting rid of friendships that are bad for me. By now, it should be pretty obvious that I have issues letting go of friendships. Every once in a while, there are people you come across that just aren’t good for you. For me this has been an interesting discovery.
I tend to keep a very diverse group of people in my life. I am a person of “many circles” as I like to refer to it. I keep different, and often separate, groups of friends that all bring out different parts of me (not to say that I am different from friend group to friend group… I am equally weird in all my friend groups, some just appeal more to certain aspects of my personality). It is actually quite amusing, because my groups are generally very distinct (the party group, the music group, the high school group, etc.). But a few times a friendship presents itself that later becomes the “toxic friendship.” I define a toxic friendship as one that is bad for me in any way. The problem is sometimes this is very hard for me to detect… loving easily has often caused me to overlook what others might consider major character flaws. Although the obvious answer would be to say that this means that person is a bad person, that was not my intention when deciding to get rid of my bad friendships. In this case “toxic” is referring to those who display a general lack of care for me.
“Cutting off” a friend is not something I am good at, even if it needs to be done. In some cases, I consider people friends who don’t consider me a friend. Mainly people who are friends with me when it’s convenient for them. These are people that you and I need to get rid of. As much as it hurts me to do it, I have come to the point where I realize that friendship isn’t a friendship at all.
Friends are a blessing. Tell them you love them, and let them know you care. Be there for them when they need you. I guarantee it will open your mind to a whole new world of love if you just allow yourself to express genuine care.
You can’t be everyone’s friend, BUT
you can be nice to everyone.
