It’s a true blessing in our life, when we meet people whom we can trust even more than we trust ourselves, who will never betray and deceive us, and who will always say only what’s on their mind. Their words and deeds are dictated by their genuine love and concern rather than by their own psychological problems. Where can we find these people?
How to Find Friends
Finding real friends and keeping a long and warm relationship with them is not a simple task. Not everyone is able to do it. Friends are usually found in childhood and adolescence, when we are not reserved yet, when we are more naive and ready to do a lot for the sake of friendship. Being mindful of that childish readiness for sincerity and acceptance, we are able to discern real friends, judging by these traits.
As adults, we might often come across ingratitude and betrayal on the part of the nearest ones, so we get more cautious and careful in choosing friends. On the one hand, it protects us from unnecessary disappointments. But on the other hand, it leads to loneliness. We can have a lot of female friends that would be friends with a different degree of reliability. But not everyone inspires one hundred percent confidence.
How to Strike the Right Balance in Female Friendship?
First of all, we must understand that there are no ideal people and some day our best friend forever can act not quite the way we expect.
It is necessary that you should define the safe level of openness and mutual sincerity that is possible between the two of you. For example, whether your female friend is able to keep her mouth shut, if you share some secret information about yourself with her. Is she able to stand your bragging about the ongoing wild success, just when she is at the bottom of existential hierarchy?
Tell her everything, if you are not afraid to, but do not worry then, if you feel alienated or you find out that all the surrounding people know this secret of yours.
Don’t Ever Reveal All Secrets to Your BFF
Let’s try to delineate some dangerous places from different spheres of life, which would sharpen the contradictions and provoke not quite desirable consequences of your revelations.
Family, Marriage Secrets
To some extent, these are taboo topics because they concern only you and your family. Especially if you have a problem. And even if all is well, touch wood when boasting to an unmarried female friend about your beautiful relationship, gifts, and purchases; do not say you are proud of your children, if she does not have them yet, etc. Be merciful and have some empathy for her.
There are women, who like to discuss the shortcomings of their husband with their female friends, talking about his weaknesses and family problems. It seems that washing dirty linen in public they do not make it any cleaner, but stain it with more filth instead. Being fond of reproof, such women demonstrate their eloquence, inventing exaggerated stories about disadvantages. Maybe, they receive more sympathy, but by doing so they attract more problems and troubles to themselves and their families. We should not behave like that.
Don’t Tell Your Close Friend about Your Sex Life
Once the bedroom door is shut, everything that remains behind it becomes a taboo that is never to be disclosed. If you do not understand this simple fact, you may experience an anecdotal and very bitter situation one day, when your friend, being aware of the intimate details of your life, will involuntarily make them a public issue or will accidentally pour salt on your wound, making a bad joke or using the knowledge she has to advantage.
It will be very frustrating if she reveals her awareness of the intimate matters of your family life, when seeing your husband. She might look and smile with suspicion or make an ambiguous joke. By the way, it can cost you not only the relationship with your husband, but his potency as well.
Don’t Tell a Female Friend about Your Career Success
Being challenged by success is one of the worst tests of friendship. Of course, you want to share career success with a friend, receive her praise, approval, and maybe advice. You share your plans and ideas. And then suddenly there is a loud bang! And they do not come true. You start thinking it could have been because of the friend’s evil eye, but you are not quite right. It is not your friend who must be blamed, but your brain. The scientists have discovered that people’s brain does not distinguish between the goal and the already carried out achievement of this goal. Once we boast of something, not having reached it, our brain considers this desirable idea to be a realized fact. As a result, we feel relieved and do not make an effort to achieve the result.
Whatever you think about you friend’s guilt or her feeling envy or being able to let you down at the most crucial moment and ruin your plans, do not share any of your plans with her. Do not share them with anyone!
If you are successful, and your friend is lagging behind, you’d rather help her achieve the same success instead of criticizing her for her laziness and sluggishness, boasting about your achievements, and emphasizing your being advanced and industrious. Praise her and find some distinctive talents, capabilities, past achievements and victories that would inspire her to achieve her own results.
Rejoice over her small victories and praise her great achievements lavishly. You may even exaggerate them slightly to make her believe in herself. Your best friend will not only be grateful for the help. Your rivalry will turn into a fun game on equal terms, and the friendship will get even stronger. Then you will be able to talk about achievements safely, not being afraid to hurt her.
Do not be afraid of friendship, but be afraid of complete lack of friends and girlfriends. After all, as Francis Bacon put it, “the worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship”.
Do you have a best friend forever? How would you characterize your communication?
