Among the questions that sooner or later in life we ask ourselves, one cannot be missing about why maintaining a friendship over time is difficult.
The reasons that lie behind the difficulties in maintaining a friendship are varied and many have tried to discuss them in an article.
Many articles try to put forward a series of rules to follow: rules to keep your friendships alive, rules to ensure friends stay close over time; rules to avoid people drifting apart.Unfortunately, things are not that simple..
Practically speaking, we want to make clear one thing we strongly believe in: there are no manuals that apply when we talk about relationships between people.
Every friend is different from another and people, with all their uniqueness, sometimes respond one way and sometimes another.
Finding a place in the world can be difficult, just as finding your place in another person's life can be.
We at Meeters try to simplify this process by creating events and opportunities to allow people to meet. Those who want to make new friends can come to our aperitifs, our nature walks, our cultural events.
Maintaining a friendship is what comes next: it means knowing what word to use when needed.
On this note, we try to offer some useful advice on how to maintain a friendship with another person over the years..
Why Do Friendships End?
The end of an important friendship can cause unpleasant feelings such as pain, disappointment, guilt, and remorse.
These unpleasant feelings can be amplified when the reasons given (if any, because often there is only silence at the end of a relationship) seem insignificant.
The first thing to keep in mind is that popular wisdom, unfortunately, is not very reliable when it comes to relationships and advice.
An old saying goes something like “a friendship that ends was never a true friendship.”
Well, we must immediately set aside this kind of talk when discussing maintaining a friendship over time.
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Friendship bonds, even the deepest ones, can fade over time even without real reasons.
Friendship, once it stops fulfilling an implicit function, can stop being nurtured.
This is the nature of this kind of relationship, regardless of how romanticized it may be.
Friendship is something that forms more or less spontaneously because one seeks company or needs human interaction at a certain point in life.
This nature determines its vulnerability and its sensitivity to changes in environment and character.
Reconsidering How Relationships Work Is a Good First Step
This does not mean that friendship is merely a tool we use to satisfy needs, but rather thatfriendship is rooted in the context and situation in which we experience it.
Friendship bonds are deeply influenced by the phases of life one goes through.
Friendships, more than adventures, are elements that can vary in intensity depending on the phases and steps one takes.
Now, we can talk about the phases.
The context we live in our life is ever-changing.
Every time we change residence, workplace, interests, habits, we are modifying to some extent the phase of life we are living.
If these changes conflict with those made by someone we consider a friend, the resources needed to nurture the friendship are lost.
There is less time to dedicate to each other, fewer opportunities to be together, less willingness to compromise to do things.
These situations are normal: a person's happiness depends on many factors. One friend alone cannot emotionally fulfill another person completely. In fact, if a relationship involves complete dependence on each other, it could be classified as toxic.
How Do You Maintain a Friendship?
Maintaining a friendship over time is something that can be done in different ways, a few different ways.
At the center of everything must be, clearly, the care you have for the other person and the desire to continue valuing the relationships you have with the outside world.
Laughter can be a good bond between companions but it is not everything. Willingness to help others, for example, is very important, as is the
willingness to face obstacles like distance or understanding when the other does not neglect their family. In our opinion, the foundation is conversation and communication.
Talking regularly with the other person is
fundamental. Pay attention to your ego, above all: in a healthy friendship there is room both for speaking and listening, and these roles should often switch..
If distance is hard to handle, perhaps because you live hundreds or even thousands of kilometers apart, our advice is to
use technology to your advantage. Video calls
can help, as can participating in online activities together like conferences or using video games to your advantage. This, of course,
is not a substitute for seeing each other in person, but rather a palliative that can help. Give the Other Person Space to Breathe!
Respect
must not be missing, especially for life choices, romantic interests, or professional decisions.You can
disagree, you can suggest what you think is the best solution, but you must avoid turning this into domination.Discussions,
even when there is disagreement, must be civil and always lead only to constructive outcomes. Another crucial element, perhaps the least considered, is the need to
give the other person the space they seek. If you are too pushy about
going out and doing things, you risk suffocating the relationship. Finding a balance with the other person is
at least difficult, we all agree on that. Just remember how important it is
that care is shared by both parties to understand why reaching a compromise is always a good thing for maintaining a friendship over time. to understand why reaching a compromise is always a good thing for maintaining a friendship over time