The Harder Side of Friendship.

Letting people be who they are is actually (sometimes) super fkin annoying…

Like any relationship, friendships require work. They need unconditional love, acceptance, support, patience, boundaries, etc. etc. You love your friends. You want to see them succeed and thrive, but what do you do when they’re fking up? — and have convinced themselves that they’re somehow not?

Photo by Ethan Haddox on Unsplash

Part of loving the people in your life means letting them fuck up and figure out things on their own. It’s probably my least favorite thing about friendships. It takes a good deal of kindness and patience that I am still learning to have.

Have you ever had a friend that is completely obsessed with some fuck boy they barely know and have somehow convinced themselves that this dude (who’s never asked them a single question,) is their long lost soulmate from a past life? ..and you can sort of see the wheels turning in their heads, that they sort of know, ya know? That somewhere deep down, they know they’re really just projecting this fantasy of the “perfect partner” onto this man, they don’t know, because of their deeper abandonment issues? …but you can’t tell them that, because if you did they would just cling that much harder onto their delusion?

Or have you ever had a friend who was in a relationship that was so obviously wrong for them, but they stay clinging on to the idea that, “this is The One?” When really they tell you all the time how unhappy they are? …and they constantly text you all the upsetting things their partner does? …and they go on these mile long rants about X,Y, and Z them and their partner don’t see eye to eye on, but then finish it off with, “it’s good though, I love her, we’re gonna get married in a year or two”?

If you’re human I would bet that you’ve probably had some friends like this. It doesn’t matter how self-aware you try to be, when you’re that deep in your own self-denial, things obviously fall through the cracks. We’ve all been there, sometimes you can’t see yourself clearly. “You see the world as you are, not how it actually is.” To all the friends on the outside, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.

Therapists know it too. They can usually pin-point whatever the problem is and what the patient really feels (and wants) right away, (without telling…