𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕚𝕣𝕝𝕤 ℂ𝕝𝕦𝕓 ☁︎☀

How to Be a Friend 101 (Pt. 1) ~ Sophia

Hey guys! Wow it's been a suuuper long time since I lasted posted a chapter here. I hope to be more proactive in the future, but school, as many of you would know, is utterly time-consuming. So, I don't know yet. Anyway, I hope you like this!

I changed my username from jiminie_cricket1017 to @hopeindarkness.

---

I am sure a lot of you have lost a friend at some point. Or even many friends. And until only recently have I experienced what losing a friend is like. It truly is painful, no matter the circumstances or significance.

There are a lot of reasons a friendship can go awry. But the reason I'm going to focus most on in this chapter is toxicity.

First off, if a friendship completely rolls down the side of a cliff and shatters into pieces at the bottom, always be sure to recognize where you were wrong in that situation. If you were the one to push that friendship wagon down, or if you tried to stop it from falling, make sure to reflect on the circumstances and see if you'd hurt the other person.

People can be misunderstood and might not feel communicable with the other person in a friendship because a lot of the time, they might not be aware of what they're doing. And even if we try to apologize, they might not forgive us. Or just don't want to.

If that happens, if you have recognized where you were wrong in a friendship, you are done. It is no longer on you to give closure or clarification on why a certain friendship ended. It is no longer your fault if both of you remain distant to each other because you apologized for what you did. It is no longer your fault.

Now, just because a friendship doesn't work out, doesn't mean you are a terrible person or horrible friend. Maybe you have issues to work out with yourself or other people, but that still doesn't mean you're a terrible person.

That friendship might've just been heading down the cliff without either of you knowing about it. It happens a lot. And we like to call that toxicity. A toxic friendship is a friendship that has obvious problems but no one likes to address them because that friendship is important. That happened to me. I was in a toxic friendship and there were so many problems, but neither of us really wanted to dive deep into the core of our toxicity.

A friendship absolutely needs to be balanced. If one side is tipped, the friendship will start falling down the cliff. When a friend vents to you about something wrong with themselves or anything else, you should be able to vent to them also when you need it. A friendship always needs to be balanced in order for both sides to benefit from each other. Otherwise, one person is feeding off the other's time and effort and leaves them drained and exhausted, whether it's unknowingly or purposeful.

So in the end, both sides of a friendship are important and issues with the balance of it should always be addressed.

Thank you, guys! I love you ❤

- Sophia

P.s. I might continue this series.