We all love the idea of a friendship that is going to last forever, with us growing old together and living in the same neighbourhood as our friends. But it doesn’t always turn out that way because life is always moving and change is the only constant. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, so making castles in the cloud is hardly the way to go about it.
As an adult, there are a few things that I had to tell myself in order to allow myself to grow into who I am today, and I wouldn’t want to change that. So, here are a few truths about friendships that we all need to accept:
ALSO READ: 5 Ways Adulting Changes Friendships.
1. Not all friendships are going to survive outside of high school.
We may all promise to stay in touch and share tearful goodbyes on the last day of high school before we all head off to different colleges, but speaking from personal experience, not all friendships are going to survive. Most of the communication ceases as soon as vacations begin.
2. You’ll be glad that some friendships didn’t survive high school.
A little harsh, but I know that I had to maintain a level of cold civility with the people I went to high school with only because I had to see their faces every day. Outside of high school, I wouldn’t want to maintain those toxic connections and memories of mean-girl power struggles and petty high school rivalries.
ALSO READ: When Do You Let Go of a Friendship?
3. Some friendships never evolve past high school.
More like some people never evolve past high school because they’re still unable to let go of their school-going selves. These are the friends who are so scared of any kind of change, they will behave and expect you to behave as though you are still high schoolers. To move forward, we need to accept that while you may share good memories, it is time to let go.
4. Your friends will grow at a different pace than you.
Growth happens in different stages and at different paces for everybody. You might see some of your friends getting into a serious relationship, married or having a baby, or probably getting multiple promotions at their workplace, but that doesn’t mean you have to rush. Be patient. You are two different individuals. Let it happen it its own time.
5. You’ll have to work twice or thrice as hard on friendships as an adult.
Because everybody leads such different lives with vastly different schedules, it isn’t possible to hang out or grab a cup of coffee whenever you want to. As an adult, you will be caught up with doing your own thing, with whole new responsibilities. So you’ll have to work harder on maintaining friendships in life.
ALSO READ: 5 Struggles ALL Long-Distance Besties Can Relate To.
6. A few close friends are always better than a room full of snakes.
It’s no surprise that quality is always better than quantity. But in spite of knowing this, there are people who whine about not having enough people to hang out with all the time. Well, I hate to break it to you, but that’s how life works.
7. Real-life friendships cannot be compared to those on movies or TV shows.
Yes, life imitates art and art imitates life. But do not set standards for your friendships based on the movies or shows you watch. That’s just not going to happen because what you see on-screen is highly glossed over and only half the truth. Real friendships are much more than what you see on TV.
ALSO READ: 10 Stages of Every Great Friendship.
8. You won’t always approve of your friends’ relationships.
Chances are that you may not like the person your friends are dating, in a relationship with or getting married to. And it is possible that your friends feel the same way about the person you’re with, too. But understand that it’s not your place to tell them to end things with the person your friend is with merely based on your disapproval of them. Stay out of it.
ALSO READ: 10 Unspoken Rules of the Sis-Code.
9. If at all your friendships make it past school, college and jobs, they’ll mirror how far you’ve come.
Whenever I talk to my best friends from school (the only 2 friendships that survived all of the above), we look back and reminisce about how far we’ve come from being 14-year-olds trying to make it past the school year without breaking to 21-year-olds trying to find their place in this world.
10. How long you’ve known somebody doesn’t mean anything.
You’ll meet people you’ve known for over 10 years but they still can’t get you, and then you’ll meet people who just get you after talking to you for five minutes. How you connect with someone is solely based on the wavelengths that you share and not how long you’ve been in each others’ lives.
Some of these truths, I have fully embraced. Others, I know I should accept, but I’m still not totally ready to do so. Learning and unlearning things is only a part of life that I’m still trying to do. So if you stumble along the way, know that I’m stumbling around with you too.
Cheerio! Xx
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Yours truly,
The Shubhster.
Featured Image by Sammie Vasquez on Unsplash
The Shubhster Diaries 
There’s some really great stuff here shubhangi! Wow! So well written!
It’s indeed difficult to accept the changed dynamics in a friendship which is pretty obvious. But what we sometimes skip to realise, is that even if we had a best freind equation with someone, we do have to make some sincere efforts to maintain that!
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