How do you know someone is your real friend?
We all struggle with this sometimes. One way or another. “Am I supposed to love them because they obviously love me so” or “does that person ignore me even though I love them so?” “Are they here for the stuff and things I do for them or for me?”
Richer or poorer. Up or down, they’re there for you.
Do not assume that a real friend is one who is there for you when you are struggling. That maybe an opportunist that knows you will come up, and when you do, you’ll be forced to recognize them and give them money.
They may also be a person who simply loves you for being even a bigger loser than they feel they themselves are. Your job in their life is to stay that way so they can feel they’re doing at least a little better than someone else—not a friend, obviously.
Your real friends will love you whether you’re failing or even if you have a great job, great life, and the better-looking sex partner.
You can talk about your stuff to them, and they talk about their stuff to you. This must go both ways.
If only one of you talks about their problems to the other, you’re in some kind of a therapist-patient mashup. This is not a real equal friendship. Most likely, one of your problems don’t seem that important in comparison, and that’s a sign of inequality in the relationship. If one of you is agitated because every guy you know wants to marry them, and none of them freaking relaxes for a goddamned second. You’re there crying over nobody giving you the time of their day romantically speaking; this is probably not an equal relationship.
You can freely be yourself.
Related to the above, with true friends, you can speak freely and be yourself without feeling like you’re stepping out of line. You don’t feel like you’re taking too much space, overshadowing someone, getting too much attention, or saying something that wasn’t pre-approved by another person like your friend or group of friends.
Also, your friend is free to do the same without you feeling like they’re doing one of those above things.
You can hit on whomever you want.
If you and your friend are both single, you both can hit on whatever other person you want, without it becoming a problem. You don’t hear “I saw him/her first,” “he/she belongs to me,” from your friend. If you are really good friends, you agree that you can also hit on your friends’ partners, and test the relationship and to ensure you both are with the right person and they cannot be swayed, but that maybe asking a bit too much.
They can also do the same without you declaring and enforcing territory lines.
Attention goes both ways without a guilt trip.
If the only way you get attention from your friend or your friend gets attention from you is a guilt trip, you’re not friends. Your friend should be a joy, someone you enjoy hanging out with, and you should be that to them. “An obligation” isn’t a definition of a true friend but a situation where one is taking advantage of the other, and the other allows it. Not a friendship.
You’re not seeking for a moral excuse to stop talking to them.
If someone is a friend, your mind doesn’t look for excuses to stop talking to them/hanging out with them. If you keep thinking this way, your friend is not truly your friend, and you’re not theirs. That alone should be a reason enough to stop talking/seeing them, and you should feel no guilt over it.
You don’t feel like a cash cow.
With a real friend, you don’t feel like a cash cow, or like you should continually prove loyalty in the form of dollars spent.
Speaking of loyalty; your friend doesn’t need to continually call for your loyalty to remind you to be a friend.
Loyalty is not a character trait. It’s a response to someone who inspires your loyalty without them ever needing to ask for it.
However, blaming you for the lack of loyalty is a very convenient way to keep anyone in a relationship that doesn’t serve them well. Loyalty, as YOUR CHARACTER TRAIT is nothing but a red flag.
You are also never going to need to guilt trip a real friend of yours into fold by reminding them to be loyal to you.
A real friend is someone who is a positive thing in your life.
You’d pay a real friend to be with you – if you are much wealthier than them. If you had money, you’d pay a non-friend to stay quiet, stop complaining, or to stay away for a little longer. When it’s a non-friend, you don’t care how much it costs to not see them for another glorious few months.
Fell out of contact?
When friends fall out of contact for a while, it depends on your thinker type how to get back on track.
the Old Souls*
That said, you can also let a real friend go, do their thing, knowing that they’ll come back as soon as they can. They’ll go around the Earth and return back to you and you’ll love each other just the same. You’ll feel instantly welcomed back if a Old Souls* thinks you were a real friend.
Fake friends you forget about or remember in terror hoping they don’t think they can crash at your place when they come back from their globe trotting adventure.
A the Old Souls* must know and remember this: If you don’t want them back, you don’t need to take them back. Still, read the Young Soul* -part.
Ironically, the Old Souls* also like to ghost you out of their lives. If they HAD a means of keeping contact and they didn’t, they’re not interested in getting you back. A the Old Souls* MUST hear from you periodically, unless you’re in fucking Antarctica and there is no reception. And if you come back only after they made money and became successful… They won’t be thinking highly of you when you come back begging:
the Young Soul*
the Young Soul* like to push their way back into the lives of a friend they’ve ignored for a while. A the Young Soul* would act hurt for having been ignored, and they want to test how serious you are about coming back now by making you beg. The more they missed you, the more ‘tough’ they act about having been ignored. The more they love you, the more they push to get back in.
Therefore, if your Lover-thinking* friend has been away for a while and they want back, they’ll beg and push to get back in. If you’re a Old Souls*, you’ll likely to let them in without actually wanting them back in. To get rid of them, negotiate. Literally inform them that you need to negotiate the terms of ending the friendship permanently.
Ending a friendship with the Young Soul* requires a severance package. You need to negotiate with them on the terms of settling your affairs. Don’t accept their first price. You’ll need to remind them for all the shit they’ve done to lower the price tag. You’ll have to remind them of all the good stuff that you did for them, all the harm they caused etc to give them the final pay check or to command them to get out without compensation if they owe you and have no way of paying.
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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