Managing Your Expectations of Friends

Here it is, the year of our insect overlords 2024, and friendships are still treated as less important than marriage and family. While many of us spend countless hours analyzing our romantic relationships, common wisdom still dictates that any friendship that becomes complicated or intense isn’t worth the effort. Ah, but common wisdom is so rarely WISE! Because the closer you get to a real human being, the heavier and more personal things feel. After years together, your closest friends have the same power to unnerve and rattle you as your mother, your siblings, or your spouse. Moreover, with a few old friendships under your belt, new friendships are imbued with the same anxieties and fears that rule the old ones. What if you mess up in the same ways over and over again? What if you’re just BAD AT FRIENDSHIP? Oddly enough, the more friendships you’ve lost, the more you’ll start to sound like your common-wisdom-spouting cohorts: Friendships should be simple and easy! Friends will not be

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