Member-only story
To What Standards Do We Hold Our Friends?
Determining our line of acceptable behavior and holding it.
My circle of friends has morphed significantly in the last couple of years. It has a lot to do with my own soul-searching but it also has a lot to do with searching the souls of other people.
Some of it was expected after a divorce. You lose mutual friends you had with your spouse, you gain new ones as you start to reinvent your life as a single person. Some of it was a result of determining how much of a standard I wanted to hold the company that I kept.
People will argue that our standards for our friends don’t have to be very high. They’re not our life mates. They’re not our family. They’re not our co-workers. I disagree wholeheartedly.
My friends are my life mates and my family. If I am going to give them that place of distinction, they need to earn and deserve that. I expect that they would hold me to the same standard and I want them to.
I’m a very loyal friend and I have always been hesitant to let go of people in my life. I’m not good at it. Once somebody has carved a place in my life, they tend to stay there. I don’t find that a necessary practice anymore.
It’s a hard paradigm shift to embrace.
