Women and Friendship: Building the Foundation (Part II)
I recently wrote a post on women and friendship—here is Part II to that post. Enjoy.
Below are the three remaining rules of engagement when it comes to creating healthy friendships:
1. Be supportive not competitive. A true friend celebrates another friend’s success. Women continually try to downplay their successes with one another so other women don’t feel upset or jealous. Downplaying your success is crazy. Be proud of each other and encourage one another to go even further.
2. Hands off significant others. Although this should go without saying, I’m going to say it anyway. Stay away from your friend’s partner. I’m shocked at how many “best friends” have had affairs with their friend’s spouse. Really? Do not play with fire when it comes to your friend’s partner. Don’t flirt, don’t cry on their shoulder, don’t listen to the partner complain about your friend. And if you hear or see that your friend’s partner is seeing someone else—your loyalty is to your friend—tell her!
3. Be the friend you wish to have. Friendships are a balance of give and take so be sure that you are neither always giving nor always taking. Ask for help when you need it and offer help when you know they need it.
In general, creating healthy friendships requires healthy people. Pay attention to whom you hang out with and be sure that they are building you up, not tearing you down. Make sure you are doing the same for them. A friend is someone you can count on to lovingly give you the truth (even if it hurts), proudly cheer your successes on (even if she hasn’t been as successful) and gives you advice that’s in your best interest (even if she doesn’t follow it herself).
Be the friend you wish to be with and hold your friends to the same level of expectation.
Challenge: Take an honest look at yourself and your friendships and see what you notice. Look at the list above, choose one tip to incorporate that you think will help in your friendships and ask your friends to do the same.
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