Friends (Making and keeping them)

(Cue Friends theme song)

I don't have any advice for you. I wish I had an answer or two for you but I do not. I love my friends to bits but I have no idea how we became friends (if you are my friend and you remember how we became friends please jog my memory). On most occasions, what happens is you happen to be in the same place and you may discover that you have similar interests and voila, it's 10 years later and you're still friends. Sometimes you just become friends because you are the only two women at a place or because you are in the same age range for you just keep bumping into each other at some totally random place. 

One thing that I can say for sure is that friendship is such a beautiful concept. Having people you love who love you back, that you can confide in, and who won't judge you is so precious. Of course, they have to be people who can openly tell you if you are going "offside" for lack of a better word. It's really such an amazing thing to have people to do life with. Doing life alone and keeping to yourself is so burdensome and God did not create us to live in isolation. 

The Bible says in Proverbs 27:9, "A sweet friendship refreshes the soul," and boy have I been so privileged to enjoy sweet friendships that have refreshed my soul time and time again. The name Amy (which is my name if you did not know) is derived from a French word,bien-aimé,  which means beloved and that has been my life for as far as I can remember. I have had and still have friends who love me so dearly and so loudly. My friends are wholesome and lovely human beings and if I made this narration about them you would get bored reading about how amazing my friends are. The focus of this little ramble is the keeping of friends. 

I have not been a good keeper of friends. I like to think that I am a low-maintenance friend but not all my friends are like me and as a result, we may not be as close as we could be had I been high-maintenance. I always marvel at people who have large circles of friends and still manage to keep each and every one of them close. It feels like it's a lot of work but the older I get I crave intimacy and closeness with peers. I crave relationships (not in a romantic sense you weirdo). I crave connection and as a result, I am blogging about how to keep friends so that after you read this you can give me some pointers. 

Even though we have established that I am certainly not the authority on the subject I'm still going to attempt to advise you and myself on how to keep friends. And my first tip is, MAKE FRIENDS! I know, I know it's obvious right? No, it's not. Well, it wasn't for me. I am semi-introverted and if you put me in a group of people that I don't know I will probably be the quietest person in that room and whenever whatever business we are therefore is finished I will disappear. I do not put myself out there even though I love talking about how I don't have that many friends. Tip number one therefore is don't be like me. You can't keep you don't have any friends.  How then do you make friends you ask me. I unfortunately do not have an answer for you and I don't think there is one clear answer to this question. Friendship, much like romantic love, is a chemistry thing and we all know you can't force chemistry (if you are forcing chemistry shame on you!). This is not to say friends are supposed to be exactly like each other because sometimes that gets a little boring. I'm just saying that person you just click with is probably going to be one of your closest friends without you planning it so why not get ahead of the curve and befriend them already!

Tip number 2 is to water your friendships. Put in the work, No relationship has ever been sustained by both parties slacking or just one party doing all the heavy lifting. The work has to go both ways. Texts, calls, meetups, etc have to go both ways or else you are not keeping that friend. No friend wants to be kept that way methinks. 

My last tip is you need to be a friend. I know it sounds pretty obvious so let me explain a little bit. When I say be a friend I'm simply saying be reliable and loyal. The Bible in Proverbs 18:2 (New Living Translation) says, "There are "friends" who destroy each other but a real friend sticks closer than a brother." The question is do you want to be the friend that's in quotation marks or do you want to be a real friend? If you want to be the former you need prayer, my dear, you need serious prayer. 3 days in the mountain-level prayer on a dry fast. 

To tie this up with a nice little bow I will go to Proverbs 27: 17 (New Living Translation) which says, "As iron sharpens iron so a friend sharpens a friend." You cannot be keeping friends just for the sake of keeping them. There is work that needs to be done. Friends to grow and allow them to push you towards growth as well. That person is in your life for a reason and if you plan on keeping them (which I'm hoping you do) ask yourself how you are pushing them to grow and how you are sharpening them.

P.S. As previously established I don't keep friends very well so please send tips on how to do this. It's urgent! I need to start keeping my friends today. T for Thanks so much (especially for reading my ramble to the end).