millennial blog project

Friends have come and gone for me over the years and there has only been one who has been my friend continuously since Kindergarten. He and I have had our ups and downs with this relationship, but there have been more ups than downs. That’s what makes a friendship work.

I grew up surrounded by boys. It was only natural that I leaned toward boys when I started making friends. But, when bodies started changing and hormones started raging, those things kind of changed. I still had a group of guy friends and always got along with them better than any girl, but I longed to have a girlfriend that I could stand.

They came and went. I had one in fifth grade. A new one came in sixth grade. Seventh grade brought a whole new group of girlfriends, but by the time eighth grade came around, we had drifted apart. In ninth grade, I had a different best friend, and then, after her, came Katie and it is still Katie.

Over the years of different friends coming and going, I have learned certain things that I look for in a friend.

A best friend…

• picks you up when you are down instead of keeping you down and kicking you around.
• defends you in any situation regarding you in a negative way.
• will decide not to mention what that other girl was saying about you so that your feeling won’t be hurt.
• doesn’t lie to you.

The truth is, I’m hurt, and I have been for the past couple of months. (And this doesn’t concern Katie – she and I are still going strong!) I don’t want to be lied to anymore. I don’t want to be left out anymore. I’m sick of receiving negative comments, and I hate it when I am not defended. There were more downs than ups, and try as I might, they could not be lifted up. I know that I have a boyfriend, but that doesn’t mean that I am always with him. Sometimes I’m not, but you didn’t even bother to see what I was up to. You just went on your merry way all the time and never stopped to think that maybe – just maybe – I would feel a little left out when you talked about it later in front of me.

I tried. I wanted it to work. Maybe it still can, just not so intensely (which means, take out the “best” in “best friend” and call it good). All I know is that this has helped me realize what a best friend does and doesn’t do.