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Lisa's |
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Throughout the years, I’ve had many
friendships enter and exit my life, in one form or another.
I know most of which were merely familiar acquaintances, rather
than absolute friends. At
the moment, to say I have five concrete friendships would be a generous
estimate, but since I’m a generous person, I’ll stick with that
figure. I am sure that there are two categories that
friendships can be placed in: High
maintenance and low maintenance. Men
often use those terms when describing cars and women.
It works extremely well in terms of friendships, too. Let’s discuss the high maintenance ones first.
Almost all of us have had these at various stages in our lives.
If you haven’t, I envy you.
These are the people who are bossy, clingy, demanding, or a
combination of all three. They
are the pain in the you-know-where individuals who want too much
commitment. They are not
our significant others, however, we feel as though we’ve taken
unspoken vows. All that’s
missing are the wedding bands. These
leeches stepped on the accelerator from day one.
Two weeks later they’re at top speed planning elaborate
vacations three years down the road.
What seemed so “too good to be true”, indeed is.
Don’t even think about making exclusive plans with someone
else; your faithful friend’s “you and me against the world”
attitude initiates jealousy as a result of your perceived
unfaithfulness. These people become possessive and suffocating.
After a while, they become annoying nuisances and you lay awake
at night fantasizing about escaping from them forever. Similar to nagging spouses, they wish to be
answered to and must be kept happy and soothed all the time. Friendship with high maintenance types is too much work and
entirely too exhausting. I had a friend like this. She would not leave me alone.
One night, she talked me into meeting her at a theatre to see a
movie SHE wanted to watch. Afterwards,
she barked orders that we had to go to a particular diner SHE chose for
something to eat. Since we
arrived at the theatre in separate cars, I was to follow her to the
diner. I drove home instead and never heard from her
again. Thank God for small
favors. On the other hand, the alternate category, low
maintenance, is a pure blessing. These
friendships can be compared to ideal businesses: They practically run themselves with minimal effort.
These are the non-committal relationships you allow to evolve
into whatever they are destined to become.
They are the friends who make you genuinely smile and laugh.
You feel comfortable asking for advice and revealing your true
self, without fear of ridicule. There’s
no pressure of getting boxed in, no smothering rules to abide by, and no
appearances to uphold. Making
excuses about why you never called or figuring out how to get out of
concrete plans is unnecessary and non-existent.
Even if the communication gap is six months or longer, when you
do speak or see each other, it’s as though time stood still and you
simply start where you left off the last time.
These are the friendships I adore; they’re the ones that matter
to me. It’s a pleasure to tell you that I have no
high maintenance friends in my life at this moment.
I solely have a handful of low maintenance relationships that
suit me just fine. One
of which is limited to birthday and Christmas cards, phone conversations
every three or four months, and a visit once or twice a year.
Ironically, we live within five miles of each other. A few of the
others are across-the-miles friends, whom I love dearly. And I often tell them so. True friendships should not be emotionally
draining and burdensome. If
you have to try too hard, in my opinion, it’s not worth the energy. My most fulfilling relationships are the ones where we go our
separate ways, but check in every once in a while and update each other
on major life changes, and also, minor ones.
Sometimes, there’s no reason except to say hello.
Sharing a laugh or two reinforces the unrestrictive bonds that
endear our affection. Long-term, satisfying relationships don’t
require suffocating circumstances.
Just a lot of space. We
all need room to grow…and so do friendships.
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