How to ruin a friendship in 3 simple missteps.

Yes, friendships take maintenance! Especially those you consider important! Here are 3 points on how to maintain friendships and relationships better as adults.

When we are young adults who enter the workforce and begin to take charge of our expenses, interests, likes, dislikes and lives, we see our friendships and the quality of the people around us change.

No longer will you deliberately remain friends with a bully just because everyone else was, or go spend time with a person because your mom threatened you to do it.

The change in your needs and behaviour is ever so subtle and the transition to adulthood in these aspects is ever so willfully our own, that we often don't realise there is a structure or a right way to do things and keep the right people around and the wrong ones at bay.

Most people never give it a thought, but there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of maintaining relationships rather than just “going with the flow!”

This conscious journey into maintaining relationships is governed by the word “appropriation”. Now I will follow a pattern of examples to explain these 3 simple ways you can ruin a perfectly good friendship, and only hope you can do better for yourselves where it matters!

One — Maintaining the balance in giving and receiving gestures. Gestures denote not just words but actions to satisfy the verbal promises we make to people important to us (or else they are often reduced to just threats!). So either don't say things like “Don't worry, you will always have me” or a “For you I am always going to be available” unless you find yourself being able to keep up with these words in actions.

Especially if you never realised you expect them to be avaiable when you are upset or stuck or feeling helpless or had a bad dream; you better be there, irrespective of how inconvenient a time it may be to reciprocate them as well.

Two — Maintaining the balance in giving and receiving gifts. Oh, how we love to be swooned for! How phenomenal it feels when someone goes above and beyond to surprise us, especially when they aren't our boyfriends and wives and brothers or parents, right?

It feels good when someone just randomly sends us a box of pastries when we are upset or when it's not your birthday, right? Or gifts us that dress or perfume we were wishing for or admiring?

But have you ensured that you returned these favours in full? Or turn away the gifts because you know you don't have the means to return such favours? It did not even occur to you to be able to say no right?

If you cannot match what you accept in full, or a selective in doing this for certain people and not for others — there is not point in accepting them from everyone.

Because even things others do for us out of ‘love’ have an expectation attached to them. Because the very word love means expectations. Even if you don't think you have the means to return the gifts. Even when they say they don't expect them back. This is called being ‘adult’ about it. And no, other gestures don't qualify to make up for these. Match the price, the moment and the feeling in full, even if it's delayed. Don't let them wait or begin to calculate.

Three — Maintaining the balance in giving and receiving thoughtfulness. If there is someone who always looks out for you, remembers the little things that matter to you, wishes you all the best for that test you told them about a month ago or remembers your favourite colour or flowers or food or things or a person you dislike or the marital issue with your husband you unburdened them with 20 times over — it is them going above and beyond and being patient and considerate to best accommodate your emotional needs and expectations. Especially if they are not your therapist, or lawyer and you don't pay them for it.

Either stop oversharing or binding them to things you expect them to remember or keep secrate or be mindful of, or you better maintain that scrap book that helps you keep notes and remember. The infamous concept of ‘little black books’ is not dead! They are simply a well-versed mechanism being more and more mindfull and not by chance that is activtly underutilised in society today.

In the interest of knowing that humans are not telepathic and aren't all good communicators or listeners, it takes a lot of intentions to get good friendships right! Some are easy to, by simply mimicking society, while others are from pop culture or protagonists in literature and movies.

But, if you’re not concerned about the balance of giving and receiving in terms of gestures, gifts, and thoughtfulness within your friendship, then you cannot act surprised when people simply choose to drift away.

If you feel that you’re putting more effort into the friendship, such as giving thoughtful gifts and being supportive, while your friend’s actions don’t match the same level of effort, it might lead to a feeling of appropriation in the sense that you’re contributing a lot and not receiving similar consideration in return from others, right?

This can create a sense of imbalance and potentially impact how you perceive the friendship and it applies as easily and plainly for others as well. Especially if they begin to feel this in all 3 aspects of “friendship appropriation”.

Remember that every friendship has its own dynamics and ways of expressing care and appreciation. It’s important to have open conversations to understand each other’s perspectives and renew them from time to time to ensure that both parties feel valued and appreciated, consistently.

But the foundation of great friendships is in doing these things with the right intent or spirit and not trying to trade off paper boats for your expectations of yates. Because adulting always means you and others gain sight of what is appropriate and misfitted or forced in things that matter!

People can only choose to look the other way till they allow themselves the reasons. When these reasons fall short, either of you has stopped or has become inconsistent in friendship appropriation. This is when or what causes people to act cold, distant or unavailable because in a sense they see inconsistency on your part in these three aspects.

Such simple maths! Hope this helps you do better!