coraxxx
Policy Enforcement
I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of friendships and relationships in general. How do we accept, want and keep people in our lives and why? How, ourselves, we do behave as friends? In short, what are our standards to decide "this is a friendship"?
I have quite high standards to call someone a friend.
A friend is someone:
- you are most of the time happy and relaxed around
- you are able to listen to
- who’s able to listen to you
- who is loyal and truthful and sincere
- who helps you when you need, according to their capacities and limitations
- whose you accept the limitations
- with whom you share information about each other in a balanced way
- who’s capable to challenge you when they think what you’re doing isn’t okay without blaming you -> close friend thing
- who doesn’t use guilt or sense of obligation or any kind of manipulation to make you feel you owe them something
- who is safe to be around and won’t use what they know of you against you in any case
- who can forgive you when you make a mistake or cross a boundary (without malevolent intention) -> close friend thing
- that you can forgive when you make a mistake or cross a boundary without intention - > close friend thing
- that you can say they’ve crossed a boundary and who can say you did -> path to be a close friend
- with whom negotiation and compromise for the best common solution is always possible
- who brings joy/happiness/peace or anything positive in your life consistently, and who feels the same for you
- who, when they speak about you without you being here, always put the emphasis on the positive
I consider there are levels of intensity in these relationships. Over time, these have been my criteria to call someone a "close friend". So far, I have 4 of them in my life I think. Which is already quite nice. In the category "friends" that meet these conditions without being so close, I might have 8 maximum. And others are acquaintances that more or less enter in the conditions above, but with much less intensity. Personally, I don’t need to see them that often, and these relationships really have been built over a decade.
What aren’t friends, or toxic friends
- they mostly make it about themselves and consistently don’t take you in account in any decision process
- who respond negatively when you tell them you’re upset about something they did or do (guilt you, be mad at you, etc)
- make you feel consistently stressed or awkward or "on your guard"
- use intimidation (yelling, ignoring you, threatening you, etc…) to get what they need or block your needs
- who don’t seem to take your needs into account
- who reproach you for having needs
- whom you don’t trust saying much about yourself in fear they’ll use it against you
- who speak about negatively you behind your back and/or disclose information about you that you don’t want to be disclosed
Now I have a certain flexibility in accepting people’s flaws and mistakes. But placing boundaries is complicated at times. When too much is too much?
I wondered what were your standards and how you see friendship in general. :-)
I have quite high standards to call someone a friend.
A friend is someone:
- you are most of the time happy and relaxed around
- you are able to listen to
- who’s able to listen to you
- who is loyal and truthful and sincere
- who helps you when you need, according to their capacities and limitations
- whose you accept the limitations
- with whom you share information about each other in a balanced way
- who’s capable to challenge you when they think what you’re doing isn’t okay without blaming you -> close friend thing
- who doesn’t use guilt or sense of obligation or any kind of manipulation to make you feel you owe them something
- who is safe to be around and won’t use what they know of you against you in any case
- who can forgive you when you make a mistake or cross a boundary (without malevolent intention) -> close friend thing
- that you can forgive when you make a mistake or cross a boundary without intention - > close friend thing
- that you can say they’ve crossed a boundary and who can say you did -> path to be a close friend
- with whom negotiation and compromise for the best common solution is always possible
- who brings joy/happiness/peace or anything positive in your life consistently, and who feels the same for you
- who, when they speak about you without you being here, always put the emphasis on the positive
I consider there are levels of intensity in these relationships. Over time, these have been my criteria to call someone a "close friend". So far, I have 4 of them in my life I think. Which is already quite nice. In the category "friends" that meet these conditions without being so close, I might have 8 maximum. And others are acquaintances that more or less enter in the conditions above, but with much less intensity. Personally, I don’t need to see them that often, and these relationships really have been built over a decade.
What aren’t friends, or toxic friends
- they mostly make it about themselves and consistently don’t take you in account in any decision process
- who respond negatively when you tell them you’re upset about something they did or do (guilt you, be mad at you, etc)
- make you feel consistently stressed or awkward or "on your guard"
- use intimidation (yelling, ignoring you, threatening you, etc…) to get what they need or block your needs
- who don’t seem to take your needs into account
- who reproach you for having needs
- whom you don’t trust saying much about yourself in fear they’ll use it against you
- who speak about negatively you behind your back and/or disclose information about you that you don’t want to be disclosed
Now I have a certain flexibility in accepting people’s flaws and mistakes. But placing boundaries is complicated at times. When too much is too much?
I wondered what were your standards and how you see friendship in general. :-)