By Oladotun Fadeyiye
Very often, I hear people say things like “I’m quite unlucky with friends or “I’m a loner friendship isn’t my thing” or “I have had my fair share with friends and I think I’m done”.
While I wouldn’t want to judge or castigate all these decisions based on distant views as to why these people assume they are unlucky to find true friendships, I also think it is crucial to examine ourselves in order to properly position us in becoming better friends to others so as to attract the right friendships in return.
The reason for this is, too often, whenever friendship falls apart or relationship hits the rock, it is in human nature for us to focus more on how the other party have hurt us – those hurtful words said to us; their snobbish attitude towards us; the name calling or even their refusal to fully support us when we needed them but ignoring our own ‘nasty’ contributions that triggered the other party’s reactions too.
At times, some of the critical questions that we need to ask ourselves while reevaluating our past failed friendships should be:
“How did I contribute to the failing of those past friendships??”
“Was I too overbearing”?
“Did I take them for granted?”
“Was I the jealous type, who couldn’t handle their success, which in turn took the better part of me”?
Was I the leech?? -who just wanted to keep collecting and not give back that to those I call friends -Because truth be told friendship is all about giving!
Yes. Be ready to give it, if you want to have friends.
‘Giving’ here may not necessarily be material things. Those intangible stuff like creating time and our presence for those we call friends, do more magic than we can imagine.
Therefore, all these above questions would help us to understand where we missed it, and probably make amends and learn from them.
It is important to know that friendship is all about deep connection, understanding and commitment towards those who shares common values, virtues and overall outlook with us. And we must always strive to reciprocate and sustain that.
So, we must understand that, despite sharing things in common, you aren’t of the same personality and that must be respected at all times. Otherwise, there might be personality clash which is the root cause of frictions in friendship.
Furthermore, we must also re-examine why we allow or show interest in starting the friendship with that particular person in the first place. Doing this would help us to understand if the reason for such friendship wasn’t based on superficial or shallow reasons.
Because let’s face the fact, people always have a reason they chose to be somebody’s friends. It could just be because of the individual’s understanding nature, his or her calmness, his or her exposure or respectful mannerism amongst others.
Even though, there are people who are often drawn unconditionally to other people for friendship due to agape force existing between them. However, 75 to 80 percent of friendships these days are mostly conditional.
I mean, this is why phrases like ‘friends with benefits’ and ‘fair weather friends’ are included in the dictionary.
Dont get me wrong, it is not a bad thing to be conditionally drawn towards an individual for friendship but we must always ensure that such conditions aren’t harmful to those you call friends.
Nonetheless, understanding these few “hacks” that help friendships thrive better matters a lot.
It goes a long way in helping us to develop that personal understanding about human nature, tendencies as well as the inherent benefits of bonding with the right people.
Because trust me, no man can ever be an island. We all need that one person who’s got our back, come what may!
©Dotun Roy Media 2025