Either way, most of us expect to make some key friends in life and we even expect to keep some of them. But does that mean that we should keep all of them?
I wrote this post about breaking up with friends a while back (My dear friend Anna wrote a comment for it! She and I had lunch today and it was bittersweet as she is moving to North Carolina to start a new job. Congrats, Anna! I'll miss you tons!).
To know when to break it off with a friend, you should evaluate your friendship and decide if that friend is connected to you in one of the following ways:
1) Fair Weather Friend
These friends can be fished out by one litmus test: moving. If you ask your friends to help you move, or at least to help pack and they either don't call/email you back or they come up with a lame excuse not to help you, then they aren't a good friend. I've had friends come through for me in my most horrible moves even when it's inconvenient for them. Good friends move their good friends. Other symptoms of a fair weather friend include: only wanting to go out with you if they like the bar/it's near them, cancelling plans repeatedly, or never asking you how YOU are and really wanting to know the answer.
Keep or cut? Cut!
2) Seasonal Friend
These friends are in your life for a season. Call it serendipity or call it God's plan, either way these friends come into your life for the two of you to learn/grow with and from each other for a finite period of time. Seasons change and so do these friends. They wont be in your life forever, but that's ok. Be prepared to accept new friends as you enter new seasons of life and also to let some friends go that move into seasons different from your own. Symptoms of a seasonal friend: not having time for you after they get married/have a baby, giving you the cold shoulder for dinner plans now that they are over that breakup/feeling better/no longer your coworker, or not wanting to hang out with you now that you don't drink. I cannot stress enough that it is OK for friendship seasons to end. Life is full of changes and adjustments. If we kept the same friends our whole lives and only those friend, imagine how little we'd grow!
Keep or cut? Cut if they are toxic to you (keeping you from growing or encouraging activities that harm you) or keep until one of you feels the twinge of seasonal change, then its ok to let them fade.
3) Growing Together Friend
These friends change with you. Whether they hit life's seasons at your rate or a different one, they still connect with you and desire to support you. They call when you need them (or don't call because they know you hate the phone), show up even if they can only spend an hour with you, can carry on a one-sided conversation when you don't feel like talking, let you cry in public over your breakup (or in the deodorant isle over ... God knows what) and act like it's normal and rationalize eating drunk food with you. They're also vulnerable with you. They tell you what makes them insecure. You're the one they call when they lock themselves out of their car or have a fight with their boyfriend. Friends that grow together don't need to see each other every year or talk on the phone often to maintain this bond. It's an understood, symbiotic, lasting relationship.
Song suggestions: Laughing With by Regina Spektor or, because of the title, Seasons of Love from Rent.
