Just imagine, or remember, if you have this kind of story of life! One day, you met your “supposedly” best friend, expecting him/her to be overjoyed with the meeting. Surprisingly, his/her face turned red and you could sense something like anger radiating from him/her. He/she shooed you away and went away to hang out with some other friend.

Or you texted him/her, but one day after, you found this out. You noticed the “read” sign without receiving any reply. A couple days later, you texted him/her again, yet once again no response came out.

Source: Youtube, 2018

These kinds of experiences are disheartening, aren’t they? The picture above shows, one common reaction we tend to express is to desperately try to talk to our friends in order to make the friendship back on track. Well, eventually it is not always the best thing to do. But today, I would like to share my own experience when my relationship with my best friend drifts apart!

When it comes to best friends, instantly I recall a memory of a friend of mine in elementary school. Basically, we got along by playing the same video game on Playstation. He used to come to my house, literally every weekend and we play the game together. In return, I came to his house as well. However, I was too childish that in a game hosted by our teachers, he beat me, but I refused the loss. I started to get mad with him. This got worse when I set foot in the fourth grade, when he made another best friend. I often felt like he prioritized his new friend over me. It made me jealous and became the primary cause of our quarrel.

Of course, there were many attempts to fix our friendship. When we were in the fifth grade, my best friend and his new friend used to discuss our problematic friendship with a teacher. As I was commonly the culprit in this deteriorating friendship, my best friend had conversations with the teacher about the best ways to deal with my outdated views of being “best friends”. These views included:

• Being “best friends” means that I have to talk with my best friend every single time we meet, and he/she is completely unable to talk with other people.
• Being “best friends” means that my best friend and I should have fun together all the time.
• Being “best friends” means that my best friend should keep his/her mouth shut when I do something wrong.
• Being “best friends” means that all friendships last forever.

However, my beliefs I exposed above continued to plague my relationship with my best friend. Even though I personally have learned how friendships should work, until today I am not as close as I used to be with my best friend.

So, what have I learned from this friendship?

As I have said earlier, I have several misguided views on how best friends should get along, but then I tried to change my mind. While studying in senior high school, I constantly learned about socializing with other people. I compulsively searched on Google for any tips on how to improve my social skills. The result is I learned a few things regarding friendships:

• Best friends should remind each other when they hurt each other’s feelings or when their lives go other ways than God’s plans.
• We should manage our times with our best friends along with other things, as we know that they live the same way.
• Yes, we should have great times together as best friends, but whenever our best friends need a hand, we should give them a favor if possible.

Overall, even though my relationship with my elementary school best friend is no longer the same as it used to be, it has been becoming a stepping stone to me to improve my social skills with other people in general. After several years of having no close circle of friends, I am finally invited into a group of friends by one fellow of the Ignite GKI contributors, and I am thankful to God for this new group of friends.

Sources:

• Youtube, 2018. Celes And Locke In Albrook Cutscene. [image] Available at: [Accessed 19 December 2020].