Friendship isn't about being there when it's convenient. It's about being there when it's not.

I'm bored and going through old magazines and journals in my desk drawer and just came across this article I found about 3 years ago in PLoS Medicine and it blew me away. It compared "low social connectedness to having the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, to being an alcoholic and more harmful than not exercising and twice as harmful as obesity." Wow. Well, hell.

I'm not a big fan of telling people how many friends they need. We're all different, but I would be happy with somewhere between 5-10 meaningful friendships. The other report in this article says that "half of us have less than 2 people we'd call real friends." Um, yep. I'd say that's about right. I'd say there seems to be some discrepancy between my experience and my ideal...

Note that there is a difference between how many people you're friendly with versus how many people you call a friend. A freaking huge difference. It's common to assume we have lots of friends, but when we examine it we realize we simply know a lot of friendly people through work, school and whatnot. An easy test for me is to ask myself "How many people would I feel comfortable asking for a ride to the airport?" or "Who is in my life that I could get in touch with last-minute to see if they were available to hang out without it feeling weird?" Easy things-I'm not even talking about pet or house-sitting here.

So I started to ponder why this is, as I have many times before. And thought of two things that consistently detriment friendships of my own and those around me. Those two things are 1.) lack of dependability and 2.) lack of communication. BOOM. Betta believe it!

As far as dependability goes, I have many friends who frequently commit to plans, then never show. Some never explain…never bring it up…and never apologize. Although this example is somewhat trivial, it still makes a point. Obviously, there are times when things come up that prevent individuals from following through on what they promise, but if a friend perpetually drops the ball, I take it as a message. When a friend says they are going to do something or be somewhere, you should be able to count on them. And, in reciprocation, they you.

Secondly, communication. Which, for those of you who know me well, you know communication holds exceptionally true to my heart and is vital in every relationship I enter. That being said, if you and your friend (or partner, too) are in a disagreement or argument, or just fighting in general, it's often not as horrible as you think. It is not enjoyable whatsoever and it certainly does not feel good, but fighting/arguing is a form of communication. While you are fighting you are still trying to communicate. What's remarkably worse is when people give up on fighting, stop trying to communicate at all, shut down and go numb. How is there ever going to be any depth in any friendship if you give up every time? Part of what is so fulfilling about friendship is having a falling out and being able to talk about it and put the pieces back together so that this time they are mended even tighter than they were before. If this were the case every time, disagreements with a friend would be a quick and enlightening speed-bump with an even smoother road ahead. So, there. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.