Friendship is a tricky business

When do you consider someone as a friend? Is it when you regularly meet up for drinks? Or when you see them as an extension of your family? Everyone has a different definition of the word friend, so friendship can be a tricky thing when we approach and treat friends all different in our own way. It is especially tricky when you are an easy going person and let all kinds of people into your life before even defining for yourself what you can bring to the table as a friend and what the other person needs to be in order to be your friend.

It’s almost impossible to be my friend these days. My requirements are way up high there that no mortal being actually can reach them. It’s as if I do it on purpose so no one can actually come close to me.

My trust in people is at the lowest point that I fail to open up myself again for new people.

As if I don’t even bother anymore to establish another superficial relationship in which we only meet up to complain to one another and indulge in daily gossip.

To me, friendship isn’t about seeing each other on a regular basis nor to see each other only when tipsy or wasted during the weekends. It’s not to use each other as a laughing stock when it is obviously not the moment to crack jokes and laugh away the tense atmosphere that has been floating around in the room.

Friendship is not about being polite in each other’s faces and feeling frustrated behind their backs when you don’t have the guts to tell them how you really feel.

But it’s also not about being dead-on honest to the point that you are practically hurting your friend because of the things you say without considering the consequences of your own words. When the feelings of your friend are at stake because of your actions, you should really look at yourself if you are being a decent human being, let alone a good friend.

On the other hand, I also know what I need to bring to the table to be considered a good friend because I have high expectations for myself. I don’t like half-assing, there is no middle ground for me. It’s either nothing or I go all-in which means that you are either my friend for life or dismissed forever in my mind.

My first rule to be a good friend? Simple.

Let go of one’s ego and be self-aware of your own actions. 

Also, know when to shut up in more serious situations, know when to speak up to help and know when to let go if it’s about small matters. Know when to apologize and take the blame if it yours to take. Know how to really listen and take someone seriously. Know how to genuinely say sorry if you have hurt someone on purpose or not.

It’s giving and take – no need to keeping score in how well you are playing the friendship game. 

Be adaptable without letting someone walk all over you.

Friendship doesn’t have to be tricky, but we make it too complicated by playing fucked up mind games with each other. Friendship is a tricky business, you enter into someone’s life to think that you know someone well, so you put an enormous amount of trust in them without ever questioning if they would hurt you.

And when they do mess up by consciously hurting you or stealing your trust, you found yourself dumbfounded and the whole situation laughable and surreal to the point that you found yourself in a state of shock, struggling to comprehend what the fuck actually happened. That’s why I’m still failing to open up myself again. Making friends is as tricky as gambling. You keep trying because you want to win but you end up losing and going home with empty pockets.

Is it really too much to ask to be a decent human being? 

Apparently.

From the girl who rambles through life 

 

If he just opens his eyes, he would have noticed her.

If he just opens his eyes, he would have noticed her.

But he didn’t.

He never really has opened his eyes to see what’s in front of him. He has never noticed the disappointment in her eyes when he didn’t look her in the eyes when they were talking. Goes the same when she was glowing from within when she was telling something funny to make him laugh. He never really looked her in the eyes. Her eyes that said everything about how she felt.

He didn’t want to face the fact that he was taking her for granted. Spoken words can mean so much, but a knife cuts on two sides. Maybe those words were sincerely spoken from his heart but without action to give those words its meaning, it will just word in the end. Just words echoing in her ears which slowly made her feel hopeless and insecure about herself. She didn’t want to give up on something in which she knew had great potential to thrive into even something more greater. She never wanted to give up because she never even has considered it as an option. But lately, giving up is all she is heading to, even though she tried hard to withhold herself from even thinking about it.

Her nights became more restless and tears were more insight than her smiles. He had no clue until she talked to him about it. Promises were made and she was successfully being reassured for a couple of days before her flood of tears came by again during nights. It was tiring, exhausting to a point where she looked blankly at the ceiling, wondering how this all could have happened.

She traced back the footsteps in their relationship and in doing so, she tried to find out what exactly went wrong.

What could have gone wrong? What could possibly have gone wrong?

We say life has its ups and downs, just like relationships have theirs. In order to live, we simply have to be alive.
What makes a relationship work in the very first place? Same thing.

It needs to be alive.

Without it, there are no ups and downs. It can make us skip a heartbeat when it feels too good to be true. But when the heart rate monitor shows a straight line, a line going perfectly straight from A to B, it means it has no progression whatsoever. When we don’t grow in life, then life will pass by us in return. Without progression in a relationship, it will get stuck at some point, be it in the form of excessive comfort with each other which can lead to taking granted of. It’s not merely alive, just hanging on a thin thread, dangling between a better future or a painful farewell.

If he just opens his eyes, he would have noticed her.

From the girl who rambles through life

Love is like a growing tree

It was a cold winter evening, when we were walking down along the canals of Amsterdam. My hands separated from yours due to the amount of take outs we have ordered, which was dangling around my fingers. The discussion we had that moment, left me satisfied and longing for more. I couldn’t help but smile inside, knowing our love tree is still growing in an environment that was once so stormy, now changed into a breezy place.

Could you imagine what was once a tiny seed, now is turned into a growing tree?

It didn’t just appear from nothing. Look at it then. It’s all growing. Sometimes it takes longer to recover after the winter, but the flower buds are always coming back in the Spring. It will bloom into delicate flowers. Its beauty will touch us deeply, while it quickly will devolves into leaves. The length of the tree trunk reminds us the time we have spent together. However, it’s the thickness of it which shows us its strength & character. The branches lead us to our stories. Each, one of a kind. Some tangled. Some still recovering after it’s broken, while some thriving in its best potential. But, they were all connected – continue to connect and grow into more branches. The flowers may make a short appearance every time, but it left us speechless. It let us fall in love again. Again and again. The countless leaves keep the tree alive, by providing food. It’s our salvation.

Our needs and beyond that. Beyond our wildest dreams.

The seasons of Mother Nature continue to challenge the tree in every possible way. Losing leaves to survive through cold winters. Winds & storms hitting every spot. Hardly standing, hardly breathing. It encountered countless problems and difficulties. The wounds -slowly turned into scars. We had our fights. Made unforgivable mistakes. We could have tear the whole tree down, but we didn’t.

It’s all us. We did this together.

The storm couldn’t chase us apart. The severe winters, year in year out, couldn’t temptate us in forever hibernation. No, instead of it – we embrace, adapt and grow again. We try hard to see and smell the flowers, for the ultimate beauty of it. We appreciate its color changes in leaves when the Autumn smell is in the air again, which brings harmony and balance.

The seed may not be visible for a long time now, but it was the beginning of the growth of a lively tree in its own unique way. It was the beginning of hope, nurture, love, challenges, defaults and everything we had wish for.

Even beyond that.

From the girl who rambles through life

The Right Person Will Come Along

I stumbled upon a piece called ”12 brutally honest reasons why nice guys just don’t get the girl” where it explained why instead ”the bad guy” gets all those girls. In short, nice equals boring & a guy that has no self-respect, bad equals mysterious, challenging & charming. Ugh please. 

First of all, I already cringe if I see a caption like this. I don’t view guys in ”bad” or ”nice”. And what I really found hypocritical is, they describe a nice guy practically as a doormat that has no personality & physical attraction whatsoever. A nice guy IS NOT nice, he is just being himself, honest & real. They may not say everything your princess ears want to hear, but isn’t it the point of being honest with you? They don’t say exactly what you want to hear, because they don’t want to manipulate you. Why would he if he is that into you? And a doormat, huh? How in earth can he be a doormat if he actually has self-respect & dare to be his 100% self. I don’t get that.

I view those so-called bad boys not like most of women. I don’t find them mysterious & challenging at all. I only found them cringeworthy. Cringeworthy, because they are putting up a show for us to see, and the funny part is, that there are seriously people falling for it. Major cringe. If I have to believe this article, it would means that most women don’t fall for the nice guy because he is treating a woman too ”nicely”. No woman, don’t blame others. It is you that is insecure and think that the bad boy treat you just like how you wanted. It’s true though.

He treats you like sh*t, because you treat yourself like sh*t.

If I don’t cringe about a person, and feel comfortable enough to be myself with him, then all those other things are just additional stuff. I don’t need bad or nice boy behaviour, just genuinely human interaction. I love to talk with people who can hold conversations, not just some small talk, but meaningful & inspired conversations. If you know for yourself what you found significant & enjoy, and can respect yourself, then there is no such thing as nice or bad guy. Do not let any person make you feel bad, because you think he can get away with it because of his looks. Ugh major cringe again.  

Dont’ be a doormat

Treat yourself & others kind and with respect.

The right person will come along.

From the girl who rambles through life