Friends with benefits
Friends With Benefits……
Friendships should have a purpose; you shouldn’t just make friends with people who add no value to your life. While some people think that this is a cold and calculative way of thinking, it is not.
Your friendships should improve your life even as you also should be a source of improvement and value to your friends. If you are in any friendship where there are no mutual benefits being gained, then that is hardly are friendship.
Receiving value or deriving benefits from a friendship is not about material things; it may include it but is hardly limited to material gains. Here are five things that you should be able to get from your friendships:
Acceptance
You can’t be friends with people who cannot or will not accept you. The first step in acceptance is that you must be able to reveal your true self to your friends and be received as you are without judgement.
Where those say they are your friends judge you or try to change you, it may mean that you need to continue your search for friends.
Encouragement
Friendships should provide encouragement; whether it’s kind words to help you stay on a course of something you’re doing or to pull you up after a disappointment, mistake or failure.
Advice
You should be able to get advice from at least one of your friends. While you may not be able to seek advice from every one of your friends, you should have friends or at least a friend that you can consult or rub minds with on matters of concern.
Accountability
You should also have at least one friend that can hold you accountable and call you out when you’ve done wrong. Generally, your friends should be able to tell you the truth because if this is missing, you may not really be friends.
Your friends should be people who know what others do not know about you, who can discuss sensitive matters that you might otherwise run from and be able to correct or caution you from doing wrong
Support
You should be able to look to your friends for support; it may be emotional, physical , financial or otherwise. If you’re with people who you can’t lean on or count on for anything, you may not have realfriends.
Fun
Friends, real friends should be able to have fun when they are with one another. Your friends should be people you can laugh with, say the most outlandish things and get your spirits lifted with.
You may not get all of these qualities with each one of your friends but you should be able to get all of them within the circle of your friends. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.