Cancel Your Friendship? Don't Keep Score to Make Sense of Things

As the song says - "No man is an island, No man stands alone." Everyone needs others, whether it's our parents, other family members, or friends. People love to feel a sense of belonging. It helps to boost our self-esteem and self-confidence.

People choose their friends usually because they find that they have something in common. They might live in the same neighborhood, enjoy the same sports, like the same music, or have similar backgrounds. Some adults have been friends since they were children, their husbands or wives eventually become friends, and their children also become friends. These types of friendships are sometimes closer than the relationships between family members.

In order to maintain friendships, respect and appreciation must exist. Friends share problems, secrets, have differences and solve these differences. It is therefore important that friends communicate effectively if their friendships must last. Friends should not allow petty differences to cause problems. There are instances where friendships have come to an unfortunate end due to unresolved differences. This can happen when one friend is tallying score against the other, counting how many mistakes the other has made. This can cause the parties to go into a state of depression and find it hard to form new friendships.

If a friendship is important then the parties will make the effort to salvage it. The friends must focus on the positive attributes of each other, while recognizing that no one is perfect. There is absolutely nothing wrong with friends seeking counseling in order to address their differences. Counseling will help each individual to view the situation which caused the problem more objectively.

Friends should never allow others to separate them by pointing out negatives about other friends. Sometimes other persons are jealous of sound friendships and will stop at nothing to end these friendships. This occurs quite often at work. Partners are sometimes uncomfortable with the type of friendship that the other party might have with another person. They sometimes feel insecure and attempt to end these friendships through the use of cheap psychology. In these cases friends need to recognize the source of their problems and address it.

Friends must always remember what brought them together and should never allow anything or anyone to end their years of valuable friendships. If one person wants to cancel the friendship, the other should give them a little room and see if they come back to their senses.