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Weekly
Article
Are You a High Maintenance Friend? 3 Hard Questions to Ask Yourself |
I have been thinking about the whole concept of friendships lately.
It occurred to me that if I hold my friends to a high standard, they
should expect the same standard from me. I know what I enjoy and cherish in my friends. I also know what I don't like. One of the fastest ways to fade out of my friendship circle is to be what I call 'high maintenance'. We
all have highs and lows in our lives and our friends are there to
celebrate the highs and support us through the lows, remind us of our
strengths and encourage us to look for solutions and positive outcomes
to any situation. That's what friends do. Sometimes we
find ourselves with a friend that is really attached to the lows and
rarely enjoys any highs. If this is a pattern and doesn't shift, we
often drift away from the friendship and attract a more positive one. So, how do you know that you are a positive and enjoyable friend? Who will tell you that you are too high maintenance? I will... Here are 3 Questions to reflect on to determine if you are High Maintenance. 1.Are You Needy? If you consistently keep tabs of things such as who's turn it is to call who, you are probably high maintenance. If
you expect gifts to be returned in kind and feel hurt when they are
not, in other words, if there are strings attached to your generosity,
you are probably high maintenance. If you have unrealistic expectations about how often you need to talk to your friends, you are probably high maintenance. If you are attached to your problems rather than the solutions to your problems, you are probably high maintenance. 2. Are you fun and interesting to be around? If you can hardly wait to visit so you can talk about your problems, you are probably high maintenance. If you don't have outside interests that fire up your passion and you love sharing, you are probably high maintenance. If
you never want to go on adventures with your friends and would prefer
instead to sit and rehash the same old stuff, you are probably high
maintenance. If you expect your friends to always entertain you
and rarely make the effort to provide the spice to your relationship,
you are probably high maintenance. 3.Do you encourage and celebrate your friends having other close friends? If it is really important to you that you get the 'best friend' ranking, you are probably high maintenance. If you are jealous that your friends have other close friends, you are probably high maintenance. If you choose to not like the other friends of your friend, you are probably high maintenance. If you want to find fault in the other friends of your friend, you are probably high maintenance. Sometimes
we fall into patterns that we are not even aware of. This is a very
simple and basic list of unattractive friendship qualities. Good News: If you feel good about your answers to these questions, you are probably NOT high maintenance.
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