What do you think of when you hear or state this ten letter word? Loyalty, Truthfulness, Love, and long laundry lists of other adjectives and verbs that may come to mind? Rightfully so, as we all from the time that we start play dates and daycare begin this thing called friendship. We let our friends play with our favorite toy, eat with us at our lunch table, wear our favorite clothes and most of all we open up to our friends and share with them the most intimate AND embarrassing facets of our lives. We do this because with our friends we aren’t ashamed. The same shame that you feel when you stumble up on a curb or on the last step of a flight of stairs, or when you ask someone out and they refuse the invitation is an embarrassment that has us turn red faced and flushed with wondering who seen that. It’s nothing like when we share this with our “bestie” good or bad news! The “bestie” is the one that we can count on till the very end. The one that knows us better than we know each other and will feel comfortable enough calling us on that. Seasons aren’t the only things that change in life so we all know that there comes the possibility that our group of friends will also. What happens when friends part and it isn’t on the best of terms?
Most of us as adults understand and respect the confidences of our friends and what we have put in the “vault” as we have journeyed on this highway of life. Best friends are not supposed to let the proverbial “cat out of the bag” when it comes to secrets even when the relationship goes south and they never talk again. But there is always the thought of what are they going to say about me? Will they tell my other friends this deep dark secret that I told them and only them? This feeling of inadequacy causes us to constantly run through our mental rolodex trying to remember what is the worst that they could use against us. This is a feeling that will drive most of us crazy with the simple “wondering” and will drive others to even further drastic measures, some even criminal. What happens when the ex-friend feels that they have been betrayed so now it is open season on all of your secrets and all that they know about you. What happens when they make an anonymous call to your husband about that indiscretion on the girls trip to Vegas? Or when they call your Mom and Dad and begin to spew out all the places you REALLY were when you said that you were spending the night with them? It is basically mental blackmail as we go into a shell trying to keep a low profile or we try and combat what they may say by doing the very same thing and starting to make our own calls in order to sandbag them. Is it right? NO. But it gives us that tool of retaliation in order to feel complacent about what we have just endured emotionally.
My position on the matter is that if we for whatever reason are not “besties” or friends any longer then that’s that. Nothing more nothing less! I can go on about my business and so can you without having to live in fear of secrets being exposed to those that we love and or worse yet in this day and age on the internets. We are not in high school so therefore should have the mental integrity to keep secrets secrets, all the way to the grave no matter how badly an argument or disagreement we have. I would never bash another verbally after we have an issue that makes us no longer able to be friends because in the words of Cedric the Entertainer…”I’m a Grown Ass Man Dawg!” Most people may think I’m alone with this line of thinking but I know there are others out there that feel the same way. Friendship is not something to be taken lightly but also not something that allows ANYONE to load up the emotional gauntlet and broadcast all that you shared in confidence with them either. Friendship can be a beautiful thing when it is respected at all times during and after the friendship has run its course. It’s sad that others don’t realize that when they begin to expose how dirty, callous, uncaring, thoughtless and vengeful a former friend was, the only one that is showing their true traits that fit that mold are them.
Feel free to contact me at zmorganII@gmail.com and via twitter @zmorganII
