Friends Forever?

What makes a good friend? Do you ever feel like you’ve wasted your time on someone? I am not one of those people who has many friends. I am a homebody and can only handle investing so much of my week in social activities. When I make a friendship, I like to dig deep, way past the acquaintance stage, and make friends for life. As a result of this, I had almost no friends growing up. I eventually learned how to make many acquaintances and yet delve deep into the lives of a few. Through trial and error I learned to recognize pretty quickly what friends were “worth it” and would last and which friends could never go past the surface. I invest most of my time and energy into those few because I know that those few will stick around and not waste the little time I have to give. Maybe that sounds selfish, but it’s the most effective way for me to operate and still maintain good friendships. Those people will tell you that I’ll do anything for them. I spend hours being a listening ear, having fun times, and supporting them through life. I bleed, pray, sweat, and agonize over my close friends. Over the course of my life, I have made less than 10 of these types of friends.

My question today is, “where are they now?” If they are such good friends, where are they now?! Well, the good news is that the best friend I’ve ever made is my husband. He has been right here by my side supporting me through these last hellish 9 months. He’s not perfect, but he’s always been there for me even before we were an item and I know he will be there until his dying day.

The best female friends I ever made were in college. I’m happy to say that they are still wonderful friends I know that I can count on. The problem is that they’re all over the country and have lives of their own. That’s just life though, not a choice any of us has made.

But what about those people who are here, but aren’t there? I cannot even begin to recount the hours, weeks, months, worth of time I have spent on friends out here. Yet, I am just now realizing that for all of the time I have been there for them, they have been almost non-existent in my struggles. Sure, some of them have excuses. The problem is that I’m beginning to realize that they always seem to have excuses. I am realizing that I am now at the end of my 9 months and my friends have never kicked in, so to speak. Hmm…

So my question is how in the world do you know if people are worth spending time on? I do not take a completely selfish view to friendship nor do I necessarily regret the impact I’ve had on my friends’ lives. However, there have been many times where I’ve said no to other friends or lost time with my husband for these friends. I feel like I’ve run around the world for them several times over. Was all of that completely necessary? How do you keep from being a fool and giving everything to a friend that will never give back? When you don’t have your family nearby, it is so important to have good friends to help you when the going gets rough. I sure wish I had figured this out before I needed backup. I don’t make friends easily or trust people easily. This is exactly why. To all of my true friends and family, boy do I miss you!