WHAT IS A REAL FRIEND? by J Loren Norris

What is a real friend?

​“Followers, frenemies and fake friends abound, but a real friend is the one who will tell you when you screw up royally, and still be your friend.” J Loren Norris

If you want to have friends, be a friend. That saying is as old and reliably true as the proverbial “golden rule.” No amount of manipulation, arm twisting or bribery will garner your real friends. Sure, you can pay Fiverr to grow your Twitter followers, you can buy ads in Facebook, Google, Instagram and TikTok to increase the level of exposure and get more people to “like you” or at least to like what you share with the public. But if you want REAL FRIENDS, you will need a new strategy!

FIRST - Be sincere, authentic and trustworthy
If you want people around you who you can trust to tell you the truth about yourself and still love you in all your strange ways, you have to first become that kind of person. Are you safe to share secrets with? Do you hold people’s deepest darkest fears as a tool to use against them, or do you guard them like a precious jewel? Are you honest, open and humble about your own inner struggles, or do you just milk everyone else so you’ll have more ammo to seek revenge with later?

SECOND - Choose wisely who you trust in your inner circle
Not everyone you meet can be trusted with your hurts, fears, anxieties and past. There will be POSERS who act and speak as though they care about you. They will make an obvious effort to “get close to you.” They might even start talking trash about others, to have you all to themselves. They will lie, manipulate and start trouble between your other friends and then pretend to be the only one you can trust. A very painful lesson I learned as a teenager about relationships: “If they will lie to you about someone else, they are lying to someone else about you.” A scorpion stings. Its what they do. Its in their nature.

THIRD (but not final) - All friendships are seasonal, know the seasons,
Like the changing of seasons as the Earth travels around the sun, every friendship is seasonal. Some seasons are longer than others. Some seasons bring storms, some bring flowers. Every season has positive and negative attributes. Every season is different not only from the other seasons, but from the last season just like this one. Summer is generally hot in Texas, some summers are egg on the sidewalk hot and some are my skin is melting hot. But it has NEVER SNOWED IN TEXAS IN THE SUMMER - seasons vary, but they are very predictable. Friendships are the same. They will ebb and flow as time goes on. Some will vanish like the snow, some will linger like the cloudy days in London or Seattle. Some will be predictable as the summer sun, spring rain, leaves of fall. Some will be like an unexpected tornado. Knowing the warning signs of change will prevent lots of pain and loss. Knowing what is predictable and being prepared for it will pay huge dividends. I never pack a Parka when i travel to the Congo or Brazil or Cuba... I always take a jacket when I travel to Colorado, at anytime of the year.

BE A FRIEND
CHOOSE WISELY
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
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