everything isn't for everybody

What if we were to treat our friends more like our lovers? Might it be good to put a bit more romance into our friendships? With lovers, we often celebrate by making a big thing of anniversaries or Valentine’s Day, or by spoiling them on their birthdays. We show our appreciation for them with little gifts and cards. We leave them a note when we depart in the morning after an enjoyable night together. We make time for them. Many of these things could be incorporated into friendships. We could send a friend a homemade CD when we hear they’ve been low. We could schedule in a regular lunch date. We could send a bunch of flowers to an old friend to let them know we’re thinking about them even though we haven’t seen each other in a while. We could arrange, each year, a day with a friend to specifically focus on our friendship, perhaps going away for a weekend together doing something we both enjoy, maybe acknowledging the day we met or cemented our friendship in some way. Perhaps friendships could also benefit from some of the ‘state of the relationship’ discussions we may have with overs. It may be easier to let friendships drift or to avoid talking about a problem because we’re not generally expected to reflect on, or work at, our friend relationships.”