Sometimes maintaining a good relationship with your friends can be harder than making sure your relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend stays on track. And though little incidents can be quite funny, you may find that as you grow older (even in your youth) this can become really problematic.

Here are some things to think about:

1) What does your friendship mean to you?

Do you value the friendship(s) you have? Are the friend(s) you have important to you? Would you like to continue a growing and strong friendship with your friend(s)?

This helps you identify the WORTH of your friendship and furthermore, it will help motivate how to properly address whatever issues you stumble upon within your friendship circles. You must realize that if you answered YES to the above questions, you will probably have to stick out the drama, challenges and tough bits you experience as you go along.

2) It’s not them, it’s YOU

Yes, bad friends do exist. But guess what? Sometimes that bad friend can be YOU! Learn to ask yourself what you have done or may be doing to contribute to whatever problem you are experiencing and try and improve on that! This starts with acknowledging your faults and making an effort to work on them – there’s no room to play the blame game or feel that you are incapable of error, sometimes reflecting inward is the step between you and better friendships!

3) Crappy Friends

I mentioned above that it will sometimes be required of you to fight for valued friendships – in the same breath, it is not worth it to cut yourself up trying to salvage a friendship with someone who is making your life unpleasant. If your friendship with someone includes more cons, the pros – you may want to rethink your involvement with the said individual or group.

4) Life Happens

Some of the major problems you experience within your friendships may be linked to issues of time spent together, feeling like you’re being neglected by your buddies. Understand that as you get older, life changes! You no longer have the luxury of sharing most of your day together at school or living down the road from one another and being able to visit when you like. People move to res, others get full time jobs, and have other commitments besides socializing or being able to chat on BBM all day. Respect the time of others just as you would your time respected, be aware that everyone has a schedule and responsibilities which are often priority. Try and work around that. Maybe you wont be able to see your friend as much as you would like, make the time you have together count – remember, quality over quantity! Also, people change, and just because you got along with someone at age 16, doesn’t mean you will have the same interests ten years down the line. Some people are meant to be in our lives for seasons – and those seasons do come to an end. The cool thing is that after winter, must come spring.

5) Expectations

Sometimes we expect too much from people. Someone once said that a person can not give you something they do not have. Imagine a topless individual giving you their shirt, impossible right? Make room in your life to accept and embrace people where they are in life, and give of yourself, no matter what you get in return. This makes disappointments less impactful.

6) Effort

At the end of the day, you wont see growth if you don’t plant seeds. You need to make a habit of  investing in your friendships. Do something nice for them, make time for them, let them know you appreciate them, show interest in their lives, be happy for them in good times and be there for them when things aren’t going so well. As you give, you will also receive.

There’s no clear cut solution for this, but you surely can benefit from trying the above! Send your friendship related questions to thetha@livemag.co.za and we’ll try our best to give you helpful advice.