A Friend is Someone We Feel Safe With

“Friendship... is the comfort of feeling safe with a person.”
Dinah Maria Craik , A Life for a Life

What greater comfort can there be than feeling safe with another person? None-- aside from feeling comfortable with yourself. People often wonder how to discern if a friendship is healthy or toxic. Understanding how we feel around each person we call “friend” is a key indicator of a healthy or unhealthy relationship. Next time we’re around certain friends, let’s tune-in to how we feel...

As we’re walking to the market, we run into Janet. We feel “on-guard“ as our gut tightens. We feel unsafe. As she’s talking, we quickly realize how subtly critical Janet is, and we’re afraid she may bite us with her words at any second. We feel uncomfortable until she heads on her way. The next day at work, we notice that when our “friend” Tim enters the conference room, we feel all of the positive energy rush out the door before it closes behind him. His brooding expressions zap us with emotional poison, and his negative comments start depriving us of oxygen. We begin to feel physically drained, like we need a nap. So, we go to the water cooler and we start rethinking this friendship.

Later that evening, we’re at home when the phone rings. It’s Juan. He has a new crisis. We suddenly realize that whenever Juan calls us it’s always about him and his latest catastrophe. As he rambles on, we’re thinking about how we’ve spent hours, practically days, listening to him whine. We’ve even missed out on movie-dates with friends because we’ve felt obligated to hold his hand. By the time he hangs-up, we’re feeling pretty resentful. So we decide next time he calls. we’re going to set some boundaries. We’ll set a time-limit to the call, and if the call is beginning to interfere with our needs, we will tell him we have to go.

A few days later, we’re out to dinner with Angela. Dinner is being served when our cell-phone rings. It’s Juan. We tell him we can’t talk. We’re with Angela. He begs, but we stick to our boundary. He resorts to shaming tactics, telling us we obviously aren’t really his friend. We tell him we’re sorry he feels that way, wish him well and say goodbye. Later at home, we begin to understand that Juan has never really been a friend to us. We’ve simply been his unpaid therapist. Friends don’t shame or guilt each other into getting what they want; manipulators do. We decide to let go of this toxic relationship.

Now that the blinders have come off, we also begin to realize that our relationship with Margot has always been about us giving and her taking. She refuses to compromise. When we go to a concert, it's always the band she wants to see. When we go to lunch, it’s always to the place she likes. We decide that if she isn’t willing to give next time, this relationship is also history. Friendships are about equal giving and taking; about happily sharing with each other.

Finally, we realize that the one person we really feel comfortable around is Jamie. We can tell him anything. He accepts us at face value. He enjoys being with us and we do feel safe enough around him to be ourselves. He’s not perfect, but he’s pretty honest with us, and we don’t think he’d purposely hurt us. He enjoys doing things we like and we enjoy doing things he likes. Whenever we see him, we feel an instantaneous burst of joy inside us. THIS is a true friend. We begin to better treasure our friendship with Jamie and we start being more open to people like him. By better understanding our relationships, we allow our soul to shine!