The following is an adaptation of some parts of a journalist's view on something close to her heart that i can't agree more with.
*Source cannot be revealed as i do not want to be sued for copyright infringement. WAHAHA...
"My friendship is not a hotel. You don't walk in and out, as and when you wish."
No matter how head over heels in love i may be - and no matter how a man's charm may make my hormones rage - it never gets to the point where he takes priority over my close friends.
It's a no brainer. My friends have proven their mettle and stuck with me through thick and thin, while he has merely entered the picture with goodness-knows-what intentions.
Even if i were married, being with my husband would still not override time spent with my close friends.
A spouse will never be able to support one's emotional needs entirely and he or she has to understand that some of these needs willl have to be met outside, by friends.
I have had enough of being taken for granted. Being single and available does not mean my time is any less valuable than others.
When it is consistently a case of one person giving and the other person taking, it is time to take stock of the friendship and, perhaps, call it quits.
Like courtship - or even more so - friendship requires time, effort and reciprocity.
While courting parties can demand commitment of each other directly, the expectations in a friendship are usually implicit, subtle and unsaid, as as a result, more prone to neglect.
You may love your friends very much, but if they don't hear from you for an extended period of time, it's only human nature that they wonder just how much you really care about them.
As the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr said: "In the end, we are remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Couples who are newly in love are naturally consumed by each other to the exclusion of everything - and everyone - else. I don't begrudge that. I certainly didn't expect any friend to pay as much attention to me as she did when she was single.
I also accept that when life exerts its pressures and one's careers picks up pace, some friendships fade away. But i would be happy to rekindle such friendships.
What i bristle at is being relegated to a nobody when romance calls and then being treated like some sort of stop-gap measure when it ends.
Let's take some time out this week (*note, i'm NOT free this week) to have a drink with a dear old friend, say "How are you?" and be sincerely interested in finding out how they are. (needless to be taught)
I have never been so busy or so popular to the extent that i have no time for an old friend.
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