More often than you’d expect, I find myself thinking about how much of a bad friend I am. Don’t get me wrong – as my friends and those closest to me could probably declare, I am the most loyal, giving, and dedicated friend one could have. However, I still think of myself as a bad friend. See, I tend to form great friendships that can last for years. However, once there is somewhat of a rift, I can’t seem to maintain the relationship, even if I thought it would last forever.

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Let me give you an example. From the seventh grade and until the twelfth, I had a great friend that has been through highs and lows with me. So, I believed that this friendship could survive everything, that even after graduation, we would remain close friends. For a while after graduation, that was indeed the case. However, as more time passed, we started to fall apart. Each of us went in a different direction, and we had fewer and fewer meetings and meetups. It wasn’t that we had a fight or anything, just a natural falling out due to changes in both of our lives. So why did it make me feel like a bad friend? I am about to explain.

See, it wasn’t like we were very far apart physically. My friend still lived rather close to me and was at home almost every weekend, and yet we didn’t see each other very much. These are the moments in which I think that I am a bad friend. I am so good at starting something and having great friendships, but I can’t seem to maintain them. For some unknown reason, I think that once people don’t reach out to me themselves, it means that they aren’t interested in keeping what we have going, so I avoid and disappear. And I shouldn’t. Because when I receive a text from someone who I haven’t heard from in a while, I am filled with joy, and I know that others feel the same way. Hopefully, this is a field I’ll improve in soon.