It has become a common thing to hear moms express their need for friendship and their strong feelings of isolation. The reality is—I can intensely relate. 

My experience with friendship has widely varied over my life. As a very young child, I remember walking up to strangers at the park and asking “do you want to be my friend” and subsequently playing with my new found friend. During this period of time, making friends was simple. 

Later, I would go through much change in my home life and move to a new town. The experiences in my turbulent home life would lead to more quietness and observation when it came to my peers and less of a desire to readily ask others to “be my friend”. 

As I acclimated to my new environments, I slowly began to bud in confidence again but somewhere along the line I had changed my approach to friendship. I decided that I didn’t trust people, and that I was excellent at reading others before ever truly getting to know them on a personal level. 

You see, I was a people pleaser and would often be easily peer pressured. This was followed by several incidents of discipline. All of this led to me beginning to decide who would be “worthy” of being a friend before ever pursing the “would you be my friend” part—probably out of self preservation. 

Of course, I would have never phrased it like this or even let it cross my mind. In fact, I would have vehemently opposed anyone who claimed it to be true. I simply thought I was being smart and choosing friends “wisely”, all while claiming to having very few people that I “click” with due to my uncommon nature. 

Don’t get me wrong. It is important to choose friends wisely and not every friend ought to be kept close to your heart, but this was me taking that concept to an unhealthy degree. Was it the fault of those around me that I couldn’t stand my ground? Of course not. But, instead of focusing on becoming a stronger individual who could say “no”, I decided to forcefully create an environment around me where I would never be put into that situation. But, again, I wasn’t seeing it this way. I was seeing it as choosing to associate with “good” people—leading to arrogance and judgment of others who didn’t meet my criteria. 

This is no easy thing to admit. It is something I have only recently admitted to myself. 

I carried this philosophy into my adulthood. I often found that very few people felt “worth of my time” because I needed to understand their character before ever initiating friendship. Well, I’d be “friendly” to most people, but true friendship stemming from vulnerability and openness? That was reserved for the few. 

Then entered my husband—“Bui” as he was widely known on our college campus. This man was a friend to everyone and he was well loved. If this is any indication, I don’t think there was a single on-campus date that I had with him that was not interrupted, even briefly, by someone saying hello to him. Our meals usually consisted of me being the only girl at the table surrounded by several of his friends. This is in no way a complaint but simply context. He was a friend to so many, and me….still, friend to a few. 

Being around him—being stuck by his side really—meant I gained some friends simply by association. But, when he split off from me to hang out with friends, I often went off to study, or do some other solo activity. Well, if my one or two friends weren’t available that is. 

Over time, Stephen would point people out and say how he thought they would be a great friend for me. I would usually just listen but take no action. 

Eventually, he challenged me. 

But, obviously, he just didn’t understand. There were only a few people that actually clicked with me. “I was always the kind of girl that only had a few friends”. I wasn’t the popular one, like him. 

Then he pulled back the curtain. He explained how so many of the friendships he held dear were ones he pursued. These were individuals he actively demonstrated care towards, was open with, and welcomed into his life. He had invited them in. 

Stephen didn’t wait for things to look right, the time to be right, or for things to “click”. He showed himself friendly, regardless of circumstance. The result? A plethora of beautiful friendships that ended up blessing him in return. 

I was actually surprised. I truly thought he was simply a popular person due to personality or circumstances surrounding his involvement at college. But hearing the truth of the matter…wow, I felt such deep admiration for this man in my life. 

I was convicted. And rightfully so. But, you know what…not much changed. I still wasn’t ready to put this in action. 

It would be about five years later that I would begin to put these concepts into action. It took that long for me to decide that the problem with my lack of friendship wasn’t “them”…it was me.