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Growing Up

Does it sometimes feel like you are unable to feel happy for a friend? Do you find yourself unable to share in a friend’s joy over her new boyfriend, her awesome grades or, her recent weight loss?


Yes yes yes. I've often felt that way, sadly. It makes me feel like a bitch sometimes. :(
Fortunately, I have realized that there may be a reason for that. 


According to Cosmo: 


" We all are better friends when our friends are unhappy.”  



Apparantly, people make a few types of friends in life, mainly:

  1. Purpose
  2. Proximity
  3. Popularity

"Some of us derive a sense of purpose/happiness from being needed. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are a manipulative person. It just means your friendship-pattern is probably centred on Purpose. It’s not that you wish the worst calamities upon your friends. It’s just that the way you tend to show you care as a friend is through being there for them. Need a shoulder to cry on? Me! Need a listening ear? Me! Need someone to call and talk to? Don’t worry about waking me up, I’ll be okay. And once your friend moves on, you are left with a gaping hole in your life, like you don’t know how else to connect with her – and that makes you upset, disappointed and, if you fail to move on, bitter.  "  

I think this is really quite true. Well I'm not a really You-have-to-need-me kinda friend, but I still have to feel wanted and needed sometimes. Especially when it seems everyone is growing up and making new friends, rediscovering themselves and having fun, it's easy to get left behind if you didn't move in the same direction as your friend. That's when the neglected feeling comes in. It would seem that your friend didn't need you anymore, and all of a sudden you feel lost and lonely, like you've just lost a friend. 



Proximity friendships would most likely cater to colleagues to classmates, people whom you see on a daily basis. It's also true that once you're removed from the same environment, it's much more difficult to maintain the friendship because you've lost the same topics to talk about. Kinda sad, but with everything there's always exceptions so I guess if the friendship is strong enough, it should be able to endure the distance. 


"Finally, there is the friendship that springs from Popularity – you guys have been together for so long, it becomes so weird to move on alone. 
Friends inside a “Popularity” arrangement often move around in a pack. They probably have known each other since they were all in the same class in Primary 2, they probably got married to the same group of guys, at around the same time. Although such friendships do seem to share the strongest bonds - they are not swayed by whether you need them or whether you are close by – they do present the greateast emotional challenges. Because the truth is, people outgrow each other. The gradual alienation you feel may make you feel like, overnight, you’ve lost all your friends. "





The last one is popularity, and honestly the most difficult to let go. You've known each other your whole life, grown up together but inevitable people start to move in different directions.
Just like how a plant grows in the direction of the sun, sometimes you have to admit you and your friends have different suns now. I agree that Facebook has made you realize that you might feel like shit when you see pictures of your friends doing stuff together without you, or when they start posting pictures of their new boyfriend and you were basically one of the last to find out. Yeah that happens, that's why growing up sucks.

"The thing about friendship in this age of Facebook, is that it has become ALL THE MORE IMPORTANT for us to be comfortable with our own company. It’s hard not to feel left out when you see photos of a group of friends hitting the club on a Saturday without you. 



It’s hard to not feel like you are a lousy person when you have no idea why a friend’s Facebook status updates no longer make sense.Most of us have probably gone through all three phases at one point in time or with different groups of people. "





Sometimes I wonder, if we're be able to make enough new friends to be able to say goodbye to certain friendships, because one might be left with no more friends if that happens. How sad.
The death of a friendship always hits the hardest, but sometimes staying in the toxic friendship might hurt even more.


"The sooner we work out how we connect with different individuals, the easier it will be for us to face up to the death of any friendship - no matter how strong you felt about it, no matter how long you were friends for and, no matter if you once talked about making each other maids-of-honour at your respective weddings."


Sighs..

Honestly, I wouldn't have the guts to end a dying friendship because most of the time, it felt like I'm the only one who has found a different sun from them and am the only one who has thought of moving on.

Growing up has never been more complicated.


Article quoted from Deborah Tan taken from Cosmopolitan Singapore

I love Cosmo, it's a magazine I've been dying to get my hands on ever since I hit 18, but it was expensive. They imported the UK and Australia versions to sell in Borders and frankly, I didn't feel that it's justified to pay $13 for a magazine. So I could only stare at the covers. 
But when Cosmopolitan Singapore got published, I thought I was going to die of excitement. Articles like the above just made me more sure that my undying love and preference for the magazine were not unfounded. 
This article really strikes a chord with me. I guess it kinda sums up how I've been feeling for some time. But I really wonder if a justification for how I felt will make me feel less of a bitch, or I need to start cultivating a bigger heart. 


For more awesome thought provoking articles, read more at Cosmo SG

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