When I was single, it felt like finding my soulmate was the one missing element that would make my life complete. I spent endless hours with my friends analyzing our loves lives and sharing our hopes about finding “The One.” What we didn’t realize was how precious our friendships really were. Looking back, these fun and carefree moments were the real deal, but we kept somehow assuming that happiness lay in romantic love. We were wrong.
- Good Friendships Make Us Healthy and Balanced. Real friends may be hard to find, but once you have them, they’re with you forever. The older we get, the more important our friends become for our mental health and general well-being. They’re our gang, our safe place and the people who push us to be the best possible version of ourselves.
- Their Love Is Unconditional. Unlike relationships, true friends don’t love us because we’re beautiful, thin, rich or because of any ulterior motive they might have. They love who we really are and they don’t judge us for any mistakes we might make. Instead, they lift us up and help us get back on our feet.
- They help us love ourselves and they boost our confidence. There’s no greater proof that we are loved in life than being loved by our friends. People who are classified as family — our relatives and partners — don’t count the same way, since they kind of have to love us by law of nature. Our friends don’t owe us their love and loyalty — we have to earn it instead. And when we do earn it, it means so much.
- We can be our true selves around them and feel relaxed and happy. When we’re around our friends, we don’t need to worry about the future or wonder all the time where things are going with them. Neither do we have to pretend we’re the alpha female that has all her act together. We can show our flaws and vulnerability and know the person across the table really gets it.
- Relationships break down but friends stay. If you look around, every day you see people breaking up and feeling bitter and regretful for the time and energy they’ve wasted in romantic relationships. When our boyfriends go, our friends stay and show us which commitments in life really matter.
- They don’t hold us back. Our real friends encourage us to chase our dreams and do whatever they can to help make them come true. They don’t ask us to make sacrifices that will make us forever unhappy and unfulfilled. Instead, they’re willing to go the extra mile to help you get where you’re going and they know you’d do the same for them.
- They broaden our horizons. We dream big with our friends and they inspire us every day to do so. When we hang out with them, we’re more likely to connect with other people, broaden our circle of friends and have a blast. Couples tend to be in their own world pretty often, but when we’re out with our friends, we attract new people and experiences like magnets.
- They’re with us for our best memories in life. We share our happiest memories in life with our friends. It’s not because we don’t love our partners, but the times we share with our friends are the most carefree and stress-free of our lives — and when we grow older, they’ll be amongst our happiest and most cherished memories.
- They’re our true soulmates and help us remember that we’re not alone. Our BFFs are our sister souls and reflections of ourselves. We see life in the same way, we want similar things out of it, and we influence each other in countless ways. We could never relate to a boyfriend in the same way (and we’d never want to). Our girls are our heart and soul.
- The only thing they can’t give us, we can find elsewhere without all the drama. Romance and sex are things we can’t get from our friends, but that’s something we can find elsewhere. Moreover, having a strong and solid network of friends shields us from lots of dating drama, loss of perspective, as well as feelings of loneliness and low confidence. Nobody can bring us down just because they had a bad day. We know who we are and how much we deserve, and our friends are the reason for that.
