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Welcome to week 7 of Contemplation, where I share with you my response to a prompt from my Kikki.K A Sentence A Day journal. I invite you to join me and share your response by writing a new post and linking back to this one.

My apologies for not updating last week’s post with the links from my fellow Contemplaters. I have been back to Brisbane for my best friend’s big birthday bash and it’s been very hectic buy absolutely brilliant. I will add them in once I return 😊

Hopefully, you will forgive me since this prompt is about friendship.

For week 7, here is the prompt: What quality is most important to you in a friend?

Isn’t it funny how the elements of friendship become so different over the years? Children seem to make friends quite easily, they’re less judgemental, more open and they dive right in. I was like that even into adulthood – making friends with everyone. I’m a fairly open person, often joking that my customers know my whole life story after a week of training with me.

And I’m still mostly like that with my customers. Proper friendship, however, that’s a more difficult process, completely reliant on quality give-and-take. As adults, we are more reserved about who we open up to. Even a couple of years ago I was quick to share everything with new friends but I learnt the hard way that not everyone has your best interests at heart. Not everyone will respect your privacy or even check with you before believing stories about you and jumping to conclusions.

These days, I have less really close friends, but they are my kindred spirits. They are people who I can text or call or meet for coffee or wine or dinner and we can just chat as if we’d never been away from each other. They know a lot about me and I know a lot about them. They get my humour, they remember what’s important in my life and they are all different – I share a different trait with each of them.

What I value most in each of my friends is loyalty. One hundred percent. I give my whole self to each relationship and it would break my heart to have that trust destroyed. It has broken my heart when it happened before.

I’m glad it happened when I was older because while it hurt me a great deal, I was lucky to finally see that this person was not loyal to me and had never really cared about my feelings not had ever put me first. In hindsight (isn’t that a marvellous thing?), it was a turning point for me. I was already starting to take photography seriously, but it pushed me to step outside my comfort zone and start blogging. And to start doing so many other things that have made me a more social person who is more open and willing to trying new things.

Oops, I didn’t mean to get quite so deep on this one, but there it is…

Anyhoo, loyalty is my number one requirement. Kindness, a sense of humour, not being overly possessive, those are all important to me. But I need my friends to be loyal, that’s a deal breaker.

So tell me, what’s important to you in a friend?

Here are the responses from my fellow Contemplators. I apologise if I miss you out, the ping backs weren’t working!

Julie Powell – Photographer & Graphic Artist

XO NIN

x desleyjane

Posted by:desleyjane

photographer, blogger, planner, scientist, dog lover, frequent flyer, daughter, sister, BFF, human

22 replies on “Contemplation – Friendship.”

  1. I couldn’t agree more. Why does it take some if us so long to learn this lesson. I think of those of us who make each connection so personal, so emotional, it is hard to fathom that others do not hold this as high as us….and get ducker punched when we get caught out. Even when I thought I was being wary….I still got hurt….and it wasn’t very long ago. I hate people who pretend to be what you want, only to get what they want from you.

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  2. Don’t apologise for getting deep – that’s what makes me look forward so much to this series. “Share a different trait with each of them” seems to me to be the essence of rich friendships: but I also enjoy the richness of differences – the people I have as friends who have traits I absolutely don’t share. I also like my friends to have a passion – for education, for beading, for gardening, for social activism, for photography, for wildflowers, for reading, for art, for blogging – I have friends with each of these passions. I also like my friends to accept my self-assessment and not to say “But …” And I agree about loyalty. I used to feel about my oldest friend that I could commit murder, and she’d somehow still be on my side – not that I have any intention of testing is!

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  3. I completely agree with loyalty. It can seem like such a rare quality but when you find it in people, its the best feeling! Loving this weeks question, great post 😀

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  4. A very rich in meaning post DJ. I agree with you loyalty is so important and I love how with a true friend you do not need to explain or apologise to, and even if you only see each other on rare and precious times you pick up exactly were you left off. To actually have your friend as a partner is the ultimately blessing.

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  5. Most definitely loyalty as well 🙂 It’s been my definition for close friendship since forever I guess, and that’s why I’ve had a hard time making friends, because they always seemed to disappoint me when it came to loyalty 😀 But the FEW close friends I have in my life now, I’m 100% sure that they’ll be there for me till kingdom come 🙂

    Great post, deary (y)

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  6. My best friend (the hubby) is the most loyal person I’ve ever met. The thing I love about him is that I don’t even think he realizes how loyal he is….he just is. Nobody makes me feel more safe than he.

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