Dealing with Absentees

“A quick guide to a better spiritual journey amidst a frustrating friendship.”

If you clicked on this hoping for a familial based method, you could exit now because I am focusing only on friendship. But stay, if you feel like you want to learn a thing or two about excuses and friends. If you’ve ever had friends who sometimes give you reasons whenever you want to talk to them or need to let some grievances out, follow some of these natural homemade remedies I’ve formulated over the years (preferably in order).

1. Evaluate the “sometimes.”

The first step is the most time-consuming, and in kinetics reaction, it is called the rate-determining step. The rate, in this case, is highly dependent on how much your friend means to you. In simpler words, the more memories you spent with this person, the more time you take, to be honest in your evaluation. In this era, I believe that texts are usually the way to go. Brew your coffee and get your writing utensils out. Take note of their tracks of excuses when it first started and scrutinize the validity of it by honestly asking yourself this question “If this was in a reverse point of view, would I do this and exhibit this behaviour?”. If you do, you can stop reading this article and start evaluating your life choices. After careful analysis and the result made ‘sometimes’ look like ‘all the time,’ then let’s proceed to the next remedy.

2. Understand the concept of a life cycle

Simple, yet it needs a constant reevaluation of your thoughts to properly execute the application of this concept into your daily process of decision making. This concept is an important one, and it needs to be grasped because as people grow up and mature, things change. Specifically, priorities change. Swallow this painful truth; you are not your friend’s priority at the moment. You can’t pepper up the fact, it is not good as it is. It only hurts because they are still your priority, so now it is a signal for you to put on your evaluation hat and reassess your priorities in life. Because there is no point in holding them back. It will not help anyone involved; rather, it will further strain the existing relationship. No one likes anyone’s breathing down their neck the whole day.

3. Dealing with your shit

Once you try to understand (maybe not all, but most part) of your friend’s struggle, you still have some shit that needs to be dealt with. Now, let’s focus on you. First, do you need a physical response to your whining and complaining? If no, I recommend you do to:

1. walk to your nearest book shop or order a blank journal from Amazon. Better yet, write it up on a word document and see if you can produce a coherent train of thought. Writing is an excellent practice and is highly recommended since you can improve your penmanship and vocabulary.
2. If you believe in a higher form of being, a Creator or a God, pray. Share it with your God sincerely and full-heartedly, and I assure you, tranquillity will seep into your heart no more than milliseconds after some one-to-one with our Creator. A disclaimer; you must believe in the existence and the mighty power of God in the first place for this step to work. It would not work otherwise.

However, if you answered yes to the initial question, I don’t have much advice for this part. You’ll have to find a new friend to depend on, but I still would not recommend it because it is not a permanent solution. You can choose to stop reading this now or, you can continue and learn something useful to be a dependable person fully.

4. Be human

Just because you find other friends to depend on or finally find ease in expressing yourself with words and prayers does not mean you got a license to be an a**hole and abandon your friend. Please explain to them adequately what the circumstances are. Plan your attack correctly, and your motion of attack should be based on if you want to keep your friend in your life or not. If you do, tell them that you felt abandoned when you need them and hoped that they could do better since you tried your best to be there for them. But if you don’t feel like keeping them, still, tell them how you feel and express what you wished for the future of this friendship. Please do not keep them in the dark. I repeat. Never keep them in the dark. We’re not writing letters that need immigration processing for them to receive it, we have text messages that can convey 80% of what we want to say. You want to be more expressive, send them a video. Or better yet, if you’re ballsy enough, video call them. Quoting my favourite Youtuber, Elliot Choy, “NO EXCUSES.”

5. Embrace your Choices and Move on

Whatever your choices were, make sure they are well thought out and well evaluated. Feelings and instincts are essential elements, but rationality solves problems. Acting out on feelings will create future unwanted issues. Your friend might resent you and sent an assassin to kill you ten years from now. Who knows? I don’t. I understand that being ignored is like too much salt in your favourite cuisine, but nothing good ever comes from being a dick. That should be everyone’s life motto;

“Whatever you do, you always have a choice to not be an a**hole.”

I change it to a**hole instead so that no one can get butt hurt about being sexist equalizing a dick, which is male genitalia to being like an evil person. Since everyone has a butthole, it is conveyed in a neutral tone.

I wouldn’t dare say that these steps are fool-proof, but it worked 98% of the time, and the other 2% represent people who made the choices without considering my opinions in it. This 2% was once 20%. They slowly diminish once you gradually gain more self-worth over the years, so trust me on this, don’t sweat this 20%. And most importantly, don’t let someone’s failure to communicate ruin years of beautifully nurtured friendship. In conclusion, make sure that all voices are heard in determining the future of any relationship you’ve established.

If you have any personal experiences or self-remedies to share, leave it down in the comments below. I would love to read it.