“Seldom makes long lasting friendships…”
These are a few of the words that appear under my Chinese zodiac (RAT). I see them every time I dine in an Asian restaurant that has those placements with the horoscopes printed on them. What’s frustrating about those words is how much truth they’ve held so far in my life.
I’m 42 years old and have approximately two people in my life that I met long ago and still regularly keep contact with. One is someone I met in my junior year of college, and the other is someone I met in my third year of sobriety. There are many people I know though who still have friendships with others that date as far back as grade school. Sadly, I don’t anymore, but I often wish I did. What’s ironic is that since the 11th grade, I’ve never had a problem making friends and I always had plenty of them at any given point in time. The downside is that none of them have ever lasted that long.
Through the 12 Step recovery work from all of my addictions, I now understand the reason for this…
To have a long lasting friendship develop, it takes a lot of effort. From the start, I was never quite good at doing that unless it was with someone I was physically attracted to. In the cases where I was, I definitely made a ton of effort, but that was solely due to my self-seeking ways that were coming from a budding sexual addiction. In most cases, when I got what I wanted from those people, I stopped investing the heavy effort into getting to know them, and those connections would quickly end. When I didn’t get what I wanted from those people I was physically attracted to, I’d usually toss the connection out the window and move on. That’s how self-centered I was and that selfishness is the main reason why I have seldom made long-lasting friendships.
Over the years, so many people have come and gone from my life, many of which invested plenty of time and effort trying to get to know me. But if they weren’t my type, I rarely responded to their labors. It saddens me that I was this way for so long, but it surely does explain why my two closest friends from high school dropped out of my life long ago.
Today, this isn’t the case anymore. I don’t base the friendships I’m working on because of a physical attraction. Instead, I look at the spiritual side in everyone I meet and my only stipulation for making the effort is that the person isn’t severely active in any addiction.
I have a good number of friends now in the city I’m living in and I pray my efforts will eventually lead them to be long lasting. I’m thankful to my Higher Power for all those who have stuck around through all those years of addiction and self-centeredness. Besides the two I mentioned already, there are a few others I love dearly whom I hope will remain in my life for years to come. All I can do is make the effort not only with them, but with all the people I consider to be my friends in life right now.
Selfishness, self-centeredness, and addictions really do destroy the possibility of making any long lasting friendships. I lost plenty of people that could have been life long friends because of those things. Thankfully my addictions aren’t in charge anymore when I make a new friend and I’m making an equal effort with all of them now. So hopefully over time, those few words from my Chinese horoscope won’t be able to accurately describe me anymore. In the meantime, I’ll continue to practice gratitude for those friendships that truly have been long lasting in my life so far…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson