Cultivating friendship with people is exciting. Sometimes it’s unbelievable how people meet and become friends, not just any kind of friends but inseparable ones. Most friendships happen at random, two strangers share a few hours together and they are automatically vibing like they’ve known each other all their lives. It’s not always planned, but somehow we meet people who share our interests or are fascinated by the things that fascinate us, and we just feel connected. A friendship grows.
The thing about friendship is that we don’t even know everything about a person before we assume they’re our friend sometimes. It’s beautiful, just wanting to be close to someone based on the first impression they give. As the friendship grows, we may start to realize that yes, we may be connected in some way, but we also have a lot of differences just like every other human. Our beliefs, values, and opinions might differ… should that be enough reason to break a friendship?
Over time I’ve learned that tolerance is a very vital quality when it comes to dealing with people. Growing up, I always saw people who did things differently from how I would have done it as weird. I mean, I was the reserved type, and I didn’t understand how someone would be so extroverted, going to parties, meeting a thousand and one people, and just being comfortable in a loud environment. It wasn’t my style. But eventually, I got a group of girls in school and we became so close, even like sisters.
True, we were concerned mostly about academics, I mean, that’s what brought us together, and asides that we shared a lot of similar values. But individually, we were so different. We had the confrontational one, the one with the smart mouth, the one who cared so much about aesthetics, the super extrovert, the super quiet one, and the one who was everyone’s backbone. It was so many different personalities trying to fit into each other’s lives, and if I would ever start my tolerance story, I would start from there.
Two persons can never be the same, not even siblings, not even twins. There will always be differences. Yet, learning to tolerate people is a choice. Being someone who breaks off a friendship each time there is a personality conflict is not all that mature. I would even be mad at my friend if they always agreed with me on everything because it would feel like being friends with myself. It’s always nice to know people will think differently and people will act differently. The key is tolerance and respect. Respect in the sense that, okay, you and I don’t agree on this, so how do we go about it so that nobody is being rude or unfair?
Let’s take roommates for example. One likes loud music, the other doesn’t. The room cannot always be loud for the one who enjoys it, and it cannot always be quiet for the other. Both of them will have to discuss how much loudness and quietness they can tolerate, and that shows respect.
So personally, I would not call off a friendship because, oh, “you don’t agree that blue is the best of all colors, so I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore.” If I kept doing that to everyone that became my friend, I’d probably be the loneliest of all. Letting other people be themselves around you is what shows you’re open. Agreeing to disagree is what shows maturity. Unless the friendship is becoming toxic, then you might have to back off eventually.
I would tolerate my friend’s differences as much as I can, but if they constantly give me a thousand and one reasons why their opinions are the best and should be followed each time we have a disagreement… then that’s not me. If my friend doesn’t respect my choices and looks for every opportunity to remind me that my opinions don’t matter or even appears to be someone of very questionable character that would be bad on my upbringing, I wouldn’t even think twice before keeping them many miles apart.
Images are mine
