The Bigger Picture: A woman in her 60s said to me recently, "It seems that friends these days will turn on you quickly if you fall out with them."
It has been her experience. I take it for truth. And it got me thinking about friendships today.
There is a lot of "giving up" going on. Our society has taken a direction that is causing a disease in our social connective tissue. It's become commonly acceptable to let go and walk away. We seem to have normalised losing faith in people.
We're certainly subject to widespread hopelessness, and the skills to get through hard times together seem to be weakening.
Our current attitude to love has contributed to this. We seem to think that love is about feeling good, comfortable and compatible all the time. However, sometimes love is simply about hanging in there when it's uncomfortable, awkward, painful and even confusing.
It's about dynamic individualities fluctuating back and forth. It's about just being there with each other - not at all a passive thing.
Our dating culture allows us to leap into intense relationships far too quickly without solid ground, and to leap out again just as quickly without pausing to check whether or not we did indeed build something solid in the process.
If it exists, it is this solid ground that would allow us (if we knew how) to hang in there and build something that could work better... if we wanted to.
It's good to have the experience of feeling bad about yourself and still having some perspective that you aren't actually unlovable or you haven't really been rejected. Rather, you are just in that most common situation where two individuals are having a hard time with themselves, and it's spilled out onto each other. Having that kind of perspective on yourself is useful, and enhanced when you also develop the skills needed to grow and come through it.
Of course, there are times when you may need to assess a situation and let things go. For example, if things aren't working to the point of repeating old hurts without forward movement, it will be necessary to at least break that cycle.
Furthermore, not everyone is committed to the processes of life such that they are open to learning, facing challenges and embracing growth and revelations.
We can get stuck in relationships that control and constrict us with no genuine interest in making progress. These are rare, however.
More often than not, what we've encountered is an inability between two people to reach for each other's humanity while they're having a hard time.
It is a failure to realise the nature of human beings - to love and grow, and love and grow some more.
And so, we need to build the skills of loving that are required to have full and meaningful relationships.
While it is important that we are able to assess our relationships for whether or not they will actually sustain growth and change before we give up on them, there is also a real need to assess ourselves as to whether or not we are prepared to strive for that growth and change in the first place.
We have to be willing to face those nasty places of humiliation, rejection and pain in the presence of someone else, who we are afraid won't hold out for or believe in us.
Indeed, that someone is likely to be struggling themselves, and so will forget to notice the goodness in us.
If we are both willing, however, we can assist each other in remembering our worth, and guide each other through this process of loving.
Ultimately, at some level, we will need to commit to believing in ourselves - holding that firmly out there, especially when we don't feel it.
The skills required are simple, but need practise. Striving for progress means we will need to be very honest and communicate our perspectives clearly without baggage or manipulation.
We will need to decide to have belief and trust as we negotiate and agree what we want from each other.
Finally, we will need to put our decisions into actions by doing things that bring us closer and forward.
As is the nature of it, this process will feel uncomfortable, even awful.
That, however, is not an indication to stop or give up. We may need to start again a few times. The point of walking away will be when the impetus for process isn't there. Even then, there will still be no excuse for becoming any less hopeful about humanity.
Great love affairs are sometimes built on a history of hanging in, getting through things, and still being able to get terribly excited about your belief in each other. Great respect certainly is. And this is the foundation for any true love.