Random thoughts about friendship

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I've always heard the saying - "You teach people how to treat you."

If that's true, I've given some horrible lessons in the past.

And I'm trying every day to be a better teacher.

I've had people lie to me, betray me (not always the same thing as lying), insult me, use things I told them in confidence against me, and more. Simply put, I've been hurt more times than I think is fair.  By people I trusted ... people I believed cared for me ... people I thought were important in my life.

I believe I'm a good person and a good friend.
I deserve to have good people and good friends in my life.

I won't let someone use or abuse me, my emotions, my affections, or my time.  Not anymore.  I've been down that road too many times. It's cost me a lot of tears and self-worth.

I know how I deserve to be treated -- with honesty, compassion, kindness, and respect.

I won't settle for less.

Now, I'm not naive enough to believe all relationships (friendships, romantic, family, etc.) are perfect. I know there are rough patches in all of these. No matter how much someone loves you, at some point everyone in your life will let you down. That's just the way it goes.

The people who are worth your time will always make it up to you. Sometimes they apologize and fix what they did wrong. Sometimes they just redeem themselves in another way. And their misgiving is erased ... or at least diminished.

Identifying these people can be hard at times. Weeding through the fake friends to get to the real ones can be a painful process. It can be difficult to know when it's OK to open up to someone and be sure it won't come back to haunt you.

It's also hard to know when someone deserves a second chance. I guess I tend to subscribe to the theory that says, "Shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice."