Life is too Short for Small Talk and Fake Friends

Have you ever struggled with finding true friendship? I’m talk about that long-lasting friendship where they will see you at your worst, and still love and support you. If you have a relationship like this, then you have a treasure. For adults, it may be harder to find. I am pretty much an introvert in my core.  My brain is always processing and reading people, body language, and situations. I literally get anxiety thinking about making small talk with someone I do not know. This led me to this thought…….

Life is too short for small talk and fake friends!

Don’t get me wrong, I love the occasional playdate at the park or a mom get-together, but the truth is, I would rather have a friend whom I could go to dinner with and cry about our sorrows over tacos and margaritas. If the occasional playdate doesn’t lead me to that kind of friendship eventually…… then I’m not interested.

I am at a point in my life where I need a friend who will keep it real and talk about the hard stuff. I need someone who will not judge me if I say I really dislike my kids today. I need someone who isn’t afraid to admit it either. You can only do that with friends who will let their guard down, transcend superficiality and are willing to go there with you. I want friends who are willing to get down in the trenches with me about life and sit there with me as I get through it. You see, I am in the thick of life right now. I have two young children who I pretty much shuffle around all day. I have a work-from-home job (that I love and keeps me sane). I have a very supportive husband but he also travels a lot for work, and I have a high-maintenance dog that demands loads of attention. On my good days, I am a hot mess. On bad days, I’m holding it together with glue and a prayer.

I want to be a good person, a good friend, but I don’t have the time or energy for games. I can’t spend my few free hours on “friends” who only call when they need something or are passive-aggressive when we have a misunderstanding. I don’t want to worry about every word that comes out of my mouth or getting judged on my every move. I don’t want to compete with other women, in how we look, or parent, or by the success of our kids. I am too tired at the end of the day to pretend that I am something that I am not.

With that being said, I am definitely blessed. I have made—and sustained—friendships that satisfy my hunger for authentic relationships. We have been through the birth of our children and the death of loved ones. We’ve drank, laughed and cried buckets of tears as our family moved across the country. We have celebrated when the kids we love as our own reach milestones and shared wine on evenings when we thought we couldn’t be mothers for one more minute—surviving only because we had each other.

We have hard conversations when honesty—no matter how brutal—was the kindest thing we could offer and held our tongues when we knew someone just needed to vent. We have given marriage advice and encouragement. We have bared our souls in front porch conversations and kept secrets safe from the outside world. No judgment. No expectations. No animosity. No keeping score. Only love, acceptance and a whole lot of laughter. Life is short, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

At this point in my life, I am struggling to find one real relationship in our big, new city but I am hopeful. With continued prayers, I will continue to put in my hours at the playdates and PTA in hopes to cultivate a relationship that will extend to tacos and margaritas………..and hopefully an authentic relationship. Want to know more about how I got here? Check out this post.

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