When you find love, it can be easy to turn on tunnel vision mode and go all-in on your significant other. However, as tempting as that is, it may be the downfall of your other relationships. Human connection requires attention and participation, so when a friendship becomes one-sided because of your infatuation with a romantic partner, it’s not rare that the friendship withers away. But it’s not because you don’t love your friend, something just got in the way. Luckily, there are tips and tricks to keep your friendships from becoming a background fixture to your romantic life.
Sometimes, making time for everyone in your life on top of daily responsibilities is hard, especially in college! It can seem like there is too much to do with such little time. To overcome this feeling, try mingling sometimes with both your friends and your partner. Bringing your significant other to a friendly gathering can go either way, but it can be successful if done the right way. Firstly, don’t force any friendships between friends and your significant other. If all goes well, those friendships will grow between them naturally. Secondly, this tip can work as a trial run or in small doses, meaning you shouldn’t constantly invite your SO to hang out with your friends until/unless the friendship between all of them becomes mutual. And if your friends just straight up don’t want to hang out with your partner and vise versa, respect those wishes and don’t force potentially bad relationships for the sake of “saving time”.
The next tip to make time for both your partner and friends is via phone! Not all relationships have to have a constant physical factor where hanging out is constant. Just a conversation over text, sending memes, playing iMessage games, or a quick phone call to check-in are great ways to strengthen a platonic and romantic relationship. A lot of small gestures can go the same distance as grand gestures, especially since they’re constant reminders of your love for them. Having social media and communicating over the phone has made this trick very helpful and handy in tricky situations where it may not be easy to find time to hang out.
Finally, it’s a good idea to also ensure if you make a commitment, stick to it as best you can. Making plans and committing to them is two ways street and if you’re blowing off your friends’ plans to hang out with your SO or vise versa, someone’s feelings are going to get hurt, especially if it becomes a repeat offense. Many friends feel neglected when their friend becomes fully absorbed by their romantic partner and it can lead to the end of a friendship. Hulu show, Dollface, shows the negative repercussions of abandoning your friends either gradually or all at once for a partner. In the show, Jules gets dumped by her boyfriend of five years and realizes she never made time for her girl-friends and has to rekindle those lost friendships. It’s a painful process seeing as those friends were hurt by their friend neglecting them and reluctant to trust Jules again. Making equal time for your partner and your friends is the best way to make sure you don’t lose either one because they are both important people in your life, neither one more important than the other.
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