We Need to Start Prioritizing Our Friends

We’ve all been there- you’re excited to go out. Your hair is sitting perfectly, and you are in the middle of putting on mascara when you see it. A text from your friend- the friend you are supposed to meet up with in 30 minutes. 

“Hey- I’m not feeling good. I’m sorry- you think we can go another time?” 

I’ve been on both sides of the text- both the receiver and the sender. Everyone knows that 9 times out of 10 the person who canceled is actually feeling fine- in reality, they had been debating for the last 15 minutes whether or not to go and decided they would prefer to lay in bed and scroll on TikTok (too soon?) As much as I love my generation, you have to admit we are flaky as hell. I make a plan when I’m in one mood and then when the time comes to execute the plan, I suddenly lose all motivation to go. And hey- life happens. It’s okay to make decisions based on your mental health. If you genuinely are sick, feeling overworked, not comfortable with the situation or struggling mentally, that’s a different conversation and of course take the night to rest. However, if that is not the case for you- get up. Chug an energy drink, wash your face, and go. You have a headache? Take an Advil and bring some water. You told your friend you would go- even if you are close and they are understanding, at the end of the day, they are a person and their time deserves to be respected.

I’ve noticed that there’s this idea floating around that we don’t owe anyone anything. I beg to differ. When you become friends with someone there is this social contract you subconsciously sign that states “we are going to hang out”. You now owe them your time- the same way as when you decide to date someone you owe them your loyalty. It’s an unsaid rule. 

Friends aren’t just people you keep around so that you have people around.

True, genuine friendship is a two-way street of sacrifice. You might hate 21 Pilots but still go to their concert because your friend loves them and she went to your art exhibit last week. Or maybe your friend is tired and you use your Starbucks gift card to buy them coffee because last week they helped you through a breakup. 

When I get comfortable with someone, I tend to take them for granted and put them on a backburner- and as social media calls it, they become a “low commitment/low effort” friend. I have worked on rewriting this perspective because no friend should be low effort. The only reason they become low effort is because a decision has been made to not put in the work to grow the friendship. When I looked at Snapchat and saw that the cute guy I had known for 2 weeks was on my best friends list and the girl I’ve been best friends with since kindergarten was not, I knew it was time for a change. When people sense that they are not being considered or prioritized then they get tired and start to pull away. If you cancel on someone over and over again or somehow always have “too much going on” when you get invited to do things then don’t be surprised when the invitations stop.

As we are almost a month into 2025, a goal I have made for the year is to make new friends, pour love and effort into the friends who I do have, and drag people out of bed when they say they can’t go because they “have a homework assignment due 6 days from now that they should really get started on”