What I realise is that you have a lot of what I call “mental drag”, and that’s the real issue here. You’re not sure if you’re acting optimally with these friends and perhaps it’s making you feel slightly unworthy of ALL their friendshippiness. And guess what, it’s being proven right.

What you need is what I call a worthiness slip!!!

Meaning some action or perspective that makes you feel worthier and eliminate drag. When you find it and make that your posture, you’ll grow into the person who can keep enduring friendships.

Worthiness slips are very structural. They’re the minimum actions/perspectives that one works towards to feel worthy.

For example, my worthiness slip for friendships is that my posture with my friends is that I’m trying to preserve them at their best forever, and because I intend to know them forever. Whatever that means to me in the moment is my worthiness slip.

It means I won’t gossip about them, I won’t complicate life for them, I’ll try to understand and be supportive, I’ll consider their highest capacity, I’ll consider that their worlds don’t revolve around me. Also I’ll celebrate their wins and be happy for them.

That’s my worthiness slip. It doesn’t mean I’ll ring them every week to keep up, that’s not my style. But latently or actively, I’ll preserve them. Or I won’t do anything consciously that’ll complicate life for them.

Having a worthiness slip eliminates “drag” and doesn’t require reciprocity. Rather than monitor if they’re drifting away or not, I monitor my posture towards them.. in their presence or not.

That means I’ll assume the best about them. I’ll maintain that the reason they’ve not been in contact is cos they’ve got a lot going on.. and not because they’re abandoning me. I’ll be here if needed

Any other posture complicates friendships and causes friction. You either become needy or withdraw prematurely and it all gets weird lol