kar1n

I’ve been looking at my “be a better friend” goal for a while. To be honest, I wasn’t sure where to start or how to start.

Yes, I read through the “how I did it”s but much of the advice wasn’t helpful for me, personally. I think that “just think about others more often” or “use Myspace” is such vague advice and really not useful for me. Sometimes, frequency doesn’t mean quality.

So, in order to help myself learn how to be a better friend, I want to sit down and make a list of things that my friends do that make me feel loved, special, and valuable. In doing so, I hope to pinpoint specific actions that I can do to make sure my friends feel loved and appreciated.

1. Unexpected compliments Even something simple like, “I think you’re neat,” means a lot to me. When a friend takes the time to give me genuine compliment I feel very loved.
2. Not being interrupted when I’m talking, especially if I’m spilling my guts about something Nothing is worse than when you’re down and need to talk to a friend then having them turn it around on you or cut you off. For example, me: “I’m really bummed that I got passed over for that promotion I—” friend: “well, at least you have a good job! (tirade about how friend’s life is worse).” This happens a lot (and maybe I do it too??) so I limit my tales of woe to a selected few good friends.
3. Calls and texts to say “hi” or “I miss you.” I like when friends that I haven’t seen in a while call out of the blue. It makes me feel missed and it’s always nice to know that someone is thinking of you.
4. Knowing that someone is thinking of you when you’re not there This usually comes in the form of calls/texts (“OMG, I just saw this Unicorn purse and had to take a picture to show you”) but sometimes it comes in the form of little presents. I’m not talking about things that break the bank but something like, “I saw they had your favorite flavor cupcake today so I brought you one.” These things always make me feel so loved, loved, loved.
5. Getting invited to events. Who doesn’t like going out? It makes me feel like I’m wanted and flattered that people think I’m fun enough to hang around. Plus, going places and doing things with my friends always makes me happy.
6. Having my emotions recognized and validated. This is probably such a girl thing to say, but when I’m down it’s really nice to have someone ask me what’s wrong or try to cheer me up. The validated part is key too. There’s nothing worse than when a friend tells you what you’re feeling is dumb/wrong/etc. It’s always great to have empathic friends to pick you up (or set you straight gracefully!).
7. When I walk into a place and my friends yell my name or just yell in joy! This feels so awesome! It always puts me in a good mood when I go to a bar and I hear “Eyyyy!” as I walk in with all my friend throwing their hands in the air. I do it to my friends too, it’s our thing. But I still love it.
8. Christmas/Holiday cards. I love getting these but I never send them. And I’m going to change that! Getting cards is great. Plus, they look so cute by my xmas tree.
9. When someone tells me that they are glad we are friends. This always pulls my heartstrings a little, it feels so great! I don’t think people do this enough, but they should. It really makes me feel special.

That’s all I can think of…. for now!

What are things that your friends do that make you feel loved and appreciated??

The majority of my week revolves around hockey. Hockey practice, intramural league games, and (of course) NHL On Demand. One would think that someone who is fairly involved in the sport of hockey would be a really good ice-skater but that is not the case. To be fair, I wouldn’t consider myself to be fairly involved in hockey, I’m more fairly involved in my boyfriend… who eats, drinks, breathes, thinks, and dreams hockey. I follow him to his games and practices, sit peacefully as he hoots at the television screen, and cheer alongside him at NHL events. And after months (years?) of him (and his hockey team) peer pressuring me to learn the sport, I’ve relented.

Of course, there are a few obstacles that I have to overcome before I can call myself a hockey player. There is, of course, the fact that I am, in no way, athletic. I’m pretty damn clumsy to be honest (thank goodness hockey has lots and lots of padding). In middle school I tried playing volleyball, I was the player that only got to play if enough people showed up sick and even then, only if we were far enough ahead in points. I stink at sports!

There is also the fact that I can’t skate. I tried roller skating once in my adult life with tragic consequences. So you can understand how I might feel about ice skating: no way, no how! I can dance, but I can’t dance with skates strapped to me. This, of course, would be one of the most important obstacles that I’ll have to learn to overcome if I’m going to be a hockey player.

Today is the day that I threw caution to the wind, strapped on those shiny knife-boots, and gave myself up to the mercy of the ice. Okay… that’s a little exaggerated. With plenty of fear and anxiety in my heart, I let my boyfriend draaaagggg me to public skate at the rink. He then had to tie the skates onto my feet (I apparently had not tied them tight enough) and chauffeur me onto the ice.

It was like the scene from “Bambi” but less graceful and cute. Luckily, I only fell once on the ice but I fell about 50 zillion times onto my boyfriend.

I’ll have to say, though, that I think I did well. By the end of the hour I was holding on less tightly and actually managing to get some strides in (as opposed to letting my boyfriend drag me along). At the end we had a conversation that went:
BF: You did really well!
Me: I did??
BF: Yeah. When’s the last time you ice skated?
Me: blank stare um, never.
BF: What! Never!?
Me: I’m from Florida. We don’t do that ice shit down there.
BF: WOW! Then for never being on ice before you did freakin’ amazing!!

Yay! I’m pretty stoked (scared) for more skating and I’m pretty proud that I finally got up the guts to do it. Oh, and very thankful that I had such a great, kind, patient, understanding teacher.

“A hundred years from now, it will not matter what your bank account balance was, the sort of house you lived in, or the kind of car you drove, but the world may be different because you were important in the life of a child.”

After I finished working with Give Kids the World, they gave me a frame with the above quote. It really touched me and I wanted to share.