Turning Your Down Into Up: Know Your Friends

In today’s social media-saturated world, no analysis of relationships would be complete without proper attention to the criteria you set for your friends – online and off. If you are engaged in online relationships that you consider to be prominent sources of support and companionship – lending them as much weight as you would any offline friendship – do yourself a favor and be sure to hold the relationships up to the same standards you should expect of anyone you call a real friend.

As I mentioned earlier, I have an entire book devoted to the topic of media, technology and social networking. Below is the list of descriptors I give #Hooked for determining the strength of their friendships, online and off:

Trust: Friends trust each other because each has proven to be trustworthy. When tempted to betray the friendship in some way, they have held fast to the needs and feelings of the other instead.

Honesty: One of the hallmarks of true friendship is living within an atmosphere of truth. This truth, however, is not a harsh, brutal presentation but one done in love, compassion, and tenderness. To a friend the truth is not a weapon; it is a balm. There is safety in the honest words of a friend, even when those words hurt.

Understanding: True friends understand each other. They know the background and context of each other’s lives. They know the what of things, but they also know the why of things. Friends know which way the other will jump and how far.

Acceptance: Friends understand the precarious position they put themselves in by being a friend. Proximity sometimes equates to pain where human beings are concerned; friends acknowledge this as an acceptable consequence of the friendship.

Mutual benefit: True friends add to each other’s lives. Often the benefit isn’t always equal, but it is mutual. True friends monitor the relationship to ensure there is both give and take, refusing to allow it to become chronically one-sided and draining.

Sacrifice: There are times when friendship calls for sacrifice. It can be sacrifice of time, money, energy, resources – a reordering of priorities to put the needs of friendship first.Affection: At the heart of all friendships should be genuine affection one for the other. Friends enjoy each other; they like to be together because .of the way they feel about each other.

This is not to say you should discount any online relationship that does not live up to these standards. It is simply a means of helping you keep said relationships in perspective. You could very well develop a genuine friendship with someone you meet online – and you may already have. But the chances of this happening with multitudes of people is unlikely and, if you feel otherwise, a more rigorous assessment of these friendships is probably in order.

The above is excerpted from Turning Your Down Into Up: A Realistic Plan for Healing from Depression by Dr. Gregory Jantz.