Building friendships/relationships

A lunch conversation yesterday sparked my thinking on building friendships. There are hundreds of books written about how to build your relationship with your signficiant other or how to build your professional relationships, but there isn't much talk about how to build your friendships.The truth is that we have to put time and energy into building our friendships. Most of my friends are busy people and it is hard to make time to see and talk with friends. But, if we want to cultivate that friendship, if that person is important to us, we have to find the time to make that contact. We can't just assume that because someone is my friend that they will understand how busy I am and that when I have some time I will call. In a relationship, that type of behavior would surely push two people apart. Why do we expect our friendships to be different?To build good friendships we have to put the same level of energy into those relationships as we do our intimate relationship and our professional relationships. Don't let the friends you care about drift away. Take some time each week to check in and reconnect. Who do you need to check in with?

Note: Another transfer post from an entry I made on myspace