The kinds of friends available to us depend on how much of a friend we can be to ourselves. We can only be a friend to ourselves if we are capable and willing to take accountability for our blindspots. The quality of our friendship can go way up if we are a self-accountable person. If we take responsibility for addressing our narcissistic tendencies.
If we remain in denial, we can only have friends with low standards. If we remain in denial and don’t face our inner demons, we are repulsive to higher-quality friendships. Higher-quality friendships require true intimacy. Low-quality friendships do not require this type of vulnerable transparency.
Low-quality friendships and relationships are a dime a dozen. There are plenty of people out there who want to suck your time and energy. Raising standards is difficult, it requires discipline and determination.
Most people are too scared to do the work and so they keep suffering until it becomes unbearable at which point they become open to doing the work necessary to have true friendships, become truly transparent, and become open to true intimacy.
This is what life is all about. This is also what makes us adults. Until then, we are trying to get away with living in child consciousness to see how far we can take it.
It might seem easier to stay avoidant of the reality of being a human, but it’s actually much more difficult to stay in that loop. It simply does not work. It is a dead end. If we don’t ask for help we are empowering our demons and prolonging our suffering.