The competing demands of friendship
are very nicely described in chapter 10 by Wood. Friendship exists within larger social
systems that affect how they function. Friendship can overlap with our romantic
relationship or other relations like family, relatives, and so on. We may not have enough time or energy left to
maintain friendships even those that matter to us because of our work pressure
or hectic schedules. Friends might feel
neglected if we are stuck up by the family tensions between parents at
home. Friends might feel that we ignore
them when it comes to spending time with romantic partners. Thus friendship can clash with other
relations or demanding workload. In such
a case if the friend feels ignored, we need to talk to him and communicate the
problems that we are facing recently. By
not meeting the friend, or not spending enough time does not mean that he or
she is not special, but it just means that life is demanding in this particular
phase where we are caught up in some other things. However, we will spend time with the friend
whenever there is a little relief from the present day stress.
Friendship is definitely a lot of work and requires effective communicative skills and time management. Most times our friendships are placed in various areas of our lives, whether it's school, work, family, romantic relationships or social scenes. Often times we can get cauhgt up in one area of our lives, typically work and school. These areas can take up a large portion of our life and end up causing us to neglect certain friend groups. This is where effective communication skills comes into play. Friends will often compete subconsciously with each other for our attention. We have to make sure they understand that we have other areas of our lives and we aren't playing favorites. if we cannot communicate effectively with our friends, the relationships will diminish.
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