How I Handle Friend Jealousy – And What 13 Year Old Me Thought About Friendship

I once had a friendship “agreement” with a girl at church over a mutual best friend. I got her in the morning and she got her in the evening. So that should set the tone for how intense I am about my friendships.

I was probably 13 years old and I still remember exactly where I was at and what I was wearing when I had the infamous friendship agreement. Basically, at the age of 13 I pulled a NeNe and created a friendship contract. (We are not going to discuss the time that I actually DID create a contract. Hey! I like things to be specific and very clear!) I like to call this friend jealousy.

I kind of cringe a little when I look back at Alissa and go oh girl what are you doing? But I also very, very much understand the intense protection and desire to have the deepest friendship. Sure, I went about it probably in the most 13 year old way, but my heart was good.  At 27, sometimes I wish it could be as simple as simply friend-splitting. But that’s not reality. The reality is that my best friends are going to have other great friends and I have to be okay with it.

Your Friends (even best ones) are Going to Have Uncommon Interests with You

Wooo-ie. This is one that I think I’ve fought most against. What do you mean best friends can have different interests? I liken this to the thought I had that never having a friend check-in was needed. I mean if you guys are the same and then you just always have pleasant conversations, how could anything ever be wrong? “Oh honey,” as my bestie Kara would say. “You is wronggggggggggg. ” Growing up, even really into my early 20’s, I held on to this thought that we had to have everything in common and refused to really acknowledge our differences in fear that mean the friendship would end.

My best friends have other friends who are into things that I’m not. It doesn’t take away from our friendship. Never in a million years would I want to go to a weekend country music festival that involved camping. But Kara did and I am so, so glad she had friends that she enjoyed that with! I’m glad she had that outlet and honestly, I bet she is glad that I have someone to do certain things with me.

At the end of the day, we both know that no matter what, we are there for each other. We don’t have to constantly talk. We do though. But we know that our relationship means everything to us and we respect that. We’ve been friends for pretty much our entire lives and we’re not going to let that die.

Don’t Ignore Your Gut

You know when something is wrong. You know when you can’t get past something. Your gut will never lie to you and you should never ignore it. If you’ve screwed up like I have, take the time to talk to your friend about it.  If you feel like your friend is going through something and hasn’t said anything, be the one to speak up. Even if you’ve been friends with someone your entire life, there is always more than we know going on. Do something, say something.

Do More

One of the reasons I can say that I might be jealous of a friend’s friend is that maybe I haven’t been putting in work. Friendships are just as important as romantic relationships and take just as much work. I can tell you that the reason I’ve gotten jealous of newer friendships has been that they are able to put in more work than maybe I can due to traveling for work a lot OR maybe I’ve just gotten a little complacent. It’s a little scary to realize that you’ve been coasting along and then suddenly you are realizing you aren’t on such solid ground as you thought.

Although, with all that said, don’t then go and try and do ALL THE NICE THINGS for an entire week. It’s not sustainable and your friends aren’t dumb. They know you are kind of eating it and it’s just cringy for everyone. *Ahem* talking to myself. I am a huge advocate for being extra though, so definitely still shower them with love, just not one that later is a “oh honey” moment.

Social Media Doesn’t Help Friend Jealousy

So. I am not a big taker of photos with friends. I know it seems extremely off-brand, but I don’t enjoy being those people who are always taking photos together. It’s just never been a thing. Now, when my friends starting making friends who WERE big on that, I immediately got jealous. Like, real jealous. Soon my friends were posting photos of all their events and stuff with them. I kind of felt a gut punch but I don’t know why. I was still best friends. I know that people have other friends. Something just felt off.

I didn’t want to all of the sudden just start taking photos of everything we did. (See above about not going overboard.) However, when there was a natural occasion to take one, I insisted. And I’m so glad! I didn’t post on social, but it’s one one of the rare ones I have of my friends and I and I love it. Again I would say that you should go back to my first paragraph about how having other friends doesn’t take away from your friendship. The amount of times someone is tagged together in something doesn’t mean a relationship is higher value than yours.

Friendship is really on my mind a lot because of a combination of working through some friend jealousy but also realizing that I wasn’t doing the most that I could. Like I’ve discussed before, we’re all in such a great season of change and it’s not as easy to be friends. Life pulls you in all sorts of directions and it’s hard to focus. We are all going to go through seasons of life and envy and all that jazz is part of it. No friendship contract required.

Don’t tell 13 year old Alissa that.