What Makes a Friendship a "Real Friendship" and Not a Superficial One?

A lot of us have heard the phrase “keepin’ it real”, but are you keeping it real with your every day interactions with friends and loved ones? And what does keeping it real even mean?

What does keeping it real mean?

There are a lot of different potential interpretations for this phrase, depending on the context. The way I see it, it means:

• Being your true self and not putting on a persona or a front. Putting on a front may manifest in feeling there’s a certain way you need to look or act to be accepted. There are different types of fronts:
  
  • Physical fronts: Examples of physical fronts include:
    
    • feeling you can’t go out without make-up,
    • feeling you must have an ultra-muscled body and no other body will do,  (one exception to this is if your job requires muscle eg if you are a professional weight lifter )
    • feeling you must wear only designer clothes.
    • Hiding behind money, bling, flashy cars and other flashy things.
    • Having model-esque trophy girlfriends/ boyfriends fall into the physical front category.
  • Emotional fronts: Examples of emotional fronts:
    • Always putting on a happy face, and joking around, even when you don’t feel happy inside
    • Denying any feeling eg Denying you’re upset when you are; or Denying you feel angry when you are
    • Pretending to like someone when you don’t.
    • Giving a present with “love” because “it’s the right thing to do”
    • Saying “I love you” and not meaning it.
• Being honest about what you say to people. Mean what you say and say what you mean.
• Being open-hearted and allowed yourself to know your true feelings about the person/ situation/ thing, and show your true feelings.

How do you know you have a true, real friendship?

You know your relationship is real when:

• You feel you can be yourself and can relax with a person. You can feel good to meet them even in your PJs or crumply sweats! You feel that you don’t have to impress, entertain, interest, inspire or please others, nor gain their approval, in order for them to like you. If it is a real friendship, your friend will like you just as you are, without any extra unnatural effort needed on your part.
  What if you feel that no-one will like you if you aren’t making an effort to impress, entertain, interest, inspire or please others? In these cases I suggest to figure out “what is there to like about you” and “what is there not to like about you”. Make a list. The things that you may think prevent people from liking you, are often bad habits (mostly negative thinking-habits) we’ve developed and learned over the years and are not part of who you truly are at your core. Learned behaviours can be unlearned and overcome with internal work and/or therapy. Once you boil it down to the core, you are very easy to love and like, and you’ll impress, entertain, interest, inspire and please others naturally, by being yourself, without making an effort.
• You know you can tell someone honestly what you think. So if they ask you “am I gaining weight?” or “does this dress make my bum look big?” you give them an honest answer and dont just tell them they look great. You can be honest AND tactful at the same time. 
• You care about the person and have warm loving feelings towards them. Knowing a lot about a person, their favourite colour, their taste in music, their opinions on the important things in life – this alone isnt enough to create a real friendship. Exchanging input/output without much feeling is a superficial relationship.
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  A real relationship is the kind of friendship where you genuinely want the best for the person because you care about them, and rejoice in their successes.
  Caring also involves wanting to listen to them fully, and communicating honestly and clearly as much as possible in order to ensure smooth interaction.
  Caring involves telling your friend when they have spinach in their teeth because you want them to look good.
  Caring involves giving a gift because it comes from the heart, not because you want one back.

  If caring is one-sided it is not a truly real friendship. 

Is everyone capable of creating a real relationship?

Some people struggle with being themselves. Until they find out who they are, and accept themselves enough to be themselves with at least one or two select people, they won’t truly have a real relationship with anyone. But it is within their reach.

Some people have trouble opening their heart and genuinely, whole-heartedly caring for others. Until they sort this out, their relationships will not be fully real, but will lean towards the superficial side, unless they work on developing their feelings with counselling work. Sometimes people close their hearts as a protective mechanism after being hurt in the past. It need not be permanent and can be reversed with some internal work with yourself or aided by a therapist.

I would say that any human being with normally functioning brain chemistry is able to create a real relationship once they get past any of their own issues which block them currently. Work on yourself. Accept yourself. Love yourself. And you’ll bring love into your life.  : )

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Disclaimer: The above are just my opinions and perceptions of things, not fact. I welcome you to add your insights and perceptions in the comments below.  : )

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About the Author

Li-Or is a qualified biologist, nutritionist and naturopath and has been studying health since 2003. She is also the founder of SayWhyDoI.com, a website that aims to tackle the mysteries surrounding why we do the things we do, focusing on the topics of health, psychology and culture. You can check out her regular updates at www.saywhydoi.com