Life’s too short to hold onto the relationships that result in continued disappointments over time; every relationship and every friendship has its ups and downs, but when someone continually makes you feel bad about yourself, it’s probably time to end the friendship. Your real friends will make you feel better about yourself. When you talk to them, you’ll usually feel happier and not worse. They’ll accept you for who you truthfully are.

One woman I know held a grudge against me because I didn’t want to house-sit for her a couple years back. She couldn’t possibly understand why I would rather go to the beach for the holidays instead.

Given the fact that she and her husband earned over $150,000 a year at that time and that we had already told her we had reservations elsewhere, I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t pay for a dog-sitter for her three-day trip or why she would insult me personally because I had other plans. (The next time I saw her she insulted pretty much everything about my physical appearance. I guess the mistake I made was agreeing to dog-sit for her previously.)

Another friend recently asked me to house and dog-sit for her; I said no, but don’t expect this friend to hold a grudge. We have years of friendship behind us and this friend values the friends who help her out when they can and respects the decisions of those when they are unable to.

I’m not bothered when people ask me to do favors for them; I’m bothered by the people who expect favors without the return of a genuine or honest friendship. Since that friendship ended a little over a year ago, I’m trying to choose my friends more carefully. I’m not a Facebook friend collector and I’m not a friend-collector in real life. I’d rather have a few friends who know me and love me for who I am than lots of friends who don’t even attempt to understand where I’m coming from.

Life’s too short to hold onto the relationships that result in continued disappointments over time; every relationship and every friendship has its ups and downs, but when someone continually makes you feel bad about yourself, it’s probably time to end the friendship. Your real friends will make you feel better about yourself. When you talk to them, you’ll usually feel happier and not worse. They’ll accept you for who you truthfully are.