I’ve had so many people in the past abuse my trust and acceptance. They basically loved the way I treated them as individuals that are able to do things their own way but deeply hated me for being me. I don’t conform to their perspective of me and so they spent great amounts of time and energy trying to change me.

I’m really fortunate to have met people in the last 4-5 years who love and accept me just as I am. So now I have a stronger sense of what I want in a friend.

There are a few things I look for in a friend. Over a period of time, I want to see how they talk about and treat other people. How they talk about and treat themselves. I want to see if they have the ability to self reflect and make choices and changes in a way that betters themselves. I want to see if they treat me the same way they treat other people. I want to see how accepting they are about people are situations that are very different from their lived experiences. I also want to see how they treat animals and the environment around them.

Since no two people are the same, I have no strongly defined criteria. Instead I observe and try to view their words and actions as a whole. There’s a lot of ways to judge who is healthy for me and who is only interested in themselves.

I may only have a few friends now but I have a deep love for the friends that I have because they keep proving to me how caring and amazing they are to me.