So, if you’ve read Part 1 of this, (which you can check out on my blog page if you’re interested,) then you know that it is so important to have friends! Specifically intimate relationships which are encouraging, safe, loving, and overall awesome. But, I thought after I wrote that, “Hmmm….I guess I could do a blogpost about good and bad qualities.” So that’s what this is.

Before I get started, here is a list of good qualities. I’ll give a brief explanation of each of them and kind of an example of it.

1. Honesty: Like I said in Part 1, being honest and opening yourself up, being vulnerable, is good! When we find someone who loves, trusts, supports, and listens to us, then they are most likely a keeper. (I say most likely because sometimes people are really good at faking that stuff unfortunately…) It’s difficult to know whether or not we can trust them, so don’t just immediately spill out all your secrets. Take your time, and if they truly care, love, and respect you (and your boundaries), then they will wait as long as they need to.
2. Respect: When you respect a friend and their boundaries, you are telling them, “I care!” If you don’t have a friend who doesn’t respect your boundaries, (physical touch, profane language, inappropriate content) then tell them! They need to know your boundaries and limits and once they know, (and if they love you and want to respect you) then they’ll listen and try their hardest to fix that mistake.
3. Comfortable Pace: This is super important for a healthy relationship! Whether you’re dating someone, just being friends, talking to a pastor, being with your family, they can show their love and respect by giving you time. When they want you to trust them, they’ll let you take your time. (And take that time to take time.:)) There is zero reason to rush. And, the comfortable pace kind of relates to respect and honesty. Everybody needs a comfortable pace. Whether it’s physical touch (maybe their family isn’t a huggy family but you are! Give them time!), or words (maybe they don’t know how to be open comfortably. Give them time!), or even faith (maybe faith is new and they don’t know how to accept or believe it without having dozens of questions and such. Give them time!).

Overall, those three are big qualities for any healthy, thriving relationship. Of course, there’s kindness and all that happy stuff, but these are some qualities that many relationships and friendships don’t actually have!

Now here is a list of bad qualities. Again, I’ll have an example or explanation for it.

1. Possessiveness: Keeping you to themselves and basically forcing you to only be their friend. We should have someone we trust to love us as we are and support us in having other relationships and friendships.
2. Manipulation: They twist things that your conscience says are bad and they make them good. If your friend takes a candy bar from a store, that’s obviously stealing! But they say, “The store won’t miss one candy bar! Besides, I was hungry, are they really gonna refuse me food when I’m hungry?” They try to make you think doing not-so-cool things is totally fine and normal.
3. Belittling: This is a form of verbal abuse, and it can be used in any relationship. (So can the two other bad qualities above.) When someone says something like, “You suck at .” Or, “Why do you wear ? It looks really bad on you. Not that you’d look good in anything.” Belittling can be anything harmfully blunt, but not in any way helpful or encouraging.

Unfortunately, (I’m sure you already know this already) a lot of people use these unkind ways to bully or force you (or their other friends) to do things for them. But, I hope that you are able to find ways to shake them off if they display these bad qualities or more.

Other than these six qualities (both good and bad) with friends (or any other relationship, honestly), there are tons more (also both good and bad). I hope that y’all found this interesting and maybe even insightful!