We need to treat our friends like our partners, and our partners more like our friends

A couple months ago, a reel popped up on my Instagram feed and I have been thinking about it since. The video was of a woman talking about how we need to treat our friends more like our partners and our partners more like our friends. Basically, she said we don't really tell our friends we love them as much as we do our partners. We put our relationships on a pedestal and often leave our friends behind. Sadly, I cannot find the original video. However, the message stuck with me.

It got me thinking how many of us don’t value our friendships as much as we should. I’ve seen a couple of my friends... as soon as they get boyfriends, I feel as though our friendship is no longer a priority. Like the video mentioned, I think that we need to see our partners almost like friends.

And on that note, we need to see our friends more like our partners. I think for many of us, we aren't so loving to our friends. After seeing that video, it coincided with me fostering a friendship with someone who liked to express their admiration for me. Thus, it was different for me. Before, in my previous friendships, your love and admiration for your friend were unspoken. It was expected that you just knew that your friend liked you.

What started as a few compliments in everyday conversation became heartfelt words of appreciation in reflective conversations. I had never felt such clear and expressed emotions in a friendship before. This changed and moved me so much that I ended up writing a letter to this dear friend of mine. Reciprocating all the compliments and kind words she told me. I expressed my own admiration and gratitude for her.

Honestly, it made me look at the whole "love language" thing completely differently. It showed me how important it was to clearly communicate your feelings and affection towards others. I never thought of myself as someone who needed words of affirmation as their love language. I used to have this weird misconception that we only get one love language, but hearing how I was valued by my friend changed my thinking. We need multiple expressions of each love language, not just one. It's important to receive all of them, even if they aren't as large or frequent as your primary love language.

All this made me realize... I feel like with partners it's normal and intuitive to tell them you love them, what you love about them, and that you miss them. But in friendships, at least for me, I feel as though it's not as common. And I think that it shouldn't be this way. We need to value our friends more and express that. Your friends (maybe not all, but a few) are the ones that have seen you go through different relationships. We often say "chicks over dicks"; however, I don't think we practice this enough.

And maybe the thing that ties all of this together is communication. My friendship changed when someone just said out loud what they felt. That's it. It made me realize how much we leave unsaid, not just in friendships but in every relationship we have. We assume people know. We hope they can tell. But sometimes you just have to say it. We often forget how meaningful and far a simple compliment can be.

I also think that friendships can actually be a really good template for what we want in a romantic relationship. The way your best friend knows exactly when something is wrong, checks in on you, hypes you up, and still tells you the truth even when it's hard... that's the standard. And I think a lot of us forget that when we start dating someone. We lower the bar for our partners while simultaneously raising it for our friends without even realizing it.