Over the course of my time here in Australia I have lost my fair share of friends. Now granted, I have reconciled with many of them, and am in the process of being disconnected by some others, but still, I feel that perhaps I would best serve you by writing an article on how to keep friends from someone who is currently losing a few.

1) Reciprocity: If they feed you, feed them. If they pay for things for you, pay for things for them. Always assume that when they do something for you, they expect it to be returned. This isn’t necessarily selfish on anyone’s part, it’s the law of reciprocity that keeps relationships running.

2) Inform People of Major Life Decisions: If I were ever to redo what I did when I packed up my things and changed cities from Melbourne to Sydney, I would have done one thing differently: I would have informed all my friends and family of my decision and why I am doing what I am doing. Why? Courtesy.

My general state of being apathetic and quite oblivious to other people’s pressure dos and donts combined with a complete obliviousness to social rules and conventions mixed in with a little bit of my always assuming that by default I don’t matter to other people (quite a sentence full that was) meant that I never really saw how my moving affected other people’s lives.

Other people had probably built plans or at least thought of a future of which I was a part. At least do folks the courtesy of telling them when to change their plans.

3) Follow People Up: Here to this day, I absolutely suck. If you want someone to be your friend or relate to them in some way, PICK UP THE PHONE/TYPE THE FACEBOOK MESSAGE/SEND THE EMAIL = JUST GET IN TOUCH. Don’t wait for the moon, stars and planets to align before you just pick up the phone and reach your hand out to somebody.

4) Friendship Comes Over Lust: Let’s be honest. A huge number of modern day relationships for people below the age of 30 are either just an odd variation of friends with benefits or “mutual-flirtation agreements” as opposed to any deep friendships and relationships. Especially in the early stages, DO NOT ever put your pursuit of members of the opposite sex above your friends.

This one needs to be heard especially by the women, y’all are always so willing to throw away relationships or ignore your friends just because some man could whisper sweet nothings in one ear while convincing you to disrobe in the other. You’re friends know you and care about you more than the man. They will clean up the tissues/bedsheets with you once he leaves.

This one doesn’t apply much to men (though stealing from strangers and acquantances is an entirely different story), but speaking as a man who has done this on a few occasions………to use a technical term, not cool, not cool at all.

I loved this version of this song, check out the frog with soul at the end.

5) Give: Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they really want and especially what they need. Give them that thing they keep talking about. Don’t get them what people are supposed to get other people. Listen and get them and provide them with what makes their heart sing.

Any more to share? Got any stories of how you lost friends? Leave a comment below and let me know. Before I leave though…….

The Newsletter

If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.

In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on making friends, finding employment, how to stay healthy on the run, things to prepare before you immigrate, staying in touch with people from your home country etc etc.

So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

Before I Get the Ball Rolling

As always I like to give shout outs to everyone out there in the world wide African web doing great things. (Btw why are some of you African webmasters and bloggers so insular?) With that in mind, let me show some quick love to two people who have shown me an excess of affection:

Nigerian Entrepreneur

I asked him to write a tutorial on how people with lousy Internet connection can use Windows Live Writer to become more efficient bloggers and he complied. I haven’t read the article yet, but if it’s anything like his other work, it’ll be useful.

Windows Live Writer Tutorial

If you are reading this in a country or region where the net is slow check that link out.

Pam from SARFM Radio

If you check out the Displaced African’s media and press appearance’s page, you will realize that this week I added one new media appearance to the flock. It was a fun interview I conducted with Pam from SARFM Radio. Much more straight up fun than it was serious and insightful, feel free to check it out.

Anyway, Pam sent me this email after the interview requesting that I put the word out:

If you are an East African writer or artist or doing anything good and you need some free publicity, Pam from SARFM radio would love to hear from you. Either find them by checking out the SARFM radio website or by leaving a comment below or getting in contact with me.

On to the Main Business

The ideas behind this post are still quite fresh and have not fully marinated in my head: if you find the post, too abstract, leave a comment below and let me know.

I am not going to say anything particularly revolutionary or brand new in this post, because this post was caused by my being forced to remember something quite fundamental about frienships that even I sometimes forget:

There is a reason that someone is your friend. Take away that reason and unless there is/are another reason(s) that you are friends, they will cease to be your friend.

A Problem

A problem I often hear expressed when people make a life long change like converting religions or changing their lifestyle or changing anything dramatic or at the core of being a person is that they “realize that”:

People who they thought were their friends turned out to be “fake friends”.

Because this person ceases to be a friend the way they once were, it is taken as a betrayal of a friendship that one thought was eternal and immutable.

The Flaw in this Type of Thinking

I think the deepest flaw in this type of thinking is that its a very narcissistic way of viewing the world where you don’t take the moment to consider that perhaps other people may be just like you.

Isn’t there a reason that everyone who is your friend is your friend?

The Different Types of Friends We Have

Don’t you have friends for at least one of the following reasons:

1) Friends of circumstance: People who you see so often whether at school, work, church or anywhere you frequent regularly. You just have to figure out how to get along whether you like the other person initially or not.

2) Friends of events: Friends who you do certain things with: this is especially true for people who have friends for worshiping and others for partying. And then there are others for all sorts of hobbies or miscellaneous activities.

3) Friends who are like you: Immigrants get pulled to their own countrymen because they share a nation. Immigrants are pulled to each other because they are all foreign nationals. People think like you do, like what you like and have similar interests and since you like the same things, by extension you like each other.

4) Friends who make you feel good: This one is a huge category that encompasses so many things such as friends who make you feel good because they make you feel superior, friends who excite you with their humour and outlook on life and all sorts of things about them just make you happy.

I am sure I have missed a couple, so please leave a comment and add to the list.

This Element is What Pulls you Together

There are 6 billion people in the world. We are not all friends with each other. We tend to be pulled into relationship and community with people for one of the preceeding four reasons (and any others you may add below).

That element is what binds you together. It’s not that he’s human and your human and so you’ll just naturally get along.

Take away that string that holds the two of you together, and unless you have other things that connect you, your friendship will end.

Why I Wrote this Post

I wrote this post for a couple of reasons:

One Like the Sun

Firstly, to speak to those people who have the problem above. Take a moment and reflect. When you changed, did that affect the very thing that connects you to each other? If that is the case, then does it surprise you that your friendship ended?

Let’s turn the tables: If you had never changed and your friend had changed the way you had, don’t you think YOU would have found it a bit difficult to remain friends with that person?

Two Like a Shoe

Secondly, I wrote this to encourage you to reflect on the bonds that lock you and your current friends together. What are they? Are they strong? Are they weak? Are they multiple? This simple act of reflection can go a long way towards helping you strengthen whatever friendships you may have by working on strengthening the connections that bring you together day after day. It may also help you figure out why you drift apart should you do so.

Three Like a Tree

Finally, I wrote it to encourage you to go out there and form more bonds with the friends you currently have. To illustrate this point I will use an absolutely terrible example from my teenage years (hopefully you’ll do better )

The Story: the Last Time I Ever Shoplifted

I had this very good friend in high school. One day he and I decided that we wanted to drink alcohol and that we were also too poor to pay for it. And so we went to a supermarket in the city to restock on some poisonous brew.

We walked around the store pretending to browse around for close to an hour meanwhile taking sachets of brandy and rum and shoving them into whatever compartment and hole we could find.

As we were about to make the “victory march” out of the store, we were pounced on by two plain clothed store policemen who bumrushed us not out of the store but all the way to the back where we were locked in a tiny manager’s office.

What proceeded was an extended period of me and my buddy lying, being discovered as heartless, and very very cheap liars, getting beaten up by a store manager because:

” I go to work everyday to pay school fees for my children so that SCHUPID children like yourself can come here to steal our stuff”

Me and my buddy left the store and immediately jumped into one of the severely overcrowded buses which was the inspiration behind tales such as this one.

As we rolled home, and onto way more debauchery and self-destructive behaviour, we looked at each other and realized we had just become greater friends. We had stolen together, gotten caught together, lied for each other, had the sense knocked into us together and we were still here……..together.

No longer would we just have good conversation, a classroom and silliness to bind us. Now we had a whole lot more.

Back to the Final Point

I use this example half tongue-in-cheek but I hope you see the point. Friendship is one of those important areas that I do not think we should leave to chance: stop reading this post now, leave me a nice comment and go out there and create another bond with your friend.

Your future self won’t regret it.

Have a friendly day,

Mwangi

PS: Feels like I haven’t written a post like this in a while and so it felt good to do this. Leave a comment and subscribe to the blog via RSS or email (apparently this tutorial is quite useful, so if you have no clue what RSS is, check out this little video tutorial page)