LIL Magazine February 2024

Love Today Written by Michael Iroegbu IG: @cruxx_paccino e: michael.ironiks@gmail.com

HOW TO BE

A ‘FRIEND’ IN YOUR

RELATIONSHIP Friendship is hard. Dating Is harder. Having an existing friendship within your relationship is hardest. Dating and Friendships are more than brunches, matching outfits, regular TikToks, similar tattoos and daring choices. It is blood, tears, sweat and farts. Lots of farts. As a big romantic myself, I just wanted to share how you can have a good friendship in your relationships. Here are five ways to be a friend to your partners and build relationships that will transcend a lifetime: Listen Just listen. Open your ears and listen. Find both the verbal and nonverbal cues.

Listening will help you gain a better perspective and help you provide fresh solutions and answers. Or not. Just listen.

Defend ‘Friends’ will do things that will make you ‘Friends grind your teeth, that is guaranteed. But your job is to defend–respectfully, of course–in public and scold them in private with your words and your actions. If you can’t defend in public, carry your ‘friend’ and run!

Speak The Truth As much as you’d like to gloss over certain things, speak the truth to your partners.

They may curse you, swear at you and mute your Instagram story, but they’ll be grateful for your honesty and come around in the end. And the end may be five days later.

Show Up With your Chanel glasses, Hermes slippers and fanny pack, show up every time you can. And If you can’t, get people to.

Support with your body, your money, your network and everything. Even the crazy ideas that you know won’t fly. You can both laugh about them later.

Tolerate You don’t like their friends? Their colleagues? Tolerate them. Tolerate respectfully, and if things become an I-told-you-so moment where a friend you've warned them about finally hurts them, take them out for drinks and comfort them. Resist the urge to say ‘I told you so’ at that point. But nothing’s stopping you from bringing it up a month later to laugh at with them.

photography credit: @jude_okhuelegbe

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