Sunday Homily: Fake Friends Believe In Rumors

Friendship Is…

Real Friends Believe In You

I saw this on a poster recently. It was talking about the stress and strain of being online and drowning in social media for kids and even some adults. How these new mediums of communication can impact friendships and relationships.

Fake friends believe in rumors, real friends believe in you.

Some of you probably don’t know that my partner Garrett and I met online in an old AOL chat room. As soon as word got out that we were “seeing each other”, the online drama queens started their efforts to spread rumors to break us up.

It didn’t work, obviously. Because we talk. We talk a lot. We tell each other everything! Absolutely everything. And because we respect each other, we’re open, honest and trust each other implicitly.

It’s what gets us through the moments of frustration, hurt and yes arguments. All relationships have their ups and downs. But the respect and trust you have for each other, will get you through anything. If you don’t have that kind of relationship with your best friend. Then ask yourself why?

When you trust your best friend, nothing outside your friendship can come between you. The nay-sayers and drama queens/kings will have no power over you. They don’t have that kind of respect in their lives, because they don’t respect those around themselves. They don’t have that kind of trust, because they can’t be trusted. So when they see it in someone else, it reminds them of what they don’t have. That constant reminder causes them to feel the need to undermine others who do have that kind of friendship.

In our case the fake friends started saying stuff about me behind my back, he already knew the truth. And when others tried to tell me crap about him, I already knew they were lying. And we did something vital to winning the game over these morons. We still talked. We told each other who said what and what they said. We talked about the rumors and where they could have come from. How a small part of the truth became distorted into a lie designed to destroy something beautiful. This year we’ll celebrate our 12th Anniversary and 13 years together. And we’ll celebrate with our son whose the best part of our union.

If you have a friend and hear a rumor, don’t spread the lie or automatically believe it to be true. Talk to your friend and find out what’s really going on. Give them the benefit of the doubt. You know them better than the drama queens and kings. Whither they’re online or in person. Find out the truth and have enough respect for each other to be honest.

If it’s a friendship that isn’t working. Then find out up front and clear out the drama from your life. But do it because the two of you are adult enough and have enough respect for each other to be honest. Don’t go into a relationship of any kind with doubts or wonder if you’re being told the truth or not. That lack of trust will only fester and blow up later on down the road. If you have doubts now, you’ll have doubts a year from now. They won’t go away.

Sometimes being honest with yourself is more important than being honest with the one you’re with. Don’t let desperation cloud your judgement or divert your view with rose-colored glasses. But don’t make assumptions either. All relationships that last a life time are based on respect. If you don’t have that, then you’ll struggle with the drama and fall prey to the strain.

A happy and healthy relationship cannot exist and thrive without a mutual respect of ideas, feelings and expressions of consciousness and desire. Without respect partners cannot support each other’s dreams, or care for one another in sickness. Without respect it’s harder to share the intimacy of love, or honor the sacrifices each side will make to sustain the partnership and family.

Respect will maintain the love for one another even when those moments of dissatisfaction arise and angry words are spoken. And respect is the basis of one of the biggest components of a successful relationship, Trust. Love for a friend, or a partner can only grow and sustain through the years when you believe in each other with respect.

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