For some reason, people tend to like me. I’m not saying this to brag, but because it truly baffles me sometimes. I admit I’m selfish and have a tendency to be snarky at times, yet I’ve never had a real enemy in my adult life. High school no longer counts.
I think people like me because I listen and offer sound advice when I can. I truly celebrate my friend’s accomplishments. I don’t believe in hating on the good fortune of others. If you’re surrounded by happy successful people, you’re more likely to be happy and successful yourself. Or at least have the drive to seek happiness and success.
But I’m also anal and like to have things in its place, so I categorize my friends. It’s not as bad as it sounds. You probably do the same thing. There’s the friend I call to tell me when I’m wrong. The friend I call when I want to party like its 1999. The friend I call when I just want to drink wine and discuss life. The friend I would plan a tour of Europe with. Work friends, workout friends, mommy friends, coffee friends, writer friends…you get the point.
Because these people play an important part in my life—they’re my sanity and support system—I don’t have a problem mixing them in certain social situations. Birthday’s, holidays, upcoming celebration of publishing my first novel! And, because we’re all adults and are connected in some way I’d expect for everyone to get along and enjoy themselves.
Well, apparently that doesn’t happen in real life. Long story short, a friend of mine mixed her friends and I inadvertently disrespected one of her friends (I didn’t greet her properly) and that caused a huge fight and rift in their friendship. My husband thinks I’m crazy for caring, but knowing how much I depend on my friends I hate to think something I did—or didn’t—do strained longtime friendship.
I only knew the upset friend person slightly, liked her to an extent, and could see her on my list of future hype women, but alas that will not happen. This increases my anxiety about mixing some of my friends. Thus far, everyone has gotten along well. But let’s face it, Synithia with her party like its 1999 friends is different from Synithia with her lets drink wine and discuss life friends.
I’ve ranted all of this to ask how others handle mixing friends. Does it make more sense to keep like-minded friends together, or mix it up and let the chips fall?