Think about what kind of friend you want to be as you consider these five tips for keeping your friendships strong throughout the years:

7 Simple Ways to Improve Relationships with Friends and Family

• Keep in touch. Call/txt/email/write/meet more often.
• Create quality time.
• Remember birthdays & other dates.
• Listen more.
• Look for ways to help them or make their lives better.
• Try not to take them for granted.
• Open up.

Family and friends: What’s the difference? There’s a big difference between family and friends. We don’t choose our family; we learn to live with them. On the other hand, we choose our friends based on our preferences and our shared interests and because we feel good when we’re with them.

1. Be Honest.
2. Repair Misattunements.
3. Make Time and Show Appreciation.
4. Alter Your Expectations and Don’t Make Assumptions.
5. Choose Compassion Over Cynicism.

Communication Strategies for Family and Friends

1. Maintain eye contact.
2. Get their attention.
3. State the topic.
4. Speak slowly and clearly.
5. Be mindful of your setting.
6. Ask the right questions.
7. Rephrase when they don’t hear you.

Good friends are loyal and accept you for who you are during the good and bad times. Good friends are also honest — honest enough to tell you when you’re not being a good friend yourself. Along with good friends who are present, loyal, and honest, most people want friends who are trustworthy.

Signs of a good friend

1. is there for you, no matter what.
2. doesn’t judge you.
3. doesn’t put you down or deliberately hurt your feelings.
4. is kind and respectful to you.
5. is someone whose company you enjoy.
6. is loyal.
7. is trustworthy and willing to tell you the truth, even when it’s hard for you to hear.
8. laughs with you.

Even if you’ve been friends with someone for a long time, people can grow apart or no longer put equal effort and care into the relationship. If you can’t count on them, or feel like you’re doing all the work to maintain the friendship, it’s okay to go with your gut and cut it off.

If your friend doesn’t like you, they probably aren’t making much of an effort to stay in touch. This means not just talking, but emails, texting, or any other form of communication. If you and your friend aren’t talking very much, it is hard to say that you are still really friends. Friendship takes effort.

If your friend isn’t telling you the important things in their life anymore, then they could either be juggling some difficult problems that are making their life too busy and hectic to talk to you or maybe they’ve met some new people and prefer them. Maybe you guys are just naturally becoming less close.

You might be drifting apart from your friend if you feel like nothing positive is coming out of the friendship, especially if they constantly disappoint you, complain, or belittle you. If that’s the case, you want to say buh-bye to that friendship anyways to use that energy for something more awesome.

“Feeling jealous about a friend’s other friendships does not mean that you are a bad friend, or that you do not want your friend to enjoy their life and other connections,” Koifman says. You might want to ask yourself if you are cultivating enough friendships and connections outside of this one.

There are a million reasons why a friendship may change over time. You grow older, relocate for a job, have a fight, or start having kids. It is an inevitable fact that life takes people in new directions; growing apart from old friends becomes a part of our lives.

What to do when you and your bestie are drifting apart

1. Figure out what happened.
2. Plan a friend date.
3. Just go ahead and ask what’s going on.
4. Acknowledge your feelings, and realize it’s okay to be sad or confused.
5. Remember the good things about your friend.
6. Even if you and your friend break up, try to take the high road.

10 Ways To Save A Dying Friendship

1. Make time for your friends. Next time one of your friends calls you and wants to do something, say yes.
2. Send a thoughtful gift.
3. Send a note.
4. Remind your friend of the good times.
5. Apologize.
6. Give your friend a call.
7. Set up a lunch date.
8. Schedule a regular activity you can do together.

6 Ways to Mend a Broken Friendship and Have a Best friend for…

1. Open up about your feelings. No one can understand your feelings if you never talk about them— even if they are your best friends for years.
2. Do apologize. We make mistakes.
3. Give them some time. Does an apology solve all the problems?
4. Listen to their opinions.
5. Reminisce.
6. See the changes.

Invite your friend to meet up at a specific place at a specific time. You don’t have to tell her that you want to talk about how she’s been acting. You can simply say that you’ve missed her and that you want to catch up. If she’s been isolated or distant lately, she may try to come up with an excuse not to meet up.

When someone is feeling distant, they may not want to share with you or connect with you about their day. And it could be that they’re getting closer to their friends or family, so they’re getting the support from somewhere else.

One of the biggest reasons that a guy might start acting distant towards you is if something in his life is stressing him out outside the relationship, and he wants to tackle it alone. Maybe he’s having problems at work and doesn’t feel like talking about them. Or maybe work is just extra stressful for a little while.