When I was very young, my teachers warned me to be careful of fairweather friends — the friends who would be there in good times and disappear when you really, really needed a friend.
Looking back, I think we probably learn about this kind of friend first because we certainly see enough of them in middle school and high school and later in college.
I’ve gone through two major purges of fairweather friends without even realizing they were fairweather friends. You might think it’s obvious if someone is a fairweather friend, but I was relatively self-sufficient and generally didn’t cry on any friend’s shoulder. I had always been the steadfast friend there for others in good times and bad, helping them through disasters and celebrating their successes, but most of our relationships were built around good times or around times that weren’t bad for me.
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The First Purge: My Divorce Party
When I was going through a divorce in my early 40s, I kept it to myself. Only one very close friend knew, and she was there to support me the whole way, but no one else knew. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them or think I couldn’t count on them, but rather that I had become very withdrawn. I was trying to work things out in my head. The rumor mill at my job was god-awful, and the last thing I needed was to become their latest crisis gossip.
I actually made a lot of enemies by keeping my marital problems to myself until the ink was wet on the divorce papers.
Once I was through the worst of it, I decided to host a little get-together for all my friends to close one chapter of my life and start the next. I invited at least 50 people to my home who had said they expected to be there to help me kick off this new phase of life. Full spread of food, wine, and lots of space for as many of them as possible. They could even bring their families if they wanted. I didn’t care. I just wanted time with friends again and time with people again.
These were not friends I had abandoned while I was going through my dark night of the soul. They were friends I had helped through their own storms. Some of them, while I was putting together bank statements and documentation for lawyers, had no idea that my spare time was going to helping them study for a certification they needed to get promoted at work or playing mock interview with them for an upcoming job.
One was a friend of almost a decade, and I had spent around two years doing both her job and mine because of a medical situation she was trying to hide.
Of the 50 friends I expected to attend, literally only two showed up.
All the others, at the next workday, had plenty of excuses for why, even though they had RSVP’d, at the last minute they couldn’t make it.
A woman I had been helping with her job search every day at lunch for three weeks nervously approached me at work and asked me to help her prepare for an interview for a job that had just been announced that morning.
All these friends that I had never once asked anything of except for one of the two who came over that night. I had never asked any of them for any sort of help, ever. And the first time I did — the only time I did — they weren’t there for me.
But they were certainly back at my desk at the next opportunity to ask me to help them and to be there for them when their worlds were crashing around them.
That was my first big friend purge.
The Second Purge: My Near-Fatal Illness
The second purge of fairweather friends came a little over 15 years later.
I was hit with an illness that could easily have been fatal. Probably should have been fatal.
The friends I went to dinner with, the friends I went to movies with, the friends I went shopping with, the friends I had helped find jobs when they were laid off or bought groceries for when they had to choose between food and electricity at home — I had never asked any of them for help, not once. But I was the one they came to.
They were really good at saying, “If you need any help, just ask,” but when I asked, they only responded with, “Okay, well, if you need any help, just ask.”
One straight-up told me later, after I had survived several times over, that I was always independent and could handle anything, so it wasn’t like I actually needed their help.
That was my second big purge of fairweather friends.
I felt that I had always been a good friend to them in good times and bad, but the single time I asked for help, they all disappeared until they assumed everything was fine and nothing would be asked of them. Then they showed back up saying, “See? I knew you’d get through it just fine without my help,” when I wasn’t fine at all, and still desperately needed help.
Once they knew that, they vanished again, but found themselves blocked when they tried to return.
Those were all the people we’re warned about — the people who are always there for the party and never there for the cleanup.
Foul-Weather Friends Are Worse
What we aren’t warned about very much, but come to understand by middle age, is the concept of foul-weather friends, which honestly are far worse than fairweather friends.
These are the friends who are there for you when you’re going through a hard time, but not when things are looking up.
These are the chaos junkies who love to be needed, and the more pain you’re in, the more they’re there to witness it, to ask for all the grim little details. Some like being needed. Some like being in the know.
What makes them particularly unsavory is that as soon as you start coming out of whatever bad situation you’re in, they will happily guide you right back into it.
They have lots of advice, often with no expertise or no relevance to your kind of situation. Sure, their advice worked for them 40 years ago, but that doesn’t exactly help you now in your situation. Yet they will be so sure they’re right that they’ll guide you right back into disaster, especially if you don’t trust yourself at the time.
And when you do stop taking their advice, and you do learn to trust yourself, and you do start healing — wow, they don’t like that.
You become someone they don’t know anymore because they knew you as someone with weakness or need, and once you regain strength and success, they double down on trying to keep you stuck.
I’m not at all saying that people who are there for you in bad times are only foul-weather friends. The difference is that true friends are there for you in the bad times and with you in the good times. They’re compassionate and supportive in the bad times and loving and joyous in your good times.
Fairweather friends disappear when life takes a tumble, while foul-weather friends double down to keep you on your knees.
I’ve gone through three major friend purges in my life — twice for fairweather friends and once for foul-weather friends — and none of it was easy to walk away from.
It’s taken some time, but I’m very happy with the friends I have now because we’re always supportive of each other, but understanding as well, and always celebrating each other’s accomplishments.
What I’ve Learned About Balance
But if I had to say the biggest lessons I’ve learned from all of this, it’s not to stay too long in a friendship that isn’t balanced. And the way you find out if you have balance is by asking for what you need and seeing if it’s given. Then asking more than once and seeing if it’s given more than once.
Because if it isn’t given even once, you’re probably in a fairweather friend situation.
The other thing I’ve learned is not to stay too long in a friendship where the other person can’t ever be happy for any good thing that happens to you because that’s usually a sign of a foul-weather friend.
In either case, there won’t be balance.
And of course, in both cases, to truly be a good friend yourself, you should be supportive or celebratory of your friends as needed.
Balance in all things. A fair exchange of energy in all bonds.
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