Friends are our chosen family. Friendships are one of the strongest pillars we have in life, and we stick to them no matter what. Friends have our back at all times, through thick and thin. From being our loudest cheerleader to giving us their shoulder to cry on in difficult times, a friend in need is the one who stays with us through all times. However, as life starts to happen to us, we lose touch with some friends, and the depth of friendship also fades away. With the natural law of time, we start to drift apart from each other. However, low-maintenance friendships stay with us as they do not require a lot of our time. However, we should be careful of not being neglectful in the name of being low maintenance.
“Low maintenance friends are characterised by a healthy understanding of each other’s lives and a lack of neediness, neglectful friends exhibit a lack of effort, interest, and reliability in the friendship. Remember that the concept of low maintenance friendships is not about neglect or indifference but rather about cultivating relationships that are secure, authentic, and understanding of the ebb and flow of life,” wrote Therapist Israa Nasir.
Here are a few differences between low-maintenance friends and neglectful friends:
Effort: In the case of neglectful friends, there is a significant neglect in effort in friendship. However, in case of low-maintenance friendships, the friends have a mutual understanding with each other about how they want to continue their friendship.
Indifference: Neglectful friends are indifferent about the happenings in each other’s lives, while low-maintenance friends are comfortable with less frequent conversations, but when they meet, they start it from where they left last time.
Reliability: Neglectful friends are unreliable and are not committed to the friendship. Low-maintenance friends grow organically over time and are always there for each other.
