HOW TO AVOID LOOSING FRIEND

Having nice friends can be tough. You know someone new will come into the picture soon, and you may be worried about having your friends leave you for that new person. Whether it's before someone is going to come into the picture, or someone has already made it obvious he or she is trying to take your friend from you and push you away, follow these steps to avoid losing your friend to someone you hate.

I. Strengthening your friendship 

  i. Share interests with your friend.

Join the same clubs and activities. This will allow you to spend more time together as well as give you tons of new things to talk about. And if you can engage with your friend in many different contexts, you will find that your friendship becomes more stimulating and exciting overall. 

ii. Strengthen your friendship.

Spend a lot of time with your friend. Go places together, do fun things, have parties and sleepovers, and hang out at each other’s houses. It's okay to spend time together in a group, but you should also make sure you hang out a lot alone together, with just you and your friend, as this will help build up your friendship with each other rather than with a group of people. If both you and your friend get used to spending so much time together, you'll come to depend on each other, and it will be hard to stop seeing each other so often.

Come up with inside jokes that only the two of you share. Then, when something happens to make your friend think of the joke, she'll laugh and want to share it with you. This will help keep you present in her thoughts and her life, even when you're not there.

iii.Tell her you're concerned.

Tell her that you're worried someone else will come between you, and talk to her about why you're worried. Explain that she's so nice and such a great friend that you know someone else will want to be her best friend. Have a calm, honest conversation with her to discuss your concerns. It's likely that she will reassure you that no one could possibly steal her from you - and you might find that she's been just as worried about losing you!

Avoid questioning her loyalty or her friendship. She might think you don't trust her to be a good, loyal friend to you. Make sure you express that you love and trust her, rather than challenging her loyalties.

II. Keeping your friend

i. Get to know new people before introducing them to your friend.

If you meet someone new, get to know her and become friends with her on your own. Then, once you're ready, introduce her to your friend. If you bring the new person into your friendship, you have more control over how much time she spends with your friend. You can coordinate the time that you spend together, and it will be harder for your friend to hang out with the new person without you. You can also emphasize the strength and importance of your older friendship to the new girl so that she will know how much your friend means to you, so she won't try to break you up. 

ii. Try to be there whenever your friend hangs out with the new person.

You strengthened your friendship with your friend by spending a lot of time alone with her. If she spends a lot of time alone with the new person, chances are, they'll become really good friends, too. So try to hang out with them, instead of them just hanging out alone - if it's always the three of you, you could become a really close group, so that you become very good friends with the new person without losing your old friend.

Don't take this overboard, and don't prevent your friend from spending time with the new person. You don't want to keep them from becoming friends - you just want to keep them from becoming best friends.

If you hate the new person, skip this step - it's not worth spending so much time with someone you hate. Instead, make sure you still hang out with just your friend, and do so often to maintain your friendship.

iii. Don't talk nasty about the other girl.

Just don't be friends with her. Your friend will get that you don't like her, so she will either hang out with you at different times, or ditch the other girl to hang out with you. 

iv. Talk to your friend.

If you're worried or unhappy about your friendship, the best way to air your concerns and then deal with them is by talking about them with your friend. Tell her about why you're worried, and give her a few examples of times when you felt that you were losing her to the new person. Let her tell you how she feels and what she thinks about your friendship, and trust what she tells you. Remember, she's still your friend, and she will want to help you feel better about this.