someone once said something along: any relationship will thrive to a degree to which value is derived by both sides This helped me understand a few things. We

someone once said something along: any relationship will thrive to a degree to which value is derived by both sides This helped me understand a few things. We all have childhood friends that once made sense but now if we met these people we wouldn't become friends. That's the exception to above rule, and i'm sure there are a few others, but generally that is a good way to understand why a friendship is working or ceases to be useful. It's something you can also use to acquire new friends or improve existing relationships. The value you offer may be as simple as being available (i.e. available to go out to meet possible romantic interests, available to pursue a new hobby together, available to blow off steam after work), actually listening and offering advice (advice part only works if the person looks up to you on a given subject and asks for it, unsolicited advice is the worst), being positive and seeking/seeing positivity in every situation/person (i've had friends that really helped me realize that people are in different stages of their life even when they seem obnoxious there's probably a good reason for it at the time so we shouldn't be quick to criticize and it's mostly a waste of time anyway). Most people don't actually think about this or put any effort into improving their value proposition but you'd be surprised how much difference that can make.