The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-09-26
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worries Highest Paid Woman wsitsr.
How to Keep Tricnds.-2.

How to Keep Friends.
It is p.tiful to think how much
friendship is lost that could be pre-
served by a telephone call, a postage
stamp or telegraph message. All
human relationships are based on mu-
tual interests, and if we expect people
to be interested in US, we have got to
display our interest in them. We
must give some tangible sign of our
affection If we expect others to return
it,
Friendship is not only lost, it is
worn out, and the way to keep it fresh
and beautiful is to use it as an orna-
nlsnt of life. not TO make drudge OF
! A great many women lose their
friends by making their friendship a
that is not to be borne. They
consider that their friendship gives
them a fight to police the lives of
their friends. You must go to their
doctor. You must patronize their
dressmaker and milliner. You must
belong to the came clubs they do. You
must be interested in\the same chari-
titles and you must have the same
friends as they do.
to monopol.xe you. They visit you to
death. They call you up at all hours
| over the telephone. You can never
give any kind of party without you
| having them, and you get so fed UP on
them that you have to get rid of them
as a matter of self defense.
Other women wear out friendship
by making too heavy demands upon
! it. They feel that friendship gives
| them a right to lay all their burdens
on your shoulders and make Of you a
tear jug into which they can weep
without ceasing. Day after day. and
month after month you have to listen
to their lamentations over their rows
with their in-laws. their spats with
! their husbands and their troubles with
| their children or their walls over their
lost property or the injustice of their
employers
There is nothing on earth that you
| can do to alter the situation in any
particular. nothing that you can say
| that will help or comfort. You know
no spell that will conjure wandering
husbands back, or turn hayward chill
| dren into angels, or recover vanished
1 money, and after you become per-
fectly waterlogged with the despair
| ing ones unavailing tears, you find
your friendship is giving out under
| the strain.
Still other women lose friends by
| regarding friendship as a graft. They
/ seem to think that they have a per-
feet right to work their friends for all
traffic will stand. They borrow
money, which they never repay, and
which you can't refuse because of
friendship. They borrow your clothes
They borrow your jewelry and lose it.
| They borrow your books and never
bring them back. They are nothing
| more nor less than hold-up artists.
And they save hotel bills by coming
! to see you and making use OF you;
they never consider your convenience.
your pleasure nor your rights and
| they wonder why They have no
| friends
Frtond~bi, L. 1o~< thr,, s..t.
| thru greedinese, thru lack of con-
sideration and lack of polfteness.
The way to keep friends is to Use
more diplomacy. more Difference,
more courtesy and more formality in
dealing with them than you would
use in dealing with your dearest
enemy. No human being ever gets
well enough acquainted with another
human being to afford to drop the
| formalitiAs.