We all know people who call everybody they have ever met their close friends, tightest pals and best buddies – forever. Anything living (or dead) they declare everlasting friendship with. Maybe they are right in doing so, as Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook can find all these friends for us that we didn’t know we had or we tried unsuccessfully to avoid. I have seen many with way over 600 friends on Facebook – I have 14 and don’t know half of them; true story. In real life as well, I have very few friends and I know why. No, it’s not due to bad body odor, horrendous breath or that I make really interesting sounds when I eat; it’s simply because of the way I perceive what a friend is (or should be).
A friendship is an interpersonal relationship that I believe should include some of the following items: We must have similar values without agreeing on everything, but respect each other’s different views. We must have sympathy and empathy for each other; we must be honest and truthful in all our communication and be understanding when things are not going well and not be envious when our friend wins the 60 million in the lottery and doesn’t want to share (what kind of bloody friend is that, you ask). Compassion is a must and being supportive of each other is high on the list. We must have fun (very essential) and through the enjoyment of our friendship, we must constantly be respectful. A friendship is big time give and take.
But back on Earth where life as it really is flourish, we know that there are not that many saints hanging around to cover the above; that’s why I do not have many friends. But what about you people with the 600+ friends – are they all like this? I didn’t think so…
If you to any extent believe I have found even one friend other than my wife fitting the above mold, you must be mad. Of course friendships are not mold-fitting concepts we to any extent can squeeze potential pals and buddies into. Instead we accept and engage in friendships with fewer expectations, as there are so many layers to like or dislike, accept and tolerate, embrace or ignore. For me a sense of humor is utterly important. The art of laughing at one self and see the lighter side of life around us is a must. I’m not talking about the below-the-belt jokes, but using humor as a commentary to our surroundings. And don’t forget that respect thing…
A friendship is somewhat like a marriage, or at least considered a close sister or brother in concept. I have the horrific feeling that we would not divorce as easily if we focused more on the friendship part of the marital bliss. I also feel that we are probably more apt to throw away a marriage than discarding a friendship; please tell me I’m wrong.
One thing is for sure, a friendship does have the same risks of faltering as does a marriage and probably for some of the same reasons. We grow apart, fetch other interests, money, we move away, I hate you and so forth. The interesting bit is that we possibly consider a friendship more solid and harder to tip over, where a marriage is perhaps more disposable? If that is true, that’s a terrible picture, don’t you think? The reality is that a friendship probably has a better chance of surviving as we do not sleep together, live and eat together, have kids, pets and auto-insurance together. Marriage has a tendency to bring along all the aspects of concerns and challenges that 24/7 relationships deal with. Those are the things we casually chat with our friends about (and giggle). It seems that we can more so let out some internal steam to our friends, where confronting these same issues at home might cause problems (do I have to mention the 50% divorce rate in this country?) Do I experience that with my wife? Not really, as we do laugh a lot and are cordial and respectful towards each other’s needs and wishes, solving issues on an even level – and my wife is my best friend ever in this whole world, so that’s a huge help.
So we party with our friends, air out stuff and interact on so many different levels, and then we go home. That’s where the friendship has its charm. It’s for the most simple and not that demanding. But don’t get me wrong, a friendship as a marriage involves a lot of labor, hard work and constant attention, otherwise it will die, or even worse, it will end in divorce. And if you think that all friendships for some Godly or spiritual reasoning last forever, you are very misinformed. They can break up and in many cases due to really silly reasons – and in some cases for no reason at all. But of course those with over 600+ Facebook friends do not give a hooters concerning losing a friend or 20, huh?
Back in 2006 American Sociological Review told us that since 1986 the quality and quantity of close friendships has dropped from 4 to 2 friends per person that we rely on. Are you getting your share? Approximately 25% of us have no close friends at all – and that’s terrible. Today about 80% of us lean on our families more so than on our (close) friends. With information like that we now seriously realize how blessed those Facebook dudes and dudettes are with 600+ friends (shouldn’t they at least share?) while I’m still struggling trying to find out who the heck 9 of my (alleged) 14 Facebook friends are. Maybe I’ll contact Zuckerberg; he started it so he should know, don’t you think? He seriously has over sixty trillion close friends – lucky bastard. I’ll leave him a message on Facebook; if he gets back to me, I’ll let you know… Oh by the way, you wanna be my friend, please?
See you next Monday.
RIP: Some people die too young: John Lennon, my Mother’s husband and now Steve Jobs, just to name a few; it’s a bit empty around here without them…
Foot-Note: Sign up to be notified about new postings. The directions are to your right (if you sit in a fairly normal position in front of your monitor)… Thanks so much for reading this stuff – really.
No comments:
Post a Comment