When your life changes you start thinking about things of great importance. Today I ponder friends. Not the tv show.
Of course, there are 2 ends to the spectrum, those who have lots of friends, none of them super close and those who have few friends, but the friends they have they are very close to. You fall somewhere in the spectrum. Me, I have lots of acquaintances, but very few close friends. The close friends that I have, I am very close to.
I don’t make friends easily, I’m terribly shy and tend to question people’s motives at first. When I do make friends I invest a lot of time and emotion into the relationship and it is exactly because of this emotional investment that I am wary of people at first. Don’t put yourself out there to get hurt and all that.
This emotional investment that I make in my friends also leads to extremely high expectations. I’ll not invest in someone who can not return in kind what I have given. I expect loyalty, I expect honesty, I expect the same level of emotional support that I give out.
There are always disappointments and misunderstandings along the way. It’s inevitable, shit happens. Unfortunately, I react strongly. I’ve got no time or patience for people who want to be friends but can’t give what I give. Is this fair? Probably not.
The thing is, it’s easy with newer friends to just cut them off, to tell them no more and then not talk to them again. Easy. With older friends things get more difficult. You have to ask yourself if a)your perception of them had been way off the whole time, b)they changed drastically or c)you changed drastically. it gets harder, and sometimes you don’t cut them off, but just slowly pull away.
On the other hand there are the acquaintances that very suddenly become good friends because they did for you more than you ever expected and you realize that they like you, sincerely. These are friends you hold on to.
Funny how relationships with people work.
oh, and, no this is not a veiled reference to anyone in my life, so stop trying to find yourself in here. It’s just a ramble about friends.