- Don't be gay Vee.
- Shut up, I'm thinking here.
What is the meaning of a friend?
When I was young, this confused me and I guess it still sometimes baffles me today. Currently, I find that the word friend has sometimes a varied definition, which is often open to interpretation and gets thrown around a lot in a way which is easy to take for granted. Like love, in a lot of ways.
I think of this as I'm coming down from the buzz of merriment I have experience from spending the entire day with a large group of people that I have not seen in years. People whom I have referred to as my friends, and will still continue to do so despite not having any regular form of contact with them. So what does it mean to be a friend?
Not meaning to blow smoke up my own arse here, but I have considered myself to be a good friend. I certainly try to be. I hold my friendships very close to my heart, as to me they are an important part of my life and, in a strange way, a small part of who I am. If my friends aren't right, I'm not right. This empathy may seem a bit strange, but I have always been acutely sensitive in that way, and I don't know if it will ever stop.
I mentioned that when I was younger, the understanding of what it meant to be a friend was somewhat skewed. In my youth, I found myself be-friended by two people who held onto me like a personal possession of theirs for a number of years. Two separate cases, but both contained the same behaviours and consequent outcomes. To these people, friendship was a different world all together. It came with a set of rules that must be followed. I was only to talk to certain people whom my friend approved of. I was to never go anywhere without my friend on weekends unless it was a family event and they strictly were not invited. If I were to talk to someone my friend did not approve of, I was to explain myself and make amends for it. Needless to say, these were intense experiences, which gave me a rather warped perception of friendship.
Being a rather solitary person by nature, I never really mind being alone, but I also don't mind the company of others. Throughout time, I have come to rather enjoy being around friends and the laughter and experiences that I have shared with people who have come and gone through out my life. I also have managed to establish a second family of sorts with my best friends from high school, whom I don't see enough of, but always keep in touch with. Additionally, in recent years, I have developed a new found appreciation for my friends, as I've come to realize just how much I rely on so many of them, and how much of an effect they have had on me. Because of them, I know I will never be alone.
On a different level all together, we have MySpace and Facebook, which have stamped their own definition and meaning of what it is to be a friend.
MySpace and Facebook have been deemed as a "social" forum. Recently, a move on Facebook has been made urging us to "connect" with certain people that we have not 'messaged', 'commented', or 'written on their wall' for months on end. Currently, I have 351 friends on Facebook, and I mostly pester about 20- 30 of those friends with random messages and links to quirky websites that I happened upon whilst procrastinating from general living. That leaves hundreds of people who remain neglected. Their friendship is collecting dust in the world of Facebook, making me look like a down right turd. If I'm no Facebook friend to these people, what sort of real friend could I be? Sometimes a correlation is made when comments like "I'm just friends with them on Facebook, I really wouldn't talk to them in real life" crop up. Harsh, but true, and lets be honest with ourselves, we've all proclaimed it.
I look through my 351 friends. Could I possibly really be friends with them all? I mean, I went to high school with some of them, primary school with a small number of them, then there's uni, people I've met through social gatherings, and the random long lost child hood friend (Hi James)...I can't possibly divide myself this many ways, can I? The answer: Of course I can't. Are you nuts!?
"Friend" is a term which is indeed open to interpretation, it's just all dependant on your circumstance I suppose. As we've seen, we have best friends, party friends, school friends, work friends, and even child hood friends. All people we have met in different circumstances, some which could not be helped, and some which were sheer twists of fate. I cannot possibly be the same friend to one person as I am to the other, but I can hold them in the same regard as each other in that they are special to me for whatever the reason. Some make me laugh in ways which no one can, others can understand me without me having to explain anything to them, and some know my deepest and darkest secrets that they will carry to their graves. There are also those whom I share no common interest with whatsoever but for the memories that we share for the brief amount of time we spent together. Memories which I think of from time to time and smile or laugh out loud at the thought of them. And no matter how much time passes, that regard will always stay the same. I'm reminded of this every time I see a long lost friend, or in this case, a group of them.
So thanks for a great day guys, it was a blast. Lets try and not leave so long next time, but if we do, I look forward to the next time I get to see you.
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