What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. ~Aristotle
One of the perks to having your best friend also be your roommate and boyfriend is that you can always have random, meaningful, or outrageously funny conversations throughout the week. Josh and I have our fair share of these chats, and the one that came up tonight was about friends, friendship, and what we take from both of these.
He has a much more spartan take on developing friendships and finding friends, and he is merely happy to satiate his intellectual and social cravings with any ol' soul and goes home the better for it. A true social butterfly, if you will. Large or small crowds, people from all walks of life, long or short term communications...he will treat you with the utmost kindness and respect. You will benefit from talking with him and knowing him to whatever degree. His view and my view on friends and friendships are polar opposites but thankfully, he understands my more intimate take on things.
Me...well...I look for friends and friendships the way some women look for husbands. I crave deep, emotional connections with a smaller set. I moved around a lot when I was younger, and though I feel I have benefited from my experiences, I do regret not having those lifetime friendships. You know, where you met as babies in your moms' leche league or whatever...and you went to the same schools and shared your ups and downs as the years flew by. I didn't even get that experience through my extended family, as contact was minimal for my family growing up for whatever reasons. So over the years, I have found myself disliking large group outings or bar hopping or house parties, etc. I think that's why I didn't like college either, or rather, the college experience.
For me, going out with more than 3 or 4 other friends/acquaintences/etc means having idle chit chat, yelling over others to communicate with the person next to you, and likely dealing with a non-sober crowd...all of which means those several hours you just spent talking with however many individuals will have been all for nought. So...I ask, what is the point? If I'm looking to develop a close friendship, find a best friend, etc...why would I invest my time talking to someone who won't remember me in the morning? Let me point out...I do on occasion, go out on the town and enjoy the frivolities a 20-something can partake in...and I do find all those people quite lovely. But it never goes beyond that evening and I feel sort of used.
In an age of facebook and other social networking sites, it's almost become trendy to have hundreds of "friends", most of whom mean nothing to you, and I feel almost as if it has seeped into how we interact with others in real life. Meet you in a bar? Friend me! I'm on facebook! Buuut I'm going to limit my profile so you can't actually get to know me. Or I'll wait a few weeks and then delete you. What's the freaking point? Is it to socialize for the sake of socializing, as in Josh's case? Or have we just become a society of vapid friend-adding zombies?
I want a friend to be more than that. I want the whole deal, baggage and all, and I won't settle for less. If that makes me less interesting to my social butterfliers, that's ok. I love them all the more for it and I hope they find what they're looking for too <3
He has a much more spartan take on developing friendships and finding friends, and he is merely happy to satiate his intellectual and social cravings with any ol' soul and goes home the better for it. A true social butterfly, if you will. Large or small crowds, people from all walks of life, long or short term communications...he will treat you with the utmost kindness and respect. You will benefit from talking with him and knowing him to whatever degree. His view and my view on friends and friendships are polar opposites but thankfully, he understands my more intimate take on things.
Me...well...I look for friends and friendships the way some women look for husbands. I crave deep, emotional connections with a smaller set. I moved around a lot when I was younger, and though I feel I have benefited from my experiences, I do regret not having those lifetime friendships. You know, where you met as babies in your moms' leche league or whatever...and you went to the same schools and shared your ups and downs as the years flew by. I didn't even get that experience through my extended family, as contact was minimal for my family growing up for whatever reasons. So over the years, I have found myself disliking large group outings or bar hopping or house parties, etc. I think that's why I didn't like college either, or rather, the college experience.
For me, going out with more than 3 or 4 other friends/acquaintences/etc means having idle chit chat, yelling over others to communicate with the person next to you, and likely dealing with a non-sober crowd...all of which means those several hours you just spent talking with however many individuals will have been all for nought. So...I ask, what is the point? If I'm looking to develop a close friendship, find a best friend, etc...why would I invest my time talking to someone who won't remember me in the morning? Let me point out...I do on occasion, go out on the town and enjoy the frivolities a 20-something can partake in...and I do find all those people quite lovely. But it never goes beyond that evening and I feel sort of used.
In an age of facebook and other social networking sites, it's almost become trendy to have hundreds of "friends", most of whom mean nothing to you, and I feel almost as if it has seeped into how we interact with others in real life. Meet you in a bar? Friend me! I'm on facebook! Buuut I'm going to limit my profile so you can't actually get to know me. Or I'll wait a few weeks and then delete you. What's the freaking point? Is it to socialize for the sake of socializing, as in Josh's case? Or have we just become a society of vapid friend-adding zombies?
I want a friend to be more than that. I want the whole deal, baggage and all, and I won't settle for less. If that makes me less interesting to my social butterfliers, that's ok. I love them all the more for it and I hope they find what they're looking for too <3
I hear ya! At house parties I was always the one who would attempt to get into an intellectual or at least non-trivial conversation only to have the other person eventually (read: within 10 minutes) say "oh I'm just gonna go top off my drink" and then never come back in order to talk to someone else about shopping or boys or girls or whatever. Didn't enjoy college myself much either! Seems for us, it's quality and not quantity of friends. And that's awesome. You're a terrific writer by the way! xx
ReplyDeletethanks sarah! too bad we didn't go to college together, otherwise it might've been a bit more tolerable :)
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