On Friendship

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"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."" - C.S. Lewis

Friendship is such a strange concept. You pick a random human you've just met and you decide that you like them and you want to do stuff with them. Hopefully the feeling is mutual and reciprocated.

Know one really knows how it starts, or why. Sometimes friendships are fleeting and sometimes they last a lifetime. And, I think, friendships have changed over the years. When I was growing up, you went next door, knocked, and your friends came out to play. Usually it was a whole neighbourhood full of kids. As we grew up into adulthood, and especially as technology has become an increasingly important part of our lives, what defines friendship is different.

More than likely, we are becoming friends with people we may never meet, where entire conversations happen over some sort of social media medium, rather than at a kitchen table with a coffee in hand. Does that lessen the friendship? If you never have a face-to-face conversation with a person, does that mean the friendship isn't real?

I don't think so. I definitely have people in my life that I may never meet, or have only met once or twice, but talk to them almost daily. No way would I consider those friendships "less than". In fact, I believe that online friendships are a lot more common than we might want to admit. The days of meeting for coffee or hanging out in each other's houses are becoming few and far between. Is this good or bad? The jury is still out on that, but we certainly shouldn't negate online friendships, in the meantime.

Another strange thing about friendships is how fragile they are, and how things can change in an instant. Most people need some sort of contact and connection with other people. Even us introverts. And while kids can walk up to the playground and make a lifelong friend, it is very hard to make friends as adults. So when we do make a friend, we try to hold on to them for dear life. We get nervous when they don't reply to our messages, assuming that we've done something to ruin the friendship. The anxiety gets the best of us as we being to assume the friendship is dead and we are alone again. Perhaps we even question whether or not there was really a friendship there, that maybe we read to much into it all.

Why do we put ourselves through it all? That's a really good question. If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know.

Until then, good luck and enjoy the friends you have - in person or online.