Friends

One of my resolutions (although it's on-going) for this year would be to put in more effort to keep in touch with old and current friends.

It's funny...you may think just because someone has "known" you (or rather, know of your existence) for so many years, you are good old friends.

On the contrary, I feel that my "old" friends don't really know me...because I'm still discovering myself.

I guess my colleagues or church friends would understand me better at this point of life I'm in.

I can't write nice flow-y stories anymore lah...I am just writing as I think, so bear with me if this post is not coherent.

Looking at some pictures of friends (I don't even know if it's the right description to use "friends" - they were classmates, schoolmates, friends met from school functions, the internet...) - how much they've changed, grown up. It's a weird feeling - it's as if they are strangers, who are they?

Okay, I admit, I've been looking through Friendster lah...so you get to see their pictures. Most were added because I've met them before, talked to them before...but are they still "friends" of mine now?

Looking through their pictures, they've got smiling faces of other people in their pictures. Where do you come in? So how are you their friend?

I happen to read the article, "Anatomy of friendship" in Clove (Star newspaper) and probably that one article on friendship triggered all these thoughts in the first place.


I quote from the article (random bits lah):

Recent research concluded that at any time we have around 30 friends, six of whom we think of as close. Over a lifetime we will make almost 400 friends, but we will keep in touch with fewer than 10% of them. Almost 60% of us claim that our friendships are more important to us than career, money or family...


...It's very different for George, an old Etonian in his 50s, with a fat address book and enormous charm. As far as he is concerned, friendship is a club of seven men which was full by the time he was 23. They all share the same interests, they don't make emotional demands, and that's just the way he wants it. We all look for friends with whom we share some common ground, so that as our circumstances change, we're likely to meet new people we want to know. But it can be very difficult to tell, particularly if we live outside a small community, whether anyone is really interested in us or whether we matter to them at all.

Often, we don't know where we fit into friends' lives...


...Sasha is an academic in her 50s who had always assumed that her friends were utterly trustworthy, until she had a real crisis a few years ago...
...In the end, not a single one ever came with me, and it was a real shock. I felt so lonely.

"I look upon friendships very differently now. I don't think most people are really prepared to make an effort for anyone else. They're prepared to enjoy your company, and that's all."


...Anna, a full-time mother of three, thought she had a rich network of friends until her youngest child was born disabled.

"I assumed that when something went wrong, people would offer practical support, ask you out, arrive with meals. But they're embarrassed. If they ring, it's just to make a practical arrangement, like, 'When is the eldest coming to tea?' They ask if you're fine, and that's where it stops."

She thinks that friendships may have been different in the past. "People are so busy they don't really have time for it now. It's my parents' friends, people in their 70s, who are friends of the old school. They visit, they ask questions, they bring things. I think now I only ever had loads of acquaintances. Possibly that's what everyone has now."

It's noticeable that the people who are least disappointed with their friendships are either those who have never tested them, or those with the clearest understanding of what they are about. Sometimes that's because the friendships are rooted in the realities of their lives.


It's quite a lengthy article, two pages-worth (I can't seem to find the article online). I chose these few paragraphs because it made me think twice about my friends/friendships.

The club of seven sounds like what I have now.
*hehe*
However, I think we have one fall-out already.

Fair-weathered friends...I think it is quite true, that we have a lot of acquaintances but who are those who would really come to you when you have a crisis or when you're in trouble?

I've not personally had any life-changing crisis but I'm glad to know that I have friends who really care...who've been tried and tested.

*hehe*

Urm...I think.

I aspire to offer my friendship the old school way.

Some of you have been there when I cried, when I am faced with my personal "life crisis" (but not life-changing), when I'm sad, when I call up to ask for your company and you call me after all of that to follow-up on how I am.

I'm sorry if I didn't offer the same kind of support to you, but I am looking to change that this year. This doesn't mean I'm going to automatically be a doormat or a pushover...just want to put in more effort, for you to know how much your friendship means to me.

That is why that resolution is there.

To once again get to know people I've met in school, college, university and also at work.
We've all grown up and apart...sometimes it's not about being with old friends so that you can be yourself. "Yourself" may have changed since the last time they saw you and they may not recognise you.

I was wrong to think that I do not need effort when I go out with close friends...little do I know that those are the friendships that need even more nurturing, attention, love and effort to maintain.