The dictionary defines a friend as a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
How does someone qualify as your friend?
Do you have to know them for a certain length of time before you award them the title?
Do you have to meet them in person?
Can you be friends with someone you never socialize with outside of a certain setting-- like your hairdresser or coworker?
What commonalities do you have to have with someone in order to be friends? Hobbies, philosophy, temperament, humor, politics, desires, dreams, outlook?
Do you have friends you've know all your life?
How many friends do you have?
Do you choose some people as your friends because they model what you want to be like?
I'm curious about the nature of your friendships. Tell me about their alchemy and composition.
HARD!
How does someone qualify as your friend?
We have something in common that has meaning, and almost always, we share a sense of humor.
Do you have to know them for a certain length of time before you award them the title?
Well, usually more than a day, but I've met people and KNOWN that I'm going to be good friends with them instinctively.
Do you have to meet them in person? No
Can you be friends with someone you never socialize with outside of a certain setting-- like your hairdresser or coworker?
Not easily, no. There has to be sharing of a more intimate level.
What commonalities do you have to have with someone in order to be friends? Hobbies, philosophy, temperament, humor, politics, desires, dreams, outlook?
Any or all of the above :)
Do you have friends you've know all your life?
Well, I am still friends with a girl that was in my kindergarten class, but she and I didn't realize that fact until after we met and became friends in 8th grade (military brats). My oldest and best friend is from 7th grade, but she lives in Oregon and I live in Sweden, and since she moved away in the middle of 9th grade, I can count the number of times I've seen her on 2 hands...BUT every single time it's as if not a day has passed since we were last together.
How many friends do you have? I have a lot of friends. I'm good at friends :)
Do you choose some people as your friends because they model what you want to be like? Yes, I do. But I believe that one can't be friends with someone that doesn't want to be friends back on some level.
Posted by: lizardek | Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 02:21 PM
I'll be a great friend in five minutes, if you have a sense of humour and something that draws me to you.
There are diferent levels, though- deep friendships, almost family- last lifetimes- you just grow up with the same spheres of reference, normal friends- people you see, off and on, they reflect you narcissistically, so-called friends- my child is friends with your child friends, and finally, fb friends. People you once knew, but don't anymore.
Oh, and blogging friends!
All you lovely people who don't really exist!
Love you guys.
Posted by: Scott | Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 03:15 PM
They need to have a sense of humor and appreciate my sense of humor.
No. I knew that Keem and I would be friends the minute I saw she was reading a book about vampires. Which led to a discussion about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which led to 8 years of me driving her crazy. It took me a little longer to get to know Beth but 7 1/2 years of driving her crazy. I met them both at work.
No. I consider you a friend.
Um, maybe. I know that I meet people that I miss terribly when they move on to other jobs (hot Denny's waiter the most) but I don't know that I'd say we're friends, exactly.
Humor is a big one. The ability to laugh at themselves is huge. Religion isn't that big of deal to me, most of my friends are atheists. But they still respect my beliefs. I think the best quality of my friends is their unwavering loyalty and their irreverence towards everything.
No. I did but I outgrew them. Or they outgrew me. Or we just drifted apart.
3 major ones (counting my sister) and lots of important ones but ones I don't see all the time (or at all if you count you).
Yes and no. I appreciate both Keem and Beth's organization skills and their logic but don't necessarily want to be logical.
Is this the longest comment ever? Probably. Great post, Sheryl, really starts a good discussion!
Posted by: DM | Friday, March 27, 2009 at 04:18 PM
How does someone qualify as your friend?
My true friends are far and few between. They are the ones who I innately trust with my deepest, darkest secrets, and they innately trust me with theirs. I have a lot of lighter-weight friends, and these are usually the people who make me laugh and I like to hang out with. We typically have something in common, and I care about them more than I care about the random stranger who makes me laugh.
Do you have to know them for a certain length of time before you award them the title?
Nope. My best friend Laurel? Knew her for about 3 minutes before I knew she would be in my heart and life forever. Others I've known for 25 years and am still not sure of.
Do you have to meet them in person?
No, I have online friends who I've never met, but who I care about as if they live next door to me.
Can you be friends with someone you never socialize with outside of a certain setting-- like your hairdresser or coworker?
Yes, I call these people "situational friends." I often get close to my coworkers, and I've kept in touch with quite a few over the years. However, when we stop working together and having that daily contact, the closeness disappears.
What commonalities do you have to have with someone in order to be friends? Hobbies, philosophy, temperament, humor, politics, desires, dreams, outlook?
Usually some activity, philosophy or outlook.
Do you have friends you've know all your life?
One.
How many friends do you have?
One very close friend. Three or four friends on the fringe of that. Several work friends, casual friends and dozens of acquaintances with whom I have casual, brief conversations. Oh, and about 300 facebook friends.
Do you choose some people as your friends because they model what you want to be like?
In someways yes. I've never wanted to be a clone of someone, but I think there's no better way to change an aspect of your life than to hang around with someone you admire for the qualities you'd like to have yourself.
Posted by: Lynn @ human, being | Monday, March 30, 2009 at 08:43 PM
How does someone qualify as your friend? I think this varies from relationship to relationship. I highly value loyalty and familiarity.
Do you have to know them for a certain length of time before you award them the title? No. I have to feel a kinship with them, though, and that generally takes time.
Do you have to meet them in person? Hm. I don't know.
Can you be friends with someone you never socialize with outside of a certain setting-- like your hairdresser or coworker? I think this works for some people, but not for me.
What commonalities do you have to have with someone in order to be friends? Hobbies, philosophy, temperament, humor, politics, desires, dreams, outlook? Again, this varies from relationship to relationship. I generally just feel that there needs to be respect and interest.
Do you have friends you've know all your life? No. I have friends I've known since elementary school, though.
How many friends do you have? Not many, probably fewer than a dozen total. My husband is much more social than I am.
Do you choose some people as your friends because they model what you want to be like? Not really.
Posted by: Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com | Wednesday, April 01, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Great post. Friendship is mysterious. Reading your questions, I was tempted to answer them one by one, but then realized that would be a book . . . . what was interesting in my instinctive responses was the sense that my answers are conditioned by the way I was raised by my mother. She had such a strange way of making friends quite quickly and NEVER keeping them. For me, therefore, I always ask myself: "Is this a real connection I'm experiencing, or should I be wary? Am I projecting? Why do I like or trust this person?" I tend not to let myself trust a feeling of interest and commonality that is quickly achieved with another person.
And there is another side to this. Unlike many of my friends whose social circle seems coherent and wholly representative of who they are, my social circle is very uncircular and very motley. I have many friends in academia and I have some friends from who never made it through high school. I have leftist commie pinkie friends and straight-laced conservative friends. Of course they're different sorts of friendships, but in so many different kinds of frienship, I can be led down the path of feeling that a particular person is "it." I'm a susceptible person.
I think how one develops friendships, nurtures them, and keeps them, speaks so much to the type of person one is. And I guess you could say I value loyalty, in myself and others, because I so dislike the feeling of a seemingly rich friendship going "poof" and turning into nothing. But then, why shouldn't that be okay? Life experiences are like that -- we learn from them, and we move on. Why shouldn't people be part of that changing process as well, without my needing to "judge" who and what they are to me for all time?
I think you've just given me fodder for my next blog post. Thanks, Sheryl.
Posted by: Eva Robertson | Thursday, April 09, 2009 at 07:42 PM