What Are Friends For??

As I was walking home from work at 8:30pm today, this question kept slipping through my mind. What are friends for??

You choose your friends, not your family - and for many today, the former have become the most important people in their lives. But are you sure your friends really like you as much as you like them? And how do you know they will still be around in five years' time?

For me, It has been a constant struggle. To keep friends. They come and go......One day you will find yourself enjoying each other's company, talking and hanging out till wee hours in the morning and swore to be friends forever and then the next thing you know, they just disappear. Vanished into thin air....and away from your life. No matter how many texts or emails you send or sent to them, your inbox remains empty. You can't help but wonder, what are friends for?

Sometimes I sit at home, feeling depressed and sad because me as a person treats everyone equally and I treat my friends sincerely. I lend a hand when they need help (sometimes too giving and they take things for granted) and I will be there when they need me . However, no matter how sincere I am as a person, my phone remains silent. Nobody cares or seem to care about me and when I call them up, they are always busy. So why?? Why the fuss??

Friendship has been given a special status in our society. It is contrasted with all those relationships over which we have so little control; the families we can't change, the neighbours who irritate us, the colleagues we have to put up with. Friends are thought of as the joyous, freely chosen part of our lives, and it's assumed that those relationships are always pleasurable. If asked how you're spending the weekend and you say staying in or seeing your family or your colleagues, people may think you're a little sad. Say you're seeing friends and there's an assumption that you too are desirable, connected.

This is particularly true when one of my friends commented on the way I lead my life. He said am anti-social and lazy just because.....I don't go to clubs (because I don't like to) and that I don't drink but I enjoy books, I enjoy window shopping, I enjoy spending time with family and enjoy spending time alone after 13 hours of work. They seem to think I am sad and that I have no life and have the impression that I never hang out with friends (which i bloody do!)...Just not at clubs. If they are truly friends, why judge me as a person? And why not just accept me for who I am?

Start talking to people about friendship and it becomes clear that while people value it and seek it, there is also much confusion, hesitancy and disappointment about friends in many people's lives. Friendship is one of those areas full of hidden assumptions and unspoken rules. We only discover that our friendship doesn't mean what we think it does when those assumptions clash.

There is no agreement about what friendship involves, or what to do if it goes sour. No one would dream of suggesting to a friend that they start seeing a friends' guidance counsellor to talk about the dynamics of their failing relationship. When things go wrong, we very rarely challenge our friends. That's because friendship is often a delicate affair and we don't want to tax it with too many demands. It's more common to absorb the hurt, and retreat. After all, there is no contract. The terms are unwritten, and nobody ever makes them explicit.

Most of us feel a certain pride about our friends, pleased that they have chosen us, and that we have chosen them. We tend to believe that they reflect some important truths about who we are. Yet making friends isn't an exercise in free choice, any more than buying a house is. We buy houses according to what we can afford, what happens to be on the market when we're looking, and whether a capricious owner decides to accept our offer. Friendship is rather similar. We can only choose our friends from among the people we meet, in circumstances where making a friendly overture would be appropriate, and who show a reciprocal interest in knowing us.

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. So why?? Why do we put so much importance on friends when you know you are going to lose them one day. Why? Why do we get upset over friends?

Is it because friends make us feel belonged? Connected? A need? Why?

It isn't easy, because friendship is a subtle dance, and no one wants to be explicitly pursued when it's unwelcome, or explicitly dropped when they are not wanted. Nor does it come with any guarantees. People are unpredictable. But we need to play the game of friendship as long as we are still alive and breathing..................