Friendships

Jul 26 05:20 UTC 1998

How do you make friends? What makes a friend? How can YOU be a friend? Where
does someone who, say, is in their mid-20s and single meet new people? How do
you end a friendship (a big issue for me right now)? It's something we take for
granted, but making new friends seems quite difficult. As does sustaining them.

response 2 of 78:

Jul 26 07:57 UTC 1998

  You can count your real friends on one hand. If you have 10 good friends
by the time you die, you're doing well. I've never had many friends. I was
so unpopular as a child, I had to bribe the dog to get any attention out of
him. I don't want to turn this into a comedy schtick, but when I think about
how many true friends I have right now, I want to cry, because I have maybe
1.

response 4 of 78:

Jul 26 12:30 UTC 1998

I'm attracted to interesting people who have a good sense of
humor and are willing to risk being honest.  Oh, I don't tend
to invest in high-maintenance needy personality types either.
I give at the office.

response 6 of 78:

Jul 26 16:02 UTC 1998

I know what you mean, Bees.  I have trouble making friends, too.  Like Scott,
I found that it became easier when I started joining organizations.  I've been
told that when people first meet me, they think I'm stuckup, though my close
friends find that hard to believe.  But being a part of an organization helps
because you get to see the same people over and over again and "check them
out" quietly until you feel comfortable being yourself.  

Also, pratapw has a point.  The more you show your true self, the more people
warm up to you.  (Assuming your reasl self isn't obnoxious.)  Of course,
that's a very hard thing to just do -- it takes practice and a lot of "acting"
at first.  If you act like you believe your someone people will want to get
to know (embarrassing at first -- but it doesn't look that way from the
outside) people react to you as though you're someone they want to know.  The
longer you do it, the more natural it becomes.

Another problem I've had is that I'm a social chameleon -- I act differently
with different friends. That made it a real headache when I met friends from
different social circles unexpectedly.  As I've gotten older, I've gotten more
secure in just acting how I felt at the time and that seems to be OK -- but
I don't think I could have done it as a teenager.  I wasn't sure enough of
who I was.  (That social chameleon thing made it *really* important to choose
my friends carefully, though.)

response 8 of 78:

Jul 26 17:28 UTC 1998

As one gets older one gets more involved in one's own family and affairs,
and has less time for activities with friends. So as time goes on I think
that, on the average, one may have a lot of acquaintances, and
acquaintances having mutual admirations, but the number of close friends -
people with whom one shares close confidences, drops. Especially among
men, from my observations. Women seem to be more sharing (also on the
average) and hence retain more close friends. 

response 10 of 78:

Jul 26 19:37 UTC 1998

It's true, Misti - I had a very enjoyable cup of tea with you last fall.  =)

response 12 of 78:

Jul 26 22:35 UTC 1998

I've heard some shy people come across as "stuckup" when you first meet them
because their hesitance at speaking at length with someone gets interpreted
as snobbishness instead of fear.

response 14 of 78:

Jul 27 02:50 UTC 1998

Yep that is one thing I need to do, listen more and listen better. I tune out a
lot without meaning to. Someone could be chatting away to me, and though I am
nodding and responding, if you asked me five minutes later what we talked about
I couldn't tell you. 

I do have a friend whom I met at a Christmas party last year (which oddly
enough I almost decided not to go to). She is very talkative and not the best
of listeners... she constantly interrupts me... but I still like the company
and we have a great time and can talk about 2000 topics in an hour. She has a
new boyfriend and yaks about him, but oddly enough it doesn't annoy or irritate
me in the least. I bond pretty quickly with talkative, approachable people. I
like shy people too, but sometimes the effort of chipping away at a person to
get to know them can be exhausting. I think in some ways that is my problem.

response 16 of 78:

Jul 27 16:14 UTC 1998

This item is now linked to oathbound. :)

response 18 of 78:

Jul 28 02:05 UTC 1998

I think you'll all seem to have a very different definition of a
friend. I don't think you need to be particularly sociable  of
attractive in order to make friends. When you involve yourself in
friendship all that you have to do is to commit yourself *without*
expecting anything from the other. I know this is difficult.But once you
accept this, you really learn a lot. You need not go to organizations
and such stuff. Everything lies *within you*. You can make the
difference.

response 20 of 78:

Jul 28 15:01 UTC 1998

Vikram, your definition is a lovely one -- but one needs to find people with
whom one is comfortable before friendship of any sort is possible.  People
who extend your sort of friendship too freely are likely to be taken advantage
of in large twons in the US.

response 22 of 78:

Jul 28 18:05 UTC 1998

right now I have one quasi-good friend, one former good friend <just
cause I never see him>, and one person that I can no longer think of as
a friend <even though up until 3 months ago he was one of the best>

As far as I can tell my best strategy for meeting people/friends is to
sit there, not say anything, and run away whenever anyone tries to talk
to me.

It may not work, but it keeps me relatively safe.

response 24 of 78:

Jul 28 19:23 UTC 1998

some of teh best friendships are the truly random occurances..
like the friend who I made by noticing taht she was drawing a celtic knot ..so
I hopped off my bunk, introduced myself..and 4 yers later, she's spending the
summer with me..
then there's the other girl who started out beating my up in 2nd grade, and
10 years later, we're still really good friends..

don't ask for a moral on that little rant tho :)