Friendship

I consider myself to have alot of friends.  Some of those friends I see on a regular basis, some of them I see once a year.  I actually haven't seen certain friends in about 10 years.  But they're still my friends.  We pick up where we left off.  We message and comment on facebook (the amazing tool that it is).  I care about their lives and they care about mine, at whatever level that may be.  And that's ok.

I know what some of you are thinking...how can you be friends with someone if you haven't seen them in months or years?  Or how can you be friends with someone you've maybe NEVER met in person (gasp)?

My simple philosophy is to keep a very broad definition of friendship.  Don't place unreasonable expectations on your friends, or you may be disappointed.  Do you know why some people feel they have no friends or very little friends?  Because they put expectations on their relationships, which, in turn, narrows their definition of what a friend is to them.  The more expectations, the more narrow the view.  Only a few people can fit into their idea of friendship, and the ones who do fit are sure to disappoint along the way, leaving the person feeling alone and friendless.  What makes us put unreasonable expectations on our relationships?  That could have a number of different answers, but I tend to think we do this when we are trying to fill a need we have.  It is very hard to maintain a strong friendship with someone when you are not a "complete person" yourself - especially if you expect that person to fill a certain void in you.

Several years ago someone said to me, "I have absolutely no friends.", which I thought was a ridiculous thing to say, especially knowing this person had SO many people who cared for them (and think how I felt after hearing that, since I considered myself to be their friend).  This week it came back to my mind, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on friendship.


Broaden your definition of friendship and you'll have more friends.  Care about people on many different levels and they will care about you.  :)