I wanted to take tonight to talk about friendships both personal and professional. When you start out in school, you think everyone is your friend. As you progress into your later scholastic years you either have a close circuit of friends or clique, or you are part of many groups in the confines of the school. In college you have a new set of friends. Some are in Fraternities or Sorrorities while others find friends through classes or school clubs. Either way a lot of the friendships you created earlier in life have either been lost in the transitions or held together very tightly.
In my opinion it's not until you are in the real world that you realize who your true friends are in life. They could be current co-workers that you have known for years and spend a lot of time with. Others could be new business associates that you come across and find common ground to start building a friendship on. In some cases the friends you made along your journey through school are still going strong; even hundreds of miles away.
I have found that there are some people that want to be fake friends and fairweather friends. Fairweather friends are people that come around when it is convienent for them. Due to social media, there are now a multitude of platforms for these people to reach out and contact someone. I myself, am one of those people where I will message people out of convience. It's nothing to be shameful about because we all do that now. Each day we read social status updates of people we follow or are friends with to find something we find amusing or interesting to talk about with each other. It helps us keep up to date on people that we do or did care about and provides us topics to talk about when we decide it is the right moment. In a way this is good and bad (but I will leave that for another topic for the future).
Onto the Fake Friends. Fake friends are people that are around just to use others for their own selfish benefit. They could be people that don't necessarily mean any harm but need something (advice, venting, guidance, money, or just around for the party). I have come to know many of these people in my life. Some were very trusted friends that got to know me pretty well, and when they got what they needed they left. Others releaized they weren't getting what they wanted out of the friendship and decided to depart from my life as well. Both of those are okay and I wish those people the best in their lives.
Finally there are True Friends. These are the people that are there for you no matter what. They are the people that go out of their way to help you, trust you with their lives, and are always looking out for others best interest. I can honestly say I am someone who values those traits in friends and have a good circle of close friends that I myself would trust with my life. I may know some of them for nearly 15 years, others that I knew when I moved away, some I worked with, and others I met as of this last year.
Regardless of who these people are, friends are the people that make every moment of life worth living. They share in the good times and bad. They provide inspiration and comfort. They are the shoulder you cry on or the people you share a great laugh with. I want to dedicate this post to all of those close friends and family that have always stood by me.
And on a side note, I would like to also post a link to my interview on the Anthony Charles Podcast this week. I hope you all enjoy and have a great night.
http://soundcloud.com/anthonycharlesofficial/episode-20-andrew-hess-author
I enjoyed this very much, I have been spending some times now blogging about the closest friends I've ever had in my life, and upon reflection I don't wonder which of each one fits into which category (if that made sense). I feel like if you've had a long enough friendship those people at some point in time will fit one of those and then change into another category. Some don't and always stay true, at least that's what I've seen in my life, maybe it's just the company I've kept and what I've life my life as.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement for the most part. I have had a couple of friends that have always stayed true to me as well. Unfortunately there have been a lot of people that fell into the other categories and some that were true friends that fell into those categories. There have been a few who fluctuated between those groups as well. I think I should have clarified that during the post, but it was more designed to show the differences between the different types of friends.
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