Friends

I have been having a certain thought a lot lately. One of my better "friends" seems to be having it a lot recently too. Does our perception of what a real friend is change as we get older? Who are our "real" friends? I know as we get older our needs (I'm fighting to not use "" around all these words, lol) change and so do our personalities, so it's probably natural that friends we had as we were younger probably either outgrow us or we outgrow them.

Here's what I am talking about. It seems to me that I have no real true honest friends as I thought the term friend meant. I don't have someone that I can lean on any time I need anything and talk to about everything. I suppose my husband is my only real friend, but then he kind of has to be, lol. Anymore, to me the term friend seems to mean an acquaintance that you can tolerate and that you have anything in common with. A common interest or a hobby or heck, even something as minuet as how many siblings you have. I am talking about this now because a recently acquired "friend" has been down and a little depressed about how she has no real friends and actually thinks of my husband and I as the most normal (HAHA, you can tell she doesn't really know us yet) and friendly people she knows. She is having trouble with people asking her for everything and expecting her to do stuff, but then getting mad if she can't or won't for any reason at all, even good reasons, as if she had to have one to begin with. Or she gives and gives to them, but the first time she's in a pinch and needs something, no one is around. They just treat her like crap. It's sad really. But then I think about my situation. I have a few closer acquaintances who I think I care about, but really we never talk or hang out. After having kids and getting married, it seems they are even sparser (is that a word?) yet. We have no one to change babysitting duties with to have a date night. I don't have anyone that I just call up and say hey, how's it going, how's your life? Of course, I suppose I could at any time just do that, call them up. One of my "friends" seems to like to make arrangements with me and then something inevitably comes up (or should I say something better comes up) and we have to reschedule. Well, I made a rule for myself that after three reschedules, if they are not on my part, I kind of give up. It's obvious that whatever it is we are trying to do isn't important to them or they just aren't really wanting to do something and just keep trying for my benefit.

But then I wonder if it's me. Maybe I'M the one who isn't being a good friend. I'll ask sometimes when someone is sick how they are feeling, but do I really care? Honestly? Not always. And sometimes I hate to ask in case they actually do want to talk. If it's serious enough, yeah, I do care. But sometimes I just find it difficult to actually care when someone has migraines (or whatever ailment) and has to call off work twice a month. Obviously they are not dying from these or they would be going to the doctor to get it under control or fixed. So I stop asking. Then I seem like a horrible person when the same someone asks me how I'm doing after a day off, even if I wasn't off sick. So do you gain "friends" by being phony and just going through the motions of caring? And if so, are they really friends?

I realize this post makes me sound like a mean, uncaring, drab person, but I'm really not. I really do initially care when people are sick or hurt or something happens to someone in their family or when they get a new job/car/house/kid. And if someone asks me to help them move/feed animals/house sit/babysit, I will say yes. Unless I'm going to be gone of course. But even if I have something planned, I will still make arrangements to do whatever it is they need. I have two friends, who I've known for a long time, who keep asking to go out to lunch. Each and every time I tell them I'd love to, and that I work every single week of my life M-F, 8-5, and to tell me when THEY have time for lunch and we'll go. Then I never hear from them. Every time. Then they claim I didn't get back with them. Uh, I do believe every time you I ask I tell you what my schedule's like and to tell me when's good for you, but whatever. I want to ask them why bother asking me because it's obviously on their end that something isn't connecting, but yet I keep saying yes and I keep not hearing anything. When do you give up trying to be someone's friend. I kind of do, but then they contact me again and again I try to make some sort of relationship with them work. Can you be friends with someone who is just there? You don't really talk, you don't go anywhere, you don't.......relate anymore.

On the flip side, I have "friends" on internet space, like people I converse with on blogs and read about their lives. My little email group started getting together (through emails) about 2 1/2 - 3 years ago. It's interesting because we all were getting online to play a t.v. trivia game and we started collecting each other's email addresses so that we could contact one another to play with the online game at the same times. Then the game became defunct, I'd say about 2 years ago, and here we are still conversing almost every day on email about tv, politics, sending jokes and whatever else floats our boats. We are a really diverse group ranging in ages like 29ish (I'm one of the youngest) to I'd say mid 60's. Men and women. Single and married people. People with kids, people with grand kids, people without either. I'm actually close enough with a few of them to talk about really personal things. I'm almost closer to them than I am with my real life "friends." It's one of my many wonders.

So to all my "friends" in the world (real life and internet), I really do care about you (usually) and as I try to do, try to make it work if you really want to be friends. And to my friend that is down about her own "friends," don't give up, it will either get better, they will just fade away and you will make new friends or they will realize how crappy they are being to you and will clean up their act. I hope I am being a good friend to everyone.

And by the way.....

American Heritage Dictionary states that a friend is:
A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or

movement: friends of the clean air movement.

So I guess everyone I've described in this blog actually ARE friends.