Friends, many or few, short or tall, cool or nerdy, but we all have them. Beyond the nuclear family and the significant other, friends are often the closest people to us today. This dialog from the TV show Spaced puts it aptly: "they say the family of the twenty-first century is made up of friends, not relatives".
However most of us never consciously think about how we go about making friends? how does it happen really.
It is pretty much common knowledge that we make friends with people whom we interact often, meaningfully or with purpose and have common interests and values. But given these preconditions, how does friendship form? Any connection between two people would require the initiation of a connection by one party and its subsequent acceptance by the other.
In romantic relationships the roles of initiator-acceptor have hitherto been socially mandated with the man initiating and the woman accepting. With friendships however, there is no clear norm. Do some people tend to go out and make friends? while others tend to accept the friendship of people who want to be their friend?
What does this mean with respect to their personality?
This author realizes that he might be one of the latter, since he doesn't remember having made friends (barring a few friend requests on facebook) and wonders what it all means.
Interesting post. Whether you're the initiator or acceptor definitely says something about one's personality. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I rarely go out of my way to introduce myself to people and such, but then again I have trouble just "accepting" someone's company because I get bored easily if I'm not on the same "wavelength" as the person I'm talking to.
ReplyDeleteI also think how my friendships were formed has varied over the different phases of my life. I feel that in school and college, there is often a wide range of people to choose from. Friendships at that stage in life aren't really "need-based", but one hangs out with people who think similarly, have similar personalities, etc. With time though, friendships are often formed only with the people "who are thrown in together" - colleagues, roommates... As I've grown older, I've certainly had trouble making new friends and most people I know today are people that I either worked with or some such - as in, it wasn't necessarily a choice but a mutual need for company. I guess I sound a bit cynical here..
Wow, that comment is almost as long as your post. Brevity is really not my forte..
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