Friends

Hello again!

The snow has more or less melted, though it did snow yesterday again. Oh well I am sure it will come again, and it was fun while it lasted.

I'm a bit tired. It was a long weekend, but at least I like the socializing aspect of college.

What to talk about today? Any suggestions? I think we shall discuss friends and friendship.

There are many facets of this topic. I will only touch on a few and we may discuss more at a later date.

Guys and girls have different types of friendships. This is just how I see it so don't hate me for my opinion. The first type we shall explore is a girl to girl friendship. This is complicated because girls have different levels of friendship. It seems to me this would be a great time to define some terms. An acquittance is someone who we have met one or more times, but normally less than five. An acquittance is someone who we have had casual conversation with but have not completely connected with or have not had the chance to connect with. Then there is the grey area. The area of we have been thrown in the same situation a lot but have not connected. Girls tend to call this person a friend but not really mean it, there is no inflection in their voice when they say the word. These are girls we just know. We don't call them up to hangout, we don't even have their number. We just know them. That's really the best way to put it. Then their are friends. We have their number, we sometimes talk to them, we will do them little favors. We like them. They are nice.

Then we have true friends. Friends that mean everything to a girl. Best friends. Girls can have more than one of these. We tell them everything. They will know everything. They seem to complete us. We call that at the slightest sign of trouble. They are family. Their opinions matter. They have veto power. We love them. Hands down, drive five hundred miles to drink a bottle of wine when they broke up with a man love them. We will kill for them. We support them even if they are acting like an idiot. That is a girls best friend love.

Guys are different in my eyes. Guys have acquaintances, buddies and one or two best friends. Guys have acquittance's like girls do, but they don't put as much stock into what the acquaintances think of them as girls do. They stick to polite conversation until a topic they both like comes up and then this acquittance might move up to buddy status.

Guy to guy buddies are strange. They know little about them except what they have in common. They have buddies for different reasons. Like poker buddies, fishing buddies, gaming buddies, or football buddies. The conversation rarely goes beyond the subject that they have in common. Little is know about family or relationships. They all seem to be ok with it, so I am too. As I once heard "this is just how guys work".

There is normally one or two guys that have advanced past buddy and moved on to best friend. Best guy friends are hard to define. As a girl I am not completely sure how they work. I believe they are closer than girlfriends if at all possible. They protect secrets to the bitter end. They know everything, they say nothing. There is something mysterious about it that I like. I hope girlfriends are just as mysterious to guys.

Now the last way for friends is the guy/girl friend. This often leads to jealousy in their romantic relationships. Guys need this because it makes girls less of a mystery and girls need it so guys aren't as mysterious. Guys and girls sit on opposite sides of the fence for many topics but when they discuss it this fact is known and there isn't much fighting just discussion. They seem to be intellectual equals in most respects. They share the same interests and feel drawn to one another but are in no way attracted. Most guys don't have a great girl friend and most girls don't have a great guy friend, but there are a lucky few. I'm not sure why it works it just does.

That's a basic outline. It can go way deeper and I am sure we will at some point. Let me know your thoughts.

I will end on one of my thoughts. I have some of the best friends in the world, guys and girls. I am who I am because they have left their imprint on me. We can share ideas and respect each other when we disagree. In the end we can define our lives not by the hours we spent working, or the time we got off of work, or even in any form of time or length, but in who we were with, who we loved, and who we touched. This is the mark of a complete life, and while friends don't make your life they help define it. That is why we search out friends, so we know who we are, and we feel defined.

Ta ta