faygate

Friendship

It’s been a funny few weeks. I’ve been thinking and preparing hard for a job interview at work and I’ve celebrated another birthday. This has led to me thinking about friendship and the bonds we make with people. Now I confess I’m probably not the best of friends to have, I’ve got a bit of a dark aura and I guess I’ve always been a bit of loner. However that doesn’t stop me enjoying other people’s company and maybe it’s time I made more effort.

Now you have to understand I moved around a lot as a teenager, so I didn’t really have a place I call home, and I don’t have any of those friendships that so many have from school days. It always puzzles me though that many of the people I’ve known in the past do not appear on places like facebook. Am I the only one who learned to use a computer in the early 90’s?

Now I’m not so naive to believe that any of the friends I had a school are the same as they were then. People change and I’ve changed, I’m definitely not the awkward boy I was twenty odd years ago, so maybe those friendships of yesteryear were doomed anyway.

Of course, I’ve got flickr contacts, facebook acquaintances and twitter followers. They are all lovely people I’m sure, but they are just people that appear on a computer and they have their own lives and their own ‘real’ friends and most of them live half way across the world! In some jealousy beautiful places, but still, half way across the planet!

So, my wife is my best friend. I spend more time in her company than anyone else. I probably drive her up the wall ;), but I don’t really have any greater bond than the one I have with her.

Recently though I believe I’ve made progress. I’ve spent some time lately with people I’ve known for various lengths of time, but maybe not that I’ve thought of as friends for one reason or another (define friend?), but I think it’s been really good for me. I hope they have enjoyed my company too! I’ve never been a blokley bloke, so maybe now that I’m older I’m finally finding the friendships I never had.

Still, now I have hopefully have some ‘real’ friends of me own. The next bit I need to work out, is how to hang on to those friendships. Any tips?