“FRIENDS, HOW MANY OF US HAVE THEM?”
Whodini
Before I start, can I first mention the irony that the all the members of the group that penned one of hip hops most famous songs are no longer friends. Two of the three are still tight, but the friendship of the group is fractured.
The irony is really only in that they authored the song. The reality is that any adult can tell you friendship is an evolving concept during a lifetime. When we were kids, friendships were everything in our lives. We fought over and for friends and our days could be made or shattered by who chose to be or not be our friends.
Friends as teen and in your early twenties take on a different connation for many of us. Social media and social network are often used as the barometer for determining who our friends are. Facebook and its predecessor Myspace changed the game. All of a sudden people had hundreds then a thousand then thousands of people that they could claim were their friends. Do people even know the three to five thousand “friends” on their pages? I highly doubt it, but that doesn’t seem to be the point anyway. It’s like a race with no finish line. We never who wins, but no one wants to be the clear loser with a low amount of friends.
I admittedly may not be the most social person, but I find it a little difficult to believe that most people have thousands or even hundreds of friends. My cynicism may be a bit obvious, but in a world where likes and popularity seem to be added to the measuring stick of ones success, it is clear my priorities are all wrong.
I am unsure how many friends I have. My definition of friends is not necessarily black and white. Not everyone is a ride or die. Not everyone should know where the (figurative) bodies are buried and not everyone should be expected to give you the shirt off their back. Friends can serve different roles and not every friend should be expected to be all things. I have friends I share funny stories and jokes with. I have friends I talk to about financial matters, good and bad. Friends I shared the dementia of my mind before I decided it was actually worthy of public consumption.
I have friends that have been in my life for a really long time. Most of my friends I rarely speak to, cause the responsibilities of life, both mine and theirs, has made constant contact less a priority, but I still count them as friends. I told you my definition of friendship has changed over the years. The amount of people I speak to on a regular basis, who are familiar with the more intimate details of my life has grown smaller and smaller as I get older. It would be much larger if I had a personal Facebook page and other social media in which I shared my every thought, trip and meal, but I’m not there quite yet.
Under my newer definition I consider Lucky, one of my best friends. Sure he has four legs and cannot speak, but I am with him nearly every day and whether he likes it or not he is around for every mercurial life moment. The fact that I value and enjoy his company much more than many of his human counterparts is truly indicative of my people skills, or lack thereof. My relationship with Lucky also speaks to the simplicity of the relationships I seek as I have gotten older.
I do not look for my friends to be anything other than who they are as people. I like consistency and do not place expectations on people to be or do anything that doesn’t fit who they are. Death and taxes are not the only certainties in life. Friends will come and go in your life. The journey in life is never about certainties. Our priorities and life circumstances constantly change. Amidst the change, we are lucky if we maintain people in our lives that we can really count on. That number is never going to be in the thousands, but if you have at least one person that is always there, then you are one of those that can definitely say they have a real friend.
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