My best friend, from way back in the 1st grade knows me better than anyone. He's one of those guys that makes you feel like he's your best friend after knowing him for 5 minutes. How he has put up with me this long I don't know. Maybe because we have been through so much together. Other than him, I don't really have other friends that I talk to regularly. All of my other friends I assume kinda know that I'm always there for them, but I'm not going to reach out to them. I've never really been that way. My whole life I've been more of a loner if anything. Hell, I write more in this blog than I actually ever tell people in person.
I don't think this is right and this isn't working ... I need to change.
But what do I do? Do I start talking with as many friends as possible at least once a week? Do I send out little text messages asking "hey, how you doing?" whenever I get free time? Do I go through all my Facebook friends and write on there walls telling them I'm still alive and thinking about them every once and while. Do I have a send a card for every friend on their birthday and send out a Christmas letter every winter?
I think all my friends are so used to not talking to me they might think something was wrong if I all of a sudden started communicating more.
I know that at the end of the day I have to start giving more of myself to my friends. That is the key, I just don't know how to do that.
Peace all
I'm right now finishing von Hildebrand's book titled: The Nature of Love. In it he talks about all sorts of love, including friendship. Some of the characteristics of love include feeling the value of the other person, his worth, and the desire and need of being loved in return, also feeling wanted. Friendship is a mutual thing. You can't force a friendship, and there is, among friends a certain feeling of fitting together.
ReplyDeleteLooking back, in my adult life I pursued those things which I felt worthwhile to do, for me volunteering to help others through some non-profit. Often I found others (and others found me) there as "fitting" in our thoughts, and we became friends, to some degree. At my work, I sometimes solicited "volunteers" to work on some non-profit project (manning the beer tent at the Fall Festival for the United Way generated lots of volunteers, as I recall). Some of these volunteers chose me as a friend, finding something in me they needed filled, and I liked them back.
You only have one spouse, and most people would say you only have one or two REAL friends, the ones who know you most intimately, and perhaps you them. That is not unusual, but the norm. Most other friends are really a social network. Man is not an island; we need community, friends. But, my friend, don't look for them as "a thing I'm supposed to have or to do," as a box to check off that "well, I've done that." Looking back, I think I first got married with that mindset. It didn't make for a good marriage, and force-finding friends won't necessarily make for good friends.