The evolution of many types of friends
Recently, I received a call from a friend with whom I hadn’t spoken in quite some time. This particular buddy is one of those rare friends with whom I struck an almost instant rapport when we first met. All through college, we never really hung out together, except for one weekend during a summer, in St. Louis of all places. However, from one weekend I was able to judge that he would make a good roommate. When I heard he was moving to California, I followed my instincts and was not disappointed. Our friendship worked because our personalities meshed well without clashing and we both had a good time hanging out together. We weren’t the closest of friends, but we were more than mere acquaintances, and his call served to remind me that friendship takes many forms.
Calling someone your friend rarely lends to an accurate description of your relationship with that person. Most of us have our close friends and then our wider circle of friends. Even among closer friends, the basis of the relationship and its success can be quite varied. My friend and I were an example of two people with easily compatible personalities. However, sometimes people with the most incongruent of personalities will be the closest of friends due to a bond of a common experience. In fact, many friendships are formed through the bond of a common experience. For me this best describes my friends from my childhood.
Growing up in a rural area, my childhood friends and I have known each other literally all our lives. It’s been almost ten years since we lived among each other, yet we are still able to effortlessly recreate that atmosphere when we do reunite, drawing on the two decades of common experience in our formative years. We all have those kinds of friends. They form a constant in our lives. My friends and I have all changed since those days; but for those times when we see each other, it provides a chance to relive our simpler days and be our simpler selves. Yet, sometimes, when I’m with them I want to stand on a table and yell for them that I’m not the same guy I was then and never will be. Inevitably, we all change. Thus, friendship based solely upon a common experience is always limited by that experience and as time passes that common experience becomes less relevant.
Forming a friendship from a common experience or because of a common personality often works well, but it works best as a start. Everything evolves. If you left college without changing, without applying your experience here to yourself; then your time here would have been wasted, your experience rendered useless. Likewise, if a friendship remains static, then there is no exchange of ideas and experiences that marks a good relationship. If you’ve ever known a couple that has been married for a long time, you’ve probably noticed that they had similar personalities and mannerism. This has occurred after years of mutual exchange of personalities.
You may think, though, what kind of friend is it for which I have to change? That thought misses the point, for you’re not giving up part of your personality but gaining from the strengths for your friend’s. This is the exchange that marks a good friendship. You grow to acquire the best of their qualities and they the best of yours. Thus, the highest quality of friend is not just that whom reflects upon us, but who is reflected in us.
My closest friends inspire me to change; they make me want to be better, and the best of friends are those who change with you. However, such friendships take time and commitment, and even with such input, the evolution of good friendship is not guaranteed. So, when such a moment arrives, where I feel a stirring in my heart, however subtle, of growth and the subsequent realization of the quality of a friendship that has been formed, it is at those sweet moments that I cherish.
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