Building Friendships

Some people are just better at building lasting friendships than others. They tend to have certain character traits which really nurture long-term friendships. They are loyalty and sincerity.

Loyalty. Yeah, you may be friends with some one, but if you dont see them regularly and you do not reach out to them to meet up, its almost being unloyal (for lack of a better word). The two of you have already established that you have a connection, so it is only intuitive that you would want to hang out. Oftentimes however, I find that this doesnt happen. This could be a result of being irresponsible or forgetful, but out of the 24 hours of the day, everyday, you would think to eventually remember somebody. People flake though. I have trouble understanding it since as an extravert and all-around-social person, I value someone to talk to highly (as opposed to a keyboard jockey). Because of this, when I find a friend to be unloyal, its almost as if I feel like they dont value our friendship. I know this is untrue, but I cant empathize with flaky behavior because I am not this way.

Sincerity. I was good friends with this one person for about a year. They were one of the nicest guys you would ever meet. Even though our sense of humor and choice of friends were different, it was still very easy to relate. You can never really know someone after only a year, but I was pretty confident they would stick around and continue to be my friend even though we moved a little farther away, and didnt see each other as much.

Incorrect. I reached out to him, he didnt reciprocate. On top of this, he didnt push to meet up when I phoned him. Basically, he either doesnt want to be my friend, or he just doesnt care.

I can live with this... I mean, it was good being friends, but of course there are other cool people. But what I couldnt reconcile was how insincere he was. I mean, if you dont want to be someones friend, you need to send signals one way or another. Now dont get me wrong, I am sociable with many people; its my nature. However, if I dont see someone as being a real friend, and more of just an acquaintance, I'm not going to be overly friendly. For example, if they make a joke that isnt funny, I'm not going to fake laugh. Thats just insincere. Besides, you dont have to give them validation anyways. Moreover, this friend of mine had deceptional habits like these. Yes, it is fine; hes nice. Although it puts a curtain between reality and what you perceive he thinks of you. Its almost as if he was too weak of a person to show disinterest.

So loyalty and sincerity. Although these are crucial character traits for building lasting and legitimate friendships, there are other attributes. However, I think that in a true friendship, everything that goes well stems from the fact that loyalty and sincerity are present. For instance, my best friend has never been a guy to make me hysterical laughing. Our sense of humors overlap enough, but they are clearly different. We even disagree a lot. Although the true glue in our relationship, which has created a strong bond between us for about 10 years now (and we're both only 19), has been the honesty and real-ness of the friendship.

So, the take home message is dont sugar-coat your feelings and put up a front. Having a persona is normal but reveal your true self to people, so they know what they're getting.

Thats all folks.