If you have noticed anything about the way I write it’s probably my use of quotes and links to articles and other information.  To keep up with this I’ll get those out of the way right off the bat:

“True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.” – Henry David Thoreau

And here’s the link: 15 things to know about the people in your life

Now that that is out of the way, let’s start.

I suck at keeping up friendships.  I have gotten worse and worse at dropping a line from time to time to say hi to people I care about.  I talk to the same 4 or 5 people online at work and hang out with the same 4 or 5 people outside of work because they are close by and it doesn’t require any real effort.  I have become complacent with hiding from communicating with my friends.  That’s a bunch of horse shit.  There is no reason I should feel like calling someone who I consider a good friend should be considered work or a bother.  I used to get angry with people who didn’t respond to im’s and phone calls because I felt like it was a personal thing against me.  I am the worlds biggest hypocrite.  I would love to be able to blame it on being busy or forgetting but I know that these are just excuses and cop outs.  Granted, some people have just grown apart and some were never really anything deeper than casual friends but there are plenty that I have just been slacking on when it comes to keeping in touch with and making an effort to see.

My pity party isn’t the real reason for this post, just a side thought that came from it.  What I really meant to talk about is that list of things to know about the people in your life.  Take 2 minutes to read it.  I’ll wait….

These are a list of things you should know about the people you consider close friends.  Not all 15 and not all your friends, but you can’t really say someone is your friend if you can’t rattle off the answer to at least 5 of those without thinking.  They might not be the exact answer word for word but you have a damn good guess.  You probably never asked any of those questions.  You probably never asked them a deep question about who they admire or what their biggest fear is.  You shouldn’t have to when you think about it.  These are the types of things you learn by listening to them when they say something.  You know what their favorite book is from the time you drove for 3 hours and talked the whole way.  They might have mentioned stuff about their childhood in passing but you remember it to this day because they said it with that tone in their voice, you know the one.

Do I expect anyone to send these questions around as a myspace survey to their BBF Jill? No.  At least I hope not.  Stuff like that is at the heart of this post.  I had touched on it before but I will do it again because it bears repeating.  Every time I look at someone’s myspace, facebook, pictures from parties,ect.. I see “friends”.  “Friends” are the people you see at parties and shows that you aren’t actually friends, just acquaintances you see semi-frequently.  Now I have nothing wrong with acquaintances or casual friends.  No one can keep up relationships with everyone they have ever met and some people just get along better when they only see and talk to each other every couple of weeks.  My beef is with “OMG!!!!! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!!” and “WE TOTALLY NEED TO HANG OUT SOON!”.  The reason it rubs me the wrong way is because 1. It’s fake and just for show.  2. It is an insult to your real friend, that you are probably ignoring/not putting the effort towards, who actually care about you.

As Michael Scott of Dunder Mifflin fame has proven, you can’t be best friends with everyone.  Trying to make everyone love you is a personality flaw.  My dad has it, I have it to an extent, and i can name plenty more people with it.  It’s not that you enjoy being liked, its the part where you have to give up part of who you are and what you feel to accommodate the next person just to get into their good graces.  The reason your best friend puts up with you is because they know all your faults and idiosyncrasies and they still like you for you.  It’s up to the other person to decide what they look for in a friend and if you fit that build or not.  When you become their definition of who you should be you give up what it means to be friends.  And what do you gain? A “friend”.  Collect them all.  They are about as useful in the grand scheme of things as knick knack on the shelf.  They look nice, they be taken down to play with now and then, but they don’t offer any substance or give back anything worthwhile.  They won’t be the ones you call when you need to talk to someone, they won’t go out of their way to make sure you are doing ok when you are going through a rough patch, and they certainly won’t have your back when push comes to shove.

This isn’t a dig on people who get over-excited when they see someone at a party or send them a comment saying they miss them.  This is just a friendly reminder that your real friends wouldn’t mind getting that same excitement or a message now and then.  We live in a time where it doesn’t cost anything but your time to call someone or send them a message from time to time.  If you know 4 or 5 of those question’s answers but really want to know more, maybe you should grab a bottle of something and spend a night playing quid pro quo, wake up the next morning with a headache and laugh about it.  Maybe you should go to the mall and just walk around and see where the topic turns.  I dunno, just take a day, couple of hours, a few minutes and just talk about whatever.  I guess what I am trying to say is don’t waste your time with “friends” unless you have put the time in with your friends first.