When can you identify someone as a FRIEND?

2021^st BLOG POST

 

Well, two days back, the world again celebrated Friendship Day, a day I never understood why it’s so important to have because when we say “Friends”, it means we are anyway giving them enough moment of our lives. In case if we aren’t due to our personal/professional commitments, this day doesn’t bring any change to that. I was quite surprised when I didn’t receive any wishes from my friends or even the forwarded messages except 2-3 random messages here and there. I also didn’t see more than 2-3 people sharing anything about their friends on WhatsApp/Instagram etc. This tells that people have come beyond these manufactured days created by brands to sell their products and market their services.

 

Anyway, I recently experienced something which made me write this post and for a change, I didn’t want to write it on Friendship Day to avoid the cliché that I have mentioned above. Haha! If you must have read my initial posts about Friendship Day or friendship in general, I have always spoken against it. I still believe in whatever I had written earlier but I would like to add that Friendships which add value to your life are always great but not when it starts consuming most of your time or thoughts.

 

There are friends who literally want to be with you always and in the name of Friendship you give all your productive time to them realizing only later that all your worthy moments have been invested in this Friendship which has resulted only in frustration and nothing else. Similarly, there are friends who rather than giving us beautiful moments are so complicated that they are always in our thoughts. We keep on thinking about why they do what they do with us or anyone or even with themselves. I think such Friendships are indirectly toxic in nature which consume most of your mind disabling you to focus on anything else.

 

It has taken me a lot to understand how to identify who you really consider as a Friend though I am still struggling with it. How much time does it take to realize that an acquaintance is not only a familiar person to us but has become a Friend? And calling someone “Friend” is not a small thing because as far as I understand, friends are the extended family you choose for yourself. If anything goes wrong here, you can’t blame God or Destiny for this. You will have to take blame of getting subscribed to this pain and falsehood. Recently, a graduation classmate of mine couldn’t survive heart-attack. I wasn’t in talking terms with her for 12 years – right after the 1^st year of the course. Still, I felt to be there so I reached her home. Some of our classmates reached too. Now, I don’t know if I should be calling all of them as Friends because there hasn’t been neither much communication nor moments where we have shared any personal emotions together.

 

Later, when family members lifted the body for funeral, we chose to stand near her home for some more time before making the decision if we have to move towards funeral or leave for home. I observed how automatically my classmates started getting grouped with the people they were comfortable with and all of us formed small separate groups where each of them found the most comfort. And this happened considering the fact that not many even in the same group were regularly in touch but yes, these were the same groups as it was during college days. I found myself standing with a friend with whom my relationship has seen so many ups and downs that I don’t remember if I have had with anyone else. But when I saw us finding comfort in each other, it tells you somewhere that the bonding is more than just being classmates and this can be termed as Friendship irrespective of all the issues we had/have or will keep on having always.

 

I remember when I was in Hostel; this was around 16 years back. Well, it seems I am seriously aging now. Haha! So, there were two boys who had shifted here from UAE. They were schoolmates there but ended up having a very big fight post which they never even looked at each other. When they saw each other to be the only familiar faces sitting under the same roof 1000s of kilometers away from where they had come, they tucked away with each other and restarted everything as nothing was ever wrong between them. They even got shifted together in my room hence I got to know about this whole equation. This tells so much about Friendship that we can never understand when and how to term someone as our Friend because things keep on changing regularly with us. Yes, there are few people with whom it gets clear after a decade or two that these are our permanent people but with most of them, the question mark stays and will always keep arising. That’s the complexity of being human beings, isn’t it?

 

Any relationship continues only when the same level of curiosity is shown from both the sides. If only one person is putting the efforts or trying to drag it either because of genuine interest or doesn’t want to lose the person, it can’t get transformed into anything better irrespective of how much effort you put into it. Friendship is also similar and the toughest relationship to maintain because there are no bondages here which can make it difficult while leaving. Breaking marriage or family relationships are tough as you are associated on a different level altogether – you are either bonded by blood or rituals. Even after leaving each other, the hard stains are left behind which can never be cleared.

 

But with Friendship, you can choose to stop associating with the person as and when you want. No one will ask you what went wrong. Hence, maintaining such no-strings-attached kind of relationship is hardest to carry and in this fast and competitive world where all of us grow and fall in leaps, it’s tough to be at the same maturity level and bond with each other in the same foolish and funny manner with everyone for long. Hence, hard decisions are taken. Friends are chosen. They are dumped. They are again picked up and placed in our heart. And once again, kept away at good distance. And then you don’t know – if ever you guys can be Friends again or keep remembering each other from the same distance.

 

Well, that’s it. Thanks!

 

WRITING BUDDHA