There has been some discussion amongst my friends about friendship recently.
As we are all ex-pats, there has been further discussion about how you go somewhere, make a bunch of friends and then they all bugger off and live somewhere else (frequently Minnesota for some reason).
The question then becomes "how long will you stay friends with these friends-in-absentia"?
One of my theories is that many friendships are struck up over common interests and shared experience. If that is all there is too it, then the intensity of the friendship will decay over time, perhaps in a fashion similar to that of a radioactive isotope decaying. Empirically, the half life of such a friend seems to be about 5 years. Any sustained separation longer than that without any intervals of refreshment seem to lead to an inevitable estrangement.
However you sometimes make friends where there is a meeting of the souls, or the sharing of an experience so profound that they become your friend forever.
It hasn't happened very often to me and it's these friends that I truly treasure.
I have been away from my home country for more than 5 years. Many of the good friends I had there have now become acquaintances. There are only 3 people left that I would still consider to be my good friends out of all those I left behind.
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6 comments:
So not just about hierarchies after all, then?
One day I will post typo-free...
hey, LottieP, I would have written about hierarchies but I was having trouble spelling the word.....
ho hum.....
Now you've given me something to copy I can give it a go.
Go on then...?
Well, there is Mr Maslow....
btw, you have infected me with your msyterious inability to leave a comment without a typo.
"Children maket the parents" indeed.
and Mr Maslow...?
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