Friends

Isn't friendship funny?

One of my friends (who shall remain nameless) remarked at how hard it was to make friends - which was a bit of a surprise as I'd always thought of him as someone with a most complete set of social skills, who didn't acquire more friends from choice, but that's a whole other subject. It did make me recall an observation from some novel - the name and author now fled to the dim recesses of memory alas - of how college/university is where you make all your close friends for life, and then carry them through with you, for better or worse.

I don't know about that, at all. I am doubtless atypical, but I can't believe that that relatively narrow period where you're nearly grown up and still open to the intense emotional tides of teenage years, is the be-all and end-all of fixing friendships. When I read it, it had a certain surface plausibility, but overall, no I don't think so.

I mean, look at those I'd count as good friends now - aside of the beloved dead - a guy I've known since school, a guy who I knew from the Net for 12 years before we ever shook hands, a woman I worked with for 3 months and since have become closer purely over the Net, a woman living in another continent who I met because she's partner to one of my wife's friends, a woman from the Net who I've only met once. From university years, well, no, not so much. And here where I'm living, hmm, not yet - perhaps one is forming with the guy in the next cubicle.

And really, what do I have in common with anything? Next to nothing really for the most part, except for a certain openness, a willingness to listen & talk, and trust.

Part of why I was thinking of this was watching Cat trying to strike up friendships here. It's something she seems to be very good at, at least with other women, and in England she formed quite a few friendships, a couple very strong and solid. Here, it seems much more of a struggle, and I wonder if there are cultural signals she is missing (or I am for that matter).

One of these in particular I think has hurt quite a bit - she found a woman at the quilting shop and struck up what seemed a pretty good friendship with her, to the point that we've had them over for lunch several times & attended one of their parties. After the woman lost her job, she seems to have just dropped Cat like a stone - no calls returned, no contact at all. They ran into each other at the quilting guild & she gave Cat some story about losing her number, so of course Cat gave her the phone number again, and since then, more nothing. You'd think Cat had done something to deeply offend, and may be so, but if it is, she has no clue as to what it might be, & nor do I.

Just one of those mysteries we have to live with, I suppose, like how George Bush got elected (that is, you may someday be able to explain it logically but it will never make sense).

OK, not really going anywhere with this so much as just musing about it all. All I really know is, keep your friends close, and damnation to your enemies*: the rest of the world can look after itself.


*That machiavellian thing about keeping your enemies closer is fine if you're a good hand with a dagger or a poison ring a la Lucretia, but for the rest of us, it's actually terrible advice I think: it's become one of those commonplaces that are trotted out without any thought for what it's actually saying.