One gloomy night not long ago, a husband and wife lay in bed rehearsing the many close friends who had left their lives behind from the past few years to the present. The husband said, “I have not taken anyone under my wings like I did with that guy. I make time to meet him once a week to chat, share laughter, drink coffee and pray with him.”
The wife said, her voice cracking: “When I greet her these days, she acts like she doesn’t listen to me. In fact, she started taking her break at a different time just to avoid seeing me at work. I saw her the other day. and another lady talking, and when I got closer, they stopped talking. I felt like they were talking about me. Anyway, it’s okay. I will still love her, talking to her even if she doesn’t answer me. That’s all I can do. I love her. “
“Every time one more friendship hits the bin, I feel like someone rescuing and raising a tiger only to be attacked by that tiger as an adult. You know, honey, I don’t know what will happen before you.” and finally I learn our lesson and stop dedicating so much of ourselves to friends who are going nowhere, “replied the husband with much apathy in his tone.” We have been disappointed so many times. It may be something for us. We may just not understand this culture, even though we’ve been in this country for more than a decade. “
The wife said, “At home, once you find a friend, you have a friend, but here it’s like it’s no big deal. They just cut up and you have no idea why.”
Her husband interrupts, “Honey, you know something, I’m in my 40s, and when it comes to friends, I only have two right now: Amy and Rick.”
Amy is his wife’s name and Rick is his friend since high school.
After a few more lines of conversation peppered with periods of silence, the couple held hands, winding their day to a quiet end, while much-needed sleep slowly overwhelmed their weary bodies and weary minds. Not a good way to end a day, but …
Like many people who value the human experience known as friendship, this couple needs to learn that there are two more unpredictable things in life: the stock market and people. Of the two, you can make a living forecasting the market. As for predicting people, well, it’s a losers race.
We can all alleviate dead-end relationships and shattered friendships a bit once we understand that not all friendships are the same. Looking back at friendships in my own life, I can say with some degree of certainty that friends come in five basic brands: casual, temporary, seasonal, intermittent, and permanent.
1. Casual Friend: That’s your tap-and-go friendship. The hello-hello type, just one step beyond a stranger or acquaintance. You exchange smiles from time to time when your paths cross, but that’s all with a casual friendship.
2. Temporary friend: As you may have guessed, this type of friendship is short-lived. It begins with nothing special and ends that way, in a relatively short period of time, although “temporary” it could be a year or more before one or both friends call it quits.
3. Seasonal friend: This is the friendship that was likely triggered by a special event, a moment of crisis, or a transition in the life of at least one of the two people involved. It could be the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a natural disaster, a puncture in the road, or any other event that marks a crisis or transition in life. A seasonal friendship tends to end when one or both people go through that transition period. Friendship has served its purpose and it only makes sense to draw the curtain. If you try to force the continuation of that friendship, the relationship may actually be strained beyond the pain of a broken friendship; you could make an enemy of your old friend. You better let it go.
What hurts the most about temporary and seasonal friendships is how abruptly they often end. Often times, the person cuts himself without warning or explanation. You ask the person, “What happened? What did I do wrong? How can we fix this?” And he or she says, “Nothing. There’s nothing to talk about. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s time we went our separate ways.”
And you want to say, “Say what? After everything we’ve been through? After all these years and all the time we’ve invested in this relationship? Is this it? This is how it ends? Don’t you remember? ? Have you forgotten? “
Sometimes it is much worse than that. Your once good friend may start slandering you, starting and spreading the nastiest kinds of gossip and rumors about your character, saying crude and cruel things about you. What would be more bearable if the former friend let you know why the relationship ended. But you have to guess from the suggestions left here, there and there. You should get used to not expecting or receiving explanations. This world can be a jungle and people can be the beasts.
What strikes me, knowing something about human nature, is that we are often surprised that a friendship that we thought would last forever suddenly stops. Look at it this way: if the seed from your loins, the embryo from your uterus can come into this world, eat your food, sleep under your roof and in your bed, play with toys you bought or made, go to school on su dime or in your car, accept and enjoy your birthday gifts and graduation gifts throughout the years etc, and come into adulthood only to abandon you and separate you from your life, as if you never knew of Adam, why be amazed when a friend with whom you did not share any blood connection, suddenly or gradually moves away from your life? Welcome to the real world. Get used to it, my now friend.
4. Intermittent friend: “Intermittent” describes something that starts and stops at intervals. “Intermittent” means periodic. It means “on and off”.
Our family enjoys an on-and-off friendship with one lady in particular. Let’s call her Lady. She is our daughter’s godmother. We can meet her at the store or at a community meeting. My wife and I sometimes express our mutual guilt for not keeping in touch with this dear lady more often. But it rarely touches us. Recently, I surprised Lady with a visit to her home; we talked and laughed for hours.
There is a time in the year when our family can bet on seeing Lady at our house: the night before our daughter’s birthday (which is also our son’s birthday). His tradition for the past few years has been to come with an envelope containing a birthday card, which has money in it, the amount equal to the age of his goddaughter. (Also bring one for our son). Every time we meet Lady, whether at our doorstep, at her home or somewhere in the community, it is as if we have become friends with her again. This on-and-off friendship is one of the most precious relationships we know of. Yes, it is intermittent, but we know that it is still there, and each time we meet Lady, the encounter shows that our friendship with her is still alive and well.
What is really good, or perhaps strange, about this relationship is that neither Harriet (who is my wife) nor I can exclusively claim Lady as “my friend.” Isn’t that weird? Lady is friends with both of us, Harriet and me. She is “our friend”, our intermittent friend.
5. Permanent friend: Life can hardly be better than a long-lasting, lifelong relationship with a true friend, with whom you are in contact regularly, almost weekly, if not more regularly.
A permanent friendship can begin while two students are in elementary school. The journey never ends. One is there when the other gets their first job. One serves as a bridesmaid or best man at the other’s wedding. When one moves into an apartment or house of his own, the other is there, or knows the day and time of the big move. So this strange form of friendship continues until the “ship” passes a hospital or some other sickbed, and finally reaches the port of a funeral home. From there, a still faithful but fragile friend follows his friend to say one last goodbye to a cemetery on the outskirts of the city.
Blessed is the soul that has one of those jewels of a friend, a permanent friend, especially if that golden friend is someone outside of one’s family circle. But if you find a family member as a permanent friend, you’d better bring him along. Life no longer produces much of that brand.
