I think that a lot of people have their own personal ideal of friendship. It is always a construct of a person who somehow meets their every social need and requirement without really having their own face or identity. Rather like an automatic mannequin and our wish is his command. We all have, or have had, our fantasy friend. Recently online I read a post from a young twenty-eight year old man who moved to a major city of a Latin American country. In this post he said that he expected that the son of his homestay hosts, a man in his early thirties, would be showing him around the city, and then he would find real friends his own age. In other areas this same young fellow showed himself to be rather nice if shallow.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, I would say that this young man did show himself to be quite emotionally immature. As if he could only conceive of a personal friend being his own age. This is straight from high school. From junior high school. I would imagine that no matter how kind, agreeable and downright decent and interesting (yes, Gentle Reader, it is very possible to be simultaneously decent and interesting even if this should be as rare an occurrence as a full solar eclipse!) he would still discard them as possible friends because of age difference and perhaps they don't share certain interests in common. And yet they are going full out to welcome him, feed and house him, and protect his sorry little ass as he gets to know their country, and once they have outlived their usefulness of course he is going to discard them.
I have never done particularly well having friends my own age, with the exception of a Latin American who has proven to be a dear new friend. We were born the same year and there is a lot of goodwill between us. All the others are a bit older, or rather, and often, much younger than me. I don't plan it this way. I have never gone looking for friends who correspond to a certain set of categories. Ever since my teens my friends have been all over the map in terms of age, profession, social status, personality and background. These people have all done much to enrich my life. Very few have been the same age as me.
I have said elsewhere on this blog that friendship is a gift, and that the best, most enduring friendships consist of persons who almost daily give thanks for the privilege of having a friend. Without gratitude, respect and appreciation familiarity is going to breed contempt. Nobody owes us their friendship. We can only strive to be friends, good friends without expectation, and those who do not appreciate us will sooner or later disappear from our lives.
Very few of my friends ever remember me at Christmas or on my birthday? Does this hurt at times? Yes, a little, but not as much as it use to. They are no less friends and I still forgive them as I hope they will forgive me for not remembering them because often I don't and we continue to work with what we have got with each other. We strengthen the things that remain.
When you live alone and are very much alone in life as I am without family friendship becomes all the more important. But there is a trade off. I have to resist and overcome my hunger for family if I am going to be a good friend. This doesn't mean that friends do not or cannot become like family to me. On a certain level they are. But there are limits to what we can or will do and be for one another. There is always going to be a little bit of suffering, perhaps even a little bleeding. This is the work of love without which no friendship is possible.
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