How To Make A Friend

 A description of a friend might include an alter ego, an amigo, a buddy, a chum, a compadre, a comrade, a confidant, a crony, a familiar, an intimate, a mate, a musketeer, or a pal

Or perhaps an acquaintance, an associate, a cohort, a colleague, a companion, a fellow, a hearty, a hobnobber, a partner, a peer, a sport; a brother, a main man, an accomplice, a ally, a collaborator, a confederate; a pen pal, a benefactor, a supporter, a sympathizer, or a well-wisher.

Friends can also be an adversary, an antagonist, a competitor, an opponent, a rival and even a nemesis.

Some friendships continue through the ages and some fade away. Some can be reunited through technology and some will never happen again. Some are remembered and some are gone.

Here are some hints some say work to ‘make a friend’.

1. Follow your intuition. At any time or any place when you walk into a room you cannot help but scan the room. A face or stance or a look might attract your attention. Follow your intuition to introduce yourself to the person who has interested you. It may be only a physical attraction but it may turn into a friendship.

2. Engage your passion. Paint or play music or run or go to the gym and sooner or later your will find someone who also engages in the same passion. That may create a friendship.

3. Buy a puppy. If you really want to meet someone, get a puppy. I don’t recommend buying a puppy with all the shelter alternatives, but a puppy, unlike a cat, will bring the others to your door. Guaranteed. Pups are chick magnets. Dogs are a mans best friend, but when you are shouting at the television over a field goal, your dog will just look at your and smile.

4. Start a hobby. Hobbies are those fun things we like to do but you can also find a friend. Whether it is art or dancing or whatever turns you on, there is a group out there who also enjoy theses things. Taking a painting class or cooking class or go to the gym and you will meet others who enjoy the same things. It may be the passion or just a class; you share the attempt and may form a friendship.

5. Widen your age-range view. Sounds easy but then again a younger or perhaps older friend could be easy to get along with. As we age, age does not make as much difference as it did in our youth. Besides, a different focus on certain subjects may for an interesting friendship.

6. Build a community garden. Really? Well if you open up a plot of land and dig it up and put some greens in and water it and trim it and guess what. Other people will appreciate your effort and ask if they too can participate. Digging in the dirt is a great way to make a friend, whether it is human or animal.

7. Reconnect with people from your past. We all lose touch with old friends. They get married and focus on their families. They move away. They change their values or interest that once was. Yet the old bonds are still there. For whatever reasons, the reconnect can take place. We can be friends again.

8. If adventurous, use the Internet. There are lots of sites out there that can connect you with all kinds of “friends” who can be real or not real. Post some profiles and upload some pictures and hope for the best. Are you that desperate to make friends?

So to make a friend is just to be you and meet others in an un-stressful location and just see if there are any connections. If after a while you want to spend more time with this person, a friendship is starting.

A friend, a true friend, is someone you can sit quietly with in comfort. You do not need to entertain a friend or expect anything from a friend. A friend is like an old comfortable shoe. A friend has gone through enough experiences with you to offer assistance when needed and give advice when asked. A friend will laugh at your jokes and listen to your miseries. A friend will keep your secrets and won’t judge your actions.

Then there is that boyfriend/girlfriend thing. When a friend gets an emotional connection all values of friendship changes. 

I wrote that a number of years ago on an English website. I revisit the idea of friendship several times a year. Here is my update.

Where do friends come from? Other than family our first interaction with other kids is school. We are forced into conformity and start to relate with classmates by the color of our hair or similar names. We group in common areas like playgrounds and lunchrooms where we are free to talk freely with each other. We find the kids who go to the same church or live in the neighborhood or fathers work in similar industries or drive similar cars. We talk about family. We start forming teams and group activities and see some more than others. Of that lot we find a few who enjoy the same television shows or read the same books or laugh at the same jokes and thus friendships start.

As we grow our interest change as do our friends. Some adapt to the changes and stay with us but what holds us together is school.

Then romance hits our lives and the value of our friends shift on the priority list.

Our associations become more restrictive to qualify who can join and who cannot. We start to recognize discrimination and status inequality.

College breaks up many connections as friends go to different schools or travel out of state. Holidays are reasons to gather together again and compare new experiences while old reasons for friendships begin to fade.

Cards and letters try to convey thoughts but turn mostly into latest timeline events of work, family, or home. Marriages are events that can draw friends together but after the third, it becomes a bit too familiar. Divorces don’t have DJs. Baby showers are good excuses to bring other families together except for those without children.

Employment introduces a new set of strangers who can be picked through to find friends. Some of these people will spend more time with you than your family and cause you more stress and joy but there are restrictions.

If none of these people show any interest then there are no new friends.

All our friends are also finding names to add to their Rolodex and they see these people more often than they see you. Each friend has new wants and needs and will discuss more concerns with their neighbors than with you.

Brief excuses to gathering old friends can only bring back memories for there is no reason to share with these strangers.

Work can’t be a conversation subject because each works in a different environment with different languages others don’t understand. Unlike in school when dates and love interest were shared, family is too personal now, except for the kids. Television, movies, sports, music, books can only be topics if everyone has experienced them. Topics of spiritual or inner emotional or even philosophical beliefs are forbidden for these former friends would need too much history to understand. Politics can be shared online as memes or opinion pieces others write with the same intensity of sports.

Maybe this friendship thing is overrated.

If I’m going to move I’ll not call my friends to come into town to help lug heavy stuff around. They are too old with limited dexterity and mobility and they would probably drop something or break something or hurt themselves and sue me. Collaboration on a project is ridiculous for everyone is too self-indulged to take off the blinders and imagine possibilities once our youth fantasies. A gathering of old friends only descends into memories too long ago to revisit or insults and demeaning remarks not worthy of friendship, even fueled by mind alternating substances.

Some people with emotional (or even financial) connections will show up to your funeral but only stay long enough to eat the food and drink the booze. Friends will be forgotten. Even in the photos names and memories cannot match faces.

Perhaps the idea of people who volunteer to be trustworthy and loyal enough to share intimacy while displaying empathy and concern may be dead. If so then that cuts down on expectations for humanity.

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Addendum: Last night a friend came by. Unexpected and uninvited but welcomed. If I’d been working on a project he would have volunteered to chip in but I was settling down to watch the sun go down and watch the moon come up. Offered a beer, which is as much hospitality, you get around here and we found comfortable seats on the porch. The small talk of “How are you doing?” and “What’s up with you?” were spattered between long pauses of silence. There wasn’t the need. After a while he came around to mentioning the subject he wanted to talk about. He didn’t want advice or opinion but just someone to listen and perhaps help get his thoughts together. It wasn’t a life-changing event but instead of a priest or a bartender he chose a friend.