I'm now firmly into my adult years and I've made some pretty good connections with people. I consider some of them friends others are passing relationships that come in and out of my life and some are short periods of less than a year in length. In school you hangout with people there and those people change nearly year to year depending on who is in your classes. Now sure some stick like glue but not many people are still hanging around with the same people from grade one or two and if you are well either your living in a small town or you've had large time gaps in said relationship.
I can remember hanging out every day with certain people like one guy in grade five named Sean. We were nearly inseparable but then summer came round he moved to a new house I of course moved as well which happened a lot in my family. That friendship ended as both of us moved onto bigger and better things I'm sure we believed. There was another one of those kin type friendships that seemed like it was going to be there forever but as we both grew up and got married no matter how much effort was put in we drifted away from each other and formed new bonds. Both of us had kids one of us got divorced and also became hugely successful. I was not the latter of that statement for sure as I took a long time to really understand what I needed to do and how to get there.
As a young adult I finally made that one friendship that has become truly the meaning of the word and no matter how long the absences have been as soon as we are together in a room or on the phone not a second ticks by and the friendship puzzle is locked into place. But with that said both of us have completely different lives and experiences and even interests. It is a wonder we have been able to continue and maintain this relationship as long and successfully as we have. I'm not exactly the easiest person to be connected to for a lengthy period of time. My personality is somewhat grating to many and I'm a tad opinionated maybe even a little rude to be honest. As I've moved forward in life I've made another seriously good friendship out of a bad start.
I made an acquaintance at College in Victoria and we actually got along famously for a while. He was into much of the same stuff I was and he brought me into his circle to a small extent. We hung out a lot and one day he forced one of his friends to pick me up on their trek. This person didn't want to and didn't really give me the time of day but after that initial introduction things changed. I, because of my college friend and coffee sessions got to know his pal a little more over time. Then he and I started to hangout at his work place now and again which expanded to us hanging out after work. He worked until midnight and I worked until two am most nights four am many nights. We both had something in common that way neither of us had much in the way of friends to hangout with after work because of our whacky hours. Another one of those strange ones where we both came from different worlds but had the main connection of computers, games and warez.
Those two are my longest and most committed friendships where I put in as much to maintaining the friendships as they do as well. Many years have passed and I consider both of them friends because absence doesn't erode the connection. In my last ten years I've been lucky enough to form more actual friendships outside of family which I don't count because most of the time you are forced by family events to interact with those people. The funny thing is both began from business interactions, see I have a trivia show on the side which is how I met these two characters. Both whom are brothers and are for sure each others best friends. So the three of us have become a pretty tight click as our interests are very similar and the three of us have an insatiable love for music. Music is by the way my best friend and will always be.
These relationships take work and we've done a lot of it between us all wading through all the idiosyncrasies of our individual personalities to get to the friendship level. I don't think many people have deeply rooted friendships in abundance and I am positive that most only hangout with someone because they need social interaction or benefit from that person. I know I've only hung out with someone to gain knowledge or because they could get me something I needed. We are all guilty of it at some point in our lives and will be in the future. I know that I have a lot of acquaintances which I might use the term friend on but they don't know me under the mask. I mean not many folks could accept me and my personality unless I have my mask on.
So as my title of this blog post asked I'd have to say yes they do exist but not everyone has them and no we are not fooling ourselves because at some point anybody can make that connection. I will say no one can have a real friendship with a lot of people at once because it takes too much time, effort and attention to maintain it properly. Remember one thing Facebook friends aren't real friends unless you see them and interact with them in person regularly. You need to get out and put some effort into the friendship or it will never flourish and become an integral part of your life.
