Happy Lunch, Sad World

Generally speaking, I don’t make friends easily.  I have my moments of social awkwardness that tend to get in the way of this process as well as my innate desire to avoid human contact at all costs.  The main reason I don’t make friends easily is because I don’t actively seek friendship.  I see no need to have a lot of friends so I don’t go hunting around for them.  I believe that when it comes to friendship, quality outranks quantity.  I certainly am aware of the benefits of networking, making business connections, exposing myself to the general public and integrating myself into that community.  I have seen benefits in these activities so I will continue to engage in those types of social integration.  However, making professional connections and interacting in a social setting with acquaintances certainly does not qualify as making friends, at least not from my perspective. 

My definition of a friend is someone that I can expose my true self to.  I don’t have to pretend to care about something, I don’t have to act a particular way, I don’t have to be hyper aware of my facial expressions and I don’t have to worry about the truth coming out of my mouth!  Obviously, our friendship offers them the same freedom to be who they really are without judgment.  Genuine friendship with someone makes me feel something.  That’s how I know that someone is worth pursuing a friendship with, when simply interacting with them on a basic level creates an inner desire within me to take that interaction to a much deeper level.  My friends inspire me, interest me, intrigue me, challenge me, argue with me, agree with me, entertain me and accept me for who I am and all the imperfections that I come with.  I would like to think that I offer them the same, but I’m fairly certain that I may not always be as good of a friend to them as they are to me, although I try my best. 

Those of you that read my earlier post entitled “One True Connection” already know that anyone I consider to be my friend will possess the ability to make me laugh!  It’s one of the most important connections for me to make with another person because nothing seems to make me “feel” more than laughing does.  As this is somewhat of a requirement in all my friendships, you can imagine the fun that is had when a group of us get together.  There is usually a great deal of laughing that goes on when I am with just one friend, but get 2 or 3 of us together and you would think that we were sitting front row at a comedy club!  It’s hard to explain how we get to that point, but it never fails to occur!