Friendship | Forum

Not trying to sound like a tough guy...but the moment someone becomes a weight they have to go. Clearly, I'll stand by the people who stand by me...but even then, if they stand in the way of my general happiness and well being, then it's over.

I have many friends, and I put my general trust in most of them, but I'm not foolish enough to not understand that people and situations change.

When I stopped drinking many years ago I watched "friends" vanish like ghost. We had evolved in different ways, and a working partnership was no longer in the cards.

I carry this way of thought beyond friendship into the realm of family. No, I will not stick by you no matter what, and I won't forgive certain acts.

If you don't draw a line in the sand then be prepared to have it kicked in your face.

I lost a couple of friends whom I met during my studies. I didn't make much fuss about it but we knew each other for ten years and it was a pity to observe how our friendship gradually kept falling apart. We didn't even quarrel with each other. Honestly, I'm not sure why it all ended. I guess we simply got bored and tired with each other.

I've had friends who have given me their friendship, and they have shown it until death, I've done the same,  I've been tortured ,but I haven't betrayed them. Those who are not able to lay down their lives for me  and will betray me for any reason, I don't consider them my friends; to my friends I give my respect,  my honour , my trust , my loyalty, my service, I share my goods, and we are faithful each other until death. This doesn't mean that everybody is my friend, that's why I don't have to many friends, this kind of friendship is not tied to religious, political, economical,  racial, etc. principles, ordinances, laws, etc. ; this is the kind of friendship I've enjoyed for many years, I started having these kind of friends when I was betrayed for relatives, children, wife, spiritual friends and brothers, people who said they were my friends, and their unfaithfulness put me in jail and broke my heart  until the moment when I changed my views of a friendship. Those who used to know me thought that I had thousands of friends, but reaslisticly speaking they were people who I knew, they weren't my friends, as soon as I didn't think like them , they immediately broke our friendship. That's why now I can count my friends with my fingers. To answer your question about how I cope with the betrayal of a friend of mine against me, I just let it go, and I haven't given them another opportunity , I haven't done it , because it was my life which was involved in the matter, I prefer having them as my clear enemies rather than having them as my hypocrite friends. 

I've lost a fair share of friends over the course of my life. Some just kind of faded out in the background and others left my life because of my own hand. Those that left my life were generally good choices and those choices were made to better my life and to separate myself from things that I could not and would not be a part of again.

These days, I have about a handful of people I would consider friends and a lot of acquaintances that make things like work a bit easier on the whole lot of us. 

I am just fine with the small group of friends that I have now; most of them being friends from high school. Including my now fiance', Wicked, who I met in middle school. I'm a private and intimate person and generally do not exposing myself to a mass group of people. (Haha, here I am!)

I enjoy the social network because, I'm not naive, I crave interacting with individuals even when my friends are not available. Not to mention, a great deal of people (whether here now or not) mean quite a bit to me as far as individuals I've never seen in person.

My attitudes toward friendship have shifted a lot lately. A person who is no longer my friend, or rather hardly ever was, screwed me over and that was like the carelessly thrown cigarette that burnt down the forest. At the time I kept reminding myself of the Bob Marley quote, "Truth is, everyone's gonna hurt you; You just gotta find the one's worth suffering for." I've come to the conclusion that family is often worth suffering for, but most others are not. The people I have written off certainly weren't. I think we have to let the psychological pathways of hate (or contempt, if 'hate' sounds a bit too obsessive & self-destructive) flow as freely as those of any other emotion, lest we neglect to think critically of people and risk never knowing whether or not the rapports we maintain with them are actually healthy for us or not. I think it also creates a counterbalance to our capacity for adoration, which seems to have an equal tendency to lead us into emotional folly. I feel I owe life as a whole my love, but on an individual basis, I owe no one love, save my own children, should I ever conceive them. I have very few people outside of family in whom I place much confidence now, and in any case, I genuinely believe that the only people we can love truly unconditionally are our own children. I've also learned not to leave myself vulnerable in the ways I did. That isn't to say that I'm unable to let my guard down or trust someone, but that I simply feel a bit more inoculated against the bullshit matrices people inadvertently pull us into under the guise of their "friendship". There were a fair number of people whose friendship had done me much more harm than good, and I was avoiding that realization for a long time. One person that I've known since 3rd grade who remains a close friend told me that they say we have very few "true" friends. I don't honestly believe our socioeconomic system & structure can support many healthy, lasting relationships anyway. I could rant for ages about this kind of stuff but instead I'll just leave you with a video:

https:///...o_be_100?language=en

It's a TEDtalk and it's a bit long, but it details a study of a handful of communities in the world that have the highest incidence of people living to 100 [while still being active & healthy]. One of the stories is about a place in Japan, I believe, and it struck me because it talks about these women who have the same small, core group of friends for 90+ years of their life, whom they live near and spend time with on a regular basis. A common theme among all the places surveyed is community, and also, every generation doesn't seem to go through adolescence making a bunch of new friends only to scatter a few years later and let most of those relationships simply fade away slowly. [Cynical ranting starting to manifest...] I really think that I used to care for people too much, but now I just feel increasingly like most people who are "well-adjusted" to the modern world are not worth much emotional investment. I don't think humanity was always this bad, and I don't believe we always will be, but it's just tough when you realize that we're living in a very strange time in which nearly all human relationships are strained and many, many people really are just self-deceiving, hypocritical bullshitters who unwittingly use most others as mere stepping stones in one way or another.

Stay strong in yourself, at the very least. One day robots will completely take over the workforce and then humans will have time for each other again.

. . .Hah. . .

Seriously.

Ave Satanas!

Well said. 

I never really understood the value of friendship outside of a community connection. People who make sure you eat everyday and have the necessities to go on living another day. Maybe that's more in line with what a family does or is. 

Or perhaps it's not the word, but the connection it implies. 

I'm very fascinated with social dynamics and how people interact with each other. More specifically for what reason? Is it personal gain, some unfulfilled sense of belonging, or is it really enjoying the other person? 

Humans are social creatures, but I can only take people in short doses. Very rarely do I want to sacrifice what I want to do, or where I want to be for someone else. 

I can count on one hand the number of people I actually called "friend". I've been burnt and done some burning of my own. It just goes to show that people look out for what's best for them. Behind every betrayal  is a self motivated reason. 

I've learned to set a new standard for people when evaluating if they're worth investing in. The #1 trait I look for is self sacrifice. If someone is willing to give freely of something they hold dear, or more importantly their time. I'm willing to do the same. 

I tattooed Loyalty on my arm because few people have it. I don't ever want to forget what it means to me or miss a connection with someone that displays it. 

I think the biggest problem is that most people don't consider the fact that a friendship can be just as "serious" a relationship as a romantic one.