Interpersonality

Over the years I have struggled to find out why we find friendships.  When I was young, I had a tough time sorting that out.  I wasn't your normal girlie girl with a clique filled with different girlfriends that I could bounce my deepest darkest secrets off of.  I had some that stood that ground, but I had many men in my life who stood as my best friends.  I truly wondered why that came about.  First and foremost, I thought it was a comfortableness factor.  Men didn't carry the competitive nature that women did when it came to certain issues.  Men find that with others in their group and call it "cock-blocking."  So without that competitiveness, you can find some order of trust.  This can depend on the type of guy, and the mentality of the situation.  Some men find it impossible to befriend a woman without the romantic relationship factor intertwining.  If the guy is involved in his own relationship, that can also put a damper on a friendship.  I've also seen women who don't let their husbands hang out with their own male friends, which perplexes me somewhat in ways, but then in ways it doesn't.  Being that I am married myself, I don't see why I would put up walls for my husband.  I trust him and I would hope that he exercises that same trust in me.

Over my life, I have struggled with the phrase "best friend."  I wasn't trying to deliberately keep myself from having any close interpersonal relationships.  I have had some close friends over the years.  The problem that I have found with the word is that it seems to classify one person.  Can you have more than one best friend?  What makes someone a best friend?  Is there some rite of passage that a person must go through to prove to another that they are indeed a best friend?  I have close friends.  Those friends, or close friends, are those I care about very much.  I always see terms like BFF, and best friend, as a title reserved for one single person. Another reason that I struggle with the term "best friend" comes from placing my trust in one person.  This person, this so called "best friend," took full advantage of me.  This happened to me a while back, but the learning curve never left.  I decided, from then on, I would have close friends.  This plural term and my life were delegated at my discretion rather than given freely.  This may sound selfish, but it's the way I find self-preservation.  Those who know me in some capacity realize that I'm not the most social creature in the world.  I should change that one day I guess.

Close friends are the one social gift that, as humans, we can give ourselves.  Friendships are a mix of common ground and diversity and they give us the unique chance to find ourselves and help us evolve as human beings.  We are attracted to those qualities we find familiar and comforting.  These friends may share your interests or experiences.  I have friends who share my love for music, friends with the same life experiences, and friends that I have been lucky enough to get to know.  As an adult, I find that my relationships with people aren't as fragile.  I don't feel that nervous about how I come across anymore.  As a person, I know that who I'm friends with is based on who I am as a person.  These friendships are a healthy part of my life, which differs from my early interpersonal choices.  Friendships are now a support system and I realize that.  Friendships can give great health benefits for women.  According to a study called Friendship, Social Support, and Health, which appeared in Springer Science and Business Media in 2007, says that friendship fosters a "behavioral vaccine" that not only helps with bodily health, but mental health as well.  Friendship is said to lower the risk for heart disease, cancer, and other types of maladies.

It's interesting to see how friendships play out over the course of a lifetime.  When you meet someone and become friends with them, you really are taking a chance.  For some people, this is something that comes naturally.  These are people who are naturally social and aren't affected if one person falls away.  For someone who falls in the sensitive category, this would never work.  Friendship is one of those issues, when you are sensitive in nature, that requires an element of real trust and sacrifice.  You are giving a part of yourself away freely and without question, then you have to see if it works out.  It's never perfect by any means, but there has to be the middle way.  This is a place between two opposite extremes where two people can find understanding.  It's almost Buddhist in it's sensibility, and compassion is definitely a great tool for friendship.  Cicero's acumen on friendship is quite intriguing but, in my humble opinion, is wishful thinking.  According to this theory, you must have implicit trust, truth, and honesty in order to maintain a true friendship.  You have to do things for each other without expecting anything in return.  When they are faltering, you have to help them understand what is wrong without compromising your moral stability.  If friendship were that easy, it would eliminate our basic rudimentary human flaws.  Friendship should be the reward in itself, even if it's imperfect or complicated.