Date:   3/31/2009 10:28:31 PM ( 16 y ago)
Hits:   1,359
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1387022

i tend not to keep them close, but on the surface i'm fine with it. i am genuinely interested in what they have to say, but not to the point of really caring. if they died, i would be alarmed and sad...but not anywhere near the caliber of what once was. it's a funny thing how one can have the best of times at a certain age with a group of buddies, then at age 40 or so the 30-something funstuff seems so...empty and void of substance. everybody who grows up and has a family moves away from childhood friendships to the point where that once-cherished buddy is but only a distant acquaintance now. you can't turn back time. and once you become the giver, the instigator, all the time...that gets old and tiresome. the years bridge a gap and so does the distance. one of my famous stories is my own former fiance. we graduated together from college and i immediately was offered a tennis coaching position at a rival university three hours away. my fiance pleaded for me not to take it. stay in town and "get a regular job" like everybody else she said. i couldn't pass it up. she sobbed that she feared i would meet another because the distance was too great. she was right. did the distance pull us apart or was it just that i had unknowingly moved on and the draw to her was not as worthy? the outcome for me was sensational, for her...who knows. same basic principles as our discussion of distant friendships applies here.

there's no law that says you must constantly collect friends and keep them. that's what high schoolers do. they want to be liked by each and every group, be known by the jocks and the cool kids, and when needed, study with the brains come test time. ever notice how insistant hs grads are when it comes time to sign yearbooks? everybody must sign my book. it's because later in life you want a record of all the friends you had back then. and by them signing something they probably didn't mean, you have validation that somebody out there cares. that's not reality. hey, i've even discarded relatives who deserved it! i've got a mother who stole insurance money from me, can you top that one? she hasn't been discarded...but i don't look at her the same since i discovered the fact. every stage of life dictates a certain quality of friend or relative go along for the ride. i've had deadbeat buddies, i've had super-ambitious friends, liars, cheats, tax evader friends, pastor friends, and all types in between. you can only take away so much from each style of friendship and lay claim to it. he's a keeper, she's a keeper. That one is a downer and has got to go, she's adding nothing and only takes. that's all you can do. when i have to give more effort than the relationship is worth...that's when i re-evaluate.
 

<< Return to the standard message view

fetched in 0.03 sec, referred by http://www.curezone.org/forums/fmp.asp?i=1387022