Thoughts on Friendship

When I was a child, I had no friends. I didn't know what they were or why they were important. My parents were my first friends . They taught me how to walk, how to eat, how to use the toilets and a lot more in the values section.

Then I joined school and sat at a bench with other human beings who were of my age. It was a revelation. I found people like me, facing the same math problem together. Back then one plus one (not the cellphone) equals two was fascinating. But I still didn't have friends. I saw some faces everyday in the bus to school and during my classes. That was all.

I must digress here and say that I am an introvert (I had no idea what being an introvert was about until a person elder to me did a psychology test on me) and I don't open up easily. I have excellent communication skills and i can get along with people fine, just not enough to call them my friends. The number of friends I have can be counted on my fingertips.

But they are each special.

Friendship is a funny thing. It challenges existing norms and channels positivity. Friendship taught me that you don't need to be related by blood in order to be brothers. It taught me that sometimes friends are more than just people, they're a support system wrapped around the tree that is your life in a non parasitic and more of a symbiotic way. I cannot imagine a world where I have no friends. I need them to survive, they are like the air I breathe.

My friends have been there for me through thick and thin. I remember calling one up when my grandmother died. He was at the ICU with a friend of his whose mother had to be freak admitted. He left that situation and reached my location within fifteen minutes because I had called him. I confided in a friend when the depression I suffered from was high and he counselled me on the subway back home and told me over the course of four stations (talking non stop) that I had to find ways to be happy even in the face of unhappiness. He said to me, "If someone gives you 100 reasons to be unhappy, find 101 reasons to be happy".  Wisdom I try to use to this day, sometimes succeeding and other times failing.

Another friend of mine is someone I had a small crush on. She used to study with me in school but we met outside of it when we were both adults. She's a wonderful person, fun to talk to, serious when the occasion demands, happy-go-lucky and a chunk of pure platinum. We talk everyday, be it on WhatsApp or on the phone.

But friendship is also about letting people go. It's about evolving, knowing that some friend of yours is toxic to your life and cutting them out. I have met people who have called me their friend and then slandered me. I have met a person who was inseperable, until he joined college and did a total U-turn on me, turning into a nasty and pompous human being. But, were it not for such people, I would never have developed the strength to sever ties and move on with my life, living it with peace as opposed to rage.

The thing is that friendship is a good teacher. It tells you to go for something you want to go for, reassuring you that your support system will be there. It's easy to take friends for granted and I think a little bit of that is healthy because it brings people closer, but too much of it can fracture the relationship. It is very important that you respect the boundaries of your friends and not encroach upon them, even if the boundaries are very few and far between.

Friendship is a two way street guys, but its rewards are many. I can today say that for each harm causing friend in my life, I have one friend who heals me. For each toxic relationship, I have two fruitful ones. That's what friendship is about. Finding people you care about, knowing they care about you too and finding a niche to express yourself in.

The Bilge Master