You think you're friends..

Losiento said:

Although I have learned there is a difference between "humans" and "people." Not all people are humans and not all humans are people.

Power.

^^^

That is some serious fuckin' thinking, gimme. But true and well said. Some years ago in an interview Bob Dylan was asked who his real friends are. He said ( to the best of my memory), "My real friends." A long pause. "Oh man, if I had to name my real friends, I don't know." Bob's words spoke to me and in a way, for me.

We are often friendly with people in the internet but as you say, that is not the same as a true friend. On the other hand, when you correspond with someone this way over a long enough time I think you can get at least a decent idea about that person. But you'll never know them well until you actually spend time with them. And even then, people change. I've had one good close friend with whom I parted on bad terms (this was in the mid-80's, he hit my my second wife) and that still bothers me greatly to this day. I've had other friends flake out on me and I've probably flaked out on a few people myself- never with intent to be harmful, but it's happened. I'm much more cautious about getting close to people in person. Losing friends, break ups, divorce, it's all pretty much the same to me and all very difficult to deal with. Basically I just try to be myself and be honest with people and by doing that friendships that don't gel or last tend to drift apart rather than tear apart and the one's that last are built on trust.

"Friend" is often overused. As the years pass by, I find myself referring to more people in my life as an acquaintance after having allowed myself to be hurt. A lack of mutual trust and support are often the biggest components to jeopardize a friendship, followed by jealousy. A true friend will celebrate your successes with you, and be honest even if it's not what you want to hear. Hold onto, love and appreciate unconditionally those that have earned the honour of a friendship.

there are so many definitions of the word "friend". most times i don't even know where i stand with certain people. are we friends? are we friends with benefits? are we close enough friends that i can ask you a favor or vice versa? are we "drinkin buddies'? i have people in my life that fall into those categories. i find that you have to be on the same page with the definition of the nature of that relationship. right now, i am "friends" with a girl who says she is "friends" with me. to me friends talk. they acknowledge each other. they comfort each other in bad times. they have a genuine feeling of caring about each other. they want each other to be genuinely happy. they see each other and make plans that won't fall through. this person pretty much ignores me. some friend....

My definition of true friendship. Is indeed meeting face to face. Not because we don't share a lot online. Most of us do. But there are so less consequences online. On one side for me it makes it easy to be true to my own feelings, because i can share them without consequences, for me it gives me a lot of freedom. On the other hand other people do have the same freedom, of posting without consequences. We only represent what we want the world to see, which gives a distorted view on who we really are, I suppose. Therefor I don't think that online friendships do have much meaning.

In real life I agree with Gimme and Whispering hands, there are many definitions of friendship, and if friends don't have the same expectations of that friendship, most of the time friendships don't work out.

Maybe online it works the same, but online you miss a key ingredient of communication. 80 % of our communication is based on non-verbal communication, like tone off voice, facial expression, body language etc, etc. I think that in face to face friendships the expectations of those friendships mostly are non-verbally agreements. We are maybe not used to speak them out, so therefor a lot of mistakes can be made in online friendships. I simply believe that we don't say everything in words, and online thats the only tool we have.