Thought of the Day

Friendships. They’re weird as fuck, one minute a person is just another person in a room, then maybe a colleague or classmate or simply a stranger in a bar. Then boom. You pick one and just go with it, you have many so you can choose which one you want to invest time and effort in. Some are funny, others are kind whilst some are smart and some, well some are all of the above. Fundamentally you find a person who makes you happy when you’re with them, who brings something extra to your life that makes the effort to spend time with them, message them and go places with them all worth it. Some last months others years, an unspoken hierarchy in your head, the ones you’d drop anything for and the ones you tolerate because they only a dick 70% of the time.

The best friendships are of course the ones where you both change each other. Normally you don’t even realise it unless it was pointed out, but not only do you help each other with daily life occurrences, dramas and breakdowns but if you look you’ll notice over time, both people's lives change as they become different versions of themselves. Mutually beneficial, the changes shape the person into a newer version, not becoming better everyday necessarily but over time morphing into a greater version of themselves. The change in language, clothes, food, adopting some traits whilst imprinting some others. Inevitably leaving your mark on a human which could last a lifetime.

Of course the worst friendships amongst us are the ones where we change, but into something worse. Where we become manipulative or selfish, worse versions of ourselves which upon reflection we are neither proud of nor like. But this is only the bad side of the coin, on the flip side you can see the positive effects of being a friend.

The point is them not all about friendships and how odd they are which I could write 1000 words on but about what being a friend means. Our lives are not about what we do, or how happy we are, fundamentally it is about how happy we can make other people. That is the making of us, a social species who try to deny their need for others but who at their core need people to help and we need people to need us and that doesn’t make us weak or vulnerable, just human.

Think about the best friendships you’ve seen in real life or on TV, the latter is probably easier because it shows you all the things you would otherwise miss in real life as you aren’t the person nor part of the friendship, you don’t know everything. Or failing that the friendships you wish you had or maybe are even lucky enough to have. Both people involve change, just like in a relationship or any partnership involving two people, words they start to use or stop using, idioms they now understand, their clothes, food, mannerisms. They take some from the friend and give some in return.

You take a human you like, you invite them to join your life and share your interests whilst subconsciously adopting some of theirs. You take pictures to cherish the days you’ll one day forget and slowly start to become a little more like the other, forever carrying a part of them with you even once the friendship fades. 7 months, 5 years, 2 decades later - however long the friendship lasts, it serves a purpose more important than anything else we do as humans, making someone feel less alone and helping them feel less sad on the shit days and even happier on the good days.