Obviously when they change for the worse, we all know how that works. But also when things just change, period.
It is interesting at that point to see who can change with you, follow you into a new situation and who suddenly has nothing to share with you any more. Question: why are we friends? Is it because the factual details of our lives are the same, and once I am no longer "the same", our friendship has nothing left to hang on? Is it because everything I do, you would do as well? So the moment I do something that you would NOT do, you cease to understand? You can not imagine or accept a world where people - friends - do things you would not do?
And if so: is that friendship?
That's an honest question by the way, I'm not being rhetorical. Is it friendship? Is it a valid friendship? Can it have even been a deep friendship until the point of change?
strange you should post this, because i've been thinking a lot about this topic lately. i suppose it's a consequence of slowly (and in my case, veeerrryyy slowly) leaning into adulthood that such questions arise, but i've been really shocked to discover just how many "friendships" rely on sameness. sameness of time/space, sameness of attitudes/opinions, sameness of activity. perhaps it's a foregone conclusion that the older you get, the more you notice these things, especially since the first half of your life is regulated by school and real, physical change is not usually a part of that experience. but it still upsets me. possibly because i'm still mentally living in the golden age of letters? people used to be able to sustain feeling and curiosity in each other despite lacking the immediacy of the technology we have today. i don't want to be trite and say, "yesterday was great, and today is a bunch of crap," but sometimes it feels like we're evolving into a mass of emotionally stunted idiots.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a fair comment, but on the other hand: we were probably always a mass of emotionally stunted idiots, we just have no records showing us that from the past. On this note have you seen those YouTube videos of quotes from Jersey Shore spoken in the setting and manner of an Oscar Wilde novel? Gets you thinking.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah it's an interesting thing. I know the common expression is "to outgrow" a friendship, but I think it's more like a lateral move.
The most important thing is not to submit decisions to the opinions of those from whom you have to move on.