”Everyone is a friend, until they prove otherwise”
Friendship in the modern society is a social wealth that has become measurable by numbers on our facebook profiles and followers on our twitter accounts. We all know the individuals who desire an unfathomable amount of friends in the digital networks, but who rarely ever said “hi” to any of the people in real life. Some of these people might be mischievous stalkers or information parasites who strive to know every little thing about everyone in their geographical proximity, but an alarming number of these people just seem to befriend you as a + 1 up to their friend stack.
I can’t really say that I mind that much, I’m not a big fan of social network-secrecy, after all it’s a SOCIAL network, not an “I’m-a-secret-agent-and-the-fifth-ninja-turtle-so-you-ain’t-gettin-nothing-on-me-site”. And if you have so much about your life you want secret, you probably shouldn’t be on a NETWORKING site (you’d probably be the ish on underskog though). The original purpose of our beloved day-to-day time killer was in fact to connect old classmates that lost contact, and find new contacts that you’re very likely to encounter in some fashion.
Of course there’s the backside involving the shady people and obvious stalkers that are halfway around the world on some crap satellite-connection somewhere in an Arabian desert who likes to pry on pretty women and write sleazy comments on their wall. Shit is charming, most def… Nonetheless, the reason I’m bringing up these social networking sites is that they have had their impact since I was a kid. Mind you, that’s not aeon’s ago, and especially the first encounters with new terrestrials have changed in terms of precaution.
It’s partly natural seeing that I actually got older during the process, but there’s an unmistakable stench of facebook to some of the random meetings with people whom you’ve never met, but who seem to know quite a bit about whom you are and thus similarities can be discovered. C.S. Lewis had a quotable saying that goes with this passage: “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one”. This could of course be on account of stuff they’ve overheard or been told, but sometimes it’s quite blatantly that this is not the case.
Even the world gets smaller due to social networking (easily noticeable in Oslo, where 584,292 residents should imply a certain magnitude of geographical and demographic size, still it feels like everyone knows everyone in this city), being friends also got a lot easier, if you’re willing to live by a non-skeptical resolute and be quite generous with the chance to be a friend, until some people prove they want it otherwise. It’s a risk worth taking in my opinion, most people aren’t bad people, and some just aren’t supposed to co-exist in your propinquity. The persons that aren’t: 1. Bad/Evil, and 2. Compatible will surely be ruled out pretty soon, and your true friends emerge from the lot.
And life pretty much boils down to the essence when we are around these people we consider our better friends, they give us our best laughs, makes the best jokes on our behalf, they stay when everyone else leaves, they judge you (but not in the “I condemneth thy actions foul creature of wickedness”-kinda way) they share meals with you, they go to the same school you do, they work at the same place you do, and quite many of them might have dreams much alike those you have for yourself. Friends build you up and support you, and sees the worth in you even on those days that you’re quite certain your estimated worth is less than the gum underneath the sole on your sneakers. And it is here we find our haven, where awkward silences exist without the awkwardness, where our personal effigy’s of Goofy, Robin and Watson appear in forms of kind and warm-hearted people who help us and motivate us to pay that warm feeling forward.
God: How do we change the world?
Evan Baxter: One single act of random kindness at a time.
(Random, but semi-relevant popular culture reference? Check. From “Evan Almighty” for those who wondered. I hope no one did.) -Rydis
Agree or agree?
Real friendship reigns.
