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Friendships? What a useless concept. Friends come and go and are as reliable as Italian sports car. People who I've thought of as good friends don't return te

Friendships? What a useless concept. Friends come and go and are as reliable as Italian sports car. People who I've thought of as good friends don't return texts or calls and when they do, the answer either is one party putting out all of the effort to spend time or worse an, "I'd love to see you but there are other people on tryong to see too." Last person who said that to me was met with a, "well darn sorry I called, go ahead and delete my number." Here's a fun challenge to test the value of your friend ships: stop initiating contact and see if they'll put forth effort to maintain the friendship. If no, then they really weren't your friend.

saagarjha 4y ago
Not to be mean, but maybe you don’t have very good friends? Everyone knows some acquaintances but true friendships are super valuable.
- drbeast 4y ago
  The vast majority of "friends" are actually recurring acquaintances. The number of real friends an adult could rely on are probably counted in 1 hand.
  - srean 4y ago
    You are right and that would be plenty
- rakejake 4y ago
  Problem is, I find it very difficult to define the boundaries of "true friendship" because I have not had any events in my life that tested those friendships. Family (at least the ideal functional family) as portrayed in media, and that I have seen in my parents' generation is supposed to be the fail-safe support system that has your back no matter what. True friendships are supposed to be "almost as good". I can point to several instances where family members rallied together to bail out another family member from a crisis. I have never seen this happen in my friends circle. Not that I think it is not possible, some of us have been friends since middle school, and we regularly keep tabs on each other over phone despite many of us being in different locations. But in a time of crisis, how far would they go to help me out? I really don't know. And looking at history (my own family's history and general anecdotes), I'm going to guess nowhere near as far as what family would do for you. I obviously still value the friendship and ensure I don't miss meet-ups (real or virtual), but I have come to the conclusion that even "strong friendships" have hard ceilings. These ceilings are almost impossible to breach and I imagine only something like literally saving your friend's life could promote you to the next tier. I agree with the saying "Blood is thicker than water".

saagarjha 4y ago

Not to be mean, but maybe you don’t have very good friends? Everyone knows some acquaintances but true friendships are super valuable.

drbeast 4y ago
The vast majority of "friends" are actually recurring acquaintances. The number of real friends an adult could rely on are probably counted in 1 hand.
- srean 4y ago
  You are right and that would be plenty
rakejake 4y ago
Problem is, I find it very difficult to define the boundaries of "true friendship" because I have not had any events in my life that tested those friendships. Family (at least the ideal functional family) as portrayed in media, and that I have seen in my parents' generation is supposed to be the fail-safe support system that has your back no matter what. True friendships are supposed to be "almost as good". I can point to several instances where family members rallied together to bail out another family member from a crisis. I have never seen this happen in my friends circle. Not that I think it is not possible, some of us have been friends since middle school, and we regularly keep tabs on each other over phone despite many of us being in different locations. But in a time of crisis, how far would they go to help me out? I really don't know. And looking at history (my own family's history and general anecdotes), I'm going to guess nowhere near as far as what family would do for you. I obviously still value the friendship and ensure I don't miss meet-ups (real or virtual), but I have come to the conclusion that even "strong friendships" have hard ceilings. These ceilings are almost impossible to breach and I imagine only something like literally saving your friend's life could promote you to the next tier. I agree with the saying "Blood is thicker than water".