Suddenly, Friendship

31 December 2012

Contrary to popular belief, I do not seek out to make new friends. I don't even think that works. I merely enjoy starting pleasant conversations with the familiar strangers I encounter in my everyday routine. I believe classes are better when I'm sitting next to someone I can whisper my side comments to, exchanging small talk with shopkeepers pierce the dullness of the commercial experience, and people are fun and interesting if you give them a shot.

That is the main difference between me and most of my friends. I am willing to give people a chance to enter my life. For example I was playing Magic: The Gathering, a trading card game, with two of my friends at our usual hang-out when a guy  comes up to us and asks if he could play with us sometime. I was, of course, happy to see a guy come up to us like that. I asked him for his name, told him we usually play Commander format instead of the Standard format. He was happy to see new people he could play with. My friends told him about the Hobbyist club that has a booth at the AS walk and maybe he could join them if he wanted to have people to play with. He then thanked us and left, we assumed, to sign-up for the hobbyist club.

"Nice guy," I said as he walked away.

"Yeah, good thing we thought to point him to the hobbyists."

That's how it works, I had absolutely no idea that being approached by a stranger asking if he could play with us every once in a while was at all making my friends uncomfortable. I was willing to welcome him in, but the rest of my gang is exclusivist. It's a wonder we ever became friends.

But that's the thing with friendships, you can't make them. They just happen.

Friendship, as I've sometimes discussed with Tinek Olivar, cannot be declared. I used to do that. I declared people my friends. I had no regard for who I liked better, friends are just friends. People I hang out with are friends. People I see often are friends. I was a friendship-whore. Later, I realized that those connections I called friendships weren't strong enough to endure even the smallest hurdle. Friendship, I realized is more than that. But it remains very simple.

I am friends with my friends because we mutually enjoy each other's presence and we have shared a significant number of experiences to test that truth. Our friendship is not an arbitrary title we have bestowed upon each other because we see each other often and we hang out a lot. It is something you did not realize has already happened and the label falls on it like a formality. Suddenly, friendship.

I recognize that what I had just stated is a definition and that's uncomfortable for my good friend Tinek who dislikes defining things. I like defining things. I like placing labels on things because it comes with responsibility. Now that I have people labeled as friends I must do what friends do. But a friend won't ask for anything except patience and presence.

Right now I have a lot of friends, real ones. Some new friends who's bonds are fresh, exciting, always fun. Some older friendships, scarred by past conflicts within the group, enduring and soldiering on. And then there's those that have been through the fire, tested. Friendships that stay together because we have forgone the things society requires of friendships and just did what we thought works. We didn't need to be with each other all the time, space cannot separate us. We hold no "bonds" we just all like being together. No responsibilities to each other other than what each declares to himself.

I love my friends.
2012 has been a good year for me for the most part because of my friends, old and new.

That's why 2013 doesn't scare me. I know whatever it is I have with these guys cannot be separated by distance.

To friendship and a great new year.