Just out of curiosity I went and had a look at the entry for the word ‘friend’ on Wikipedia thisafternoon. Very interesting article. Heres the beginning of it, which covers all the key points.
“Friendship is co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them.
Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis:
In a comparison of personal relationships, friendship is considered to be closer than association, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association can be thought of as spanning across the same continuum.”
But to put it into much simpler language, a friend is someone that you have already established an acquaintanceship with, and find that you like them, trust them, and enjoy spending time in their company and/or communicating with them.
Translate that into real life, and it means that my friends generally:
*Know what I look like, and I’m not talking about knowing what colour my docs are. I mean they’d recognise me if we happened to bump into each other on the street.
*have shared a cup of bad coffee in starbucks, or a nice pint at a munch
*know my opinion on the last Startrek film, and my thoughts on the travesty of a new ‘Buffy’ film being made, but not directed by Joss Wheedon
*have an idea of who I’ll be voting for in the next election, and why
So, here’s the deal – If at least 2 of those 4 don’t apply to you, then we are not even acquaintances yet so stop with the frigging ‘friend requests’ already! Why the hell would I put someone on my friends page if they are nothing but a random stranger? I just don’t get it. Really, truly and fundamentally just don’t get it.
And it makes me feel bad to be honest with you. I don’t like ‘friending’ random creepy strangers, but I don’t like saying no either. Blame my parents and they way they raised me, or something. But I always feel I’m being horribly rude when I ignore people and reject their friend requests, and it took me a little while when I started using these sites to realise that that was exactly what I had to do.
So, wouldn’t it be easier all round if people actually put in the effort to get to know someone first, instead of just using them as some kind of trophy on their profile page as another so-called ‘friend’?
And that’s my rant for the day over. Back to being nice as pie and sweet as sugar.
